Small Town Access to Justice

While it’s premature to call it a trend, Winnipeg-based law firm Thompson Dorfman Sweatman LLP (TDS) has once again merged with a small local law firm based in Western Manitoba, and thereby expanded its reach to Manitoba’s western borders.

Brandon-based Roy Johnston LLP operated for some 30 years, most recently as a six-lawyer firm. Managing partner Paul Roy told the Winnipeg Free Press that the merger is a response to the changing needs of firm clients who are engaged in more complex legal transactions:

“When we started out, we were doing simple farm deals and house deals. The institutions and businesses have become bigger and more sophisticated and they need things that we don’t know how to do…”

Just a year ago, in January 2013, TDS merged with another Manitoba law firm, Christianson Law, based in Portage la Prairie. At that time, managing partner Bjorn (Barney) Christianson, Q.C., explained to the Winnipeg Free Press that the merger was for the benefit of firm clients, whose needs had become more complex over time:

Christianson said many of his clients have been with the firm for 30 years and while they might have started out as a farm employee, now they own farming operations of their own. Along the way, their legal needs have morphed from a simple will to a family trust, holding corporations and a share structure that will allow them to pass it on to their children who may or may not want to continue in the family business.

“Instead of just doing a land transfer, we’re doing transactions involving millions of dollars of land and equipment,” he said.

Having access to the bench strength of TDS will enable his office, now called Christianson TDS, to provide the necessary services to his clients.

In each case, the expectation is that clients, based outside Winnipeg, and with significant and complex legal needs, will benefit from the merger through increased access to a broader range of legal expertise. That is probably a good thing. Of course, these clients likely already possessed the wherewithal and resources to seek out that expertise in any case. The mergers may have just made it a little more convenient.

Meanwhile, access to justice in rural communities across Manitoba remains an ongoing challenge. The province is vast and sparsely populated in many areas. Outside of the urban centres of Winnipeg and Brandon, there are relatively few places where there is any significant concentration of lawyers and so, for many, there is little or no choice of counsel. That is not a good thing.

As a result, law office conflicts of interest are an ongoing issue for those seeking representation close to home in rural Manitoba. The mergers of two small rural firms, located in centres just over an hour away from one another, with a large city firm, only serves to further reduce choice of counsel for legal consumers in those centres while increasing the likelihood that conflicts will arise.

It is true that large commercial clients may benefit from access to the expertise of a large firm, but I fear that individual legal consumers will not experience the same benefit. Not everyone’s legal needs have become more complex and sophisticated. At this time, there is still a great need in smaller centres across Canada for lawyers who will defend minor criminal charges, draft separation agreements, administer estates and convey residential real estate.

Time will tell, but it seems to me that it is the lawyers who benefit most from the merger of small local firms with firms in larger urban centres, while access to justice for many in small town Canada continues to wane.