It helps to have access to a global line-up
When Jon Domanko decided he liked the in-house counsel’s job better than his boss’, he set out on an unwavering course that took him to his current position as Tim Hortons’ top lawyer in Canada.
“As a junior marketer at Coca-Cola I did a lot of product work with the company’s in-house counsel,” he said. “Her job looked a lot more interesting than mine.”
Law school followed, but before Domanko’s call in 2009, he summered and articled at Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP, where he spent most of his time working on the Coke account, which also occupied him during his two years as an associate at the firm.
Eventually, Coke called in 2011, giving Domanko the in-house opportunity he craved.
“I did mostly marketing and intellectual property law, with a bit of commercial work,” Domanko says.
The calls kept coming. In 2014, it was Tim Hortons.
“I jumped at the chance to join the quintessential Canadian brand,” Domanko says.
Domanko had barely caught his breath at his new job before Burger King and Tim Hortons merged to create the new parent company Restaurant Brands International. But he stayed where he was, mainly doing the same kind of work as he had at Coke until RBI appointed him as head of legal, Canada, responsible for Tim Hortons and Burger King operations in Canada.
And when RBI purchased American multinational Popeyes in 2017 to become the world’s fifth-largest fast-food operation, Domanko and his team also took on the legal work for the fried chicken chain’s Canadian operations.
“My key responsibilities are to oversee any legal-related matters concerning the operations, marketing and trademarks of Tim Hortons, Burger King, Popeyes and Firehouse Subs,” Domanko says.
That’s a deceptively brief description of a big job, considering that Tim Hortons has 4,000 restaurants across the country, with Burger King, Popeyes and a few Firehouse outlets adding 1,000 stores to the workload.
“I spend about 80 percent of my time on Tim Hortons matters,” Domanko says.
Fortunately, Domanko has a team, but it’s a relatively small one that has grown only slightly – in tribute to its efficiency, deliberately so – since Domanko took over in 2016.
“Where we have grown, and something of which I’m particularly proud, is in the depth of expertise we have,” Domanko says. “I would put our three franchise lawyers and our marketing person up against anyone in private practice because our system is so big with so many issues that they have more experience than anyone.”
Seven of the 14 team members are lawyers, with six in Toronto and one in Montreal. Their responsibilities are clearly defined.
“Three lawyers and two clerks work on franchising and real estate, three or four on marketing and trademarks, and the rest on supply chain and privacy issues as well as special projects,” Domanko says. “My approach is to set very clear expectations and give them the space to do what they need to do, all the time remaining available if required.”
Otherwise, Domanko was heavily involved in several high-profile class actions brought by Tim’s franchisees.
“We don’t have internal litigation counsel, and we used very good external counsel,” Domanko says. “But while we do pass some litigation to external counsel to handle on their own, we’re hands-on where franchisees are involved because of the potential impact on the system and the business, where what might be the right move from a litigation perspective might not be conducive to system cohesion or relationships.”
Indeed, Domanko says how the franchisee class actions settled “made the system stronger.”
On other issues, the Canadian contingent works closely with a significant team in Miami, where Burger King is headquartered.
“For example, the Canadian clerks and paralegals who work on franchising will pick up overflow work from Miami, and vice-versa,” Domanko explains. “We also work together on automation, best practices, structuring and training issues.”
Additionally, RBI has legal departments in Singapore, which look after the Asia-Pacific region, and Switzerland, whose ambit is Europe. The global contingent numbers are about fifty.
“It’s nice to have a significant Tims legal team right here in Canada and then have the luxury of being able to rely on other jurisdictions,” Domanko says. “For example, when the pandemic broke in this country, we reached out to the Asia Pacific office, which already had a few months’ experience with COVID, to find out what they were doing about things like masks.”
The upshot was that RBI mandated masks as operating standards well before governments and the industry as a whole did.
But that the pandemic presented unique challenges for a restaurant multinational should be no surprise.
“For eight months, we did almost nothing but figure out how to navigate COVID, which affected every aspect of operations,” Domanko says. “We even seconded one of our franchise lawyers to our government relations group, where the lawyer spent six months reaching out to and working with the authorities and nothing else.”
The pandemic also turned out to be the perfect storm for Tim’s ubiquitous “Roll Up the Rim to Win” contest. COVID arrived just about when the 2020 contest was due to launch. By that time, 84 million contest cups had been shipped.
“On the Thursday before the scheduled launch on Monday, we decided to destroy and recycle 200 million cups – then deal with the legal consequences and regulatory fallout from that decision,” Domanko recalls.
The contest, renamed “Roll Up to Win,” is now digital, the result of a complicated and laborious transformation.
“Because it’s always there, people can overlook how complex this contest is,” Domanko says. “It’s an incredibly huge endeavour that one of our marketing lawyers works on six months a year, and it engages all kinds of partners and legal risks.”
Tim’s franchise structure also created a unique problem because individual franchisees, not RBI, pay restaurant employees’ wages.
“We didn’t want people coming in sick, so we set up a $40 million fund to ensure that people who stayed home when they were ill were paid,” Domanko says.
While he never saw private practice as his preferred long-term option, Domanko says the experience was worthwhile.
“Private practice provides very good training for lawyers who want to go in-house. And because we deal so frequently with external lawyers, it really helps to know what their pressures are and how things work in a law firm.”
However, Domanko says he’s “absolutely satisfied” with his career choices.
“I really like my job, partly because in-house provides the perfect balance of having the time to spend on problem-solving on a variety of issues. It’s also easy to work with people because you don’t have to worry about the impact on client billing when you call them in.”
