Steven Assie on the company's tireless pursuit of delivering tools that inform professionals' way forward
Steven Assie, Head of Canada at Thomson Reuters, discusses with Canadian Lawyer TV how the Readers’ Choice recognition signifies the company’s products are leading the market, and why — as we sit at a transformational time — Thomson Reuter’s growth strategy is all about empowering professionals with better insights, more efficiency, and the tools they need to solve problems and make decisions with confidence.
Greg Hudson [00:00:07] Hello, welcome to Canadian Lawyer TV. I'm Greg Hudson. This summer, we gave out the Canadian Law Awards. And now we're talking to some of the winners. Today we're speaking with Greg Neinstein, managing partner of Neinstein. Greg, thank you so much for being with us today.
Greg Neinstein [00:00:23] Pleasure to be here.
Greg Hudson [00:00:25] I wanted to talk first about expertise. Tell me, why is expertise so important in the personal injury law space?
Greg Neinstein [00:00:34] Subject matter expertise is critical. To be able to understand the law, be able to apply the law to be able to actually litigate the law to be able to go to trial, and demonstrate the law and create new law is critical. And our firm has been leading that for the last five years.
Greg Hudson [00:00:52] Now, how does Neinstein both develop and demonstrate that expertise?
Greg Neinstein [00:00:57] We are a firm of 20 lawyers, and in the last five years we have done and depicting complex medical malpractice trials started beginning of COVID. And those are very in depth, very complex cases involving areas of law that are extremely finite and unique. And having that experience is just very unique in our in our bar. We currently have six trial decisions pending, you have three trial decisions pending at the court of appeal. And we have three general division cases, we're waiting for the judgment to get released on. So you know, and some of those trials, other lawyers in our industry refer to to us in the eighth inning, because they needed our skill sets and expertise to take it over to the final line. So having that skill set, having what I think is probably the strongest litigators in the personal injury bar, has really set us apart and provided us with the skill set and expertise that is unparalleled.
Greg Hudson [00:02:09] These days, it's more important than ever for law firms to stay nimble and to find opportunities where others might not. How has Neinstein been able to stay agile in this condensed market?
Greg Neinstein [00:02:20] We can take challenges and create opportunities. During the COVID, a closed down and walk downs. We decided to reboot our office and renovate the place to anticipate people coming back. And now in our hybrid environment. We have an incredible office workspace where people are going to get on a train or people are going to leave the comfort of their homes, they're going to have an incredible working environment. And we have really encouraged an in office presence. We believe the collaboration of being able to talk to people to brainstorm to have spontaneous ideas is so critical for success that it provides us with a competitive advantage to other firms that are simply in the silo of their comfort of their work at home environment. And because of that, it allowed us to start new opportunities. And since COVID, and because of the collaboration, we are now heavily engaged in mass towards a new concept in Canada. We were successful and recently rugged, resolving the jewel litigation, collaborating with our US partners and settling that case on behalf of our Canadian clients. And now we have started working on a mass tort, where we are balancing claims against meta and Facebook for the social crisis challenges that are faced our adolescents in the school system and in homes we all see it we all see people on their phones. And that to directory would not have existed if we were just brainstorming on a zoom call or trying to schedule something that developed from a drink from a lunch from plane right to someone walking by while we're having lunch. And so we adapted to the times and capitalized it and here we are now in an area of work I would never even thought we will be doing five years ago.
Greg Hudson [00:04:24] What's unique about the team that you've put together?
Greg Neinstein [00:04:28] We're so proud of the team. It's a family firm that started my dad started this 1970 I'm a second generation law firm, second generation lawyer who was told when I was you know two years old, if you don't do well, you're not going to get into law school or a stressful but that mentality of treating people well and that small mentality of firm has grown and we have 20 lawyers and 70% of our lawyers have come from our summer student program then articled, then associate and partners. So we have that continuity of the people that we've been working with for 10 to 15 years, which is just incredible. We work through our individual problems, because we know we can be stronger together, if we work through the problem, versus trying to say, is the grass greener. And so by having that continuity, our clients have the continuity of the same lawyers on the file. Our service providers know everyone in our office, and when we know everyone, so my goal is to succeed, to set up all of our lawyers for success, and identify the strengths and weaknesses and provide a really good environment. So what's our core success is, is building a place where people want to continue to grow their careers. And people are quite different when the article and where you are at 25 years of age, and then 45. So the fact that we're able to retain those level of interests for all those different people in our office, I'm really proud of it.
Greg Hudson [00:05:58] Finally, what does it mean for you and the firm to have won on Canadian Law Award?
Greg Neinstein [00:06:04] It's nice to be recognized by your peers. It's nice to be recognized by the industry, we work really hard to get to this level of success, get to this level of acknowledgement. And it's proud that we don't just say it that other people believe it as well. And we walked home with this award and we're with honor, will we continue to not only be want to be the top 10 Our goal is to be the number one firm in Canada. Wonderful.
Greg Hudson [00:06:35] Well, congratulations again on the award, Greg, and thank you so much for spending time with us today
Greg Neinstein [00:06:41] It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Greg Hudson [00:06:43] This has been Canadian Lawyer TV. I'm Greg Hudson. Talk to you soon.