Bruce Laregina on how culture, collaboration, and client focus earned top-tier recognition
Bruce Laregina on how culture, collaboration, and client focus earned top-tier recognition.
Brodie Lawson 00:00:08 Hello and welcome to Canadian Lawyer TV. I'm Brodie Lawson, presenter at Key Media, and today we're speaking to Bruce Laregina, Counsel at Beitel Tax Law. Now the firm has recently been named one of Canadian Lawyers Top Tax Boutiques, and we're here today to talk to him about why. Welcome Bruce, and thanks for joining us, and congratulations on being recognized as one of the premier tax boutiques in the country.
Bruce Laregina 00:00:33 Thanks, Brodie. It's a huge honor to start.
Brodie Lawson 00:00:36 Let's talk about what the recognition means to the firm.
Bruce Laregina 00:00:40 Yeah, it's a huge honor to us. We're all very excited about it, and it's especially meaningful to us because we actually just rebranded as Bay tail tax law, so we've only been under that name for just over a year and a half. So to already receive such a amazing award is it's extra special for us. .
Brodie Lawson 00:00:58 Can you tell me what sets Beitel Tax Law apart in a super competitive field?
Bruce Laregina 00:01:05 Yeah. So we think it's our culture. We do everything we can to make the firm an excellent place to work. So we have a very positive team oriented culture with tons of collaboration. We try to make it a low stress environment as well. And to give you an example of that, we actually have many group chats internally in our firm, which are very useful, because if you have a difficult client matter or something you're not sure of, you could post a question in the group chat, and other lawyers at the firm are happy to answer and provide their input, which is very useful. The other thing that we're doing is we have low billable hour targets for all of our lawyers and staff. And of course, that's excellent for our lawyers and staff because they get the work life balance associated with that. But it's also great for our clients too, and the reason for that is because if you're one of our clients and something urgent comes up on your file, or just something unexpected, totally out of the blue that needs to be dealt with right away, our lawyers will have the ability to take on extra work because they're not already at capacity. So we think it's great for everyone, and we're excited to continue that culture.
Brodie Lawson 00:02:18 What major trends or developments in tax law are having the biggest impact on Canadian businesses and their legal advisors. So for example, I know that the CRA is getting more aggressive in its enforcement efforts. How are you handling this with your clients?
Bruce Laregina 00:02:34 Yeah, so completely agreed that the CRA is getting more aggressive. And in my opinion, they're actually getting a little bit too tough, because what's happening now is clients are opting to actually not deal with CRA as much as they used to, and they're skipping a lot of the administrative steps where you could go back and forth with CRA and try to plead your case. Now what we're seeing is people are just going straight to tax court. They're filing appeals at the tax court system. So that does add stress, of course, on our courts, but for clients, if they figure that they're not going to get anywhere with CRA then they're best served by having their matter hurt in court.
Brodie Lawson 00:03:14 Let's talk now about the future of tax boutiques as full service firms expand their tax practices. What advantages do boutique firms like yours offer, and how do you see their role evolving?
Bruce Laregina 00:03:28 Right? So first of all, I think tax law is just a growing field. I think there's plenty of work out there for everyone. Secondly, full service firms are typically targeted at large multinational companies, whereas our firm is focused exclusively on helping small businesses right? So that's owner manager situations, and the challenges that a small business has with tax versus a large multinational are often completely different. So for example, a lot of our clients maybe they didn't keep perfect records for something they did in years past, or they didn't get tax advice ahead of time or and this might be the worst one they self represented at the early stages of the audit. That poses an additional challenge. So I think the challenges that that both large firms and and boutique firms are trying to address are just different. And like I said, there's work out there for everyone.
Brodie Lawson 00:04:25 Finally, Bruce, can you tell me about what the future holds for Beitel Tax Law, and how are you working to ensure that you make this list again next time around?
Bruce Laregina 00:04:35 Yeah, I don't think we're gonna do anything to try to make the list next time around. I think we're all just very excited that we're on it this year, and we're just going to keep doing great work, and hopefully we get recognized again. That'd be amazing.
Brodie Lawson 00:04:49 That sounds fantastic. Thank you for talking to us today, and of course, congratulations again on being named one of this year's top tax boutiques.
Bruce Laregina 00:04:57 Thanks so much.
Brodie Lawson 00:05:00 Thanks to our audience for joining us today. Make sure you stay tuned for more awards spotlights. I'm Brodie Lawson for Canadian Lawyer TV until next time.