Osler’s new Co-Chair Emmanuel Pressman on the importance of firm culture in growing business

Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP recently named Emmanuel (Manny) Pressman as National Co-Chair of the firm effective July 1. Pressman succeeds Shahir Guindi and will work alongside Co-Chair Maureen Killoran and National Managing Partner Doug Bryce.

Pressman served as Chair of the firm’s corporate department from 2015 to 2023 and as Head of the firm’s mergers and acquisitions group from 2010 to 2015.

Pressman is widely recognized as one of the country’s leading corporate lawyers, appearing in The Lexpert/AmLaw Guide to the Leading 500 Lawyers in Canada and The Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory (Most Frequently Recommended). He has also been recognized as one of Canada’s “Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers” by Canadian Lawyer in its annual peer survey.

In his practice, Manny advises public and private companies, private equity sponsors, special committees, boards of directors and investment banks involved in take-over bids, proxy contests, joint ventures, negotiated and contested mergers and acquisitions and a range of corporate transactions and restructurings.

Canadian Lawyer caught up with Pressman to chat about his new role.

Let’s start with you explaining what a Co-Chair at Osler does.

My duties and responsibilities are an extension of what I already consider myself doing today. After having chaired the corporate department and headed the mergers and acquisitions group, I’ve learned that means leading by example, protecting our franchise, preserving our culture, expanding the client roster, and creating opportunities for others. I will continue to practice law and remain 100 percent dedicated to my clients. But I’ll be busy in new ways as a brand ambassador for the firm and externally interfacing more with clients across the firm. As well, internally, I now serve on the firm’s partnership board and will continue to support leadership in that capacity.

You mention shaping the Osler brand internally and externally and being a brand ambassador. What values will you want to impress upon others as a Co-Chair?

I’ll work closely with my amazing fellow Co-Chair, Maureen Killoran, to ensure the brand stays in great shape. In many ways, my responsibility is to continue building the brand and leave it in even better shape than we found it.

 In terms of our shared values, our culture makes us so strong and successful. Our partners and colleagues possess a strong sense of collaboration, collegiality, and teamwork. We’re a national law firm in Canadian business cities where we must properly represent our clients’ business interests. And to service the business community at large.

We also have a New York office where a small group of Canadian lawyers service multinational clients by practicing Canadian law. That office also acts as a bridge to US and global law firm relationships. We bring all our intellectual capital and vast experience together to generate the best results for clients.

Our job is to ensure that our clients benefit from all our expertise and experience in the practice areas and jurisdictions critical to delivering the best advice and achieving our clients’ business objectives.

What are some of the challenges law firms face? 

Good question. The business climate and the law profession are much more competitive and global than they once were. There are many more law firms and lawyers who are practicing in M&A, restructurings,

private equity, commercial litigation, regulatory enforcement and investigation, and tax - areas where we have historically and currently seen ourselves as dominant players in the market.

We’re also seeing many more businesses move and switch professional advisers - sort of a flight to quality. And although we benefit from being on the receiving end of that phenomenon, we must stay focused on our core competencies and maintain our discipline in delivering the highest quality of work and representation.

What are younger lawyers and those entering the profession looking for?

The young lawyers and law students we recruit all understand the need for hard work. They know this is a client service business, and providing client services can be demanding. 

But it also comes back to our culture and understanding we are a people business, and one of our most valuable assets is our colleagues. So how to retain them, excite them and attract the best and the brightest is a competitive advantage and a commercial imperative. Our collaborative, collegial and inclusive culture is a true differentiator.

We also take training, mentorship, and apprenticeship very seriously. We create opportunities for expanding social and business networks, growing, and expanding client relationships with our lawyers, and making the next generation of great legal advisors.

With so many changes and development, do you see a need for multidisciplinary practice areas, bringing together lawyers with different skills?

Absolutely. Clients value law firms that understand their business objectives and then deliver results. They want to work with firms that understand the value of collegiality and collaboration to deal with complex, multi-jurisdictional and interdisciplinary problems. And they need their external advisers to collaborate, share experiences and knowledge, and solve problems together, bringing together all that collective wisdom, and experience across practice areas and jurisdictions in a fully integrated manner. Clients also need us to deliver advice in a commercial, pragmatic, and digestible fashion.

We talked a bit about the challenges, but what are the opportunities?  

The challenges do create a lot of opportunities for us. Being responsive to clients’ needs means adapting to developments in the market, whether it’s making sure that we develop talent around core practice areas or the field expertise necessary to service clients in these new areas. It means dealing with digital and other disruptions, whether FinTech, energy transition, or digital assets like cryptocurrency. We need to ensure that we’ve developed our talent, recruited the best talent, and created the field expertise to service these areas of practice.

What are clients looking for in law firms, especially bigger ones?

We pride ourselves on being a law firm representing the high end of the legal business, with a high standard of strategic and professional advice and judgment. We partner with our clients in solving complex multidisciplinary, multi-jurisdictional problems, whether tax disputes, commercial litigation, or transformational business transactions. So, clients come to us because they want us to bring our experience and expertise into critical problem-solving exercises fundamental to their businesses’ growth.

We are also a relationship business. These client relationships are the lifeblood of our business, and nothing is more important than ensuring they get the best possible service that’s responsive to their business needs. So yes, it’s very important that we all understand that our clients are people - and that our business is a relationship business – while giving them top-shelf service.