Blakes launches new public sector practice group

Two of the key contacts for the new practice are partners Iris Fischer and Alexis Levine in Blakes’ Toronto office. In an interview, Levine told Canadian Lawyer that “Blakes had a leading public and political law practice, which I’ve coordinated for a number of years, and a leading media defamation practice that Iris has coordinated for a number of years. And increasingly, especially in the last two years, we found those practices were intersecting.”

The genesis for the new practice group occurred “about a year ago, [when] we started talking about putting those together into a multidisciplinary practice” to help clients navigate and resolve crises “for both legal and reputational risks.

“I think many businesses when they engage with government for the first time, don’t realize how different it is from the private sector or purely private dealings,” Levine adds. “You have to consider lobbying rules, access to information, gifting, hospitality, security, procurement rules, and how governments make decisions and handle disputes.”

Joining the new practice group as the key contact in Ottawa is senior counsel Elder Marques, a litigator who worked in high-ranking federal government positions between 2016 and 2020 before returning to private practice.

“What we’re offering is some expertise [to ensure] clients appreciate ways that they can be impacted by government actions in ways that maybe they didn’t anticipate,” says Marques, “and what are appropriate ways that they can feed into those processes, make sure their interests get represented in ways that are appropriate and that follow the rules, but make sure that they’re able to contribute to policymaking that ultimately has an impact on them.”

The group also brings together “a range of expertise … on everything from government investigations to the substantive law,” says Fischer.

On Wednesday, a post-election seminar will provide a refresher for clients, says Levine, with Fischer leading a panel on investigations and crisis when dealing with the public sector. Marques will lead another on what to expect from this government.

Changing societal attitudes have affected corporations as well, says Marques.

“I think we’re in an environment where the public has higher expectations of how corporations behave, and that’s reflected in the public sector and how governments think about corporate actors,” he notes.

“In the current environment, legal advice needs to reflect more than ever the public environment and the public expectations that our clients face.”

There are also more “accountability tools” available to opposition parties in minority governments, says Fisher – on committees, for example, where they can wield more power. For private sector actors, “understanding how to navigate those committees and the rhythm of them is an important piece of expertise,” Levine adds.

In all these ways, the practice group’s work is “complementary to lobbying firms, many of whom we work with, and complementary to PR firms,” he says.

Blakes’ seminar for clients on Wednesday will outline communications with government — including lobbying, gifting and security clearance — navigating inquiries and investigations, and what to expect from the new federal government.

In addition to the firm’s experience helping businesses work with government, Blakes has represented current and former senior government officials, elected officials and government offices in dealing with the many laws and regulations (electoral, conflict of interest and otherwise) that apply to them, as well as responding to and mitigating regulatory inquiries and investigations when they occur.