Nelligan Law employees Laura Peeke and Julianne Chartrand at the company's annual staff retreat.Provided
Lois McNaughton joined Ottawa-based Nelligan O’Brien Payne LLP 44 years ago, in the spring of 1979, and she’s stuck with the law firm through the years even though she’s received the odd tempting offer to cross the street and join a competitor.
“It’s always been a good place to work from the day I started,” says McNaughton, a legal assistant. “Everybody works well together – the partners, the lawyers and the staff.”
Founded in 1969, the firm currently boasts 53 lawyers, supported by 57 staff, including paralegals and law clerks as well as marketing, accounting and finance teams, among others. Nelligan provides legal expertise on diverse matters ranging from employment and family law to Indigenous and elder issues.
Fifty per cent of the firm’s partners are women and, since 2016, Nelligan Law has had a female chief executive officer, Mia Hempey, an entrepreneur who was recruited after she sold a local technology training company she had founded.
“The attraction for me was the really interesting work,” says Hempey. “My mandate was to break down the silos and to make the firm more entrepreneurial and a little more client-centric.”
To that end, she has introduced a number of changes. “We have monthly town halls where everyone’s invited, lawyers and staff,” says Hempey. “We talk about the direction of the firm and important initiatives like equity, diversity and inclusion, but also fun stuff like weddings and baby news among employees.”
McNaughton, for one, is a fan of the monthly sessions. “She does a really good job,” says McNaughton. “She’s open to everybody. She will discuss anything and I think that’s really important.”
For a number of years, McNaughton has been a staff representative. She and her fellow reps receive input on issues and concerns of their colleagues and they meet monthly with firm leadership to discuss them.
“Issues are discussed openly and acted upon,” she says. “Everybody at the firm is being heard.”
Nelligan offers professional development opportunities to both lawyers and staff. Lawyers are given a personal budget annually to spend on their development. In addition, partners and other senior lawyers are available to mentor junior associates embarking on their careers.
There are also quarterly learning sessions on a variety of subjects to help employees develop well-rounded expertise. “It could be a senior partner sharing their personal experience on how to build and market your practice, or it could be something substantive that focuses on honing a technical legal skill,” says Hempey.
Given her business background in high tech, Hempey has launched several initiatives to enhance the firm’s use of technology. “Traditionally, law firms have been very slow to adopt technology and different innovations,” she says. “We’ve done a lot of professional development on how to use technology. We had to do a lot of that training so everyone could work from home during the pandemic.”
Post-pandemic, the firm has adopted a hybrid model based on the principle of motivating employees to come to the office rather than mandating a return. “People can do heads down work at home,” she says. “But if there’s a substantive training session or collaborative work, people have the benefit of coming in.”
Apart from that, the firm has introduced a number of events to make the office environment enticing. “We’re having monthly luncheons to celebrate the diverse cultural backgrounds of our employees,” says Hempey. “We want to give people reasons to come to the office.”
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