Joanna Nairn, a lawyer with Pape Barristers, poses for a photograph outside of the firm's office in Toronto on Wednesday, July 9, 2014.Matthew Sherwood/The Globe and Mail
With Joanna Nairn's résumé, a young litigator could have her pick of law firms.
Originally from Waterloo, Ont., the 29-year-old worked in Washington D.C. at O'Melveny & Myers LLP, got her law degree from Harvard University and clerked for the now-retired Justice Morris Fish at the Supreme Court of Canada.
But returning to Toronto for personal reasons, she chose Pape Barristers P.C., a small boutique litigation firm run by well-known litigator Paul Pape. Including her, the firm now has nine lawyers.
Both Ms. Nairn and Mr. Pape say the attraction of a small boutique is obvious for an aspiring litigator: Young lawyers get more of a chance to stand up on their own in court, as files are not staffed by large teams of senior partners.
"If you are the junior on a file, you never speak in court, not ever," Ms. Nairn said of the large U.S. firms. By contrast, she was in front of a judge in her new job just two-and-a-half weeks in. "You don't have a chance to take ownership over files that you do in a smaller environment."
Mr. Pape says the city's growing circle of litigation boutiques have been taking on work that would have been done in past years by the big, mainstream Bay Street firms: "There's been I wouldn't say a massive shift, but a very, very large shift."
But Bay Street's large elite firms maintain powerhouse litigation departments with a very steady stream of high-level work. And they continue to attract a bumper crop of aspiring litigators. Some say the idea that younger lawyers are denied courtroom experience in big firms, compared with boutiques, is a myth.
Molly Reynolds, an associate in Torys LLP's litigation department, said she was on her feet in a courtroom just a month after her articles ended in 2009.
But she acknowledges that star roles across the courtroom from her are often reserved for more senior lawyers from firms big and small: "I have a few files against high-profile boutiques that have excellent reputations, and their associates are not on their feet when I am."