Low oil prices and strained US relations is causing lawyers in Canada’s prairie provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to go back to basics, while law societies look to help diversify the law business.

Steady work

Lawyers are able to go back to basics thanks to ‘a fairly consistent level of growth’ in agriculture Jeff Grubb, Saskatchewan managing partner of law firm Miller Thomson, told Canadian Lawyer magazine. Rising farmland prices, farm machinery and manufacturing implements sales, and, wind farms driving growth in renewable energy are all helping lawyers in the provinces out. Agribusiness is seeing consolidation of farms and aging farm operators, leading to a steady demand for legal advice, including $50 billion worth of farm assets expected to be transferred to new ownership in the next decade, according to Christopher Masich of McKercher LLP writing for Global Ventures Magazine. Mr Masich wrote legal service providers are ‘assisting with developing estate plans, tax plans, corporate structures, all of that kind of work to be done.’ Though farms remain primarily family-run, they are becoming more business-like in their approach and structure, he explained.

Adapting to change

Aside from such business growth, recent changes in regulations from the law society is also helping lawyers to diversify though opportunities to practice across provincial borders. Law societies in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta collaborate over legal profession regulation and are running joint initiatives, including alternative legal service provision, entity regulation and access to justice.