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have the money. They launched the first private-public-partnership in Canada for the $1.6 billion project. Swartz led the legal team and developed the procurement process and contracting structure. He was ultimately hired by the team that built the 407 and joined Aecon in 1997. "I really enjoy being involved in project development from the bidding stage to execution. The first day we opened the 407 was a proud day for me and driving on it was a tremendous thrill for me. I took my wife and kids and they were completely unimpressed," he says with a laugh. Swartz graduated from Osgoode Law School in 1983 and went in-house right away to work for a family owned computer business. The company was distributing software internationally for the Commodore 64 computer — a word processor called PaperClip. As he has built up the internal team at Aecon Swartz says the company has become less reliant on using outside legal services. "We still use external firms from time to time for M&A and banking and transactional matters where we have to, and we also use external for litigation, but we manage most claims in-house before they get to litigation and try and resolve it early. So we have significantly reduced our external spend even though the number of matters have increased significantly," he says. In the last five years the company has grown geographically to be located half in the west and half in the east. "During that time the number of files we have opened and matters we have had under review has grown significantly but proportionately it has been handled more inhouse than external," says Swartz. He also believes in benchmarking the department on costs. "From a revenue perspective I think we're right on target for the number of lawyers per billion dollars but we've got a more complex business than some because we're a contracting company — everything is about contracts and so there is much more demand for legal services internally," he says. For in-house counsel, he says there is a greater recognition that the ultimate success of the business units drives how legal work gets done. "When you're hourly and billing by the hour your incentive is not to resolve disputes, it's to litigate and even transactional lawyers have a tendency to overlawyer things. When you're inside and every dollar counts you're thinking about the bottom line — what's the value I'm adding here, how do I incentivize them to settle matters early and bring transac- tions to closure quicker?" he says. "I think some of the firms get it and are looking at ways to change their billing structure. A number will push back and say, 'We're not a commodity and you can't treat us like a commodity.' The reality is that's the business world and people are looking at the lowest common denominator and price and performance are important." IH SPECIALIZATION IN BUSINESS LAW Part-time, Executive LLM program for corporate counsel and practising lawyers Taught by U of T Faculty of Law professors, together with top international faculty from MIT-Sloan School of Management and expert practitioners. TIME: EVENT: For more information, call 416-978-1400 or visit: http://www.law.utoronto.ca/programs/GPLLM.html Supported by the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) - Ontario Chapter and in partnership with Carswell, a Thomson Reuters business. w w w. c a n a d i a n law y er m a g . c o m / i n h o u s E LLM_IH_Apr_13.indd 1 october 2013 • 41 13-02-26 4:07 PM

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