Canadian Lawyer magazine says "look south"

Canadian Lawyer magazine (CLB Media) has published a cover theme about South America called Exploring the New World. The opportunities there (and the pitfalls) are illustrated by reporting on the experience of the firm Macleod Dixon.

From the two legal professionals...at its inauguration a decade ago, Macleod Dixon’s office in Caracas now boasts 46 lawyers. In addition to being the first, and still the only, major Canadian law firm to hang a shingle there, Macleod Dixon is also the biggest foreign firm in the Venezuelan capital, and one of the biggest practices there, period. In particular, it boasts the most legal professionals working in the resource industry in Venezuela — more, by Faass’ count, than the number in all the other foreign firms there combined.

The story suggests that there are different, and in some ways better, opportunities for Canadian law firms in South America than in Asia.

“Sure there are risks, [but] there are many more good reasons to invest in South America,” says Donald Coxe, a onetime Ontario lawyer who is now a well-known international business writer and global portfolio strategist for BMO Capital Markets, one of North America’s leading full-service investment firms. In addition to a having a large and increasingly educated population, Coxe lauds the long constitutional history of most countries in South America, all of which (except French Guiana, which remains a colony of France) have earned their independence over the past 200 years. “Apart from Venezuela,” he says, “their constitutions are relatively stable, [and] there have been terrific improvements in regards to the respect of rule and law.”