People

Christopher Sweeney

LexLocom President, Christopher Sweeney, is the principal and Co-Founder of ZSA, Canada’s largest and only national legal recruitment firm. “I see the legal world as changing and changing fast. The conclusion was unavoidable that ZSA had to adapt and respond to this to better serve our clients and to anticipate changes we’ve seen in other jurisdictions.  I see the LexLocom model as an ideal and innovative approach for the various players in the changing legal industry, both for now and as we respond together to whatever the future brings.  LexLocom takes our capability and our service offering far beyond that of a recruitment or staffing agency, adding a dimension of value-added consulting services that we think will serve our clients well in the times to come."

 

Ian McLaine

Ian McLaine is a lawyer with nearly a decade of electronic discovery experience, both in a consultative and hands-on role. He most recently worked for five years with a prestigious Wall Street firm where he oversaw and coordinated dozens of complex discovery projects. He also provided advice to corporations on information governance issues, including document retention policies and litigation readiness. With his expertise, Ian is available to guide law firms and their clients through the discovery process from early case assessment to document collection, data processing, document review and final productions. He is also experienced in the supervision of document review projects, providing a high level of oversight and quality control, especially in identifying and resolving privilege issues. Ian attended McGill University and the University of New Brunswick, and is admitted to the bars of Ontario and New York. He is fully fluent in French.

“Ian is such a pleasure to work with. He totally understands the E-Discovery space, is flexible and accommodating, and loves what he does. I look forward to being able to work with Ian again. He makes everything seamless, successful and easy. He is a true professional in a sea of people who say they know what they are doing but are really stabbing in the dark - he gets it!”

Nina George, FTI Consulting, June 2011

 

Tania Hamilton

Tania has been with LexLocom since its inception in June of 2010. As a Consultant, she is responsible for the recruitment and placement of legal field professionals for both private practice and in-house positions. She has extensive knowledge of LexLocom's product offerings, as well as the organization's clients.

 

Prior to joining LexLocom, Tania obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brock University, with a specialization in Sociology and Psychology. Her previous recruitment experience and great people skills make her successful in meeting the needs of both her clients and candidates. Tania now lives in Toronto and enjoys yoga, fine dining and travelling.

David Rounthwaite

David Rounthwaite practises securities and corporate governance law. Called to the Bar of Ontario in 1976, he was both an associate and a partner at McCarthy Tétrault where he practised securities and corporate law. In 2004, he became president of a specialised financial services company. He resumed practising law in 2007. From 1997 to 2010 he was a trustee of Northland Power Income Fund and was lead independent trustee in several transactions of that fund including its acquisition of Northland Power Inc. in 2009. From 2004 until 2007, David was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Arriscraft International Income Fund which was wound up after a successful sale of its business. David is a director of University of Toronto Schools and holds degrees from the University of Toronto, London School of Economics & Political Science and Osgoode Hall Law School of York University.

Rod Wilkinson

Rod Wilkinson has over 30 years’ experience in the field of commercial lending, corporate restructuring and insolvency matters.  A member of the Law Society of Scotland since 1974, he was called to the Alberta Bar in 1980 and the Ontario Bar in 1989.  As a senior business lawyer with Gowling Lafleur Henderson, Rod was responsible for the development, implementation and operation of coordinated in-house and web-based programs designed to create efficiencies in the management and delivery of legal services to clients.  In this capacity, Rod led and managed a Canada-wide team of professionals and staff delivering a diverse range of legal services, tailored to meet clients' requirements for greater value, predictability and accountability.  He has broad experience in legal process outsourcing and project management of large portfolios.

 

Wendy Kelley

Wendy specializes in advising boards, management and in-house counsel on legal and reputational risk management and corporate preparedness, particularly in turnaround situations. She is a senior legal executive with extensive experience in analyzing, identifying and managing complex multi-faceted legal risks and crisis within a corporation and implementing legal risk and governance processes and procedures that enhance corporate value. Recently she completed a mandate to assist Biovail Corporation – Canada’s largest publicly traded pharmaceutical company (NYSE:TSX) in resolving its legal and reputational issues. Acting as the SVP, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary she oversaw the complete legal turnaround including, resolving “bet the company” securities class actions, patent litigations, S.E.C. ,O.S.C. and DOJ investigations. Complementary to resolving those issues, she implemented a compliance program as well as “best practices” in Corporate Governance. She was also a member of the senior management team in the strategic change. Those two major initiatives were instrumental in Biovail winning two proxy contests and later merging with a U.S. pharmaceutical company, where the stock rose 70%. Prior to Biovail, she spent ten years in senior legal roles at BMO Financial Group (NYSE:TSX) where prior to leaving she was the VP, Associate General Counsel & Chief Reputation Risk Officer. Wendy had enterprise-wide responsibility for Corporate Governance, regulatory relations, Legal & Reputational Risk Management and all securities litigation and regulatory issues. Throughout which, she developed an expertise in advising on processes and procedures around risk, compliance and audit to mitigate legal risks. Wendy began her career as a commercial litigator at Torys, LLP, and is a graduate of the Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program, Queen’s University Faculty of Law, and a member in good standing of the Law Societies of Ontario and Saskatchewan. She is a frequent quest speaker on issues of legal and reputation risk, litigation management and governance.