Osler celebrates a decade of impact in Vancouver Osler celebrates a decade of impact in Vancouver

I’m Mark Longo. I’m the managing partner of Osler’s Vancouver office and co-chair of the firm’s Emerging and High Growth Companies group. I had the honor of founding and launching the Vancouver office approximately ten years ago, in August of 2015.

How does it feel to reach this milestone?

It’s incredibly gratifying to be ten years in and to reach that anniversary. Over the last decade, we have grown our team significantly. We’ve grown into various practice groups. We’ve done very impactful work for our client base, and we’re working with some of the most prestigious and innovative companies on the West Coast. And we’ve really grown our impact on this economy while growing the team in parallel.

What inspired you to open an office in Vancouver back in 2015?

Vancouver has always been a hub for the technology ecosystem. There’s a vibrant startup ecosystem here in Vancouver. So when I was initially recruited by the firm, it was to open the office, initially with a focus on the technology sector. I joined the firm as co-chair of the firm’s emerging and High Growth Companies group. Chad Bayne, my fellow Co-Chair in Toronto, was instrumental in that recruit.

And our group, has now built the largest and leading group in the country that works with technology companies from start up through to exit. We developed the business plan to become a full service firm in, the BC market. What we’ve done is we have brought in other practice groups that are strategic to both this economy, our client base and, consistent with the core competencies of Osler.

So we now have lawyers and groups that include our mining group, our real estate group, banking and financial services. We have, litigation and tax litigation. We have tax planning. We are involved in mergers and acquisitions and private equity. There’s other related services like employment and technology. And so we’re bringing all of those services to bear on behalf of our clients.

We also have very much a one firm approach. And so we make available all 600 plus of our lawyers across all of our offices on behalf of the projects and cases and transactions that are important to our clients.

What are some key accomplishments from the past decade?

I will mention three of our key accomplishments. Number one, we’ve had the opportunity to work on many very strategic transactions and litigation cases across many industries over the last ten years. One example that comes to mind is our client, Clio, which is a Burnaby based legal tech company. I have been their counsel for over 15 years. When we opened the office, they moved their legal work over, and we’ve been able to offer up all of our services to Clio from a period when they were a startup, all the way through to a multi-billion dollar company.

In 2024, they closed the largest growth equity financing in Canadian history, a US $900 million round led by NEA. We were there, the council on that transaction. More recently, we have worked on a $1 billion acquisition of a Spain based company called vLex for Clio and once again brought to bear the full suite of the services to support them.

Secondly, we’re very proud of the team that we have built here in the Vancouver office. When we opened the office, we set the goal of matching the level of excellence that Osler has had as a brand over its 165 year history. And in terms of our recruiting, we’ve been able to bring in partners and associates laterally from other leading firms, people who are at the top of their game, you know, ranked in the various ranking agencies and with a real entrepreneurial spirit as well.

From that foundation. We have been also building the team organically. And, one of the key strengths of the firm has been our student program. We started our student program in year two of the firm’s existence out here. We hired two students that year. We’re now up to nine summer students per year, nine articling students per year.

We’ve maintained our 100% hire back rate throughout that time. And many of those, younger lawyers and more junior lawyers, coming through the student ranks, have now become mainstay members of our team. The third accomplishment I wanted to highlight is, it’s deeply embedded in our DNA to give back to our local communities. We do that in terms of our charitable initiatives, our community giving our pro-bono initiatives, sponsorships across various industries.

Some of the groups that we sponsor and contribute to nationally, including the United Way campaign, the Terry Fox Run part of Leadership Women Conference, which has been, extremely well out here in Vancouver. And so we’re trying to make a contribution to our community while also practicing law.

How would you describe the culture of the Vancouver office?

It’s a combination of the talent of the team, a real client service orientation, a level of teamwork that is really second to none, and a really collegial team. We really tried to replicate the old sort of culture that we have seen across the firm and add a bit of a West Coast vibe and spin to that, hence the dress for your day dress code.

We also, are incredibly proud of the diversity that we have achieved in in every sense of that word, and it’s really added to both the culture but also the high performance nature of the team. We’re very proud of the gender balance that we have achieved. We have over 50% women partners in this office. We have a great gender balance in terms of, the associate and the student group as well.

I want to thank our clients. I want to thank all of my teammates here in Vancouver and across the platform for the relationships that we have built very deep relationships over, over the last ten years. I want to thank our clients for entrusting us with their bet the company transactions, projects, litigation cases during that period. I think, in many ways we are just getting started.

I see us over the next ten years. We’re going to continue to build out our service offering. We’re going to be moving into adjacent practice areas that are strategic to our client base. And our goal over the next ten years is really to amplify our impact on the BC economy. And we think we’re going to do that not only with the talent we bring to the table, but some of the technology tools that we’re bringing to the table from an AI perspective and otherwise.