The firms' managing director and managing partner discuss the benefits of a combined firm
The upcoming merger of intellectual property firms Smart & Biggar and Bereskin & Parr aims to expand the former’s reach into the Toronto market while giving the latter access to a deeper pool of resources to support clients.
That’s according to Smart & Biggar managing director Matthew Zischka and Bereskin & Parr managing partner Stephen Beney, who lauded the merger as an opportunity to provide more robust IP services nationwide.
“We can really position our firm better for the future,” Beney told Law Times this week. “It just gives us the resources to compete.”
The firms announced Bereskin would be folded into Smart & Biggar last week due to Bereskin’s $82.5 million acquisition by international IP services group IPH Limited. The group acquired Smart & Biggar in 2022.
Beney says he will join the combined firm’s board of directors after the merger, which is scheduled to be completed on September 27.
Bereskin, which has offices in Toronto, Waterloo, Mississauga, and Montreal, has done “an exceptional job” servicing the IP market in the Greater Toronto Area, Zischka says. “Although Smart & Biggar has a Toronto presence that's not insignificant, it's always been small in comparison to Bereskin’s presence. So I think [the merger] will give us that additional platform.”
Smart & Biggar currently has more than 125 lawyers and will add more than 70 from Bereskin after completing the transaction. This will expand not only the number of lawyers clients have access to but also the scope of IP expertise, Beney says.
Since joining the IPH network – which includes firms operating in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong – Zischka says Smart & Biggar has reached a wider pool of clients. “IP is generally a very international practice area because you'll get a lot of clients from other jurisdictions that look for assistance in Canada,” he says.
“IPH is just leveraging that by having some real presence in some of these markets that will make it easier for clients to effectively have a trusted partner that they can use multiple stages,” he says. Being part of the network “allows Canadian firms to be part of something bigger, larger, more international,” he adds.
As for Bereskin, being part of the network, Beney says, “really does provide us the capital resources to be able to really take the firm to the next level, especially in helping to develop the people and the technology that is required in this incredibly competitive market.”
