Mason discusses the joys of entrepreneurship and how small firms don't have to do small deals
In 2020, Robert Mason, then a partner at Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP, presented a seminar called “One Hour to Happiness.” Mason says the goal was to teach young lawyers how to juggle their careers in a way that fostered joy. One of the key points Mason hoped to impress upon his audience was the importance of control: get control over your practice, he told them, and with control comes happiness.
The concept of control, specifically the pursuit of it, has been a throughline of Mason’s career. It’s something he’s ruminated on for years, having started his career in Big Law before everyone had cell phones, and it was routine for lawyers to be chained to their desks – and their landlines – for 12, 15 hours a day. Control was on his mind when he decided to part with Stikeman Elliott LLP as a young associate so he could have more opportunities to focus on mining matters instead of spreading his efforts across different practice areas.
This desire to control every aspect of his practice pushed Mason, several months after his seminar, to ultimately leave his eight-year tenure at Norton Rose, take a leap of faith, and start a solo practice specializing in mining, M&A, and corporate finance matters.
Since then, “there’s just an absolute sense of freedom,” Mason says. Both he and his clients, he adds, “have never been happier.”
For Mason, the benefits of solo practice have been manifold. After graduating from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1997, he spent his entire legal career in Big Law, working at Stikeman, Fasken, Gowling WLG, and Norton Rose. Mason was generally happy with his practice — he describes Stikeman as “a big part of his legal soul” — but the Covid-19 pandemic marked a turning point.
“Covid had created a lot of uncertainty in the legal world,” Mason said. “Firms didn’t know how much work there’d be in 2020 or beyond.”
By then, Mason had also spent more than two decades in downtown Toronto, “doing the same thing at just more senior levels,” he said. Looking for a change, he considered going the in-house route but decided to launch his firm, Mason Law, instead. That decision allowed Mason to scratch an entrepreneurial itch he’s always had but rarely got the opportunity to explore in Big Law. Suddenly, he was responsible not only for legal matters but also for business development and marketing.
These new challenges were thrilling for Mason, but so was the newfound flexibility of running his own practice. He has few conflicts, so he can take on new clients more quickly than he did at major law firms. No firm rules or policies are slowing down the pace at which he likes to work. He only takes on matters he’s interested in. When he’s working on a complicated transaction, he does not need to train associates or students on top of doing the job itself.
This freedom to cut the fat, so to speak, has translated to earnings substantially bigger than what he made in Big Law. Mason says in the four years since he’s launched his solo practice, his take-home pay is three, four, or five times what he used to make – even though his hourly rate is approximately half what it was at Norton. Mason attributes his higher earnings to paying far less overhead expenses than a large firm would and working more billable hours.
It doesn’t hurt that Mason is still working on significant transactions. A common fear about leaving Big Law to start your own practice, Mason says, is that your clients will seek out services at another established firm instead. Mason says he’s grateful many of his clients have stayed with him, acknowledging this isn’t always the case.
One of these was Marathon Gold Corp., where Mason served as outside counsel for over a decade before he went solo. Mason Law was the lead counsel to the company when Calibre Mining acquired it in January. The deal was a great example of a “real boutique law firm running a very significant M&A transaction,” Mason says.
In November, the firm also played a key role when Glencore acquired PolyMet Mining Corp., another longstanding client. Mason served as Canadian counsel to PolyMet’s special committee of independent directors for the transaction.
“It's definitely possible to do really large, complex, and exciting transactions, even in a smaller shop,” Mason says. “Sometimes the thinking is, ‘Oh, if I go to a boutique, then I'll be doing boutique deals.’ But that's not necessarily the case.”
While Mason has been encouraging other lawyers to explore starting a solo practice, he admits the ease with which he’s adjusted to leaving Big Law might make him an outlier.
“Ultimately, I think I’ve just been really lucky,” Mason says. “I’ve been in the industry for 20 years, and I have a lot of really supportive clients out there who have helped make Mason Law successful.”
“I just knock on wood every day that it continues,” he says.
