Profile Scott Jolliffe ‘69
At the Helm in a Burgeoning Legal Field
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You might expect that an Old Boy who served as both Head Prefect and Commanding Officer of the #142 Highland Cadet Corps might be destined for a position of leadership. But Scott Jolliffe ’69 has outdone even himself in this respect. In 2008, Scott was named Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Gowling, Lafleur, Henderson LLP, the largest law firm in Canada. Gowlings employs 725 lawyers and a support staff of more than 1,200 in seven offices in Canada, the UK and Russia. The firm specializes in business law, litigation and intellectual property (patent, trademark, copyright, industrial design, technology and trade secrets). This choice of careers may seem like a departure for a student who attended the University of Toronto to study chemical engineering. However, as Scott recounts, it was the St. Andrew’s network that encouraged this fortuitous leap. “My roommate all through St. Andrew’s was Gordon Henderson ’69, who has gone on to great success as a TV producer,” Scott recalls: “I did a lot of theatre at SAC [he won the Mainprize Theatre Arts Award in his graduating year] and was teetering between studying Drama at York University or Chemical Engineering at U of T.” “Gordon’s father, also Gordon, convinced me that combining a scientific degree with law might make for a successful marriage of disciplines. And of course, my father, (the late) Ross Jolliffe ’42, who was from a fairly strict and traditional background, much preferred to see his son pursue a career in engineering or law rather than acting.” Mr. Henderson hired Scott as a summer student at the Ottawa firm in 1975 and as a full-time associate lawyer in intellectual property in 1978. The die was cast, and Scott never looked back, moving to Toronto when the firm opened an office there in 1980 and becoming its managing partner in 1996. The 2008 appointment to CEO was, in fact, a change of title rather than of responsibilities. He has been at the helm for 14 years. Scott says that it is the combination of technology and law that holds appeal for him, and that the field has grown exponentially since he began in the 1980s. “With the tremendous growth in computers and technology in the latter part of the 20th century, a nearly new discipline has evolved in law,” he says. “Intellectual property – ideas and concepts – these are 28 Fall 2010
Scott (left) with his brother Eric ’76, York Regional Police Chief and a member of the SAC Board of Directors since 2006 (Below) Scott and wife Robynn hike in Glencoe, in the Scottish Highlands
the bricks and mortar of much of the business world today.” The firm’s move to Russia started when the old Soviet regime was still in place, and today the Moscow office is one of the top three intellectual property law firms in Russia, employing 20 lawyers, all but one of whom are Russian. The firm also has an office in London, England, specializing in power generation and nuclear energy. (Scott notes that former SAC Board Chair Brian Armstrong ’61, now at Bruce Nuclear in southern Ontario, is a Gowlings alumnus.) Another office in China may be on the near horizon as well. Needless to say, the demands of such a position leave Scott limited time outside of the profession, though he and wife Robynn travel quite a bit, and Scott makes a determined point of walking 85 minutes to and from the office in downtown Toronto each day. The couple has two grown children. JIM MCGILLIVRAY