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Profile
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Mark Tamminga
Going the distance
routine items had been encapsulated
into checklists, with the ability to pop
variables into the documents at the
right times from the checklists.”
Mark Tamminga turned a fascination with technology
At the time, ExperText, one of the
first companies to produce commerinto a passion for practice automation.
cial legal document assembly and
practice systems, had pioneered a real
By Bev Cline
estate program that combined a database with document assembly capabilhen Mark Tamminga started his law career ity to allow for what Tamminga calls “practice modelling.”
“We thought it might make sense in the mortgage
in 1988, practice automation was in its
infancy. The mortgage enforcement practice enforcement context where there is a high volume of files
where he worked relied on piles of paper- that each follow much the same procedure.”
Tamminga spent the better part of a year — he was
work and spent hours laboriously transferring information from one document to another, he recalls. practising law at the same time — working with
But Tamminga, who had acquired some program- ExperText to successfully adapt the program to the
mer/computer skills while earning a combined MBA/LL.B. power-of-sale context. This was pioneering work in the
from York University, saw the potential for computeri- mortgage enforcement practice area.
zation in law. He was
“These were exciting times, the eager to be a pioneer Riding the wave
industry was just moving into in its development and In 1991, mortgage enforcement files began pouring in.
found the department “Property values declined by 30 per cent, interest rates were
personal computers and 286s
he had joined was just at 12 per cent or above and the world was in crisis,”
as keen to explore Tamminga recalls.
were considered pretty cool.”
“The volume of work in our department was going up
technology.
— Mark Tamminga
10
per cent, then 20 per cent a month as the recession set“These
were
excitGowling Lafleur Henderson LLP, Hamilton
ing times, the industry tled in. Our department went from four clerks and a
was just moving into personal computers and 286s were young associate to probably 20 clerks in 18 months.”
Yet Gowlings was able to ride the wave. “Because we
considered pretty cool,” says Tamminga, currently managing partner at the Hamilton office of Gowling Lafleur had largely automated our practice we were able to hanHenderson LLP. (Strathy, Archibald & Seagram merged dle the increased volume,” says Tamminga. “The staff
had training wheels right from the start. We could plug
with Gowlings in 1990.)
The department already had some success automating people into the system very quickly, as opposed to laborithe practice, he remembers. “Using Xerox, some of the more ously training them on the old paper-based methods.”
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N AT I O N A L
April · May 2010
ALENA GEDEONOVA
W
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“Bubble gum and string”
Throughout the years Tamminga, 51, has never stopped designing software. Since becoming managing partner of
Gowlings’ Hamilton office in 2008, his days have taken on a
different rhythm. There’s the administrative work that comes
with running the office, yet still he spends a part of each day
doing actual coding.
This is due in part to the nature of mortgage enforcement
practice which he describes as the “legal equivalent of a hospital emergency room in that you don’t have a lot of time or information to make hard decisions that affect people’s lives.” Legal
practice “is counterbalanced a little bit by the detached technical nature of system design which I still like to do,” he says.
He downplays his achievements: “I’m self-taught, so a lot
of what I do is bubble gum and string,” he says. “When I get
into trouble, the real grown-up programmers come in and
gracefully solve the problem for me.”
But the truth is that his interest in computer applications and
software design reaches into many practice areas at Gowlings.
He has developed a number of other systems used throughout
the firm for small business loans collection, WSIB claims management and commercial loans work, among others.
Tamminga is co-author of The Lawyer’s Guide to Extranets
and was a columnist and technology editor for Law Practice
Management Magazine. He has been active with the ABA Law
Practice Management section and is a regular presenter on the
subject of automation in legal technology at conferences in the
United States and Canada.
A new passion
In 2000, Gowlings consolidated its mortgage enforcement
practice in Hamilton. Tamminga moved from Toronto to the
small town of Ancaster and bought a Weimaraner puppy.
Since the dog needed exercise, Tamminga took up running in
the beautiful Dundas Valley. That’s when he met his wife
Joany, a dedicated long-distance runner who works in the
pharmaceutical industry as a reimbursement manager.
Married for six years, running has taken the couple all
over the world in pursuit of their love of stage racing. The
sport, Tamminga suggests, is the running equivalent of the
Tour de France: “You run 30 to 80 kilometres per day for five
to seven days and it is your cumulative time that determines
the race winner.”
So far, the couple has completed nine stage running races
in remote places such as the Sahara, Gobi and Atacama
deserts. Tamminga has won two races and come in second
and third in two others, “a bit of a buzz for a full-time lawyer
in his late forties competing against athletes from all over the
world,” he says.
“We want to get to places that we see as endangered in
many ways, but to experience them without disturbing them,”
says Tamminga. “Doing so in the context of a 250-kilometre,
seven-day footrace is an amazing way to do that.”
“Both of us have no trouble sleeping on rocks and eating
gruel,” he says. “You carry all your food, night kit and safety
equipment on your back. It’s pretty raw. In some races, you
sleep in a tent made out of coffee sacks that protect you from
the sun, but not from sandstorms.”
In many ways, Tamminga’s running and his law practice
have proven to be complementary. Whether Tamminga is running in the Dundas Valley or over the hard-packed sand of the
desert, “the clarity and selflessness that come during running
frees my mind to rejig and sort out a technical problem or a
difficult management issue,” he says. N
Bev Cline is a freelance writer based in Toronto.
Coureur de fond
Mark Tamminga : un pionnier en droit de la technologie.
M
ark Tamminga aime s’aventurer
dans les terrains arides. Avec
son épouse, il court à travers la
planète. Ils ont déjà participé à neuf compétitions à raison de 30 à 60 kilomètres
par jour dans les déserts du Sahara, du
Gobi et d’Atacama.
L’activité, dit-il, lui permet de vider son
esprit et de trouver des solutions techniques à des problèmes de gestion — un
autre effort d’endurance auquel il s’adonne depuis des années.
Lorsque Mark Tamminga a commencé sa
carrière en 1988, la pratique en automatisation débutait. La réalisation des droits hypothécaires requérait une tonne de papiers et
beaucoup de temps pour transférer l’information d’un document à l’autre.
Grâce à ses compétences en informatique acquises durant son MBA/LL.B. de
l’Université York, Me Tamminga a détecté le
potentiel d’automatisation du droit.
L’avocat, associé directeur général au
bureau de Hamilton de Gowling Lafleur
Henderson, annonce que le département
Avril · Mai 2010
avait déjà entamé l’automatisation de listes
de vérification.
Il explique qu’ExperText a été l’une des
premières compagnies à concevoir l’assemblage des documents juridiques commerciaux et une base de données en biens
immobiliers.
Me Tamminga a eu la brillante idée de
faire de même pour les droits hypothécaires avec l’aide d’ExperText, tout en poursuivant ses activités de juriste. Ce faisant,
l’avocat a été un pionnier dans la pratique
de la réalisation des droits hypothécaires.
Cette décision a été très bénéfique à
Gowlings, qui a bien traversé la crise mondiale des droits hypothécaires en 1991. Le volume de travail avait considérablement augmenté durant la récession de l’époque,
atteste l’avocat. Le personnel du cabinet était
passé de 4 à 20 commis en 18 mois. Grâce à
l’automatisation effectuée, Gowlings a pu
gérer l’accroissement du travail.
Humilité quand tu nous tiens!
Depuis, Me Tamminga n’a pas cessé de
w w w. c b a . o r g
concevoir des logiciels, tout en dirigeant
le cabinet.
Humble, il insiste sur l’importance des
programmeurs. En réalité, Me Tamminga a
développé plusieurs autres systèmes utilisés
par le cabinet pour la collecte de petits
prêts d’affaires, la gestion des réclamations
de la Commission de la sécurité professionnelle et de l’assurance contre les accidents
du travail et les prêts commerciaux.
Me Tamminga est coauteur de The Lawyer’s Guide to Extranets et a été chroniqueur
et rédacteur en technologie du Law Practice
Management Magazine. Il a participé au
ABA Law Practice Management et donne
des conférences sur l’automatisation du
droit au Canada et aux États-Unis.
Et dire que, depuis 2000, ce juriste a le
temps de cultiver sa passion pour la course
de fond. Il en a gagné deux et est arrivé
deuxième et troisième dans deux autres
compétitions.
On dit que la course aide à renforcer son
caractère — en s’armant de patience et en
se fixant des objectifs. Sans nul doute,
Mark Tamminga a montré qu’il s'est donné
les moyens de les atteindre. N
— Yasmina El Jamaï
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