Back in 1973, when Bob Smith joined the legal firm that would become Smith Neufeld Jodoin LLP, he was one of two lawyers in an office with a total staff of seven. More than 50 years later, the company boasts a workforce of 65, including 15 lawyers, and a reputation for providing an exceptional level of legal services to clients in southeastern Manitoba.
“Those were humble beginnings,” recalls Smith, the “S” in the familiar SNJ name that also included partners John Neufeld and Marcel Jodoin. “We do many different kinds of law now, because we’re big enough and good enough.”
And experienced enough.
SNJ has 284 years of combined lawyer experience as of 2024. They’ve seen a lot in that time, such as an industry, and world, that has changed and continues to change, especially technologically.
“We were progressive. We were the first law firm in Manitoba to purchase computers – and we bought two,” says Smith. “Later on a leading law firm in Winnipeg bought one of those computers – four or five years after we had already dared to go there.”
In addition to blazing a technological trail, SNJ has also positioned itself as a leader in the province’s legal landscape. Grant Driedger, a current partner at SNJ, recently served as the president of The Law Society of Manitoba. He followed in the footsteps of John Neufeld and Jon van der Krabben, who were also partners at SNJ and served as presidents of the Law Society.
Smith says he never imagined the firm would be as big as it’s become. He credits their clients in Steinbach and the entire southeast area as a huge influence in contributing to the growth of the firm.
“We have managed to grow with the communities,” he says. “Lots of exciting things have always been happening in this area – farming, farms getting bigger, businesses, more and bigger businesses, communities growing. Our service area just grew and grew. The challenge has always been to keep up with the growth happening all around us, and it’s a challenge we’ve relished.”
Of course, meaningful growth rarely happens without some difficult decision-making, and Smith cites SNJ’s move from Steinbach’s downtown to its current location at 85 MB-12 (they also have an office at 62 Main St in Niverville) as one that was made rather reluctantly.
“We stressed about that big time,” he says. “We had no room to grow downtown, so really the move was a really good thing for us. There was a building ready-made for us. It was big enough. It had lots of offices, a library, a vault for safekeeping documents and work spaces for our growing staff.”
The building allowed for the growth that continues to make SNJ a trusted name in Manitoba law.
“Because we have managed to grow with the community, we can provide this area with good legal help,” Smith explains. “We are big enough and technologically advanced enough to do this. We’re in the game. It makes me proud, because if our initial aim was to get bigger and better, we did it.”
SNJ is open Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. They can be reached by calling (204) 326-3442, and more information about their personnel and legal services can be found on their website.