Joe Milstone

The story is familiar – young lawyers suffering with the long hours and stress of a traditional law firm. What happened next is different: Cognition LLP co-founders Joe Milstone and Rubsun Ho decided to try lowering the billing pressure of their old law firms by starting their own firm. Cognition’s legal team works remotely, or in-house with clients, and diminishes the typical firm overhead expense while providing real-time “Value Based Billing” that allows clients to adjust their invoices to reflect the service received. That allows the firm to work at rates that emerging businesses can afford. The approach is paying off. Cognition has grown to 40 lawyers, and it is leading a “New Law” revolution in Canada. Cognition has been recognized as one of Canada’s top 10 Most Admired Corporate Cultures, and the firm has been named to the PROFIT 500 ranking of Canada’s Fastest-Growing Companies for the last three years.