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7. WeirFoulds LLP
Total Lawyers: 82
Offices: Toronto Lawyers by Office: Toronto: 82
Core Practice Areas:
Litigation; corporate finance; mergers and acquisitions; commercial real estate/leasing and infrastructure development; and public sector law.
Key Clients:
Law firms across Canada seeking Ontario representation; public and private corporations; entrepreneurs; financial institutions; governments; governmental authorities; non-profit and public interest organizations and individuals. Unless it is a matter of public record, the firm keeps the identity of its clients confidential.
Notable Mandates:
Ontario counsel for WestJet Airlines in its litigation with Air Canada; the former controller of Nortel on the restatement issues of its financial statements; Ontario Realty Corporation in its action on fraudulent land sales; commission counsel on the Ipperwash Inquiry; the Hollinger Group litigation over cross-border venue and corporate governance issues; the provisional liquidator of The Christian Brothers of Ireland in Canada in litigation that held that all charitable property may be used to pay a charity’s debts; senior financial creditors on the ranking of more than $1 billion of Air Canada’s subordinated financial debt (in which the Superior Court held that subordination covenants in debt instruments were enforceable in CCAA proceedings); Amoco Canada on the Chippewas of Sarnia case in litigation denying an Indian Band its claim for ownership of land encompassing Sarnia, Ont.; Town of Oakville in which the Supreme Court of Canada upheld a municipality’s rights to regulate or prohibit billboards; the Canadian Bar Association in the SCC decision that invalidated the appointments of retired judges as labour arbitrators in interest disputes in Ontario; the Jane Doe case in which the Toronto Police Service was sued for failing to issue a sufficient warning to the community about a serial sex offender; and member of the Osborne Committee reporting to the Ontario Securities Commission on structural changes to the commission.
Star Alumni:
Former Ontario chief justice George Gale; former SCC justice Roy Kellock; former Ontario Court of Appeal justices John Arnup, who was also a former treasurer of the Law Society of Upper Canada, James Carthy, and Allan McNiece Austin; Nova Scotia Appeal Court Justice Thomas Cromwell; and Ontario Superior Court justices Joan Lax and Paul Perell.
Pro Bono/Community Service:
Represented Community Living Ontario in successfully resisting a constitutional challenge to the closure of government institutions for adults with intellectual disabilities; a student in an appeal of an identification, placement, and review committee decision to the Special Education Tribunal as part of the Child Advocacy Project of The Advocates’ Society; appeal to the Court of Appeal of a leading decision on dismissal of an employee with disabilities in Keays v. Honda; an application to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board on behalf of a victim of spousal violence; the minority advocacy and rights counsel in the Quebec Secession Reference case before the Supreme Court of Canada, successfully arguing that minority rights should be recognized as one of the foundational principles of Canadian federalism; the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies in SCC challenge to the Criminal Code defence which allows “reasonable force” to be used by parents and teachers in child discipline; and the Eurig Estate case in which the SCC held that Ontario’s probate fees were unconstitutional.
Affiliations:
None.
The Firm:
WeirFoulds LLP has been a continuous partnership since 1860, when Theodore Spencer opened his practice. Now located in Toronto’s 36-storey Exchange Tower, the firm is best known for its litigation strength, with more than half of its 82 lawyers regularly appearing before courts and tribunals, though practices revolve around four pillars: advocacy; finance; property; and government law. WeirFoulds also sponsors the Arnup Cup, an annual trial advocacy competition named after one of the firm’s most distinguished former partners for Ontario law schools and organized by The Advocates’ Society. The firm is content with its status as a leading regional law firm, with no aspirations for national expansion. “Our strategy is to not try to be all things to all people but to play to our strengths,” says managing partner J. Gregory Richards, who recalls Canada’s largest law firms were about the same size as WeirFoulds now is when he began articling interviews in 1978. “We’re much more comfortable right here in one of the greatest economic regions in the world — the Toronto region.”
8. Fogler Rubinoff LLP
Total Lawyers: 78 Offices: Toronto Lawyers by Office: Toronto: 78
Core Practice Areas:
Business, securities, and commercial law; real estate law and property development and leasing; banking, institutional lending and asset securitization; municipal and planning law; litigation; bankruptcy, insolvency, and restructuring; tax and estates; employment and labour law; regulatory affairs and public law; and transportation law.
Key Clients:
RioCan REIT; FirstService Corporation; Cinram International Income Trust; Bennett Environmental Inc.; Kingsway Financial; TD Bank; HSBC Bank Canada; Bank of Montreal; First National Financial; and Colliers International.
Notable Mandates:
Cinram International Inc. in its reorganization to Cinram Income Trust; Riocan REIT in its sale of seven shopping malls to Retrocom Mid-Market REIT; Air Source Power Fund LLP in the financing of its Manitoba project; TD Bank and First National Financial Corporation in Schooner Trust’s in two public offerings of Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities totalling $969 million; Loyalty Management Group Canada Inc. in its purchase of ICOM Information & Communications Inc.; CMN International Inc., a subsidiary of FirstService Corp. in its acquisition of a majority interest in Colliers Seeley in Los Angeles; AMR Technologies Inc. in its combination with Magnequench, Inc.; TD Bank in the financing of Scotia Centre in St. John’s, Nfld.; and Colliers International Mortgage Corp. in Merrill Lynch Financial Assets Inc.’s $548 million public offering of Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities.
Star Alumni:
Ed Sonshine, president and CEO of RioCan REIT; Jay Hennick, president and CEO of FirstService Corp.; Eugene McBurney, chairman of GMP Capital Trust; and former Supreme Court justice Arthur Gans.
Pro Bono/Community Service:
Lloyd Fogler is past chairman and is on the board of directors of Mount Sinai Hospital as well as on the board of the Royal Ontario Museum and Canadian Opera Company; and the firm is a major donor to the Miles Nadal JCC and supports other charities and causes.
Affiliations:
International Lawyers Network.
The Firm:
Formed through the 1982 merger of Siegal Fogler and Rubinoff & Rubinoff, the firm’s roots date back to the 1930s. In 2000, the firm changed its name to Fogler Rubinoff LLP. Since then, the firm has grown by 50 per cent to 78 lawyers and in January 2005, moved into new offices in the Toronto-Dominion Centre big enough to fit 100 lawyers “if, as, and when appropriate,” says Michael Appleton, managing partner since 1982. “Our intention is to continue our controlled growth strategy, adding lawyers not just for the sake of growing larger, but as and when the opportunity arises to further strengthen and improve our firm and better serve our clients by so doing,” he says. “We have no plans to merge with another firm or open another office within the next 12 months or in the foreseeable future.”
9. Siskind Cromarty Ivey & Dowler LLP
Total Lawyers: 73 Offices: London, Windsor, Toronto, Quebec Lawyers by Office: London: 67; Windsor: 1; Toronto: 1; Quebec City: 4
Core Practice Areas:
Class actions and product liability; business law; litigation; medical malpractice; franchise law; immigration; labour and employment; municipal and environmental.
Key Clients:
Columbia Sportswear Canada Limited; Emco Corp.; Marriott International; Pacific & Western Bank of Canada; Linamar Corp.; Pizza Pizza; Volvo Construction Equipment; GoodLife Fitness Clubs; Trojan Technologies Inc.; and Employers Reinsurance Corp.
Notable Mandates:
Counsel in a series of price-fixing settlements totalling more than $10 million in the rubber chemical industry; co-counsel on a retirement benefits case settled for $20 million; settled a secondary market securities case against Canadian Superior Energy; several pending price-fixing cases; securities cases against Nortel, Royal Group, FMF, and Molson Coors; and pending liability cases against Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, Eli Lilly, and Pfizer.
Star Alumni:
Superior Court Justice Ladie Haines; and Ontario Court Justice Katie McKerlie.
Pro Bono/Community Service:
Siskinds is involved in a wide variety of organizations and causes and pro bono work including the Home At Last Program; the new St. Joseph’s Healthcare Foundation and Siskinds Studentship in Spinal Cord Injury Research; London’s International Children’s Festival; Community Living London; London Health Sciences Centre; and SARI Therapeutic Riding Association.
Affiliations:
Quebec City-based affiliate firm, Siskinds Desmeules, has four lawyers.
The Firm:
Based in southwestern Ontario, with offices in London, Windsor, and Toronto, along with an affiliate in Quebec City, Siskinds is a leader in the practice of class action law. The first firm to certify and settle a class action in Ontario under the 1992 Class Proceedings Act, 16 of Siskinds’ 70 lawyers now practice class action law. Since then, Siskinds has been involved in more than 45 class action lawsuits involving: breast implants; TMJ implants; diet drugs; vanishing premium insurance products; improper mortgage penalties; plastic venting for mid-efficiency furnaces; improper pricing of consumer products; wrongful termination and employment benefits; retirement benefits; oil refinery emissions; fireplace design; investment schemes; the E. coli tainted water tragedy; price-fixing cases against multinational chemical companies; and securities cases. Siskinds has also developed one of Canada’s pre-eminent franchise law groups, representing more than 80 franchise companies around the world. First established in London in 1932 by A.B. Siskind, who was joined by Don Cromarty in 1959, the firm became London’s leading real estate and litigation firm. The 1989 merger of Siskind Cromarty with corporate and commercial law firm Ivey & Dowler was followed with the 2002 merger with London’s Berg Kennedy Cleaver Broad LLP to form one of the largest business law practices in southwestern Ontario.
10. Lerners LLP
Total Lawyers: 112
Offices: London, Toronto Lawyers by Office: London: 65; Toronto: 47
Core Practice Areas:
Personal injury; all aspects of commercial litigation including but not limited to class proceedings, securities, appeals, Charter of Rights and constitutional law; insurance and medical defence; business law; real estate and land development; municipal law; and family law.
Key Clients:
Air Canada; Genuity Capital; John Boultbee, a former officer and director of Hollinger International; Royal Bank; Interfaith Coalition on Marriage and the Family; Ruland Realty; Canadian Red Cross Society; Clarica; and Sinclair Stevens.
Notable Mandates:
Air Canada v. WestJet; overturned the largest punitive damages award in Canadian history, $2.5 million, against an insurer; Genuity Capital, in litigation with CIBC for allegedly raiding the bank’s staff; 10 senators who completed a study of Canada’s health care system in the Supreme Court of Canada case, Chaoulli v. Quebec; intervenor at the Supreme Court of Canada in the Reference re Same-Sex Marriage case and M. V. H.; the Canadian Red Cross Society at the Commission of Inquiry into the safety of the blood system; trial and appeal counsel in Toronto-Dominion Bank v. Leigh Instruments Limited (Trustees of); board of directors in Field Resources Ltd. v. Bell Canada International Inc.; successful plaintiff shareholders in Kerr v. Danier Leather Inc.; plaintiff in Royal Bank of Canada v. Societe Generale (Canada) Inc.; plaintiff shareholders of YBM Magnex International, Inc. in the first settlement of a major Canadian securities class action in Royal Trust Corp. v. Fisherman; shareholder plaintiffs in Carom v. Bre-X Minerals Ltd.
Star Alumni:
The Hon. Mayer Lerner; The Hon. Mary Anne Sanderson; The Hon. John C. Kennedy; The Hon. B. Thomas Granger; The Hon. Margaret McSorley; and Steven Stefanko of the Ontario Municipal Board.
Pro Bono/Community Service:
Acts for intervenors such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
Affiliations:
None.
The Firm:
Arguably Ontario’s leading litigation firm, Lerners began in 1929 when Mayer Lerner hung his shingle in London, driven by the philosophy that no matter who his clients were, each and every one deserved the best representation possible. Lerner’s brother, Sam, joined the practise after fighting for Canada in the Second World War. The firm began to grow after one of Canada’s most prominent barristers, Earl Cherniak, joined the firm in 1960. In 1986, a three-lawyer Toronto office was established to handle trial and appellate work. Today, that office has 47 lawyers and practices as a litigation boutique, while the 65-lawyer London office, while it is also known for its litigation benchstrength, maintains other practice expertise, says Kirk Stevens, managing partner in Toronto. “We’re two different animals in two different cities although we get along,” says Stevens. “In one sense, we could be the largest litigation firm in the country although we do have an added dimension in London and so it makes sense to think of us in southwestern Ontario as a regional law firm.” The firm, which has grown by 12 lawyers since last year’s survey, has won some of the largest personal injury judgments in the country.
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