This article is a continuation of "IP boutiques holding their own" from the January 2012 issue of Canadian Lawyer magazine. Click here to read Part One.
The following is an alphabetical list of Canadian Lawyer's top 10 labour and employment boutique firms.
Cavalluzzo Hayes Shilton McIntyre & Cornish LLP
(Toronto)
www.cavalluzzo.com
The firm traces its roots back to 1983, when Paul Cavalluzzo, Jim Hayes, and Elizabeth Shilton teamed up to form a firm committed to social justice and equality in labour law. Now they’re up to 34 lawyers in their Toronto base. “Cavalluzzo is on top. There’s nothing they aren’t involved in. They get a lot of high-profile work,” says one union lawyer, and she’s not wrong. The firm represented Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion during the judicial inquiry there, and has taken centre stage in the Canadian Union of Postal Workers’ Charter challenge against back-to-work legislation that considers whether the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects the right to strike. Michael J. Fraser and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada were also their clients in the landmark Supreme Court case Ontario (Attorney General) v. Fraser.
Emond Harnden LLP
(Ottawa)
www.ehlaw.ca
(Toronto, London, Ont.)
www.filion.on.ca
Hicks Morley Hamilton Stewart Storie LLP
(Toronto, Ottawa, London, Kingston, Waterloo, Ont.)
www.hicksmorley.com
(Edmonton)
www.neumanthompson.com
Formed in 1977 by Ron Neuman and Brian Thompson, this management-side firm now has eight lawyers, all working out of its Edmonton office. But its reach extends much further. The firm masterminded the labour platform at Saskatchewan-based international grain company Viterra Inc., a template now exported to the company’s Asian, European, and Australian operations. Another key client, B.C.-based West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd., has also called on the firm to overhaul its collective bargaining approach in recent years. The Government of Alberta, Loblaw Companies Ltd., and Suncor Energy Inc. are among the other illustrious names in the firm’s Rolodex of clients. “I’ve heard very good things about them across the country, not just in Alberta,” says one western Canadian partner at a national law firm.
Pink Larkin
(Halifax, Fredericton)
www.labour-law.com
(Montreal)
www.rivestschmidt.on.ca
(Vancouver)
www.ropergreyell.com
(Toronto, Ottawa)
www.sgmlaw.ca
Jeffrey Sack, Howard Goldblatt, and Michael Mitchell came together in the mid-1970s to found a law firm that promised to protect the rights of working people. Their mandate has broadened to include criminal and constitutional work, but the labour focus remains. The 49-lawyer firm represented the Canadian Labour Congress in three of the biggest labour-relations cases in the last decade: 2001’s Dunmore v. Ontario (Attorney General), B.C. Health Services from 2007, and Ontario (Attorney General) v. Fraser in 2011. The firm is also spearheading overtime class actions against Canadian banks, and is counsel for the Ontario Conference of Judges, Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, and numerous university faculty associations. “We come across them quite often because of the nature of our work,” says one union in-house counsel. “They are really excellent.”
Sherrard Kuzz LLP
(Toronto)
www.sherrardkuzz.com
Honourable mentions:
Ball Professional Corp., Toronto
Grossman Grossman & Gale LLP, Toronto
Loranger Marcoux LLP, Montreal
Rubin Thomlinson LLP, Toronto
Shields O'Donnell MacKillop LLP, Toronto
Click here for the top 10 intellectual property boutique firms.