Bennett Jones

Opening its first office in Calgary in 1922 and still arguably Alberta's dominant brand, Bennett Jones has made sizeable strides in its national ambitions. Its Toronto office, opened less than 20 years ago, quickly rose to a level of prominence to rival any of its Bay Street contemporaries, and most recently, the firm has even made notable inroads into British Columbia, building out a Vancouver office with aboriginal law and energy regulatory partner David Bursey and, more recently, luring construction specialist Stuart Hankinson from his former shop of Shapiro Hankinson. "Bennett Jones has been very aggressive in its hiring in Vancouver," observes a peer. "They are definitely making their presence here felt." In summation of the firm's overall prowess, one client testifies, "My family has been involved in what has turned out to be one of the longest, most widely reported civil actions in Canadian history. The facts of the case were complex and spanned well over a half a century, and the documentary production was extensive. This case came to these lawyers very disorganized; we were the quintessential underdogs. Bennett Jones's efforts were Herculean and their skills monumental, which all speaks to the results."

Alberta

In the Calgary office, a near constant mention is Blair Yorke-Slader, who has a broad trial and appellate business litigation practice, including contract, shareholder, partnership, securities, and trust disputes. He represents an Israeli client, who is involved in desalination technology and water treatment for oilsands recovery, and embroiled in a dispute with a contractor regarding said contractor's allegedly faulty design. The poor workmanship resulted in many revisions being required, revisions that the contractor claims are change orders and extras, resulting in claims in excess of $5 million. Arbitration proceedings have been commenced. "Blair is actually one of the more senior players in that office, but you'd never guess it," marvels a peer. "He is going on all cylinders, sprightly and engaged. He is a very serious guy, constantly working." Fraud specialist Munaf Mohamed has been representing the Bank of Montréal in a mortgage fraud matter worth $30 million. The matter proceeded to trial for three months in 2016. He also is defending TCT in relation to an international arbitration involved a failed turbine engine at a power plant in Chile. The claimant is pursuing TCT for $12 million USD, alleging negligence and breach of contract. Mohamed also acts for CP Rail in a claim arising from the failure of an embankment built as part of the construction of a rail spur in southern Saskatchewan. Redesign and reconstruction of the embankment cost approximately $42 million dollars, and CP is in the process of issuing claims against the engineers responsible for the design of the embankment and the construction contractor, amongst others, to recover those losses. Peers offer unanimous support for Mohamed's approach, with one quipping, "Munaf is a blunt instrument – he's an animal! He's someone who has a reputation that tells other lawyers, 'If you don't play nice, I'm going to get you Munaf to deal with!' He's a fighter, and you need a fighter sometimes."

Ontario

The firm's Toronto bench is stocked with well established power players and as of late has been attracting some of Toronto's brightest younger talents as well. Perhaps the most closely watched of this next-generation migration is the arrival of Cheryl Woodin, who the firm recruited from Borden Ladner Gervais. A class actions specialist with a focus on mass tort, negligence, contract, products, consumer protection and statutory liability, Woodin has quickly ascended to the role of co-head of the firm's class actions group. Woodin has been most visible in her leading role in the Volkswagen in consumer class actions and related securities class actions arising out of alleged emissions misrepresentation. "That's a real scoop," voices a peer. "Cheryl brought over VW in Ontario! She also brought over GM as a client." In this capacity, Woodin complements the class actions component long held by Michael Eizenga, who acts for Bureau Veritas, a French auditing and inspection company responsible for two limited "social audits" of one factory in Rana Plaza in Bangladesh for a Canadian retailer that sourced garments to the factory. The client was named as a defendant in a proposed Ontario class action in which the plaintiffs alleged failure to identify the structural integrity issues leading to the 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza building. Eizenga also represents The Beer Store in a $1.4 billion class action against it, alleging anti-competitive behavior and a conspiracy with the LCBO and The Beer Store's foreign-owned brewers to allocate markets and fix beer prices throughout the province. Richard Swan is a universally celebrated broad-based commercial litigator. One client offers a glowing accolade on his behalf: "I hang around with a lot of smart people and Richard is by far the smartest. For example, when we were in the Court of Appeal, one of the Judges on the panel asked him a question. Without skipping a beat, Richard referred His Honour to tab 99, of our Second Book of Authorities. Even those counsel standing opposed had a wide-eyed, open-mouthed look of admiration on their faces. I have no doubt that, if Richard chooses, he will sit on the Highest Court in the land someday." Robert Staley continues to represent the Sino-Forest Corporation Litigation Trust in its pursuit of the litigation claims of the now defunct Sino-Forest Corporation. In July 2017, Staley and his team completed a three-month trial against the former co-founder and CEO of Sino-Forest. Staley also appeared at the Supreme Court of Canada in November 2017 for a two-day hearing concerning the quest of Trinity Western University to ensure that its students are allowed to practice law following graduation. The law societies of both British Columbia and Ontario refused to accredit the client's law school because of the allegedly discriminatory nature of its religious code of conduct permitting "sexual intimacy" only within the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman.