Colleague Approved

In this edition, we present Canada’s highest-ranked litigation lawyers in selected business-facing practice areas. These lawyers were selected on the basis of peer surveys, which this year had a response rate by survey-takers of 80 per cent.

What does it take for litigation lawyers to hold each other in the esteem required to be ranked herein? It takes a successful track record. However, with "litigation" continuing to be held in arbitration rooms, or even resolved by settlement, the track record of the litigation lawyer is not always evident to other potential clients.

Certainly there are referrals among business clients. Then, affirming those referrals or not, are the votes of litigators for each other.

Litigators observe each others’ professionalism. In a legal economy that is value-focused, professionalism includes resolving issues with efficiency and cost-awareness. Delay, posturing, adding extra lawyers to the litigation team are moves for which litigation lawyers will be swiftly held to account in our voting system.

You will notice that several lawyers listed herein come from one and the same firms. This is true of those at "boutiques" comprising only litigation lawyers and at national, full-service firms where corporate and litigation lawyers are partners. In the Lexpert voting system, lawyers can indeed vote for their partners (and even vote once for themselves). We discount that vote by 50 per cent. It seems simply too small a legal economy to preclude that "internal" vote.

As a by-product of tracking that internal vote separately, Lexpert has learned, over the years, that a number of lawyers are not voted in by their own colleagues. In a sense, this is reassuring for us; after all, we do not want a system sidelined by bloc voting. Yet, it also carries a lesson for litigation lawyers: Beset though you may be with internal competition, your professionalism or lack thereof is noticeable even along your own corridors. Do not presume otherwise.

Jean Cumming
Editor-in-Chief