MacPherson Leslie & Tyerman stands out from the crowd. Not only in Saskatchewan, where the firm is based, but also nationally, where it enjoys a remarkably strong reputation. There are two principal reasons for this recognition. The first is the sophistication of the firm’s work, which comes as a surprise to many given the relatively small size of the Saskatchewan market. The second is the significant role which senior members of the firm have played in matters of national importance, the most obvious recent examples being the accomplishments of Harold H. MacKay, Q.C., and W. Thomas Molloy, O.C., Q.C.
The 64 lawyers who practice law at MacPherson Leslie & Tyerman (MLT) comprise the largest law firm in Saskatchewan. From its offices in Regina and Saskatoon, MLT represents corporate and government clients whose interests are regional, national, North American and international in scope. The significance of globalization as an economic force is often viewed as a contemporary or recent phenomenon. But for MLT, practicing in a jurisdiction where the economy is commodity and resource based, interaction with the global marketplace has long been part of simply going where your client takes you. And, notwithstanding the relatively small size of the Saskatchewan market, it is important to keep in mind the province’s natural resource wealth. Saskatchewan, for instance, is home to the world’s largest potash and uranium mining companies. There is an economic powerbase to sustain a top-tier corporate practice. The trick, as it were, is to dominate that market. And, in this regard it is important to note that MLT at 64 lawyers is approximately twice the size of its nearest competitors in Saskatchewan, a market feature not duplicated in any other significant Canadian market where the norm is three or four leading law firms more or less comparable in size.
And few would seriously argue with the fact that, by almost any account, MLT has the most prestigious corporate client base in Saskatchewan. The firm has participated in essentially every major industrial, resource or infrastructure development project undertaken in the province. And, in this process, MLT has developed a depth of experience that, within the Saskatchewan market, places it in a league of its own, and within national and international markets, enables it to go head-to-head with the top-tier firms.
Well known for its prominent Liberal and Conservative political connections, the firm nevertheless wins mandate after mandate from the current provincial NDP government. As somewhat ruefully noted by one provincial official regarding a major brief awarded to the firm, it would be simply too difficult and costly to bring another law firm up to speed. The firm’s depth of experience in major Saskatchewan projects has clearly enabled it to develop a corporate skill set which allows it to compete both nationally and internationally with top-tier firms. John Meldrum, Vice President, Corporate Counsel & Regulatory Affairs, of SaskTel deals day-in and day-out with lawyers around the world. He is unequivocal in his assessment of MLT as “providing advice and counsel on par with that provided by major law firms anywhere in Canada or internationally.” James Lisson, a senior corporate lawyer with the Toronto office of Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, is of like mind noting that “in reality their practice is at a level of sophistication where it could be carried on anywhere.” Ronald G. Roby of Atlanta’s Smith, Currie & Hancock agrees: “Their work rates as good as anything I could expect to see out of a top firm in Canada or the United States.”
MLT’s recent engagement list in both litigation and corporate matters, reveals a string of briefs that any top-tier law firm in Canada would be proud to have on its own roster. Illustrative matters include:
How does a firm achieve the big league success that the above briefs so obviously attest to? The answer, as one would expect, is to be found in the remarkable collection of individuals that founded MLT and the fashion in which the values of the founding partners continue to be represented by the firm’s senior partners, notably Messrs. MacKay and Molloy.
ORIGINS
From the very start, the senior partners of MLT were determined to play an important role not only in Saskatchewan, but nationally as well. The founding partner of MLT was Murdoch Alexander MacPherson. M.A. MacPherson established a one-man law office in Regina the day after the 1921 federal election (in which he had unsuccessfully stood for office as a candidate for the Conservative Party). He later entered provincial politics and served as the Attorney General for Saskatchewan from 1929 until 1934. From 1931 to 1934, he also served as Provincial Treasurer, during the bleakest days of the Great Depression. At the height of the Great Depression in 1934, M.A. MacPherson was summoned to Ottawa by Prime Minister R.B. Bennett to help draft the Farmers’ Creditors’ Arrangement Act, a statute designed to provide debt-ridden Canadian farmers with relief from their creditors and access to debt adjustment negotiation programs. M.A. MacPherson stood as a candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada at its national leadership convention in Winnipeg in 1942. He was defeated by John Bracken of Manitoba.
The firm has always enjoyed great depth in litigation matters. Everett Clayton Leslie, the firm’s second founding partner, was the first Saskatchewan lawyer to serve as President of the Canadian Bar Association in 1956 and 1957. A pre-eminent litigator, E.C. Leslie appeared many times before the Supreme Court of Canada and the Privy Council. He was the first Chancellor of the University of Regina and was awarded the Order of Canada in 1966. Donald K. MacPherson, son of M.A. MacPherson, joined the firm in 1951 and pursued a very active practice in labour and employment law matters. In 1989 he was appointed Chief Justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench for Saskatchewan, a post which he continues to hold today.
The firm’s tradition of working beyond the borders of Saskatchewan for coporate clients began with David McIntyre Tyerman, the third founding partner. A shrewd business lawyer with highly regarded skills as a draftsman and negotiator, Tyerman developed one of the pre-eminent practices in Western Canada focussed on oil and gas and natural resource law. Drawing on Tyerman’s work, the firm subsequently developed and maintained close relationships with corporate clients active in various resource industries in Saskatchewan, including oil and gas, forestry, uranium, potash and gold mining. As the needs of these clients required, MLT came to represent their interests not only regionally but nationally and internationally as well.
MESSRS. MACKAY AND MOLLOY
MLT’s determination to play an important national role finds its most recent expression in the accomplishments of two senior firm members, Harold H. MacKay, Q.C., and W. Thomas Molloy, O.C., Q.C.
Harold MacKay is the current Chairman of MLT. A soft-spoken corporate lawyer, who is noted for the gravitas he brings to matters, MacKay is widely regarded as one of the country’s leading commercial practitioners. Jonathan A. Levin, a top corporate practitioner with the Toronto office of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin, has a reputation for not mincing words. Levin’s assessment of MacKay is short and simple: “You would have to look long and hard before you will find a better lawyer than Harold MacKay.” While MacKay has long enjoyed a sterling reputation within Canada’s tightly knit corporate community, it was his chairmanship of the federal Task Force on the Future of the Canadian Financial Services sector that catapulted him into the national spotlight. MacKay replaced the original task force chair, Toronto lawyer James Baillie, Q.C., who had resigned over a purported conflict of interest. MacKay’s explanation as to why he accepted the demanding assignment mirrors perfectly the values that have molded MLT. According to MacKay, “One of the greatest criticisms in Western Canada at times ... is that central Canadian politicians will only ask central Canadians to take on major assignments. So faced with the opportunity of taking on a major national assignment, I wasn’t about to say no. It was time to step up to the plate or quit whining.”
Thomas Molloy, counsel to MLT, practices out of the firm’s Saskatoon office. From 1982 to 1995, Molloy acted as Chief Negotiator for the Government of Canada in the negotiations leading to the creation of the Territory of Nunavut. All parties involved in those negotiations speak warmly and generously of his contribution. For many of the stakeholders, Molloy was the “glue” that kept the difficult talks on the rails. From 1996 to date, Molloy has served as Chief Negotiator for the Government of Canada regarding First Nations land claims in the Province of British Columbia. In that capacity, he has again played a key role in the negotiation and development of the ground-breaking 1998 Nisga’a Treaty between the Nisga’a First Nation and the Governments of Canada and British Columbia. And again, all stakeholders involved in the talks speak warmly and generously of the fashion in which he facilitated the negotiations.
The federal Task Force on the Future of the Canadian Financial Services sector has been described as being “of profound importance to Canadians”. The Nisga’a Treaty and the creation of the Nunavut Territory have been described as “two of the most fundamental political innovations in recent Canadian history.” In all three of these national events, two senior lawyers from MLT played central roles. As noted at the outset of this profile... MacPherson Leslie & Tyerman stands out from the crowd.
John Alexander Black is the editor of Lexpert.
The 64 lawyers who practice law at MacPherson Leslie & Tyerman (MLT) comprise the largest law firm in Saskatchewan. From its offices in Regina and Saskatoon, MLT represents corporate and government clients whose interests are regional, national, North American and international in scope. The significance of globalization as an economic force is often viewed as a contemporary or recent phenomenon. But for MLT, practicing in a jurisdiction where the economy is commodity and resource based, interaction with the global marketplace has long been part of simply going where your client takes you. And, notwithstanding the relatively small size of the Saskatchewan market, it is important to keep in mind the province’s natural resource wealth. Saskatchewan, for instance, is home to the world’s largest potash and uranium mining companies. There is an economic powerbase to sustain a top-tier corporate practice. The trick, as it were, is to dominate that market. And, in this regard it is important to note that MLT at 64 lawyers is approximately twice the size of its nearest competitors in Saskatchewan, a market feature not duplicated in any other significant Canadian market where the norm is three or four leading law firms more or less comparable in size.
And few would seriously argue with the fact that, by almost any account, MLT has the most prestigious corporate client base in Saskatchewan. The firm has participated in essentially every major industrial, resource or infrastructure development project undertaken in the province. And, in this process, MLT has developed a depth of experience that, within the Saskatchewan market, places it in a league of its own, and within national and international markets, enables it to go head-to-head with the top-tier firms.
Well known for its prominent Liberal and Conservative political connections, the firm nevertheless wins mandate after mandate from the current provincial NDP government. As somewhat ruefully noted by one provincial official regarding a major brief awarded to the firm, it would be simply too difficult and costly to bring another law firm up to speed. The firm’s depth of experience in major Saskatchewan projects has clearly enabled it to develop a corporate skill set which allows it to compete both nationally and internationally with top-tier firms. John Meldrum, Vice President, Corporate Counsel & Regulatory Affairs, of SaskTel deals day-in and day-out with lawyers around the world. He is unequivocal in his assessment of MLT as “providing advice and counsel on par with that provided by major law firms anywhere in Canada or internationally.” James Lisson, a senior corporate lawyer with the Toronto office of Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, is of like mind noting that “in reality their practice is at a level of sophistication where it could be carried on anywhere.” Ronald G. Roby of Atlanta’s Smith, Currie & Hancock agrees: “Their work rates as good as anything I could expect to see out of a top firm in Canada or the United States.”
MLT’s recent engagement list in both litigation and corporate matters, reveals a string of briefs that any top-tier law firm in Canada would be proud to have on its own roster. Illustrative matters include:
- • retained by the Government of Saskatchewan to advise with respect to the development and preparation of Saskatchewan’s arguments in the Quebec Secession Reference before the Supreme Court;
• representing Canada Safeway in Canada Safeway v. Human Rights Commission and subsequent proceedings, a precedent setting series of cases concerning the nature of pay equity obligations in Saskatchewan;
• representation of the Government of Canada in various resource law and related financing aspects of the Hibernia Oil Project off the coast of Newfoundland;
• representation of a major Saskatchewan-based manufacturing client in the development and commissioning of steel mills in Des Moines, Iowa and Mobile, Alabama;
• representing a large group of investors in three immigrant investment funds winning back control of investments, including a major hotel complex, from the fund managers;
• representation of Cameco Corporation in its development of the $450,000,000 (U.S.) Kumtor Gold Project in Kyrgyzstan, C.I.S., including negotiation of related engineering and construction management contracts;
• acting as project counsel for the co-owners of the $350,000,000 Cigar Lake uranium mining and milling joint venture, whose group consists of Canadian, French and Japanese private sector and state-owned participants;
• negotiation of project, operating agreements and share holder agreements in the $750,000,000 NewGrade Energy Inc. heavy oil upgrader project, co-sponsored by the Province of Saskatchewan, the Government of Canada and Federated Co-Operatives Ltd. And the negotiation of the subsequent agreements required for the restructuring of that project;
• negotiation of project and operating agreements for the $420,000,000 Saskferco nitrogen fertilizer plan at Belle Plaine, Saskatchewan;.
• representation of Wascana Energy Inc. in its $285,000,000 acquisition of ICG Resources Limited and its $325,000,000 purchase of the natural gas reserves of Saskatchewan Power Corporation;
• representation of the Province of Saskatchewan in its privatization of Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan including advising on related federal and provincial asset divestiture and transfer legislation and associated contractual arrangements;
• representation of issuers and underwriters in various innovative privatization securities offerings in Canada, the U.S., and Europe, including exchangeable bond transactions of SaskPower, Cameco and Potash Corporation;
• representation of Cameco Corporation in the 1996 $700,000,000 sale by the Province of Saskatchewan, on an installment-receipt basis, of a majority of its remaining interest in Cameco Corporation, including under writings in Canada and the United States.
How does a firm achieve the big league success that the above briefs so obviously attest to? The answer, as one would expect, is to be found in the remarkable collection of individuals that founded MLT and the fashion in which the values of the founding partners continue to be represented by the firm’s senior partners, notably Messrs. MacKay and Molloy.
ORIGINS
From the very start, the senior partners of MLT were determined to play an important role not only in Saskatchewan, but nationally as well. The founding partner of MLT was Murdoch Alexander MacPherson. M.A. MacPherson established a one-man law office in Regina the day after the 1921 federal election (in which he had unsuccessfully stood for office as a candidate for the Conservative Party). He later entered provincial politics and served as the Attorney General for Saskatchewan from 1929 until 1934. From 1931 to 1934, he also served as Provincial Treasurer, during the bleakest days of the Great Depression. At the height of the Great Depression in 1934, M.A. MacPherson was summoned to Ottawa by Prime Minister R.B. Bennett to help draft the Farmers’ Creditors’ Arrangement Act, a statute designed to provide debt-ridden Canadian farmers with relief from their creditors and access to debt adjustment negotiation programs. M.A. MacPherson stood as a candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada at its national leadership convention in Winnipeg in 1942. He was defeated by John Bracken of Manitoba.
The firm has always enjoyed great depth in litigation matters. Everett Clayton Leslie, the firm’s second founding partner, was the first Saskatchewan lawyer to serve as President of the Canadian Bar Association in 1956 and 1957. A pre-eminent litigator, E.C. Leslie appeared many times before the Supreme Court of Canada and the Privy Council. He was the first Chancellor of the University of Regina and was awarded the Order of Canada in 1966. Donald K. MacPherson, son of M.A. MacPherson, joined the firm in 1951 and pursued a very active practice in labour and employment law matters. In 1989 he was appointed Chief Justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench for Saskatchewan, a post which he continues to hold today.
The firm’s tradition of working beyond the borders of Saskatchewan for coporate clients began with David McIntyre Tyerman, the third founding partner. A shrewd business lawyer with highly regarded skills as a draftsman and negotiator, Tyerman developed one of the pre-eminent practices in Western Canada focussed on oil and gas and natural resource law. Drawing on Tyerman’s work, the firm subsequently developed and maintained close relationships with corporate clients active in various resource industries in Saskatchewan, including oil and gas, forestry, uranium, potash and gold mining. As the needs of these clients required, MLT came to represent their interests not only regionally but nationally and internationally as well.
MESSRS. MACKAY AND MOLLOY
MLT’s determination to play an important national role finds its most recent expression in the accomplishments of two senior firm members, Harold H. MacKay, Q.C., and W. Thomas Molloy, O.C., Q.C.
Harold MacKay is the current Chairman of MLT. A soft-spoken corporate lawyer, who is noted for the gravitas he brings to matters, MacKay is widely regarded as one of the country’s leading commercial practitioners. Jonathan A. Levin, a top corporate practitioner with the Toronto office of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin, has a reputation for not mincing words. Levin’s assessment of MacKay is short and simple: “You would have to look long and hard before you will find a better lawyer than Harold MacKay.” While MacKay has long enjoyed a sterling reputation within Canada’s tightly knit corporate community, it was his chairmanship of the federal Task Force on the Future of the Canadian Financial Services sector that catapulted him into the national spotlight. MacKay replaced the original task force chair, Toronto lawyer James Baillie, Q.C., who had resigned over a purported conflict of interest. MacKay’s explanation as to why he accepted the demanding assignment mirrors perfectly the values that have molded MLT. According to MacKay, “One of the greatest criticisms in Western Canada at times ... is that central Canadian politicians will only ask central Canadians to take on major assignments. So faced with the opportunity of taking on a major national assignment, I wasn’t about to say no. It was time to step up to the plate or quit whining.”
Thomas Molloy, counsel to MLT, practices out of the firm’s Saskatoon office. From 1982 to 1995, Molloy acted as Chief Negotiator for the Government of Canada in the negotiations leading to the creation of the Territory of Nunavut. All parties involved in those negotiations speak warmly and generously of his contribution. For many of the stakeholders, Molloy was the “glue” that kept the difficult talks on the rails. From 1996 to date, Molloy has served as Chief Negotiator for the Government of Canada regarding First Nations land claims in the Province of British Columbia. In that capacity, he has again played a key role in the negotiation and development of the ground-breaking 1998 Nisga’a Treaty between the Nisga’a First Nation and the Governments of Canada and British Columbia. And again, all stakeholders involved in the talks speak warmly and generously of the fashion in which he facilitated the negotiations.
The federal Task Force on the Future of the Canadian Financial Services sector has been described as being “of profound importance to Canadians”. The Nisga’a Treaty and the creation of the Nunavut Territory have been described as “two of the most fundamental political innovations in recent Canadian history.” In all three of these national events, two senior lawyers from MLT played central roles. As noted at the outset of this profile... MacPherson Leslie & Tyerman stands out from the crowd.
John Alexander Black is the editor of Lexpert.
Lawyer(s)
Harold H. MacKay
W. Thomas Molloy
John C. Meldrum
James H. Lisson
Ronald G. Robey
Leighton Ellis
Firm(s)
MLT Aikins LLP
Liberal Party of Canada
Conservative Party of Canada
New Democratic Party of Canada
Saskatchewan Telecommunications (SASKTEL)
Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP
Smith, Currie & Hancock LLP
Supreme Court of Canada
Government of Canada
Hibernia Management & Development Company Ltd.
Cameco Corporation
Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP