Lexpert presents Toronto’s top mining lawyers based on the results of our extensive yearly peer review. The full list of Ontario’s most recommended mining lawyers and law firms can be viewed on our practice area rankings.
In our survey, mining law encompasses all legal issues relating to the mineral exploration, development, production and reclamation cycle from raw grass roots exploration through to the fabrication and sale of finished metal products and mine closure and reclamation.
Most frequently recommended mining lawyers
Chad Accursi
Law firm: Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP
Year called to the Bar: 2001
Chad Accursi is a partner at Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP. He specializes in securities law, with a focus on corporate finance matters. Accursi represents public companies and independent and bank-owned investment dealers on public and private security offerings, mergers and acquisitions and general securities compliance matters. He has represented investment dealers and companies on initial public offerings and stock exchange listings. Accursi has advised clients in connection with cross-border inter-listed financings and business combinations. He also has experience advising boards of directors on corporate governance, disclosure matters and securities law compliance, including mineral project disclosure.
Read more about Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP on stakeholder engagement
Mark T. Bennett
Law firm: Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP
Year called to the Bar: 1995
Mark T. Bennett is a managing partner at Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP. He devotes his practice to corporate and securities law, primarily in the natural resources sector, with an emphasis on mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance. Bennett is recognized as one of Canada’s best mining lawyers. He acts for Canadian and international mining companies involved in negotiated business combinations, contested takeover bids, domestic and cross-border public equity and debt offerings, private placements and stock exchange listings. Bennett advises exploration, development and producing natural resource companies on property acquisitions, joint ventures and option agreements. He also represents investment dealers retained as underwriters or financial advisors and has acted on deals involving resource properties in the Americas, Africa, Europe and Australia. Bennett also advises boards of directors and special committees on related-party transactions, corporate governance and securities law compliance, including mineral project disclosure.
Michael J. Bourassa
Law firm: Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP
Year called to the Bar: 1986
Michael J. Bourassa is a partner at Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP. He devotes his practice to the mining industry and is considered one of Canada’s top mining lawyers. Bourassa is a member of the firm’s global mining group and has acted as the team’s coordinator from 2004 to 2012. He boasts extensive experience in Canadian and international mining projects. Bourassa is also an expert in international mining due diligence issues concerning title, technical matters and environmental risks. He provides advice on public financings, commercial mining agreements, and corporate social responsibility and litigation support. Bourassa serves as co-chair of the International Bar Association’s mining executive committee and is a past director of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation and the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada. He frequently writes on important corporate social responsibility trends in the mining industry and speaks on a wide range of mining-related topics.
Jay Goldman
Law firm: Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP
Year called to the Bar: 1990
Jay Goldman is a partner at Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP. He focuses on securities and corporate finance law. His experience includes structuring and negotiating mergers and acquisitions and securities, joint ventures, commercial and financing-related transactions and providing guidance on corporate governance matters. Goldman regularly acts for issuers, boards, investment dealers and investment advisors in a broad range of areas. He is a member of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation and the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada.
Erik Goldsilver
Law firm: Borden Ladner Gervais LLP (BLG)
Year called to the Bar: 1999
Erik Goldsilver is a partner at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP. He practises corporate and securities law, with an emphasis on mining and natural resources. Considered as one of Canada’s best mining lawyers, Goldsilver acts for Canadian and international mining companies on acquisitions and dispositions of mines, mining projects and mining companies, project development and mine operations in Canada and throughout the world. He also advises on the structuring and negotiation of option and joint venture agreements, shareholder agreements, royalty arrangements, streaming transactions and off-take agreements. Goldsilver has extensive experience with all legal aspects of the development, construction and operation of mining projects, including advising on Indigenous issues and claims, environmental and regulatory compliance matters, permitting issues and mine closure, decommissioning and reclamation issues. He also advises mining clients on energy-related issues such as power procurement, interconnection and transmission services.
Brian Graves
Law firm: Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP
Year called to the Bar: 1997 (ON); 1998 (New York)
Brian Graves serves as a partner at Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP. He advises clients on mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, commercial and securities law matters. Graves works in the mining and natural resource industries, with a focus on cross-border transactions, and is considered an authority on metal streaming transactions. He often acts as lead counsel on M&A deals for Canadian and foreign clients, advising on hostile and friendly takeover bids, reverse takeovers, plans of arrangement, asset and share purchases and related party transactions. In the area of corporate finance, he is involved in public and private securities offerings, stock exchange listings and securities regulatory matters. Graves is recognized as among the top mining lawyers in Canada. In the mining and natural resources space, he advises on commercial arrangements such as joint ventures, earn-ins, operating agreements, off-take arrangements, royalties and lending transactions. Graves has published articles on various topics, including metal streaming, public company redomicilings, takeover bids and mining disclosure. He has also lectured on several legal areas, including cross-border M&A, shareholder agreements, joint ventures, dealing with multiple-listed companies and directors’ duties.
Sander Grieve
Law firm: Bennett Jones LLP
Year called to the Bar: 1998
Sander Grieve is a partner and the head of Bennett Jones LLP’s mining group. He is recognized as one of Canada’s best mining lawyers. Grieve devotes his practice to mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance in the global mining industry. He acts for issuers, investors and underwriters in international securities issues and in a range of M&A mandates. Grieve has led several of the largest Canadian mining M&A transactions, including the $3.9-billion alternative transaction response of Osisko Mining Inc., the Goldcorp hostile offer, the $3.8-billion sale of Meridian Gold Inc., the sale of Andean Resources Limited for $3.6 billion and the $1.125-billion portfolio acquisition by Osisko Gold Resources Ltd from Orion Mine Finance Group.
Read more about Bennett Jones LLP on Indigenous consultation standards
Jay C. Kellerman
Law firm: Stikeman Elliott LLP
Year called to the Bar: 1988
Jay C. Kellerman is a partner head of the mining group at Stikeman Elliott LLP. He is also a member of the firm’s mergers and acquisitions and capital markets groups. He served as the managing partner of the firm’s Toronto office from 2012 to 2018. Kellerman’s clients include public companies, investment banks, investors and boards of directors. Kellerman frequently speaks at seminars on corporate and securities law topics. He is a member of Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada. Kellerman also spent one year seconded to the general counsel’s office of the Ontario Securities Commission.
Read more about Stikeman Elliott LLP on Canada’s Stake in leading the energy transition
John W. Sabine
Law firm: John Sabine Professional Corporation
Year called to the Bar: 1972
John W. Sabine is barrister and solicitor at John Sabine Professional Corporation. He boasts more than 40 years of legal expertise in mining, corporate reorganizations, financings and mergers and acquisitions. A principal part of Sabine’s practice is in mining finance, joint ventures and mining M&A. He is an advisor on mining transactions worldwide and serves as chair of Anvil Mining Ltd, which operates mines in Africa. Sabine also serves as chair of North American Nickle Inc. and Meridian Mining S.E. and is on the boards of Seabridge Gold Inc., Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd. and Rincon Ltd.
Paul M. Stein
Law firm: Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP
Year called to the Bar: 1983
Paul M. Stein is a partner at Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP. He acts as lead counsel for public clients in mergers and acquisitions, takeover bids, proxy fights, going-private transactions, spin-off transactions and corporate finance and corporate governance matters. Stein frequently acts as counsel for special committees of boards of directors. His practice includes assisting mining clients in the negotiation of joint ventures, farm-in agreements, and the financing of exploration and development projects, both domestically and internationally. Stein is recognized as one of Canada’s top mining lawyers. He is a member of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation.
John S.M. Turner
Law firm: Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP
Year called to the Bar: 1989
John S.M. Turner is a partner and the leader of the Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP’s global mining group. He devotes his practice to the resource sector, where he has been involved in many leading corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions deals. Turner represents issuers and underwriters in capital markets and M&A transactions involving resource companies active throughout the globe. He also regularly advises corporate boards, senior management and special committees on a breadth of transactional and governance matters. Turner has also been involved in many of the leading M&A and corporate finance transactions in the resources sector in recent years, including First Quantum’s successful $5.1-billion unsolicited acquisition of Inmet, Coeur Mining’s superior proposal to acquire Orko Silver, Oryx Petroleum's $250-million IPO, AuRico Gold’s $1.5-billion acquisition of Northgate, Addax Petroleum’s $9-billion sale to Sinopec and IAMGOLD's $600-million acquisition of Trelawney.