1856 |
Blakes was launched after Edward Blake was called to the bar and entered into partnership with Stephen M. Jarvis in Toronto. Soon it was Blake & Blake when brother Samuel Hume Blake joined. |
1867 |
Blakes incorporates what would become Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, one of the Firm’s most valued and oldest clients. |
1878 |
Blakes is the first business in Canada to install a telephone system that provided a direct link to the offices of the Ontario Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court at Osgoode Hall. |
1882 |
Zebulon Aiton Lash joined Blakes and built a corporate law practice that earned him a reputation as “the foremost Canadian corporation lawyer” of his time and as one of “The Ten Greatest Canadian Lawyers Ever,” according to Canadian Lawyer magazine. |
1885 |
With 15 lawyers, Blakes was already among the largest and leading corporate law firms in the young Canadian Confederation. |
1894 |
Blakes helped start the legal career of Clara Brett Martin, the first woman lawyer in Ontario and the British Empire. After articling at Blakes, she was called to the bar in 1897. |
1930 |
Blakes moves to Toronto’s 25 King Street West, a 34-storey, 145-metre structure that was the tallest building in the British Commonwealth for more than 30 years. |
1953 |
With 24 lawyers and an international reputation as one of Canada’s leading cross-border advisers to business, the Firm’s name was changed to Blake, Cassels & Graydon. |
1970 |
In the decade when Canada formally joined the G7 of leading industrial nations and hosted the Montréal Summer Olympics, Blakes had grown to 66 lawyers. |
1985 |
Blakes became one of Canada’s first “national law firms” after opening an office in Calgary, where the Firm continues to be a leading adviser to the energy sector. |
1986 |
Blakes was among the first Canadian law firms to expand internationally with an office in London, England, which extended the Firm’s reach throughout Eastern and Western Europe. |
1989 |
Blakes continued to expand west with an office in Vancouver that has since grown to be a leading adviser to natural resources companies, financial institutions, technology businesses and governments. |
1990 |
Blakes opens its Ottawa office, an invaluable link for clients interfacing with lawmakers, federal agencies and the region’s thriving technology sector. |
1998 |
The Blakes Beijing office opened to serve clients involved in the ever-increasing flow of East-West commercial trade. Today, Blakes is the only major Canadian law firm with an office in China. |
2001 |
Blakes launched its office in Montréal, a leading Canadian centre for banking, financial services, securities, mergers and acquisitions, energy and information technology businesses. |
2004 |
Blakes expanded south of the border to better serve cross-border clients with the establishment of offices in New York and Chicago. The Chicago office is the first office to be opened in that city by a Canadian law firm. |
2006 |
The B.C. Court of Appeal decision, Reliant Capital v. Silverdale Development quotes Edward Blake in his capacity as a member of Parliament speaking on the "evils of the extraction of penalties for arrears in interest payments." The quote is from a parliamentary debate in 1880. |
