To be successful in your next appeal, you need experienced advocates who know their way around Canada’s appellate courts, and who are known by them. This is what we offer at Blakes.
With a proven track record in the Supreme Court of Canada and in the federal and provincial appeal courts, our lawyers have the skills and experience to achieve your desired outcome. Many of Canada’s largest businesses rely on Blakes to defend their reputations and revenues in court, and we regularly lead precedent-setting appeals that shape our country.
With one of the largest Litigation & Dispute Resolution practices in Canada and top-tier litigators in Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver and Montréal, we offer an extraordinary depth of local knowledge and disputes expertise.
Many of our lawyers have served as law clerks to the judges of the Supreme Court of Canada and various appellate courts, providing our clients with valuable insight. Our lawyers include two past presidents of The Advocates’ Society, a former chair of the Canadian Bar Association’s Supreme Court of Canada Liaison Committee, and faculty on the Supreme Court Advocacy Institute.
Every year we also organize and host the Wilson Moot, a national constitutional appeal moot that attracts the best law students from across the country and to which Supreme Court and other appellate judges volunteer their time to teach students about appellate advocacy.
We focus all this experience on you and your appeal. We build an effective strategy that takes into account your organization, industry, key objectives and risk tolerance. Appeals are a chess game, but we remember that the game belongs to you and we help you win it.
-
Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd. and its Chief Investigative Reporter, Kevin Donovan, in successfully representing them in a new precedent-setting case on openness and privacy before the Supreme Court of Canada, relating to unsealing the Barry and Honey Sherman estate files for public view.
-
The senior secured creditor, ATB Financial, at all levels of court in the precedent-setting receivership proceeding of a junior oil and gas producer, Redwater Energy Corporation, including at the Alberta Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada.
-
A consortium of energy producers before the Supreme Court of Canada and in the successful reference to the B.C. Court of Appeal over the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project.
- Labatt Brewing Company Limited against claims asserted for approximately C$1.4-billion in anti-trust class action proceedings brought against the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, Brewers Retail Inc., Labatt and two other major brewers, in the Ontario Court of Appeal.
-
The appointing creditors to ATB Financial at all levels of the precedent-setting receivership of a junior oil and gas producer, Redwater Energy Corporation, including at the Supreme Court of Canada.
-
ADAG Corporation Canada Ltd. successfully before the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal and then Supreme Court of Canada to set aside a trial verdict requiring it to transfer ownership of the SaskOil Tower in Regina to long-term tenant SaskEnergy.
-
Hydro-Québec at the Supreme Court of Canada regarding the validity of its easements on private lands in Quebec to support its power transmission network, the largest in North America.
-
Microsoft before the Supreme Court of Canada and B.C. Court of Appeal on a class action that alleged breaches of the Competition Act and other economic claims relating to the sale of software products throughout Canada.
-
Celestica Inc. and its former officers in their successful appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada to uphold the limitation period for bringing a statutory secondary market securities class action.
-
Coast Capital Savings Credit Union defending challenges before the Supreme Court of British Columbia and Court of Appeal to complete their continuance from provincial to federal regulation.
-
Toronto Commercial Arbitration Society and Chartered Institute of Arbitrators Canada Inc., as intervenors, before the Supreme Court of Canada in the “Uber” appeal involving the intersection of class actions, arbitrations and employment law in the sharing economy.
-
Marine Atlantic Inc. in connection with a judicial review application and appeal in the Federal Court of Appeal by a competitor who challenged Marine Atlantic’s commercial freight rates.
-
Grand River Enterprises and individual principals before the Ontario Court of Appeal against the Attorney General of Canada, upholding a statement of claim based on multiple causes of action including alleged breaches by government.
-
The Legislative Assembly of Ontario on matters relating to parliamentary privilege, including intervening in the Supreme Court of Canada in Chagnon v. Syndicat de la fonction publique et parapublique du Québec and Canada (House of Commons) v. Vaid.
-
The Canadian American Bar Association before the Supreme Court of Canada in a successful constitutional challenge to the federal government's denial of voting rights to certain expat Canadian citizens.
-
Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses as an intervener before the Supreme Court of Canada relating to the duty of good faith performance of contracts.
-
Royal Bank of Canada in the leading Supreme Court of Canada appeal interpreting Canada’s private-sector privacy legislation.
Blakes Litigation is ranked No. 1 nationally by Chambers Canada: Canada’s Leading Lawyers for Business 2022 and Thomson Reuters Canada Law Firm Brand Index 2022.
Our lawyers are repeatedly ranked as leading litigators including by:
-
Chambers Global: The World’s Leading Lawyers for Business
-
Chambers Canada: Canada’s Leading Lawyers for Business
- Benchmark Canada: The Definitive Guide to Canada’s Leading Litigation Firms and Attorneys
-
The Legal 500 Canada
-
Legal Media Group’s Guide to the World’s Leading Lawyers
-
The Best Lawyers in Canada
-
The Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory
-
The Lexpert Guide to the Leading US/Canada Cross-Border Litigation Lawyers in Canada
-
The Lexpert/American Lawyer Guide to the Leading 500 Lawyers in Canada
-
Who’s Who Legal
