With more than 30 years of experience defending class action lawsuits and serious product liability claims, Gord leads the Blakes Class Actions team, recognized as one of the top class actions practices in Canada by Chambers and Partners, which produces international rankings for the legal industry.
Gord’s current cases include acting as lead lawyer in Ontario and other provinces and managing litigation nationally for some of the world's largest manufacturers of prescription and over-the-counter medicines, medical devices, consumer goods and transportation/construction vehicles. He has argued cases in trial and appellate level courts in Ontario and other provinces and has led the defence of class action common-issues trials in Ontario. He employs a collaborative approach when working with in-house and external lawyers from the U.S. and other countries.
Gord is certified by the Law Society of Ontario as a specialist in civil litigation. He is recognized nationally and internationally as a leader in class-action and product liability/life sciences defence in Canada, receiving product-liability lawyer of the year awards from several leading legal directories on multiple occasions.
In addition, Gord has been involved in bench and bar committees, and organizations interested in improving the civil justice system. Most recently, he has been a member of the board of directors of the International Association of Defense Counsel and chair of its Canadian Class Action Project Task Force. He has also been a member of the Canadian Bar Association's National Class Action Task Force, where he helped to develop judicial protocols to manage overlapping, multijurisdictional class actions in Canada.
Gord's broad expertise extends to cross-border and multijurisdictional issues and cases that involve complex scientific, medical and technical evidence. He provides proactive advice to corporations on product warnings and recalls, litigation-related media issues and strategies designed to avoid litigation and class action suits.
In Who’s Who Legal, Gord has been described as a “tremendously gifted, thorough, learned, hard-working and fearless expert,” considered to be “the dean of Canadian products trial work.” Chambers Canada notes that Gord is "a class action guru who … is always thinking about the long game," and a "very good leader and trial lawyer."