Canada’s arbitration reputation among best

Helps us develop a niche on global scene

The arbitration business is growing in Canada, and this year’s Chambers Global list of Canadian top arbitrators demonstrates that Canada is home to some of the world’s best.

This would include Yves Fortier, who served as Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations from 1988 to 1992. Building on international contacts he developed during his diplomatic career, for the past 20 years he has carved out a global reputation as a highly respected international arbitrator. To wit: When we reached him earlier this week, he was in London hearing a case involving the law of Sudan.

Canada has a global reputation as an honest broker, and that’s helping Canada develop a niche in the international arbitration scene, he says.

“Canadians are known as peacekeepers and neutrals, par excellence,” says Mr. Fortier, a sole practitioner. Mr. Fortier and Henri Alvarez of Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP are ranked in Chambers Global 2013 under one of its highest categories, Star Individual. A third Canadian, Christopher Thomas, joins them in the upper echelon with the listing of Senior Statesman.

“I’ve been active in this field in the last 20 years, and I can tell you that there are many, many more Canadians involved today than there were when I came back from New York in 1992. Many, many more.”

There is a sales pitch for arbitration. Earl Cherniak, a lawyer with Lerners LLP who now spends about 80% of his time serving as an arbitrator, says they aren’t always cheaper than standard courtroom litigation. The parties still face a number of costs — among them the bill for the hearing room and the arbitrator. Yet even if an arbitration doesn’t save money, it saves a lot of time, he says.

The directory assigns lawyers and firms rankings or “bands.” The most respected lawyers or firms are rated at the highest level, Band 1. That said, Chambers Global ranks only a fraction of the total number of practising lawyers in Canada. So any mention in the guide is high praise, even if it comes with a listing in a lower band.

“They’re all the best,” says Edward Shum of Chambers and Partners, editor for the Africa, Canada, Middle East, Caribbean and Global-wide sections of the guide.

The Canada section of the directory has grown substantially year over year. The number of different firms ranked in this year’s guide rose to 79 from 64, a jump of 23.4%.

Some 1,115 lawyers are mentioned in the guide, an increase of 7.4% from the 1,038 ranked last year.

Chambers included 358 firms in this year’s rankings, up 13.3% from the 316 that made the directory last year.

Firms are ranked in 30 separate categories this year. Blakes achieved top spot by this measure, ranked in 25 of those 30 categories. The top 10 are rounded out by McCarthy (rankings in 23 categories), Stikeman and Fasken (22 each), Norton Rose Canada (20), BLG (19), Osler (18), Bennett Jones (18), FMC (17) and Torys (16).

“It shows the depth that we have in each of the markets,” says Marc-André Blanchard, chairman and chief executive officer of McCarthy Tétrault. “We’re very proud of that. It’s important because it allows us to be the firm of choice for our clients for their most sophisticated work, because Chambers rankings are based on what our clients think of us.”

Not every category is open to a national firm that focuses on high-end corporate law. Categories list the leading regional firms from Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Atlantic Canada.

There are also categories for the leading union-side labour firms and the top plaintiff-side class actions firms — work that tends to be outside the focus of the big national business firms.

“It begins and ends with being the best you can be and doing great work and developing that reputation,” says Jay Kellerman, managing partner in the Toronto office of Stikeman.

“The Chambers rankings are clearly important to us because they do reflect real client opinion,” says David Corbett, managing partner of Fasken.

“If you look back over the last three years, we’ve continued to add to the number of lawyers that they rank highly.”