Top Lawyers In Canada

Murray Klippenstein

Founder, Klippensteins Barristers & Solicitors, Toronto, Ont. Back to the second year on the Top 25, Klippenstein's continuing representation of 13 members of the native Mayan Q'eqchi' inhabitants from El Estor, Guatemala, continues to make waves. Three related lawsuits are before the Ontario courts against Canadian mining company Hudbay Minerals within the brutal killing of Adolfo Ich and the gang rape of 11 women from Lote Ocho. In a precedent-setting ruling in July of 2013, an Ontario court decided that lawsuits could proceed to trial in Canada over the objections of Hudbay Minerals. At home he's also taking on the big men in a situation against Encana Corp. that's challenging the law and practice of hydraulic fracking in Canada. What voters had to say: Kudos for standing up for, upholding Canadian values, wherever we operate.

Mark Tamminga

Partner, Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP, Hamilton, Ont. Tamminga has devoted his career to automating legal practices. His information technologies focus started in 1986 while he was a law student and has been given the job of systemizing the production environment for files. Since that time, Tamminga's aptitude for legal technology has just grown with Gowlings LLP. Three decades ago, he had been named Gowlings' Innovation Initiatives leader. He is in charge of automating the Gowlings recovery services clinic. He's designed and built lots of additional practice systems in the areas of debt collection, loan placement, and civil litigation. His role has required re-thinking that the thornier aspects of large business operations: managing cultural change, inducing client-side thinking, and building the compensation mechanics, which induce new behavior. Exactly what the panel had to say: Tamminga has shown real vision in handling tough issues that lots of law firms are not quite prepared to carry on.

Justice Murray Sinclair

Chairman, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Winnipeg, Man. An uncommon write-in candidate winner for this season 's Best 25, Sinclair was among the list this past year, making headlines again in June with the release of this summary of the record of the TRC and 94 recommendations to redress the cultural genocide of Canada's residential college program. Over six decades, Sinclair led the TRC hearing the stories of over 7,000 survivors of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse. Sinclair, that was the first aboriginal judge in Manitoba, was first appointed to the provincial court in which he became associate chief in 1988 and then elevated to the Court of Queen's Bench at 2001. He was co-commissioner of Manitoba's Aboriginal Justice Inquiry in 1988 and presided over a 2000 inquest into the deaths of 12 babies at Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre. Sinclair hopes to finish the commission's full report in the not too distant future, after which he will choose whether to return to retire or court and advocate for indigenous rights full-time.

Lorne Waldman

Waldman & Associates, Toronto, Ont. Waldman is a great defender of refugees, immigrants, and human rights. He's won a number of important successes, such as healthcare for refugees in Canadian Doctors for Refugee Care v. Canada along with a woman's right to wear the niqab whilst producing her citizenship oath at Ishaq v. Canada together with his partner Naseem Mithoowani. He also contended at the Supreme Court of Canada in J.P. v. Canada and G.J. v. Canada, that Canada's anti-human smuggling provisions must consist of asylum seekers participating in mutual aid. Along with Peter Edelmann, he acted on behalf of the CBA from the Harkat case before the SCC at 2014. On the international stage, he symbolizes Mohamed Fahmy (along with Amal Clooney), the Canadian journalist working for Al Jazeera. He has also been a vocal opponent of Bill C-51 and modifications to Canada's citizenship legislation. What voters had to say: Lorne educated us all, particularly today, to preserve democracy and to maintain the rule of law.