Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/1376668
16 www.canadianlawyermag.com/inhouse FEATURE "They are personable, agreeable people. They have good response time — even in the late hours of the evening — and the end product is of good quality," says Benoit Morel, vice president, legal affairs at Cora. Leading the pack as the number one ranked firm in Quebec, Langlois Lawyers LLP is known for its strong practice in multiple areas of the law, including litigation, insur- ance, labour and business. "If Langlois has excelled, it is largely due to the expertise of our professionals and the support of our staff who have made us a better firm, if not one of the best throughout the years," says Langlois managing partner Jean-François Gagnon. The team at Langlois prides itself on its longstanding relationships with a wide range of clients from many different industries. "I think it starts with listening to the client and understanding their business and their objectives and their values, so you can better serve them and help them to minimize risk," says Sophie Perreault, a partner at Langlois. Maintaining a strong, trusting relationship with clients is also dependent on the internal values within the firm, according to Perreault. When everybody within a firm works well as a team and understands each other in terms of strengths and expertise, they will be better able to serve clients' needs by providing the right team for a given mandate, she says. "When a client I have been serving for 20 years calls me with a specific problem, I know exactly which colleague to recommend or to put on the team, and I know the client will be served well and they will have the top quality expertise with the top people for this mandate," says Perreault. Gagnon and Perreault are proud of the firm's book of business, which extends across offices in Montreal and Quebec City. "We want the best for our clients and will always be grateful to them for letting us be part of their journey," says Gagnon. 1 Langlois Lawyers LLP langlois.ca Total lawyers: 150 Core practice areas and notable mandates: litigation, arbitration, class action and dispute resolution; insurance; employ- ment and labour law; insolvency; business law (M&A transactions, construction, including mining, energy, environment and cannabis); corporate governance represented a client in a constitutional challenge of the jurisdiction of the Court of Quebec, before both the Superior Court and Court of Appeal, where it was heard by a panel of seven justices. The Court of Appeal of Quebec partially agreed with the client's position and five parties (including Langlois's clients) filed appeals before the Supreme Court in October 2019 obtained intervenor status for clients in a constitutional challenge of Bill C-14, which introduced the medically assisted dying regime into the Criminal Code represented a client in connection with a multi-jurisdictional class action alleging collusion and anti-competitive practices in the credit card industry before the courts of appeal in Quebec, British Columbia and Ontario represented Université de Montréal in the context of judicial and quasi-judicial remedies associated with the strike of the stationary engineers represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 4338 acted as lead counsel for Victoriaville & Co Inc., one of the largest wood casket manufacturers in North America, in its acquisition of all the shares of Alliance St-Laurent Casket Corporation, a subsidiary of Matthews International Corporation, a NASDAQ-listed company successfully defended an OEM of industrial equipment in an ICC arbitration related to alleged underperformance of the equipment and associated produc- tion losses. The ICC issued an award dismissing the claim in its entirety. 2 Lavery, de Billy LLP lavery.ca Total lawyers: 200 Founded in 1913, Lavery has a team of more than 200 professionals based in four offices covering each of the major business centres in the province of Québec — Montreal, Quebec City, Trois-Rivières and Sherbrooke. Core practice areas and notable mandates: Corporate and commercial Law, labour and employment law, litigation and conflict resolution, public and administrative law and intellectual property represented the ad hoc committee of first lien lenders to Cirque du Soleil in connection with the acquisition of Cirque du Soleil pursuant to a credit bid under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act for $1.2 billion advise CDPQ Infra (subsidiary of Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec) with respect to the ground-breaking Réseau express métropolitain project, one of the largest automated light rail networks in the world, designed to facilitate travel throughout Greater Montreal with 26 stations and 67 kilometres of tracks. THE RANKINGS "I think it starts with listening to the client and understanding their business and their objectives and their values, so you can better serve them and help them to minimize risk." Sophie Perreault, Langlois lawyers LLP