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www.canadianlawyermag.com 19 www.canadianlawyermag.com 19 Ian Hull, LSM, partner at Hull & Hull LLP and a judge for this year's list, points to client service as the clearest throughline among the business nominees, treated as a leadership priority rather than an afterthought. Changemakers The changemaker category spans the widest range of practice areas of any group this year. Patrick Brown has spent decades turning road deaths into legislation. Brendon Pooran built a national pro bono model for disability rights from a single Toronto firm. Yameena Ansari is fighting what may be the first transgender American asylum case in Canadian history from her Calgary prac- tice. Amy Salyzyn and Paul Saunders round out the group from opposite ends of the profession, one shaping how courts think about AI and legal ethics from academia, the other rebuilding how a full-service firm delivers legal work in the first place. Government, non-profits, associations, and judiciary This is the only category with a truly national footprint as Ottawa, Calgary, Toronto, and Vancouver are all represented. Colin Feasby's Alberta Court of King's Bench ruling on the province's separation referendum was one of the most consequential constitutional decisions of the year. Michael Tulloch continues pushing Ontario's courts toward greater public access, while Richard Wagner's tenure as chief justice of Canada keeps returning to a single theme, judicial independence, as political pressure on the courts intensifies. Human rights, advocacy, and criminal Toronto anchors this category, though not exclusively. Gideon Christian's AI bias research is based out of Calgary, but the subject matter varies sharply even among the Toronto-based winners. Elizabeth Bowker's work defends institutions in class actions brought by vulnerable populations, a notably different kind of influence than the rest of the category, which leans toward advocacy for the vulnerable, not institutions responsible for them. Gideon Christian's research into AI bias against Black communities, Michael Rosen- berg's Charter advocacy on behalf of margin- alized groups, Muneeza Sheikh's employment and human rights practice, and Stephanie Willsey's Indigenous rights litigation each push on a different fault line in Canadian law. Hull also singled out a distinctly Canadian- centred approach among this year's human rights nominees: work with global relevance but a sustained focus on Canadian communi- ties and context. In-house Every in-house winner this year is solving the same underlying problem, building serious legal infrastructure inside organiza- tions that historically ran without it. Farah Ismail built SE Health's first legal depart- ment from nothing. Arun Krishnamurti, Christine Chen, Lorne O'Reilly, and Rustam Juma are doing similar work at Google Canada, University Pension Plan Ontario, Dow Chemical, and Volkswagen, each translating legal expertise into operational, ESG, and AI governance strategy at the centre of some of the country's largest institutions. AI adoption, judicial trust, and in-house growth define 2026 Artificial intelligence is no longer a side conversation in Canadian law; it's the dominant one. Generative AI adoption among legal professionals has more than doubled in the past year, with 69 percent of legal professionals now reporting personal use of AI tools. Thomson Reuters' latest research shows a similar acceleration at the institutional level, with 41 percent of law firms and 47 percent of corporate legal departments now using generative AI, up from 28 percent and 23 percent, respectively, in 2025. In-house adoption has moved even faster, according to the ACC/Everlaw GenAI Survey, METHODOLOGY Canadian Lawyer's 17th annual Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers called for nominations between March 13 and April 17 from legal groups, readers, and our panel of writers and editors. Qualifying nominees were then included in a reader survey in the following areas: changemakers; human rights, advocacy, and criminal law; business; in-house; and government, non-profits, associations, and judiciary. Based on the reader survey results, a short list of nominees was then sent to our Editorial Board members to vote for a maximum of five winners in each category. Board members who are on the shortlist are excluded from voting in that category. The board was asked to select winners who had most significantly influenced the legal system over the last 18 months. The Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers in Canada report is sponsored by Thomson Reuters. 451 submissions 17,862 votes 121 nominees