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22 F e b r u A r y 2 0 1 5 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m C r o s s e X A M I N e D MaRK caRDWEll Quebec's king of malpractice ean-Pierre Ménard always uses the same quip with clients when their cases come to an end. "I tell them, 'I hope to never see you again,'" says the Montreal lawyer. He estimates he's used that line more than 6,000 times over the course of his 35-year legal career. He really means it, it's not a joke. That's because none of the cases he deals with are laugh- ing matters. "All of my clients' stories are sad, their cases tragic," said Ménard, a litigator, founder, and public face of Ménard Martin, the biggest legal firm in Canada to specialize exclusively in representing victims of medical errors. He is also the best-known lawyer of his kind in Quebec, with a public perso- na as a defender of the downtrodden and a reputation as a fearsome litigator. His public denunciations of error-producing dysfunction in the province's health care system have also led to major legislative and administrative changes. According to Ménard, his 19-law- yer firm takes on as many as 300 new cases a year from across Quebec. That represents between half and 60 per cent of all medical malpractice suits brought forward annually in la belle province. He also claims to win far more cases than he loses. That makes him a rar- ity in a field of Canadian law that has long been considered tilted in favour of deep-pocketed health-care facilities and organizations defended by the biggest and best law firms. "Our success rate is unparalleled anywhere in the coun- try," Ménard told Canadian Lawyer over lunch in Quebec City in early December. He was in the picturesque provincial capital to meet with lawyers at Nor- ton Rose Fulbright Canada to negotiate a settlement in an insurance case on behalf of a typical client — a 34-year-old mother of two, who was left quadriplegic as a result of a vertebral artery dissection caused by chiropractic manipulation. Ménard credits his firm's success to the deep and extensive expertise it has Jean-pierre ménard does a lot more in the area of health care than just litigation. By Mark Cardwell J