By Julius Melnitzer | June 18, 2025
IF RICHES ARE YOUR PROFESSIONAL GOAL
Here, in Canadian dollars and according to Law.com, are Canadian Big Law firms that produce the most revenue per lawyer:
- Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP: $1,389,000
- Bennett Jones LLP: $1,250,000
- Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP: $1,232,000
- McCarthy Tétrault LLP: $1,179,000
- Torys LLP: $1,080,000
- Stikeman Elliott LLP $ 996,000
- Fasken Martineau Dumoulin LLP: $ 904,000
- Gowling WLG: $ 789,000
- Borden Ladner Gervais LLP: $ 773,000
- Miller Thomson LLP: $ 700,000
Related Article: Advice from Law Schools: Follow the Money to Big Law
HEENAN BLAIKIE’S DEMISE: UNVEILED
If you want to discover how not to run a law firm, read Heenan Blaikie: The Making and Unmaking of a Great Canadian Law Firm, by Professor and former dean Alan Dodek of the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law. It’s a thriller in its comprehensible prose, exacting detail and acute insights, revealing how weak governance and management allowed a cultural facade of a kinder, gentler law firm to collapse under the weight of workplace bullying, sexual harassment, and a singular lack of awareness of the need to accomodate and accept women and visible minorities.
Related Article: Bacal Remains Prolific
APPLES & ORANGES? OR NOT?
A UK High Court has ruled that Franck Magenis, a barrister and pro-Palestininan activist, did not step outside professional boundaries in submitting that comparing Israel with Nazi Germany was not inherently antisemitic. Magenic made his arguments in the context of defending the disbarment of solicitor Farrukh Najeeb Husain for tweets that Justice Martin Chamberlain called “unvarnished antisemitic racism”. Chamberlain upheld Husain’s disbarment.
Related Article: Trump judges, citing university’s failure to condemn antisemitic acts, won’t hire Columbia grads
CHECK AI OR CHECK INTO JAIL
Two senior UK High Court judges have warned lawyers that incarceration may be in the offing if they misuse AI. The warnings arose when counsel in two cases relied on fictitious citations and quotations that AI generated. In one instance, counsel told the court that his firm had relied on their client’s use of AI for legal research, but failed to verify the 45 citations, of which 18 were non-existent. While criminal sanctions were not imposed in these cases, the court did refer the lawyers to the legal regulator.
Related Article: Lawyer fined for AI misuse
PRIVACY HAS NO PRIORITY FOR FEDS
Privacy lawyer David Young of Ottawa’s David Young Law believes that the federal Privacy Commissioner’s latest Annual Report to Parliament evidences “a frustration with the state of legislative oversight, not only in the privacy sphere but also in the areas of artificial intelligence and digital data”. The “elephant in the room”, Young writes, “is the suspended state of legislation governing oversight of AI”. And among the areas that Parliament has not addressed are “online harms to children”, which “loom in the background of the Report”.
Related Article: Dismissed: first privacy class action heard on merits
Julius Melnitzer is a Toronto-based legal affairs writer, ghostwriter, writing coach and media trainer. Readers can reach him at julius@legalwriter.net or on his website.