Four more high-profile Bay Street lawyers have defected to the Toronto office of a U.S. legal giant, bringing the firm’s Canadian ranks to 24 professionals just five months after it set up here.
Next week, Anthony De Fazekas, one of Canada’s leading intellectual-property lawyers, is leaving his post as partner with Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP to join Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo PC, which is based in Boston.
Also arriving will be Mervyn Allen, a commercial real estate partner with McMillan LLP who was previously senior counsel with McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada Ltd. and Ivanhoe Cambridge, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec’s shopping-centre unit.
They join recent arrivals Alex North, a debt-financing lawyer who came over this week from Dentons Canada LLP, and tax partner Katy Pitch, who joined from Wildeboer Dellelce LLP.
Mintz is now targeting a complement of 50 lawyers in Canada within its first year of operation, sooner than its original goal of 18 months, said Toronto managing partner Mitch Frazer in an interview. He said the firm is looking to add a litigation practice and specialists in corporate, insolvency, competition law and infrastructure, and to bulk up to 75 lawyers within three years.
“This is about building a full-service team to complement the 600 lawyers in seven offices in the U.S.,” Mr. Frazer said. “That’s been our goal all along. We’re taking a strategic piece-by-piece approach.”
Mintz arrived with a splash in March, poaching five high-profile partners from three firms to establish a Canadian foothold. Three partners came from Torys, including Mr. Frazer, an authority on Canadian pension law, Michael Akkawi, a leading private-equity and venture-capital lawyer, and Cheryl Reicin, one of Canada’s top biotechnology lawyers, who is now international chair of Mintz’s life-sciences practice.
The others were Eric Foster from Dentons, a veteran capital-markets deals adviser with a specialty in the cannabis sector, and Lee Johnson, an intellectual property specialist in health sciences, agriculture technology and food technology. Mr. Johnson left Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC in San Diego to join Mintz. Subsequent partner hires have come from Torys LLP and Dentons.
The original five decided as a group to break away from their former employers and partner with a foreign giant in order to provide a Canadian beachhead for cross-border legal services. The office has already landed one plum cross-border gig, acting for Montreal’s Future Electronics Inc. in its sale to Taiwan’s WT Microelectronics for US$3.8-billion announced this month.
Mintz has more than 600 lawyers with other offices in Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, San Francisco and Washington, with another slated to open in Miami. The firm, founded in 1933, has been repeatedly recognized as one of the best in the United States by U.S. News and World Report. It had revenue of US$617-million and net income of US$212-million in 2022.
Other global law firms have also set up shop or expanded their presence in Canada. Last fall, British-based DWF Group entered Canada by acquiring Vancouver law firm Whitelaw Twining. Cozen O’Connor, a Philadelphia-based firm that has been expanding in Canada since 2021, added lawyers this year in Toronto and opened a Vancouver office.
Sean Silcoff