McMillan LLP is a Canadian business law firm serving public, private and not-for-profit clients across various industries in North America and around the world. McMillan LLP is the only national Canadian law firm with an office in Hong Kong, in addition to its offices across Canada in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

and

Montréal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-p ...

''.'' The firm has industry groups in different sectors such as

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

energy In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of heat a ...

oil and gas A fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the remains of dead plants and animals that is extracted and burned as a fuel. The main fossil fuels are coal, oil, and natural gas. Fossil fuels ...

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

construction Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press 2009 and com ...

and

infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and priv ...

, automotive, and

transportation Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, ...

Founding Firms and Mergers

The firm was founded by

Newton Rowell Newton Wesley Rowell, (November 1, 1867 – November 22, 1941) was a Canadian lawyer, politician and judge, as well as a lay leader in the Methodist Church. Rowell led the Ontario Liberal Party from 1911 to 1917 and put forward a platform ...

in 1903. At this time, it consisted of three lawyers and was called Rowell, Reid and Wood. By 1910, the firm more than doubled to seven lawyers, a size it kept until the mid-twenties. Gordon McMillan joined the firm in 1921 and practiced for over half of a century, bringing notable clients such as Monarch and

BorgWarner BorgWarner Inc. is an American automotive supplier headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. The company maintains production facilities and technical systems at 93 sites (as of June 6, 2022) in 22 countries worldwide and has around 49,000 emplo ...

. In 1926, Rhodes Scholar

Roland Michener Daniel Roland Michener (April 19, 1900 – August 6, 1991) was a Canadian lawyer, politician, and diplomat who served as Governor General of Canada, the 20th since Canadian Confederation. Michener was born and educated in Alberta. In 1917 he s ...

and

Osgoode Hall Osgoode Hall is a landmark building in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The original -storey building was started in 1829 and finished in 1832 from a design by John Ewart and William Warren Baldwin. The structure is named for William Osgoode, ...

graduate Daniel Lang formed

Lang Michener Lang Michener LLP was a Canadian full-service national law firm, once employing over 200 lawyers with offices in Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, and Hong Kong. On January 1, 2011, Lang Michener and McMillan LLP combined, taking the name McMillan L ...

, another firm that would later merge with McMillan LLP. That same year, partners James Lyle Lawrence and Alistair Shaw formed Lawrence & Shaw in Vancouver,

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

. Rowell accepted the appointment as

Chief Justice of Ontario The Court of Appeal for Ontario (frequently referred to as the Ontario Court of Appeal or ONCA) is the appellate court for the province of Ontario, Canada. The seat of the court is Osgoode Hall in downtown Toronto, also the seat of the Law Societ ...

in 1936. After his departure, McMillan worked with junior partner Bill Binch to build and expand the firm. By 1945, it was called McMillan, Binch, Wilkinson and Berry. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Binch would drive from Toronto throughout the mid-west and Chicago to solicit work from mid-sized U.S. companies looking to expand into Canada. His pioneering work opened a north-south corridor between McMillan Binch and American businesses that, at the time, belied the trend in many Canadian firms to patch together national networks running east-west. In 1989,

merged with Lawrence & Shaw, becoming Lang Michener Lawrence & Shaw. The

Right Honourable ''The Right Honourable'' (abbreviation: ''Rt Hon.'' or variations) is an honorific style traditionally applied to certain persons and collective bodies in the United Kingdom, the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations. The term is ...

Jean Chrétien Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien (; born January 11, 1934) is a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 20th prime minister of Canada from 1993 to 2003. Born and raised in Shawinigan Falls, Quebec, Chrétien is a law graduate from Uni ...

practiced with Lang Michener from 1986 to 1990, and Michel Bastarache was appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada in 1997. In 2005, Toronto’s McMillan Binch LLP and

’s Mendelsohn LLP combined to form McMillan Binch Mendelsohn LLP. A few years later in 2009, McMillan LLP and Thackray Burgess joined forces to found McMillan's third office, based in Calgary. In January 2011, McMillan LLP and

LLP announced a merger, and began operating under McMillan LLP.

Leadership

In 2022, McMillan LLP announced a new, diverse leadership team and a strategic plan focused on growth, equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI). The team is led by CEO

Tim Murphy Timothy Murphy may refer to: Politics * Tim Murphy (American politician) (born 1952), American Republican Party politician from Pennsylvania * Tim Murphy (Canadian politician) (born 1959), Canadian politician * Timothy J. Murphy (1893–1949), I ...

, who is an established Canadian expert on infrastructure and public-private partnerships. Murphy is also a political figure known for his work as the former Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Paul Martin. McMillan LLP’s new leadership team also includes: * John Clifford, Partner, Chief Operating Officer * Paul Davis, Partner, Chair of the Board of Partners * Brett Stewart, Partner, Chair of the Risk Management & Finance Committee * Tushara Weerasooriya, Partner, Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee * Stephen Wortley, Partner, Chief Client Officer According to an article in Canadian Lawyer, McMillan follows a “four-pronged” approach to EDI: * A diverse leadership team * Improving awareness of the problem * Creating policies and programs * Implementing change In 2016, Murphy joined Mark Resnick and Richard Mahoney as a co-founder for McMillan Vantage Policy Group. McMillan Vantage is a national full-service public affairs consultancy — the only one of its kind anchored in a national law firm. As a sister firm embedded in McMillan LLP’s offices, Vantage services a wide range of Canadian and international clients: * Government relations counsel * Policy and regulatory analysis * Crisis communications *

ESG ESG may refer to : Groups * Election Support Group, an internationally sponsored organization analyzing and supporting the electoral process in Pakistan * ES Guelma, an Algerian football club based in Guelma * Escuela Superior de Guerra (Argenti ...

and corporate purpose * Strategic communications services to the public, private and non-profit sectors.

Awards and accolades

2022 McMillan LLP was included on the Advisory Centre on World Trade Organization Law ( ACWL) roster of external legal counsel. The firm joins a select group of global law firms that defend the international trade rights of developing countries and least developed countries (LDCs). McMillan LLP's International Trade Group supports WTO members in French and English. The ‘Best Lawyers in Canada’ publication listed 89 lawyers from McMillan as ‘Leaders’ and nine as ‘Ones to Watch’ in their respective fields. ''Canadian Lawyer'' magazine named Leila Rafi, firm partner in the Capital Markets & Securities and M&A Groups, as one of the “Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers” in the business category. 2021 McMillan LLP members were selected by the Canadian Law Awards as winners of Lexpert’s Awards of Excellence for Top Deals in the Capital Markets and Insolvency & Restructuring categories. 2020 McMillan announced that seven of the firm’s lawyers in McMillan’s Litigation Group were recognized for exceptional expertise in the 2020 Lexpert Special Edition on Canada’s Leading Litigation Lawyers. 2019 McMillan LLP was named the Top Canadian Law Firm at the Annual Canadian Hedge Fund Awards for the third consecutive year. 2018 McMillan was named a thought leader in the future for legal services for Lexology’s legal influencers in Q3.

References

*Crosariol, Beppi
"McMillan Binch plans to merge with Mendelsohn"
''The Globe and Mail''. Accessed April 5, 2007. *Wilbur, Tim.
Tim Murphy, the new CEO at McMillan, on his firm's new strategic plan
��, ''Canadian Lawyer,'' February 8, 2022. Accessed October 17, 2022.
"Advisory Centre on World Trade Organization Law Selects Canada's McMillan LLP for Their List of External Counsel"
''McMillan LLP''. Retrieved 2022-11-22. *"Best Lawyers List for Canada , Best Lawyers". ''www.bestlawyers.com''. Retrieved 2022-11-22.
Leila Rafi Named to the Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers List
. ''McMillan LLP''. Retrieved 2022-11-22. *"Lexpert's 2021 Awards of Excellence For Top Deals". ''www.lexpert.ca''. Retrieved 2022-11-23.
The 2020 Lexpert Special Edition on Canada's Leading Litigation Lawyers Recognizes Seven McMillan Professionals"
''McMillan LLP''. Retrieved 2022-11-23.
McMillan LLP Named Top Canadian Law Firm at Annual Canadian Hedge Fund Awards for Third Consecutive Year
. ''McMillan LLP''. 2019-10-24. Retrieved 2022-11-23.
"Hub - McMillan LLP"
''Lexology''. Retrieved 2022-11-23.

Founding Firms and Mergers

Leadership

Awards and accolades

References

External links