Nominate those who turned complex challenges into success, providing lessons for today
With imminent trade wars and political chaos swirling around Ottawa, many Canadians feel stressed about the future. Lawyers are no exception, even if the uncertainty sometimes results in more work.
This mood can make celebrating last year’s accomplishments feel less important or even irrelevant. However, past successes can often provide lessons for navigating today’s challenges. The people who overcame adversity before are often those who we should turn to now for advice.
In that vein, we are calling for nominations from the legal community for our 2025 Canadian Law Awards, which celebrate the legal community’s accomplishments from last year. The nomination deadline is January 31.
I recently spoke with Marisa Wyse, chief legal officer at Rogers Communications, about winning M&A Deal of the Year at the 2024 Canadian Law Awards. Wyse, a judge for the awards this year, overcame significant regulatory hurdles in her company’s acquisition of Shaw. The deal was the largest acquisition in Canadian telecommunications history, and Wyse says it represented a transformative milestone for the industry.
Announced in 2021, the deal took two years to complete and required navigating regulatory and legal hurdles, including a challenge by Canada’s Competition Bureau. Crawford Smith, a partner at Lax O’Sullivan Lisus Gottlieb LLP, which represented Rogers at the Competition Bureau, also took home the award for litigator of the year in 2024.
“The award is in Rogers’ name, but it’s really a recognition of so much hard work and the relentless efforts of so many lawyers internally and externally,” Wyse told me.
This year, our panel of judges again includes a who’s who of the legal community in Canada. I recently sat down with McCarthy Tétrault's Ontario regional managing partner, Caroline Zayid, who will serve again as a judge, to talk about litigation, client service, and changes to the leadership team at McCarthy Tétrault.
Zayid provided her impressions of last year’s nominees. “What really struck me reading all of the submissions is… the range of talent that we know we have… big firms, small firms right across the country,” she said.
Josianne Beaudry, a mining lawyer at Lavery, echoed her fellow judge Zayid when I asked her about her impressions of last year’s nominees. “It provided a great opportunity to learn about significant transactions and services offered across Canada,” she said. What stood out most for her was the excellence of smaller firms, whose impact often belies their limited visibility.
Beaudry also outlined her mining clients' business uncertainties, including evolving regulatory and environmental standards, and how she advises them to comply.
We have also welcomed new judges, such as Fengate's Dinesh Ramanathan, who spoke to me for Lexpert InHouse about balancing compliance and innovation as senior vice president of legal at the asset management company. Ramanathan has worked to foster innovation at the legal department he built by taking a methodical approach to working with external law firms. Instead of relying on one-size-fits-all solutions, he tailors external support to specific needs, balancing large firm expertise with mid-size firm efficiency and niche specialist knowledge.
So, if you are feeling stressed about the future, take this opportunity to celebrate the recent past by nominating your peers. It just might help Canada’s legal community with invaluable lessons about successfully navigating its current challenges.
