The Lawyers Weekly - January 21, 2011

Jeffrey Percival has joined
Mississauga, Ont. business law
firm Pallett Valo LLP’s labour and
employment practice. Prior to
joining Pallett Valo LLP, Percival
practised at Ogilvy Renault LLP.
“About one-third of the firm’s
lawyers since 2005 have come
from other law firms in down-
town Toronto,” said Anne Ken-
nedy, the firm’s managing
partner, in a press release. “It is
clear that our firm is becoming a
destination for Bay Street law-
yers looking to practise outside
of the Toronto downtown core.”
Five lawyers have been
appointed to the partnership of
Davis LLP recently, including: Brian
Yaworski and Roger MacLeod in
Calgary, Tudor Cartsen and Amy
Pressman in Toronto, and Lisa
Slater in Vancouver.
Sven Hombach has joined Fill-
more Riley LLP in Winnipeg. He
will practise primarily in the areas
of environmental law and litiga-
tion. Sven previously practised at
Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP in
Toronto, providing regulatory sup-
port, risk management and litiga-
tion services for clients in the
energy, transportation, construc-
tion and real estate sectors.
Cox & Palmer has appointed
six new partners. In Halifax, Ian
Bilek, Jennifer Forster and Reb-
ekah Powell were named part-
ners. In St. John’s, Nfld., Lisa
Daly and Christopher Peddigrew
joined the partnership. Aaron
Savage in Fredericton was also
named a partner. All are former
associates with the firm and
were admitted into partnership
on January 1, 2011.
Valerie Dixon has joined the
partnership at Clark Wilson LLP
in Vancouver.

Raised in a family with a strong patrilineal athletic line (his father, Lionel Jr., was a running back with the Montreal Alouettes; his multi-pro-sports-play-ing grandfather, Lionel, was named by The Canadian Press as the country’s male athlete of the first half of the 20th century) — and mentored by legendary American consumer advocate Ralph Nader, Duff Conacher has relied on the stamina and tenacity he acquired from those influences to become Canada’s leading crusader for democratic reform and government accountability.

Conacher — a six-foot-five, 190-pound jock in his own right who, as a teen, considered a pro-sports career — never practised law. But at the University of Toronto and through two summers working at Ontario’s then-new Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner helped him understand how legal loopholes he has since so famously championed against are created.

Conacher got a deeper look inside the political-legislative process when he articled in the policy division of Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General.

But arguably Conacher’s best education on how to be an effective watchdog against politically appointed “lapdogs” (one of his oft-used epithets) came from Nader, who encouraged him to go to law school.

“He’s a guy who changed more
laws than anyone in the history of
the U.S. as a citizens’ advocate,”
says the 47-year-old, Toronto-born
Conacher. “That’s a pretty compel-
ling example of what you can do
with a law degree for society.”
He ended up interning with
Nader through “luck and family
connections.”
Conacher’s uncle, Brian Con-
acher—a player with Toronto
Maple Leafs when the team won
the Stanley Cup in 1967—knew
legendary Montreal Canadiens
goaltender Ken Dryden, who

LAWYER OF THE WEEK

Name Duff Conacher Law school University of Toronto Called to the Bar 1993

Career highlights

1986 Became a Ralph Nader’s Raider

1993 Co-author of Canada
Firsts: Ralph Nader’s Salute
to Canada and Canadian
Achievement, which topped
the Canadian bestseller list
for five weeks
JESSICA BRUNO / THE HILL TIMES

Duff Conacher in downtown Ottawa.

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APPOINTMENTS

The 2011 executive of the Law Society of the Northwest Territories is: Sheila MacPherson, president; Erin Delaney, vice-president; Cayley Thomas, secretary; Janice Walsh, treasurer; and Maureen Crotty-Williams, layperson.

spent a summer in the 1970s as a so-called Nader’s Raider working on a water pollution project before returning to the ice and his McGill University law school studies in the fall. Dryden suggested that young Duff, who had obtained a Bachelor of Arts in English from Queen’s University, apply for a similar internship with Nader’s office in Washington, D.C.

Conacher was accepted, wrote a report on chemicals in public drinking water systems for Nader’s Center for Study of Responsive Law in 1987, and post-internship, collaborated with Nader on the book, Canada Firsts, which sold some 35,000 copies. Nader donated the proceeds of about $65,000 from the first book’s sales to help Conacher establish Democracy Watch in Ottawa.

“Working with Nader put me
on the road to focusing on democ-
racy, good government and cor-
porate responsibility, and showed
me that systemic problems are
caused by bad decision making
and by secretive, dishonest,
unethical, wasteful and unrepre-
sentative governments.”
Conacher says that has
prompted over 110 changes (more
than any other citizen-advocacy
group in Canada) to 16 federal
laws and six federal policies
addressing everything from bank
accountability and government
ethics to corporate responsibility
and voter rights. DWatch has also
secured stronger political finance
limits laws in Manitoba and Nova
Scotia, and lobbyist disclosure
laws in six provinces, including
Ontario and Quebec.

1993 Established Democracy Watch (DWatch) and became its first — and so far, only — co-ordinator

2004 Led DWatch to win first-ever ethics court challenge of the federal government (Democracy Watch v. Canada), against then-federal ethics counsellor and registrar of lobbyists, Howard Wilson

2005 Launched first-ever ethics complaint against an enforcer of ethics laws in Canada (then-federal ethics commissioner Bernard Shapiro)

2007 Wrote the first-ever report on Canada for that year’s Global Integrity Report

the point that you enter politics and know that everyone around you is required to act with integrity— but we’re not there yet,” says Conacher, who also chairs the national bank-accountability Canadian Community Reinvestment Coalition and four other nationwide coalitions dealing with such issues as corporate responsibility and government ethics.

“I don’t want to be in a system where you’re guilty by association with people who are in there for their own self-interest.” 

Publisher

Anand Ablack, LL.B.

Managing Editor

Tim Wilbur, J.D.

Focus Editor

Natalie Fraser, LL.B.

Legal Business Editor

Melissa Dunne

Ottawa Bureau Chief

Cristin Schmitz

Art Director

Tammy Leung

Production Coordinator

Pauline Braithwaite

Production/Art Intern

Vanessa King

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