Toronto’s Lax O’Sullivan Lisus Gottlieb has ascended to an enviable position as of one of Bay Street’s preeminent boutiques. The firm has increasingly become a “first-call” destination for peers and clients, and its presence has become ubiquitous in commercial disputes. “We used to be against [another Toronto major law firm] on every nine-figure dispute, but nowadays it’s Lax,” testifies one peer. “It’s not even a competition. Lax actually wound up replacing [this other firm] on a lot of files because [the other firm] went too broad and promised the client their lead trial lawyer and wound up giving them someone else. That’s never a problem with Lax, they are uniformly excellent.”
Rahool Agarwal triumphed on behalf of The Métis Child and Family Services Authority and the Métis child and family services agencies, the plaintiffs in litigation against the Government of Manitoba for the recovery of allegedly unlawfully appropriated federal child benefits. In March 2024, the Government of Manitoba announced that it had agreed to pay $530 million to children in care to settle three class actions against Manitoba. Firm mainstay and trial stalwart
Jonathan Lisus successfully opposed an anti-SLAPP motion brought by Global News and others to dismiss conservative provincial Parliament member Wenbin (Vincent) Ke’s defamation claim regarding two news articles published in 2023. Ke, Lisus’ client and the plaintiff in this suit, was reported by the newspaper to have a role in a Chinese election interference scheme. “Jon Lisus really will try anything, from basic commercial litigation to these crazy one-offs that you would expect a more specialized person to take,” observes a peer. While Lisus’ position is undisputed, peers are largely united in the opinion that “Crawford Smith is really picking up. We’re seeing him as the lead on a lot more Lax files.” Beyond the firm’s “usual supects,” others are increasingly marking their mark. In particular, Zain Naqi is developing his profile. “He’s really ‘the brains’ on a lot of these files,” opines one peer. “He’s the reason the lead trial lawyers can do what they do.” Another confirms, “Zain does a lot of the Rogers work with Crawford, and he also does a lot of the public law work. It’s ridiculous, if you search names of people who’ve done commercial cases in the Court of Appeal, he’s on so many of them!” In the insurance field
Hovsep Afarian has emerged as one of the firm’s true specialists. “He was at McCarthy Tétrault for years, running their claims practice,” testifies a peer. “He has massive claims against insurers, not just ‘slip-and-falls’ – this is more like turbines falling on people and filing $100 million claims! The big firms can’t do this work because they have insurance companies as clients, so that’s a big get for Lax.”
