Montréal boutique Woods is revered not only as one of the strongest boutiques in the city but one of the strongest litigation groups of any firm in Québec. Perhaps even more impressive is how the firm has etched itself this position while remaining the most unanimously revered in terms of collegiality as well. “Of course, we see Woods all the time,” states one peer, “but they are really more friends than competitors.” A client declares, “Woods is the firm to go to for the cases that tend to go the distance and don’t settle.” With an enviable degree of bench strength – with a healthy percentage of its staff ranked as litigation stars – Woods has also demonstrated its ability to reinvent and reinvigorate itself, with many of its stars “at the younger end, only in their forties.” One peer observes, “The beauty of firms like Woods is that the founding partners, all of whom have either retired or are close to it, have built something that can visibly outlast them.”
Indeed, the firm made a substantial coup this past year when it brought on
Cara Cameron, a versatile marquis litigator who left the Montréal office of Davies to join. “Cara is a good lawyer and goes to trial often,” states a peer. “She’s not afraid to go to court, and she does a lot of a white-collar work.” Cameron is acting as co-counsel representing Innu Nation in an intervention in a proceeding before the Superior Court of Montreal instituted
by several Québec Innu bands seeking more than $2 billion in compensation from Hydro-Québec and
Churchill Falls for the adverse impact on their aboriginal title lands and rights resulting from the Churchill Falls hydro-electric project.
Marie-Louise Delisle and Sebastian Pyzik are representing AECOM in a legal action against the City of Montréal and the City of Gatineau. This case, valued at $11 million, centers on allegations of collusion, an area that the Quebec Government enacted legislation to remedy in the wake of the high-profile Charbonneau Commission inquiry concerning cities affected by collusion in the construction industry. A team composed of Delisle,
Louis Seveno and Richard Vachon is acting for Health Montreal Collective CJV, L.P. in over 30 disputes against a variety of commercial parties, concerning the construction and design of the CHUM mega-hospital PPP project, valued at more than $2 billion CAD. These disputes involve project delays, alleged defects and remedial works, security packages and project certification, as well as associated penalties, deductions and contractual claims. Eric Bedard
represented the National Bank of Canada before the Supreme Court of Canada in November 2023 against a Greek bank seeking to enforce a letter of counter-guarantee issued at the behest of Bombardier for firefighting aircraft and an offset contact, against a backdrop of conduct that has been qualified of fraudulent by courts below regarding the Greek Ministry of Defense and of a high-profile ICC arbitration seated in Paris. The Québec courts below ruled in favor of the respondent Bombardier confirming the arbitration award. A peer weighs in on behalf of Alex Dobrota, confirming, “I work with him a lot, and clients have been very happy with his work.”
Stephen Drymer is a longtime lauded figure in the arbitration arena, with much of this being international in nature. “Stephen is the best, and is doing a lot of neutral arbitrator work,” insists a peer. “Ask him about his sunken treasure case!” (This matter involves a US company that is pursuing a US$10 billion investment treaty claim against Colombia over treasure in the wreck of a Spanish galleon that sank off the coast of Cartagena more than
300 years ago.)
