Heenan Blaikie

In 1973, three young lawyers established Heenan Blaikie. It would become one of Canada’s highest-profile law firms, counting former prime ministers, premiers, and Supreme Court justices in its ranks. It was like a family, according to many who worked there. But it was a dysfunctional family. In 2014, the firm’s dramatic collapse became front-page news.

Based on extensive interviews with firm lawyers and legal industry insiders, Heenan Blaikie is the story of a respected law firm that ultimately buckled under weak governance and management. Heenan Blaikie seemed to punch above its weight: bilingual, humane, national with international aspirations. But beneath its unique culture as a kinder, gentler law firm lay workplace bullying, challenges for women and visible minority lawyers, and sexual harassment.

Adam Dodek, an unbiased outsider, situates the firm’s evolution within the context of a changing legal profession and society, producing an account that is gripping from beginning to end.

Adam Dodek is a professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa. Among his numerous publications are In Search of the Ethical Lawyer; The Canadian Constitution, Third Edition, named by the Hill Times as one of the top 100 books on Canadian public policy; and Solicitor-Client Privilege, which won the Walter Owen Book Prize. He is a recipient of the Canadian Association of Law Teachers Prize for Academic Excellence, the Mundell Medal for excellence in legal writing, and the Law Society of Ontario’s Law Society Medal. He is also a director of the Canadian Association for Legal Ethics and the Canadian Legal Information Institute, and a past governor of the Law Commission of Ontario.

A gripping account of a Canadian law firm’s rise and fall…an extraordinary amount of first-hand research never previously carried out for any Canadian legal business entity.

It’s a great story. Dodek lavishes time and attention on all the ethical lapses and failures, all the nasty headlines that decorated its fall.

Adam Dodek’s recently published book on the history of a prominent Canadian law firm should be required reading for all who enter the profession.

You can read this book several ways, including as governance guide, gossip and tragedy…the lessons…are considered and compelling.

Dodek chronicles the remarkable story of the firm

[Dodek] offers one of the most illuminating and wide-ranging looks at how large law firms in Canada operate.