 | This articlecontainspromotional content. Please helpimprove it by removingpromotional language and inappropriateexternal links, and by adding encyclopedic text written from aneutral point of view.(February 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
 | |
| Headquarters | Toronto,Ontario, Canada |
|---|---|
| No. of offices | 7 |
| Date founded | 1855 |
| Company type | Limited liability partnership |
| Website | mccarthy.ca |
McCarthy Tétrault LLP is a Canadianlaw firm specializing inbusiness law,litigation services,tax law,real property law, labour andemployment law, with offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montréal, Québec City, London (UK), as well as New York City.[1] McCarthy Tétrault LLP is one of theSeven Sisters law firms.[2][unreliable source?]
McCarthy Tétrault is the only law firm listed in the Report on Business Top 25 Best B2B Brands byThe Globe and Mail in 2021,[3] and it has the second strongest law firm brand in Canada according toThomson Reuters’ Regional Law Firm Brand Indexes 2021.[4][5][6]
The firm represents Canadian and international clients, including major public institutions,financial services organizations,mining companies, manufacturers,pharmaceutical companies and other corporations.
McCarthy Tétrault's London office specializes in assisting clients with their transatlantic transactions, and is staffed with both English and Canadian-qualified lawyers.[7] A charter member of the Canada-UK Chamber of Commerce,[8] it provides services in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
The firm had its origin in the formation ofBoulton & McCarthy in 1855 inBarrie, Ontario, byD'Arcy Boulton (1785-1846), Auditor-General ofUpper Canada and grandson of prominentFamily Compact figureGeorge D'Arcy Boulton, and D'Alton McCarthy Sr (1806–73), a Irish lawyer immigrated to Upper Canada. McCarthy's sonD'Alton Jr. articled at the firm in 1858.
In 1869, the McCarthy father and son ended their partnership with Boulton and established their own firm.
In the 1870s, D'Alton McCarthy Jr. became active in electoral politics. A key protégé ofSir John A MacDonald, he entered parliament in a byelection in 1876. He also secured most of his party’s legal business in Ontario, a lucrative business as cases involving controverted elections allowed the parties to continue their battles through petitions, counter-petitions, appeals, voidances, and by-elections (himself having successfully challenged his own defeat in 1874, only to lose the subsequent byelection), quickly established himself as the party’s leading counsel on elections.[9] The year he was elected, he also opened an office in Toronto, and in the following year renamed the firmMcCarthy, Hoskin, Plumb, and Creelman,[9][10] adding names of younger partners John Hoskins (1836-1921, laterTreasurer of the Law Society of Upper Canada 1916 to 1921), Thomas Plumb and Adam Rutherford Creelman (later General Counsel to theCanadian Pacific Railway, for many years a key source of revenue for the firm).
In 1882, the firm was renamedMcCarthy, Osler, Hoskin & Creelman whencrown prosecutorBritton Bath Osler joined the partnership in 1882 to secure the lucrative legal business of the Canadian North-West Land Company, the real estate arm of the Canadian Pacific Railway.[11] In the years that follow, McCarthy as a firm was in the thick of the debate over language divide that gripped the nation's political discourse. Osler was retained by the federal crown as one of the prosecutors that secured the hanging ofLouis Riel, while McCarthy emerged as a leading voice of the anti-French, anti-Catholic, pro-English-rights movement, eventually leaving theConservative Party after MacDonald's death. McCarthy and Osler died in 1898 and 1901 respectively.
In 1902, the firm was renamed toMcCarthy, Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt. Frederick Harcourt (who was a partner by the time Osler joined the firm in 1882) joined the firm as a law-student and assisted John Hoskins for work relating to Hoskin's role as the Official Guardian of Infants of Ontario, a public appointment that was a predecessor of the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee. Harcourt's name was added to the firm's name when he succeeded Hoskins as the Official Guardian of Infants.[12]
In 1916, the firm was split into two.D'Alton McCarthy Jr's son D'Alton Lally McCarthy (1870–1963), and two nephewsLeighton McCarthy (1869-1952) and Frank McCarthy (1883-1963) formed McCarthy & McCarthy, while the second generation Oslers and many of its corporate partners formedOsler Hoskin & Harcourt.
In 1990, McCarthy Tétrault was created through the merger McCarthy & McCarthy of Toronto, Clarkson Tétrault of Montreal, Shrum Liddle & Hebenton of Vancouver, and Black & Company of Calgary.[13] This merger was initially denied by theLaw Society of Alberta, which enacted rules designed to stop it. The rules prohibited members from entering into a partnership with anyone who was not a resident ofAlberta, and prohibited members from being partners of more than one firm. This rule was challenged as being contrary to the mobility rights protected by theCharter of Rights and Freedoms. In the resulting court case,Black v. Law Society of Alberta,[14] theSupreme Court of Canada struck down the rules. The subsequent merger made McCarthy Tétrault Canada's first national law firm.[15]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
