Heenan Blaikie The Making and Unmaking of a Great Canadian Law Firm By Adam Dodek

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

Heenan Blaikie is the fascinating story of a respected law firm that buckled under weak governance and management. Adam Dodek, an unbiased outsider, analyzes the origins, evolution, and demise of the company. Heenan Blaikie seemed to punch above its weight: bilingual, humane, national with international aspirations. But just underneath, as revealed by the author’s extensive interviews with company lawyers and legal industry insiders, was a rotten corporate culture, workplace bullying, challenges to women and visible minority employees, and sexual harassment. 

Dodek astutely situates the firm’s rise and fall within the context of events of the time: the 1970s oil shock, Quebec separatism, the flight of business from Montreal to Toronto, economic expansion from the 1980s to early 2000s, and the 2008 financial crisis. Heenan Blaikie is a meticulous 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 The Ethical Lawyer, the second edition of The Canadian Constitution, 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 Upper Canada’s Law Society Medal.