Top Canadian Lawyers

Allison Dellandrea

Crown counsel, Ministry of the Attorney General,Toronto, Ont. Dellandrea has been a key player in advancing the understanding of crimes against children by law enforcement officers, fellow attorneys, and the judiciary. She had been included in a child sexual abuse case in March where Ontario's former deputy education minister Ben Levin pleaded guilty to child porn related fees. The charges included making composed child porn, counseling a person to commit a sexual assault, and possession of child pornography. Dellandrea's function for a Crown includes being the education lead for Ontario's provincial plan on Internet crimes against children. She is a worthy pioneer in this region within the justice section. What Republicans needed to say: Allison is a tireless resource and is the penultimate legal head to get a prosecutorial position on all things related to child exploitation and sexual assault offences. For this difficult subject that inherently entails quite taxing emotional and legal problems, Allison always has time to provide sound guidance to other Crowns prosecuting these very tough and sensitive offences. Her efforts have made a tangible difference in making our society safer, go to https://gklaw.ca/.

Marie Henein

Old spouse, Henein Hutchison LLP, Toronto, Ont. Considered one of Canada's greatest criminal defence lawyers, Henein is notorious for representing high-profile customers including former CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi -- charged with seven counts of sexual assault, of which two have been dropped -- former Ontario attorney general Michael Bryant, and junior hockey trainer David Frost. Most recently Henein has taken on the case of defence counsel colleague Leora Shemesh, that had been charged with perjury and obstruction of justice by Peel Police. Henein is well known in the profession as a go-to attorney for most high-profile criminal matters. She has a superb track record of wins versus losses and has been a part of the team that recently was victorious in having John Salmon's certainty in a 1970s murder overturned. What voters had to say: Most observable leader of [the] criminal defence bar.

Poonam Puri

Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto, Ont. Although Puri might not be involved from the largest transactions of this year or most publicized litigation, her work indelibly shapes the arguments and strategies of many attorneys. Her influence is reflected by the eagerness of the Canadian legal community to listen to and respond to her viewpoints and observations on the current condition of regulations and recommendations concerning what can be done to develop a more fair, just, and responsive legal system. She has led research plans including significant company securities regulation initiatives in Canada (National Securities Regulator file) and has been recently appointed by the Ontario Minister of Finance Charles Sousa, since the expert adviser for its Credit Unions' legislative acts review. She is a popular and respected professor and highly regarded by practitioners in the corporate-commercial pub. What voters had to say: Outstanding gift. Unassuming trendsetter. Wise beyond her years. Will be an influence for several years to come on the corporate stage in Canada. Outstanding research and practical capabilities.

Pascale Fournier

Professor & study chair, legal pluralism and comparative legislation, University of Ottawa Faculty of Law, Ottawa, Ont. Fournier has achieved international recognition for her groundbreaking work on gender, faith, and the legislation, together with fieldwork interviews with women from several countries to highlight the complex interplay between religious and secular law. She's received numerous national and international awards and nominations in 2014. Fournier became a fellow of the prestigious International Women's Forum for her job as a pioneer in the legal profession; getting the Canada-Arab Chamber of Commerce Award for academic excellence and contribution to humanity. Fournier represented the University of Ottawa as an effective pioneer in the Governor General's Canadian Leadership Conference and has been unanimously appointed by the National Assembly of Quebec into the Quebec Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission. What voters had to say: Outstanding mind, according [to] Harvard's Prof. Kennedy.

Mark Tamminga

Partner, Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP, Hamilton, Ont. Tamminga has devoted his career to automating legal practices. His information technologies focus started in 1986 while he was still a law student and was given the task of systemizing the production environment for mortgage files. Since that time, Tamminga's capability for legal technology has only grown with Gowlings LLP. Three decades back, he was named Gowlings' Innovation Initiatives leader. He's in charge of automating the Gowlings recovery solutions practice. He's designed and built lots of further practice systems in the fields of debt collection, loan placement, and civil litigation. His role has required re-thinking that the thornier aspects of large business operations: managing cultural change, inducing client-side thinking, and constructing the compensation mechanisms, which induce new behavior. What the panel had to say: Tamminga has shown actual vision in tackling tough issues that many law firms aren't quite ready to take on.