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The Seven Sisters refers to a historical collection of seven law firms with offices across Canada, the majority of which have head offices in Toronto, Ontario.[1]
The term "Seven Sisters" was originally coined by John Alexander Black, founder of Lexpert (previously owned by Thomson Reuters and now owned by Key Media[2]). At the time, the Seven Sisters dominated the Canadian M&A legal advisory rankings. However, by 2006, Black stated "the moniker may have run its course and that some people argue the Seven have shrunk to two or possibly three."[3] Later that year, The Globe and Mail reported the Seven Sisters term was no longer valid, explaining that "as the Canadian pool of major companies boils down to a thin concentrate, the upper legal tier has also shrunk." It noted that "most observers agree the reigning top players are McCarthy Tetrault LLP, Stikeman Elliott LLP, Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP and Blake Cassels & Graydon LLP."[4] In 2014, The National Post reported "the Chambers Global rankings for Canadian law firms confirm that it's time to retire the notion that "Seven Sisters" dominate Canadian law firms."[5] As of 2024, only five of the original seven have become national law firms in Canada and feature in The American Lawyer global rankings – the aforementioned four plus Torys LLP.
In 2015, The Globe and Mail reported that the corporate legal market had changed markedly from the early 2000s: "Elite U.S. legal shops blanket the top 25 firms for M&A, taking 13 of the top spots on the chart."[6] The most recent league tables from LSEG Data & Analytics (formerly Thomson Reuters Financial) indicate that the top 10 legal advisors by M&A transaction value with any Canadian involvement during the first three quarters of 2024 were Osler (TO), McCarthy (TO), Blakes (TO), Stikeman Elliott (MTL/TO), Paul Weiss (NY), Allens (AUS), Cleary Gottlieb (NY), Davies (TO), Fasken (TO) and Allen Overy Shearman Sterling (LON/NY), signalling the integration of Canada into the larger North American and global legal services market .[7] The 'club of nine' was a similar term used in London, UK until it was replaced by the Magic Circle, which itself has been deprecated as U.S. law firms entered the European market.[8][9][10][11]
From Single-office Corporate Boutiques to National Champions
Since the end of the Cold War, the Canadian corporate legal market has undergone significant consolidation and reorganisation in order to adapt to Canada's shrinking business community, the integration of Canada into the wider North American economy, and the liberalisation of services markets worldwide. The decision by the Supreme Court of Canada in Black v Law Society of Alberta and the concomitant 1989-90 merger of Toronto's McCarthy & McCarthy with Montreal's Clarkson Tetrault, Calgary's Black & Company, and Vancouver's Shrum Liddle & Hebenton served as a catalyst for the Canadian legal sector's "big bang." Thus far, Canadian partnerships had been limited in their ability to practice law outside their home provinces; the Sisters, for the most part, had operated as single-office corporate boutiques.[12][13][14][15]
Shortly thereafter, a subclass of the Seven Sisters decided to expand nationally by greenfielding offices in the 1990s (i.e. Osler and Blakes from Toronto, Stikeman Elliott from Montreal, and Bennett Jones from Calgary), setting off a corresponding wave of combinations among regional law firms.[16][17][18][19][20][21] These amalgamations were concentrated about a group of national mergers at the turn of the millennium (i.e. Fasken Martineau DuMoulin, Borden Lander Gervais, and Gowling LaFleur Henderson[22][23][24][25]) and then a succession of international mergers following the 2007–2008 financial crisis (i.e. Ogilvy Renault and Mcleod Dixon with Norton Rose and Fraser Milner Casgrain with Dentons[26][27][28][29]), creating a new class of well-resourced competitors to the Sisters. During this period of upheaval a number of major law firms also failed, including Toronto's Goodman and Carr (2007),[30] Montreal's Desjardins Ducharme (2007) which had an "exclusive and strategic partnership with Torys"[31] (Torys would open a Montreal office in 2013[32]), and most notably Heenan Blaikie (2014).[33]
Much of this activity has occurred due to the deregulation of trade in inter-provincial legal services in 1989, the integration of capital markets between and the cross-listing of companies on the Toronto and New York bourses following the implementation of CUSFTA (later NAFTA, and now USMCA) in 1989, and the emergence of Toronto as a leading Canadian and North American financial centre following the merger of the Montreal, Vancouver and Alberta stock exchanges into the Toronto Stock Exchange (now, TMX Group) from 1999 to 2001.[34][35][36][37][38][39]
Mergers and Domestic Alliances
Amidst all of these structural changes in the market, only three of the Seven Sisters underwent mergers — the aforementioned McCarthy in 1989–90,[40] Toronto's Davies Ward & Beck with Montreal's Phillips & Vineberg in 2000[41] and Toronto's Tory & Tory with New York's Haythe & Curley in 2000[42][43][44] — whilst the remainder decided to grow organically. Notably, Calgary's Bennett Jones abandoned three-way merger negotiations with Tory & Tory a month before the announcement of its merger deal with Haythe & Curley, deciding to go it alone.[45]
Unique among the Seven Sisters, Goodmans reverted to the Sisters' single-office boutique model in 2015 when it spun off its Vancouver office —the Toronto firm originally known as Goodman & Goodman had previously been in "alliance" with the Montreal firm Phillips & Vineberg before the latter firm's merger with Davies Ward & Beck in 2000.[46][47][48] In the mid-1990s, Toronto's Osler ended its own short-lived "association" with Montreal's Ogilvy, which had been "the largest law firm in the British Commonwealth," culminating in each firm entering the other's home market.[49]
Foreign Competition
The Seven Sisters have also faced increasing competition from abroad, particularly from New York which has attracted an ever-growing share of the hemisphere's corporate legal work. Furthermore, some American law firms have established representative outposts practicing U.S. law in Toronto (i.e. Skadden Arps, Paul Weiss and Allen Overy Shearman Sterling from New York),[50][51][52] while others seeking to practice Canadian law have forgone mergers with local firms to greenfield into Canada (i.e. Baker McKenzie from Chicago, and more recently Mintz Levin from Boston and Cozen O'Connor from Philadelphia).[53][54][55][56][57]
International Alliances
In 2011, the Sisters were presented with a unique opportunity to "go global" amidst talk of creating a pan-English financial union to rival the Americans. Subsequent to the 2007 merger of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) with Euronext — itself a combination of continental Europe's leading bourses — the Toronto Stock Exchange (TMX Group) and the London Stock Exchange (LSE Group) proposed their own merger in February 2011. The combined entity, to be known as LTMX Group, would have created a trans-Atlantic bourse with the scale and scope to compete globally, particularly in the mining and energy sectors.[58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67]
At the time, The Globe and Mail reported that TMX Group was being advised by Torys and Magic Circle law firm Allen & Overy, while LSE Group was being counselled by Osler and London's Freshfields. The LTMX integration offered Toronto and London's leading capital markets' advisors — namely the Seven Sisters and the Magic Circle — with their own opportunities to merge and form trans-Atlantic champions better able to compete with New York's legal powerhouses. While the LSE-TMX merger was ultimately rejected by shareholders in June 2011, Lexpert noted that when Torys "entered the Calgary market with its own greenfield in March 2011, the street cast the deal as the penultimate step in making itself attractive for a global suitor (Allen & Overy LLP, given the two firms' past co-mandates, was the favourite)," with the industry publication emphasising that "if a Canadian law firm wants to be part of an international law firm, they have to be in Calgary." In 2013, The Lawyer reported that another Magic Circle firm Linklaters would not expand its "alliance" into Canada, even though it had entered the Australian market the previous year.[68][69][70][71][61][72][73][74][75]
In the decade since the proposed Anglo-Canadian alliance collapsed, the Magic Circle have continued to seek opportunities across the Atlantic — favouring the U.S. over its northern neighbour. Freshfields successfully managed to enter the highly competitive U.S. corporate bar through greenfields, while Allen & Overy completed a precedent-setting, trans-Atlantic merger with New York-founded Shearman & Sterling in 2024. Linklaters subsequently noted that it was "open to mergers in its pursuit of U.S. growth." Clifford Chance had sealed its own U.S.-U.K. merger with New York's Rogers & Wells in 2000.[76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85]
The Seven Sisters have yet to exhibit the same degree of growth and global diversification that the Magic Circle have since the 2011 LSE-TMX proposal. According to The American Lawyer, "Toronto has the fifth largest legal market on the continent, valued at almost $22 billion, after New York, Washington, D.C., L.A., and Chicago" making it an attractive location for in-bound legal services investment and a strong home base for out-bound expansion.[86][87]
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In alphabetical order, the historical Seven Sisters included: Blakes, Davies, Goodmans, McCarthy, Osler, Stikeman, and Torys.
Lexpert publishes an annual ranking of law firms by Canadian legal headcount. Many of the law firms included in the list also have offices practicing non-Canadian law that are not included in the below chart (i.e. Torys in New York, Fasken in Johannesburg, and Gowling in London).[88]
| Rank | Name | Canadian Headcount | Toronto | Ottawa | Montréal | Vancouver | Calgary | Edmonton | Other Cities |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fasken | 902 | 299 | 33 | 294 | 155 | 57 | - | 7 Surrey, BC; 58 Quebec, QC |
| 2 | Gowling WLG | 793 | 203 | 213 | 105 | 82 | 91 | - | 39 Hamilton, ON; 60 Waterloo, ON |
| 3 | BLG | 780 | 293 | 83 | 150 | 140 | 114 | - | - |
| 4 | McCarthy | 744 | 368 | - | 175 | 101 | 64 | - | 36 Quebec, QC |
| 5 | Blakes | 669 | 322 | 6 | 100 | 124 | 117 | - | 3 New York, NY; 4 London, UK |
| 6 | Norton Rose | 629 | 150 | 47 | 160 | 92 | 113 | - | 67 Quebec, QC |
| 7 | Dentons | 576 | 189 | 44 | 99 | 74 | 92 | 78 | - |
| 8 | Osler | 529 | 309 | 13 | 82 | 48 | 77 | - | 4 New York, NY |
| 9 | Stikeman | 523 | 238 | 6 | 161 | 53 | 65 | - | - |
| 10 | Miller Thomson | 499 | 169 | - | 77 | 55 | 42 | 47 | 25 London, ON; 32 Vaughan, ON; 26 Waterloo, ON; 16 Regina, SK; 10 Saskatoon, SK |
| 11 | Bennett Jones | 470 | 201 | 2 | 15 | 54 | 156 | 42 | 2 New York, NY |
| 12 | Torys | 352 | 275 | - | 16 | - | 41 | - | 20 Halifax, NS |
The 2024 edition of The American Lawyer's ranking of global law firms by revenue included the top dozen law firms in Lexpert's headcount ranking for the first time. The American Lawyer ranking also includes a number of international law firms with offices practicing Canadian law (i.e. DLA, Baker McKenzie, Mintz Levin, and Cozen O'Connor).[89][90][91][92][93][94][95]
| Canada Rank | Global Rank | Name | Revenue (US$) | Revenue per Lawyer (RPL, US$) | Total Lawyers | Profit per Equity Partner (PEP, US$) | Total Equity Partners | Head Office & Country | Number of offices | Year established |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N/A | 3 | DLA[96] | 3,829,531,000 | 840,000 | 4,561 | 3,122,000 | 334 | London, UK | 90 | 2005 international merger |
| N/A | 4 | Baker McKenzie[97] | 3,286,791,000 | 721,000 | 4,558 | 1,981,000 | 605 | Chicago, IL | 77 | 1949 |
| N/A | 13 | Dentons[98] | 2,720,000,000 | 457,000 | 5,946 | 403,000 | 2,025 | London, UK | 160 | 2012 international merger |
| N/A | 20 | Norton Rose[99] | 2,261,192,000 | 734,000 | 3,079 | 1,400,000 | 506 | London, UK | 50 | 2010-2013 international merger |
| N/A[100] | 88 | Gowling WLG[101] | 713,683,000 | 565,000 | 1,263 | 704,000 | 396 | Ottawa, ON and Toronto, ON & London, UK | 20 | 2016 international merger |
| 1 | 90 | Blakes[102] | 692,794,000 | 994,000 | 697 | 986,000 | 274 | Toronto, ON | 7 | 1856 |
| N/A | 95 | Cozen O'Connor[103] | 653,043,000 | 871,000 | 750 | 1,139,000 | 197 | Philadelphia, PA | 32 | 1970 |
| N/A | 98 | Mintz Levin[104] | 645,200,000 | 1,240,000 | 520 | 2,103,000 | 93 | Boston, MA | 8 | 1933 |
| 2 | 99 | McCarthy[105] | 635,000,000 | 844,000 | 752 | 1,418,000 | 170 | Toronto, ON | 7 | 1855 |
| 3 | 111 | Fasken[106] | 579,938,000 | 647,000 | 897 | N/A | N/A | Toronto, ON | 10 | 2000 merger |
| 4 | 130 | Osler[107] | 479,904,000 | 882,000 | 544 | N/A | N/A | Toronto, ON | 6 | 1862 |
| 5 | 138 | BLG[108] | 443,658,000 | 553,000 | 803 | N/A | N/A | Toronto, ON | 5 | 2000 merger |
| 6 | 142 | Bennett Jones[109] | 425,000,000 | 895,000 | 475 | N/A | N/A | Calgary, AB and Toronto, ON | 7 | 1922 |
| 7 | 161 | Stikeman[110] | 368,756,000 | 713,000 | 517 | N/A | N/A | Montreal, QC and Toronto, ON | 8 | 1952 |
| 8 | 192 | Torys[111] | 294,403,000 | 773,000 | 381 | N/A | N/A | Toronto, ON | 4 | 1941 |
| 9 | 199 | Miller Thomson[112] | 282,274,000 | 563,000 | 501 | N/A | N/A | Toronto, ON | 11 | 1957 |
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