The Best Lawyers in Canada 2025 recognize 88 lawyers of Lavery

André Vautour practices in the fields of corporate and commercial law and is particularly interested in corporate governance, strategic alliances, joint ventures, investment funds and mergers and acquisitions of private corporations. He also serves as honorary consul of Denmark in Montreal and was Lavery’s chair of the board of Directors from 2012 to 2016.

Mr. Vautour practises in the field of technology law (drafting technology development and transfer agreements, licensing agreements, distribution agreements, outsourcing agreements, and e-commerce agreements).

He has had the opportunity to work regularly with companies in the financial, printing, pharmaceutical, railway, computer and energy sectors.

Mr. Vautour has given many lectures on subjects related to his fields of expertise. He has also written numerous articles on various aspects of business law.

Chantal Desjardins is a partner, lawyer and trademark agent in Lavery’s intellectual property group. She contributes actively to the development of her clients’ rights in this field, which includes the protection of trade-marks, industrial designs, copyright, trade secrets, domain names and other related forms of intellectual property, in order to promote her clients’ business goals.

Me Desjardins provides legal advice and expertise with respect to protecting and managing IP assets, represents her clients in the examination of applications, opposition proceedings, and litigation in Canada and in other countries. She negotiates IP licences, various contracts in the field, and technology transfers, advises and defends clients’ rights in the field of advertising and labelling and other topics such as the Charter of the French language. She regularly provides guidance to clients on IP issues implicated in new and existing products and services. She is involved in the IP due diligence review of transactions. She regularly gives conferences, seminars and courses and publishes articles on intellectual property matters and participated on the advisory board of the Trademarks Office regarding the reform in trademark law and its implementation.

Eric Lavallée is a lawyer and trademark agent in the Business Law Group and he runs the Lavery Legal Lab on Artificial Intelligence (L3AI).

As a result of his extensive experience in intellectual property (patents, trade-marks and software protection) Mr. Lavallée took on a special interest in developments related to artificial intelligence over the past few years.

Mr. Lavallée is regularly called upon to assist businesses of all sizes, from start-ups to large corporations in drafting licensing agreements and business contracts in high technology as well as implementing protection and due diligence strategies for their intellectual property needs.

He has developed leading-edge expertise in the analysis of the legal impact of the application and implementation of artificial intelligence in sectors related to his practise of law, namely privacy protection, corporate governance and business law.

Expertise in nanotechnology

Eric Lavallée has a Master’s degree in Physics as well as a Doctorate in Electrical Engineering. Prior to joining Lavery in 2014, he was Vice-President, R&D, for a nanotechnology research and development firm. He has four inventions to his name relating to electron beam lithography for applications in microelectronics:
• Method of producing an etch-resistant polymer structure using electron beam lithography
• Plasma polymerized electron beam resist
• Fabrication of sub-micron silicide structures on silicon using resistless electron beam lithography
• Fabrication of sub-micron etch-resistant metal/semiconductor structures using resistless electron beam lithography

As a researcher, he also authored 15 scientific papers and presented his work at international conferences held in the United States, Europe and Japan in the nanotechnology industry.

Étienne Brassard is a partner at Lavery and a member of the firm’s Board of Directors. He practices business law, more specifically corporate financing, mergers and acquisitions and corporate law. In his practice, he advises local and international businesses in relation to all forms of private financing, from traditional or convertible debt to equity investments.

He has thus developed extensive expertise in setting up complex financing structures, in both operational and transactional contexts. As such, he regularly acts as legal counsel for major financial institutions or groups of borrowers in connection with their financing in Canada, the United States and Europe. He also advises companies involved in mezzanine loans and venture capital investments.

Étienne has participated in the development and implementation of many complex investment structures affecting various economic sectors and regularly assists leaders in the fields of real estate development and management, aeronautics and technology.

He also represents entrepreneurs in all aspects of their growth and partnerships, advising them on their corporate structure, governance, and strategic issues, in particular. Mr. Brassard assists his clients as they grow their businesses, right through to their liquidity event.

His services are regularly solicited by foreign entrepreneurs or investors wishing to establish themselves in Canada. Étienne has acquired specific experience in this area and can identify the challenges facing businesses interested in entering the Quebec market, regardless of their preferred route (acquisition, joint venture, creating a subsidiary, distribution agreement, etc.). He can call on the help of his vast business network (bankers, financial advisors, tax specialists and accountants) that he has built as a result of his previous mandates.

Mr. Brassard also assists entrepreneurs with high growth potential with their financing and partnerships and advises them on their corporate structure and strategic issues specific to their industry.

Guillaume Laberge is a member of the Administrative law group. His practice focuses primarily on administrative and constitutional law. In recent years, Mr. Laberge has acquired significant experience in several specialized areas, such as access to information, privacy, professional law and disciplinary law.

He regularly represents and advises public and private companies, including professional orders and public bodies, on matters relating to administrative law litigation, constitutional law, judicial reviews and injunctions.

In this capacity, Mr. Laberge has been called upon to work on cases involving the confidential nature of documents, professional secrecy, professional ethics, protection of reputation and the legal challenge of government decisions in proceedings before various judicial bodies, including the Commission d'accès à l'information, professional disciplinary councils, superior and appellate courts, as well as the Supreme Court of Canada.

As a member of the administrative law team, Raymond Doray heads the information law practice and, more particularly, is involved in issues pertaining to access to information, privacy and defamation, as well as the application of the Canadian and Québec charters of rights and freedoms. He is also specialized in constitutional law.

Over the past few years, Mr. Doray has represented many public, private and media organizations before the courts in cases involving the confidentiality of documents, the validity of government decisions, as well as respect for reputation and privacy. In addition, he is legal counsel for a number of major corporations, professional orders, public bodies and media organizations in matters relating to administrative and constitutional law. He is regularly called upon to represent them in the courts when governmental decisions are challenged. He also represents various clients in proceedings pertaining to defamation, slander, invasion of privacy and professional confidentiality and has represented the Québec Bar in constitutional matters before the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada.

Before joining the firm, he acted as legal advisor to the Paré Commission, a commission formed in 1980 to study the issue of access to government information, and then to the Conseil exécutif du Québec in 1982 and 1983, and to the Commission d'accès à l'information from 1984 to 1986.

In 1988, Mr. Doray published a book dealing with the legal and administrative aspects of access to information. Since 2002, he has written a treatise of more than 2,000 pages on rights of access to information and the protection of personal information that has been published by Éditions Yvon Blais/Thomson Reuters and is constantly updated. On June 1st, 2004, he was awarded the Québec Bar Foundation's Prix Répertoire for this treatise. He also writes and updates the chapters on professional confidentiality and conflicts of interest in a guide published by the Québec Bar school, of which he is the president. He is the author of numerous articles on these subjects published in trade journals, including commentaries on the law of e-commerce, right to privacy and protection of personal information, professional secrecy and ethics.

He is frequently invited to speak on the protection of personal information and privacy at conferences sponsored by professional agencies and business groups in Québec, elsewhere in Canada and abroad.

Jean-Sébastien Desroches practices business law and focuses primarily on mergers and acquisitions, infrastructure, renewable energy and project development as well as strategic partnerships. He was the firm’s practice leader for the Business Law Group up to 2018.

He has had the opportunity to steer several major transactions, complex legal operations, cross-border transactions, reorganizations, and investments in Canada and at an international level on behalf of Canadian, American and European clients, international corporations and institutional clients in the manufacturing, transportation, pharmaceutical, financial and renewable energy sectors.

Jean-Sébastien represents entrepreneurs, institutions and investors in the context of developing and implementing commercial projects, international expansion as well as partnerships (joint ventures). He also advises clients on matters related to venture capital, long-term investments and business transfers.

Jean-Sébastien is also interested in artificial intelligence (AI) projects and their legal ramifications, especially regarding the various branches and applications of artificial intelligence in businesses and industries. He created the Lavery Legal Lab on Artificial Intelligence (L3AI) to analyze and monitor recent and anticipated developments in this field from a legal perspective.