After graduating from Harvard Law School with an LL.M. in 1971, and after articling for John Sopinka at what was then known as Fasken, Calvin, Williston & Swackhammer (now known as Fasken), I joined the litigation group at Goodman and Carr, where I was a junior to Benzion Sischy (who subsequently became the construction lien master in Toronto for many years). Although my earlier academic background was in the very esoteric area of sociological jurisprudence, Sischy guided and encouraged me to develop an interest in the more practical field of construction law, and, despite my absolute lack of any background in the area, I actually became most interested in it. However, when my then wife was admitted as a first year student to Queen’s Law School, I quickly secured a position as a law professor there, left my job at Goodman and Carr, and moved with her to Kingston.
Teaching torts and civil procedure, it took me ten hours to prepare for every hour of classroom time. Nevertheless, I found that the life of a law professor at Queen’s at the time was ideal -- regular intellectual and social exchanges with students, colleagues and others on campus, and lunches on the back lawn of the Faculty Club overlooking the sail boats on Lake Ontario. In the very apartment building where my wife and I lived, Professor Hugh Lawford (a colleague of mine at Queen’s) was working on an important legal research project which eventually became known as “Quicklaw” (QUIC/LAW), the online service which revolutionized how law is practised. Hugh went on the become President and CEO of LexisNexis.
The only shortcoming in my life as professor was that the phone rarely rang, and I missed the “action” of a busy litigation practice on Bay St. When my wife decided to transfer to U of T Law School for her second year, I seized the opportunity to move back into practice in Toronto, and joined what was then called Blaney, Pasternak, Smela, Watson & Eagelson (now known as Blaney McMurtry). There I worked with Lloyd Cadsby, who specialized in both family law and construction claims. This gave me another opportunity to practice in the construction law field, and I used it as a platform for launching my career. Through my contact with my partner Bill McMurtry, and with his brother Roy McMurtry who was Attorney General at the time, I was fortunate, at age 29, to have been selected to become a member of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee on the Draft Construction Lien Act, and I used that experience as an opportunity to learn everything there was to know about liens and to write a book on the Construction Lien Act shortly after it had been proclaimed in force in 1983.
While I was at Blaney’s, I created and became the Editor-in-Chief of the topical law report series known as the Construction Law Reports, and, because of my growing interest in the field, I also published numerous books (e.g., Kirsh's Guide to Construction Liens in Ontario), articles and newsletters dealing with construction law topics. The combination of my maturing litigation practice and my legal writing caused me to interact with many of the leaders in the field in Canada, the United States and England.
After having been a partner at Blaney’s for 10 years, I was invited by Gordon Betts to join Cassels Brock & Blackwell. Gordon, at the time, was a leading member of both the firm and the construction law bar, and he chaired the firm’s Construction Law Group. When Gordon died tragically in his early 50s, I assumed the mantle of leadership, and became Chair of the Construction Law Group, and a member of the firm’s Executive Committee.
After having been a partner with the Cassels firm for 15 years, I privately disclosed to a colleague, Don Marston, that I might be prepared to make a career move, and Don immediately put the wheels in motion to see whether there might be an opportunity and a fit at his firm, Osler. This happened shortly after the time when Bain and Company, a global management consulting firm, had completed a review of Osler and recommended that the firm not invest in the construction law group since there was not much of a future for that part of the firm’s practice. However, when I and Roger Gillott (my associate at Cassels) joined Osler, we hit the ground running, and were soon joined by Paul Ivanoff and others. I was delighted to have had the opportunity to work on complex and interesting litigation, arbitration and mediation matters arising out of the construction of the Sheppard Subway, the Confederation Bridge, the Hemlo Mine, the Keystone Pipeline, the Niagara Falls Casino, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, the Deerhurst Resort, and a host of other significant infrastructure projects while at Osler. I was also proud of the fact that I was the only Canadian member of the Global Engineering and Construction Group of "JAMS", which was, and continues to be, the largest private provider of alternative resolution services in the world. Also, aside from my having been the Founding President of the Canadian College of Construction Lawyers, I was also one of the very few Canadians who had also been inducted as a Fellow of the American College of Construction Lawyers and as a Fellow of the College of Commercial Arbitrators.
After being mandatorily retired from Osler at age 65, I spent some years at a smaller law firm where I continued to conduct my construction litigation practice, mainly dealing at the time with major subway construction and other large transportation projects. Over the course of the next eight years, my practice has evolved to become focussed on the arbitration and mediation of complex construction disputes and claims, and chairing the Dispute Resolution Boards of a variety of Canadian infrastructure projects.
By virtue of my many years of specialized practice, I was delighted to have been the recipient of the Ontario Bar Association's Awards of Excellence in both Alternate Dispute Resolution (2015) and Construction and Infrastructure Law (2018); and in 2024, was also awarded the Governor General of Canada's Medal for Meritorious Service (M.S.M.) for achievements in the development of the field of construction law in Canada.
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