Legal Research

The Birth of the New McMillan

By Simon Chester

Today’s wire service announced the merger of McMillan (as McMillan, Binch, Stuart, Berry, Dunn, Corrigan & Howland ultimately slimmed down to) and Lang Michener.

The Post, Gazette, and Globe all carry the story.

Here is the video of McMillan leader, Andy Kent, and the western and eastern leaders of Lang Michener commenting on their ambitions and achievement. The new firm vaults into the top dozen of Canadian firms by size and gives McMillan a reach beyond Calgary, with Lang’s Vancouver and Hong Kong offices. There will be 400 lawyers affected by the merger, which is slated to occur on January 1, 2011.

Our congratulations are tinged by sadness at the disappearance (in name anyway) of the firm founded by Governor General The Right Hon. Daniel Roland Michener, P.C., C.C., C.M.M., O.Ont., C.D., Q.C., LL.D. and Daniel Lang, father of Senator Daniel Lang, both of whom were still active presences in the firm back in the 1970s. Lang Michener dates back to 1926 in Toronto, where Rhodes Scholar, Roland Michener, and Osgoode Hall graduate, Daniel Lang, formed Lang & Michener. The first Lang & Michener office was in the Canadian National Building at 347 Bay Street, not far from the current Bay Adelaide Centre. It was one of the first “Bay Street” law firms in Canada. In 1938, the firm (according to a Financial Post ad here) had five lawyers: Lang and Michener, and C.M. Ricketts, future CCF leader E.B. Jolliffe and H.S. Day.

Founding partner, Roland Michener was appointed Speaker of the House of Commons during John Diefenbaker’s Prime Ministership and was later a poular Governor General of Canada. Daniel Aiken Lang, son of firm founder Daniel Webster Lang, was appointed to the Canadian Senate also by Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson. The Right Honourable Jean Chrétien practiced with Lang Michener from 1986?1990, and Justice Michel Bastarache worked in its Ottawa office.

A good firm with good lawyers and an eighty year history. It will be missed

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on November 09, 2010 (boomark / email).