News

Lavery is pleased to announce that Audrey Gibeaut, Justin Gravel, Myriam Lavallée, Marilyn Paré and Virginie Simard have been appointed Partners of the firm.   Audrey Gibeault is a member of the firm’s Business Law group and practices tax law. From family-owned businesses to multinationals, she provides companies with advice in connection with reorganizations, corporate acquisitions and sales, but also in regards to developing several private investment funds, including the legal structures to be put in place in order to welcome investors to Canada who are residents and non-residents alike.   Justin Gravel is part of the firm’s Litigation and Conflict Resolution group and he practices primarily in the bankruptcy and insolvency, bank law and construction law sectors. He is frequently called on to represent bankruptcy trustees, financial institutions and various construction sector stakeholders before all of the province’s law courts.   Myriam Lavallée focuses her practice on labour and employment law, administrative law as well as human rights law. She advises and represents numerous companies in a variety of sectors in connection with individual working relations and collective labour relations. She has specific expertise in the childcare services sector.   Marilyn Paré is a member of Lavery’s Business Law group and practices in the areas of transactional law, commercial law, financing as well as corporate reorganizations. She frequently advises companies in drafting and negotiating numerous types of commercial or corporate agreements, such as sales agreements and shareholder agreements.   Virginie Simard works with Lavery’s Litigation and Conflict Resolution group. Virginie focuses her practice primarily in the areas of hospital liability, civil and professional liability, director and officer liability, as well as insurance law. Virginie represents insurers, hospital centres, clinics and youth centres before civil courts, in arbitration matters, as well as in connection with coroners’ inquests.

On February 16 and 17, 2018, the 40th edition of the Pierre-Basile-Mignault moot court competition was held between students from six Canadian civil law faculties. Lavery has been involved for several years, alongside students of the competition. This year, Justin Gravel supervised students of the Université de Sherbrooke, while Myriam Brixi and Dominique Vallières supervised students of the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM).  The UQAM team, which included Valérie Dupont, Vincent Grondin, Emmanuelle Arcand and Gabriel Sévigny-Ferland, set themselves apart by winning five of the nine prizes awarded in the competition: best team, best factum, tandem finalist of the finale (2nd best tandem), 2nd best litigator and best tandem of non-finalist litigators. The Lavery Cup for the 3rd best litigator was presented by Loïc Berdnikoff to Chloé Boisvenue of the University of Ottawa. For more information on the Pierre-Basile-Mignault Moot Court Competition, click here.

         A Lavery team advised the Groupe Lexis Media in connection with the acquisition of 12 regional newspapers from Transcontinental. The Groupe Lexis Media, which already publishes Homme, Mieux-Être, Moi Parent and  Maternité, now owns the following newspapers:  Le Citoyen Rouyn-Noranda, Le Citoyen de la Vallée-de-l'Or, L'Écho Abitibien and La Frontière, distributed in Abitibi Témiscamingue; L’Action d'Autray, L’Action - édition de mercredi, L’Action - édition du week-end, L’Express Montcalm and Hebdo Rive-Nord, in Lanaudière; and Le Bulletin, La Petite-Nation and La Revue, in Outaouais. The Lavery team was led by Eric Lavallée and included Laurent Bellemare-Proulx, Mylène Boisvert and Justin Gravel.

On March 9, 2017, several members of the firm attended the official opening of the new library of the Faculty of Law at the Université de Sherbrooke. The rebuilding of the Faculty library was made possible by a substantial financial contribution by Lavery and other partners. With the upgrading completed, the library will now provide law students with high quality work spaces, equipped with cutting edge technology and arranged to facilitate teamwork. We would note that on March 22, 2016, following Lavery’s financial contribution, the Faculty named a new multimedia room after the firm. Upper row : Marie-Claude Lacaille,  Nicolas Thibault-Bernier, Marilyn Paré, Christian Dumoulin, Loïc Berdnikoff, Cynthia Fortin, Isabelle P. Mercure Middle row : Jean Hébert, Alain Heyne, Danielle Gauthier, Letta Wellinger, Marika Couture-Houle, Justin Gravel, Laurent Bellemare-Proulx Bottom row : Kay-Sandra Boyer, Mylène Boisvert

On March 11, five members from Lavery’s Sherbrooke office participated in the Leucan Ski Challenge held at Bromont. Justin Gravel, Jordy-Philippe Bernier, Geneviève Chamberland, Nicolas Thibault-Bernier and Marie-Claude Lacaille raised $1,900 to be donated to Leucan in support of children with cancer and their families. Click here for more information on Leucan.

On February 17th and 18th, 2017, the 39th edition of the Pierre-Basile-Mignault pleading competition was held between students from six civil law faculties in Canada. Lavery has been involved in this competition for several years. This year, students from two teams were supervised by four lawyers from the Litigation group: Laurence Bich-Carrière and Maude Lafortune-Bélair for the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) Justin Gravel and Audrey-Julie Dallaire for the Université de Sherbrooke (UdeS) UQAM’s appellant team won the Yvon Blais Cup, which is awarded to the finalist team. Two members of the UQAM team were awarded prizes for best speaker: Laurence Landry-Plouffe received the Canadian Bar Association Cup, Quebec Division (2nd best) and Mélissa Desgroseillers was the recipient of the Lavery Cup (3rd best). Click here for more information on the Pierre-Basile-Mignault Moot Court Competition.

For the second year running, a team from Lavery’s Sherbrooke office participated in the Défi à l’entreprise competition, whose 30th edition was held on November 19, 2016. The purpose of this friendly competition between various local businesses is to raise money for CEGEP de Sherbrooke sports teams (les Volontaires). The Sherbrooke team finished seventh out of 32 participating teams. From left to right: Dzenan Zulji, Sylvie Stang-Chaput, Mylène Boisvert, Geneviève Chamberland, Justin Gravel, Marika Couture-Houle. Bottom row: Nicolas Thibault-Bernier, Sophie Goulet, Kay-Sandra Boyer, Katy Pelletier et Annie Pouliot

Teams mentored by Lavery lawyers win nine of the ten prizes in the 2015 edition. On February 6 and 7, 2015, students from all Canadian civil law faculties gathered at McGill University to engage in debates regarding real rights and the protection of the environment, during the prestigious Pierre-Basile-Mignault Moot Competition. For many years now, Lavery has been involved in this event and the 2015 edition is no exception. Three teams were supervised by our lawyers:  Laurence Bich-Carrière and Jonathan Lacoste-Jobin for UQÀM Mary Delli Quadri and our former colleague Marie-Andrée Gagnon for University of Montreal (UdeM) Justin Gravel for University of Sherbrooke The finale pitted the UQÀM and UdeM teams against each other. The former team won (along with the Fasken-Martineau Cup; the Yvon-Blais Cup being handed to the UdeM team), and together, these two teams won almost every prize, which highlights Lavery’s strength in both civil law and oral advocacy. Four individual oratory prizes were awarded, going to Christophe Savoie (UdeM) (Robinson Cup for best speaker), Marie-Pier Lauzon-Raza (UQÀM) and Philippe Moisan-Royal (UQÀM) (Canadian Bar Cup (Quebec division) for 2nd best speakers, ex aequo) and Dominique Samson (UdeM) (Lavery Cup for 3rd best speaker, given by Bernard Larocque). If the Lauzon-Raza and Moisan-Royal pair won the finale, a discretionary prize was awarded to Savoie and Samson as best pair not participating in the finale. The SOQUIJ Cup for second best factum was awarded to Jessica Leblanc, Marylin Ménard et Jonathan Raizenne (UQÀM). Ms. Bich-Carrière and Mr. Lacoste-Jobin are particularly proud that their teams’ efforts were recognized, UQÀM being awarded the President of the Barreau du Québec for best overall team.