Your Law Firm From the Ground Up: Essential Business Plan

For more than 135 years, the Toronto Lawyers' Association, located within the Courthouse Library, has represented the interests of lawyers practising in the City of Toronto. The association was founded to support its members in three key areas: Knowledge, Advocacy, and Community. To uphold these pillars, the association offers a year-round mix of online and in-person education programs for lawyers, hosts both free and paid events to foster in-person networking, and submits advocacy pieces on behalf of its members to the Ontario bench and bar, all levels of government, and the broader public.

Kristine brings over 20 years of legal experience to Fern Law. Since her first year in law school, she knew she wanted to be in the courtroom advocating for clients. Crafting a solution that empowers her clients is her focus. Kristine deeply understands clients' needs and genuinely cares about every file. Kristine is also a mediator who works with parties to obtain powerful solutions built on respect.

Over 30 years ago, Steve Benmor founded Benmor Family Law Group, gaining unparalleled experience in settling divorce cases for families with significant wealth and assets. Mr. Benmor is proficient in mediating high-net-worth divorces and complex financial cases with his sophisticated financial understanding and in-depth knowledge of divorce law, tax law, real estate law, corporate law and trust law. Driven by a mission to achieve great results for his clients, Mr. Benmor is known for his expertise in negotiation, conflict resolution and domestic violence in order to assist families through the many stages of separation and divorce, with compassion, respect, and urgency. Steve Benmor is one of the only divorce professionals in Canada who is licensed, certified and accredited in all out-of-court divorce options. Recognizing the need to help families avoid conflict and find a better solution for reaching a divorce settlement, Mr. Benmor was designated as a “Certified Family Mediator” by the Alternative Dispute Resolution Institute of Ontario. In addition to Mr. Benmor’s extraordinary commitment to children and families, the Family Dispute Resolution Institute of Ontario awarded Mr. Benmor his designation as a “Specialist in Parenting Coordination.” Mr. Benmor is one of Toronto’s 24 Certified Specialists in Family Law, one of Canada’s 56 Fellows of the prestigious International Academy of Family Lawyers and holds a Master of Laws in Family Law.

Matthias Duensing is a versatile lawyer with a focus on wills, trusts, estates, and real estate. In his practice, he covers a broad spectrum of services, from drafting wills, powers of attorney, and trusts to advising estate trustees on the administration process, including probate. Additionally, he assists real estate clients with transactions involving residential and commercial properties, such as sales, purchases, and refinancing. Matthias is not only dedicated to his clients but also to staying abreast of developments in his fields. He shares his expertise through writing articles for publications like The Lawyer’s Daily and Advocate Daily, ensuring that his insights reach a wider audience. His specialization lies in estate executor and trustee work, where he serves as an independent professional for clients seeking such roles. Moreover, Matthias actively engages with the community, volunteering his time and expertise as a supervising lawyer at Pro Bono Students Canada’s Wills Project. This initiative provides much-needed estate planning services to low-income individuals, facilitated by law students under his guidance. Furthermore, Matthias extends his knowledge beyond his practice by speaking regularly on estate planning issues to federal government employees, collaborating with the largest provider of retirement planning seminars for the Federal Public Service. With his fluency in German, he can effectively serve clients who require legal assistance in that language.

Breanna is a commercial litigation lawyer with a focus on matters where misconduct is an element. She has extensive experience working on cases involving investigations and injunctions, as well as strategic analysis, legal research, written submissions, and opinions in confidential, high-profile, and high-stakes matters. Breanna has consistently been recognized for her work in the commercial litigation space. She represents companies and individuals in a wide variety of proceedings, investigations, and disputes, including in matters involving fraud, misappropriation, conversion, restrictive covenants, breach of confidence, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, and other complex disputes involving shareholders, employees, directors, officers, and nuanced business relationships. She has successfully represented clients before all levels of court in Ontario, as well as in mediations and commercial arbitrations. Breanna also has experience advising on ethical compliance and conflicts of interest, including legal obligations in the political sector. Part of Breanna’s approach to practice includes preventing problems before they happen, including through offering risk management services to clients, so that issues can be addressed before they become emergencies. In addition to working directly with her own clients, Breanna also offers bespoke of-counsel and freelance services to other lawyers, law firms, and in-house legal departments to assist with litigation, investigations, injunctions, trials, appeals, and other complex matters. Breanna founded Luceo Legal after practicing law at two of the largest law firms in Canada, one of the leading litigation boutiques, and the Toronto office of an international law firm. In addition to her work, Breanna is a frequent speaker at legal conferences and educational seminars on litigation practice and procedure, as well as professionalism, equity, diversity, and inclusion in the legal profession.

Lisa Stam practices all aspects of employment, labour and human rights law, and has a particular interest in legal issues involving technology in the workplace and the various methods by which people continue to mess things up with technology. She regularly advises clients on the usual employment law fare: domestic and international employment advice, drafting offer letters and employment contracts, workplace policies and handbooks, advising on bonus and commission plans, benefits, workplace privacy issues, independent contractors, confidential and proprietary information, and discipline and terminations. She has also advised on a variety of human rights issues such as accommodating disabilities in the workplace, sexual harassment, discrimination, and gender transition. Lisa frequently speaks on and advises clients about the impact, risks and opportunities of technology in the workplace, including social media legal issues, privacy breaches, and ownership of data. She remains perplexed at humanity’s inability to more carefully set their social media privacy settings but continues to enjoy the juicy bits of evidence that could form the basis of a future best-selling novel. Lisa is a member of the Canadian Netherlands Business and Professionals Association, Verity Women’s Business Club and various bar associations (the legal not fun kind). She graduated from the University of Toronto with a specialty in medieval history, and therefore went to law school, graduating from Dalhousie Law School in 2003, and has since been licensed to practice law by the Law Society of Ontario. When not practicing law, Lisa practices adulthood with a spouse, two kids, and a dog, hikes outdoors, watches anything historical, and probably enjoys more opera and science fiction than is socially acceptable.