The Honourable Joel Avery Silcoff joined LCM Attorneys Inc. as Senior Counsel in February 2017, following his retirement as a Judge of the Superior Court of Quebec.
Mr. Silcoff was appointed to the Superior Court in 2000. He was a member of the ad hoc Organizing Committee that gave rise to the establishment of the Commercial Division of the Court, as well as of the standing committee on the rules of procedure of the Superior Court. He represented the Court as a member of the Committee on the Accessibility to the Justice System in the English Language, and taught advanced judgment writing courses to francophone judges as part of the Judges’ Language Training Program organized by the Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs.
As a member of the Commercial Division of the Court, he frequently presided trials involving complex corporate and commercial disputes and rendered several landmark decisions in the areas of shareholders’ oppression remedies, corporate reorganizations (including arrangements pursuant to the Canadian Business Corporations Act), banking law, calls for tenders by governmental authorities, contractual interpretation, and international arbitration.
In the Fall of 2017, he joined the Faculty of Law of McGill University as a Course Lecturer, sharing his expertise in the field of oppression remedies and corporate arrangements in the context of a course entitled “BCE Revisited”.
Prior to his appointment to the Superior Court, he practiced law primarily in the areas corporate and commercial litigation. He has appeared as counsel before the Supreme Court of Canada as well as before all levels of the Courts below and numerous Commissions of Inquiry and Administrative Tribunals.
From 1975 to 1978 he lectured a course in the Faculty of Arts and Science at Concordia University entitled “Legal Issues Affecting Society”. He has recently participated in this program as a guest lecturer.
Mr. Silcoff is certified as an arbitrator and a mediator by the Institut de médiation et d’arbitrage du Québec (IMAQ) and is a member of the Canadian Arbitration Practitioners of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce/ICC Canada (the Canadian national committee of the International Chamber of Commerce).