Speaker details

Biography

Larry is a partner in the Toronto office of Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP, a national Canadian law firm. Since 1989 he has had a practice that specializes in franchise law and providing all necessary legal services to franchisors. He is a member of the International Franchise Association, where he currently serves as Vice-Chair of its International Committee, and previously served as a Member of the IFA Board of Directors and as Chair of its Supplier Forum Advisory Board. Larry also currently serves as General Counsel to the Canadian Franchise Association, and is a member of the CFA Board of Directors. He is also a the Immediate Past Chair of the International Bar Association’s International Franchising Committee and is a Past-Chair of the Ontario Bar Association’s Franchise Law Section. Larry was the founder of, and to date has organizsed and chaired four Ontario Bar Association annual franchise law conferences. He is a member of the American Bar Association’s Forum on Franchising, and in 2006, he was the first Canadian lawyer to be appointed Director of the ABA Forum’s International Division and to a leadership role on its Governing Committee. In 2009 he had the honor of being Co-chair of the ABA’s 32nd Annual Forum on Franchising conference. In 2004 he acted as co-editor of the ABA Forum on Franchising’s book entitled Fundamentals of Franchising-Canada. In 2017, he again acted as co-editor of the 2nd edition of this publication. As well he was co-editor and co-author of the Canadian Franchise Association’s first and still only official book publication entitled, How To Franchise Your Business. He is a co-author of the chapter on Canada for the ABA Forum’s book entitled International Franchise Sales Laws. In 2004, 2005, and each year from 2009 to 2021 Larry was named by Franchise Times to their “Legal Eagles” list of the top franchise lawyers in the United States and Canada. He and Cassels Brock are each listed in the Lexpert® Canadian legal directory as being among the leaders in Canada in franchise law. In each year from 2014 to 2017 Larry received Who’s Who Legal’s one and only worldwide Lawyer of the Year award for Franchise law, and in 2014, the Lexpert® Zenith Award. Larry was called to the Bar of the Province of Ontario in 1989.