Inspiration. Where does it come from?  For the Commercial team it is ensuring that we are making a real contribution to the business affairs of our clients.  

Our team is a tightly knit group, which tackle every aspect of a client's matter with the highest possible care, responsiveness, attention to detail and out-of-the-box thinking to achieve innovative solutions.  We integrate our services with our client's business so as to understand the drivers for the client in the context of the matter at hand.  For this reason, we have traditionally become long term advisors to our clients.  The result is we deliver legally sound, effective and relevant solutions.

We work for a wide range of businesses and individuals – those with an entrepreneurial spirit, family businesses that have worked hard to reap the rewards of success, SME's who want help with everything from startup onwards, and large well established businesses that wish to maintain their competitive position.  Because we take the time to get to know the needs and objectives of our clients, we also appreciate their appetite for risk.  This helps us to provide timely and relevant advice on a broad variety of issues.

A sampling of the work that our Commercial team undertakes:

• Mergers, acquisitions and sales (companies & business)
• Regulatory compliance
• Local and international trade
• Commercial and trade insurance
• Transactional advice – business to business and consumer transactions
• Cross-border transactions
• Marine cargo and trade
• Employment and personal services
• Business structures and set up (including companies and trusts)
• Franchising, licensing and compliance
• General corporate law advice and compliance
• Insolvency
• Intellectual property
• Trade and consumer practices and regulations
• Corporate finance
• Infrastructure (including telecommunications).and utilities agreements
• Agency and representation
• Shareholder and unitholder agreements
• Due diligence of proposed transactions and business arrangements
• Software development maintenance and licensing agreements
• Computer hosting and facility agreements

Our lawyers work closely with specialists in other teams within the Commercial Group and other practice groups in the firm, such as, Insurance and Construction.  

Our Commercial team members include:

• John Snelgrove, Partner and Commercial Group Team Leader
• Michael Mitchell, Special Counsel
• Craig Hyde, Special Counsel
• Ross Manookian, Senior Associate
• Francine Hendriks, Solicitor
• Melissa Grant, Solicitor