SUPREME COURT OF CANADA APPEAL LAWYER
We act as lead or co-counsel on Supreme Court of Canada applications for leave to appeal, motions, interventions and substantive appeals. We also provide drafting, review and analysis services to counsel preparing SCC arguments and materials. We respect all referrals from lower appellate court counsel.
The low leave to appeal grant rate (only about 10%), number of judges you'll be dealing with on an appeal (between 5 and 9), amount of paper you'll be filing if others are granted intervenor status (potentially a roomful stacked to the ceiling) and ways you need to craft your issues to get the Court's attention means that having the help of counsel experienced with Supreme Court of Canada matters will maximize your prospects of success in seeking or opposing leave, bringing an intervention application, and acting on appeals as appellant, respondent or intervenor.
We offer a free complimentary no-obligation review of any reasons for judgment or court of appeal order for which a prospective may be considering seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Court in order to determine if there might be some prospect of success in seeking leave. There is never any charge for travel time or disbursements to the SCC.
The firm’s Senior Barrister Gordon Scott Campbell has appeared multiple times at the Supreme Court of Canada for both appellants and respondents, as well as worked on numerous interventions and applications for leave to appeal. He has worked in every province and territory of Canada, served with the Department of Justice Canada’s Ontario and Atlantic Regional Offices (including as Constitutional Issues Coordinator), as well as with the Constitutional Law Branch of the Attorney General of Ontario, and works equally in French and English.
How to Get (or Oppose) Your Case in Front of the Supreme Court of Canada
Even if you haven't succeeded at trial or on appeal, you might still have hope at a second or third level of appeal before the Supreme Court of Canada. Or maybe you did succeed at trial or appeal, and the opposing party refuses to give up, fighting you as high as the SCC.
Getting a case before the SCC almost always requires advance "leave to appeal" (permission) being granted (though there are a few appeals "as of right"). Only about one in ten cases that ask for leave get it. The key is to sell the SCC on the "public importance" of a case, including that it involves a novel legal issue, issues of conflicting appellate jurisprudence, and legal issues of national scope, not just an issue personally important to the parties. Opposing leave requires the opposite, arguing that even if there are doubts about the correctness of the decision below, it still doesn't warrant national high court resources being devoted to it. Occasionally there are creative ways using the Supreme Court Act to bring cases directly before the Court without having a judgment from the highest court in a province.
Our significant experience with the Supreme Court of Canada means we understand how to sell the Court on your position, be it to get a hearing, deny a hearing, or intervene in a hearing (such as to make public policy submissions as a non-party advocating a particular viewpoint).
Helping You Understand the Supreme Court of Canada Process
You must realize in order for a leave to appeal application to the SCC to be worthwhile:
Short Timeframe for Perfecting Leave Application - you must not miss the time limitation for serving, fling and perfecting the entire leave to appeal application (meaning all required materials, not just the notice seeking leave), which is usually 60 days from the date of lower court (usually appellate) judgment;
Error of Law - you need to identify at least one (and preferably more than one) error of law from the judgment below;
Issue of Public Importance - you need to demonstrate an issue of public importance that extends beyond your personal or organizational situation and which is sufficiently weighty to justify leave being granted, while this doesn’t necessarily need to be an issue of “national” importance demonstrating a Canada-wide aspect to the issue certainly helps;
Right Record & Right Time - in addition to having the right “issue” you also need to sell the court that your case has the right facts and evidence in the lower courts upon which the SCC should consider that issue on the existing “record,” as well as this being the right “time” for the issue to be considered, such as it never having come before the court before, or it’s been decades since its last consideration where provincial appellate authority and legislation have since significantly evolved;
Perfection of Substantive Appeal - if granted leave to appeal, you must then "perfect" your substantive appeal according to the Rules of Court;
Intervenors - be prepared for "intervenors" in your case before the SCC - perhaps provincial Attorneys General or advocacy groups - who may take a position for or against your case, depending on their interests;
Patience - be prepared for an over two-year process from the time of filing a leave application to the time of the Court's judgment should you get leave and your appeal proceeds.
SCC Questions We Can Help You Answer
Should you seek leave to appeal and how to most powerfully convince the court that your case is worth hearing?
How best to respond to a leave to appeal application brought by an opposing party?
Is it worth seeking intervenor status and how to convince the Court your organization is the appropriate intervenor on an issue?
How to draft the most compelling factum of legal argument?
How to put together the case record and authorities (the Court has highly unusual rules like printing on the backside of pages, but leaving the front side blank, so that when opened side by side the left side has the text and the right side is blank for making notes)?
SCC Services We Provide
We act as counsel or co-counsel on applications for or opposing leave, on motions, on appeals or just for oral argument.
We draft materials to be filed with the Court or review materials already drafted, including comprehensive factum drafting.
We render legal opinions on prospects of success or aspects of SCC legal arguments.
We conduct SCC motions, including motions for extensions of time, for stays of execution, to admit fresh evidence, to state constitutional questions and for intervention.
We draft and test SCC oral arguments.
The Supreme Court of Canada Lawyers
Gordon Scott Campbell as the firm’s Senior Barrister has been a member of the Law Society of British Columbia and Nova Scotia Barrister’s Society in addition to his current Law Society of Ontario membership and special practice permit from the Barreau du Québec. He completed both civil law (B.C.L.) and common law (LL.B.) degrees at the McGill University Faculty of Law.
He served as a Federal Crown Prosecutor and as counsel to the Canada Revenue Agency, the Canada Border Services Agency, Immigration, Refugees & Citizenship Canada, the RCMP, Environment Canada, Fisheries & Oceans Canada, Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and HRSDC’s Labour Program. He has published in the National Journal of Constitutional Law and the Canadian Criminal Law Review, in addition to authoring four law books for Carswell Thomson Reuters, Les Éditions Yvon Blais, and LexisNexis Canada.
He is assisted by other lawyers associated with the firm, but has personal oversight over all Supreme Court of Canada cases the firm is retained for. The firm also employs experienced law clerks who efficiently accomplish document production, service and filing that is in compliance with all SCC Rules.
Further Reading