Kirk M. Baert

About Kirk

Kirk Baert is a partner at Koskie Minsky LLP and founded the firm's class action group after his call to the Ontario bar in 1990. He also holds occasional membership in several other provincial and territorial bars across Canada. Kirk has argued class action matters before the Ontario, Quebec, and Newfoundland Courts of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada, and served as lead counsel for the plaintiff in Cloud v. Canada, the first Indian residential schools class action certified in the country, which produced a $6 billion national settlement in 2007. He has since led major recoveries in cases including Anderson v. Canada for Metis and Inuit communities, Pearson v. Inco, Canada's first certified environmental class action, and securities litigation against Nortel Networks that settled for over $2.4 billion worldwide. Kirk also negotiated a $117 million settlement with Ernst & Young in the Sino-Forest matter and a $32.5 million settlement with a group of Canadian and American banks. He continues to work on cases involving the opioid crisis, the Sixties Scoop, and conditions in provincial jails and immigration detention.

Education & credentials

Law school

Queen's University at Kingston