Paul Harricks

About Paul Harricks

Energy, nuclear, infrastructure and data centres are where Paul Harricks does most of the work, as a corporate lawyer and counsel in Gowling WLG's Toronto office. Much of it is M&A, public and private, and the power sector has been a steady thread since 1999. Harricks also handles capital markets deals for issuers and investment dealers, and has helped set up and govern infrastructure investment funds. Clients get someone who makes a point of learning their business and the sector it sits in.

The career started in 1980, the year Harricks was called to the Ontario bar, at Smith Lyons LLP. It began there as an associate, and a partnership followed in 1986. From 2001 Harricks was a partner at Gowling WLG, heading the Energy Group from 2010 as well as the Infrastructure Group. For four years the Toronto Business Law Department was under Harricks too, which came with a seat on the six-person committee that managed the Toronto office.

In September 2019 Harricks took on the role of executive vice-president and chief legal officer at Hydro One Limited, staying until 2023. That meant running legal, regulatory, governance, ethics and compliance at the executive level and sitting on the utility's leadership team. While Harricks was in charge, Hydro One's Regulatory Affairs team brought a joint transmission and distribution rate application before the Ontario Energy Board, and in 2022, after three years, every issue in it was settled.

Boards are a big part of the picture. Harricks has finished the ICD-Rotman Directors Education Program and still serves as a director of several public and private companies. At the Toronto Region Board of Trade, Harricks was the first chair of the Energy Transition Committee and is still on it. There's teaching too: Harricks has taught widely on corporate law and governance and has mentored dozens of lawyers along the way.