Lester & Associates

About Lester & Associates

Lester & Associates is a small litigation firm in downtown Toronto, founded by Reid Lester in 2021 after 30 years of practicing law in the city. Lester began at a large national firm in the early 1990s, spent more than a decade at a smaller insurance focused firm, made partner at another national firm, and joined a smaller litigation practice in 2007 before starting the firm. The practice concentrates on insurance coverage (including fidelity, cyber, and professional liability claims), commercial fraud recovery, banking liability, and professional liability defence, mainly for banks, credit unions, and insurance companies.

Lester holds a B.A. from the University of British Columbia, an M.A. in Economics from Queen's University, and completed an LL.B., also at Queen's, in 1988. Lester was called to the Ontario bar in 1990 and to the British Columbia bar in 2018, and is a member of the American Bar Association's Tort and Insurance Practice Section (Surety and Fidelity) and the Toronto chapter of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. Lester is also a frequent presenter at industry conferences on commercial fraud, banking litigation, and fidelity insurance bonds, and the firm's website carries a library of case commentaries on banking, insurance, and fraud law decisions dating back to at least 2013.