LexSage Professional Corporation
2 lawyers · City of Toronto
One of 2,345 law firms listed in Toronto, and one of 133 handling Tax Law.
About LexSage Professional Corporation
LexSage Professional Corporation is an international trade and sales tax law firm based in Toronto, Ontario. Cyndee Todgham Cherniak, who holds an LL.B. and LL.M., founded the firm after almost 20 years practising at Bay Street law firms in Toronto. The firm operates from the Gooderham "Flatiron" Building at 49 Wellington Street East, Suite 501, a Victorian era triangular office building in Toronto's St. Lawrence neighbourhood.
The practice divides into two areas. On the trade side, it handles anti-dumping and countervailing duty proceedings, customs and tariff classification disputes, export controls and economic sanctions, government procurement bid challenges, and matters under NAFTA, CETA and other free trade agreements and the World Trade Organization framework. On the tax side, it advises on the harmonized sales tax, GST, excise tax, and Ontario's land transfer and employer health taxes. Rather than operating as a full-service firm, LexSage describes itself as a practice that supplements other Canadian and international law firms and accounting firms that don't have this work in house. Its team includes a lawyer who was formerly senior in-house counsel at General Motors, along with an advisor to the firm who is a former Canada Border Services Agency anti-dumping investigator.
Practice areas
Milestones & recognition
- Cyndee Todgham Cherniak, the firm's founder, was appointed by the Government of Canada to the NAFTA Chapter 19 Roster.
- Cherniak was appointed by Canada's Minister of Justice to the Judicial Advisory Committee to the Tax Court of Canada in January 2014.
- Cherniak has been listed in Chambers Global: The World's Leading Lawyers for Business since 2006.
In the community
- Cherniak chairs the Canadian Bar Association's National Sales Tax, Customs and Trade Section.
- Cherniak chairs the American Bar Association Section of International Law's Customs Committee and is a vice chair of its International Trade Committee.
- Cherniak is a member of Council of the Ontario Bar Association.
- Cherniak teaches a course on Canada-U.S. trade issues as a sessional and adjunct law professor at the University of Windsor Law School, and sits on the advisory board for the joint J.D. program between the University of Windsor and the University of Detroit Mercy.
- Cherniak has been a director of the Canada China Business Council.
- Cherniak has been a member of the Canadian Tax Foundation since 1993 and of the Toronto Commodity Tax Study Group since the 1990s.
- LexSage says it gives other law firms and accounting firms a way to add diversity considerations to a client team, since large corporate clients increasingly ask for diversity information in requests for proposals, by outsourcing international trade or sales tax questions to LexSage on a file by file basis.
Good to know
Wheelchair accessibleLawyers 2
Who handles what
The neighbourhood
LexSage's office is in the Gooderham "Flatiron" Building at 49 Wellington Street East, on the boundary between Toronto's Financial District and the older St. Lawrence neighbourhood. The building was completed in 1892 to a design by architect David Roberts Jr. Its wedge shape comes from the point where Front Street meets the regular street grid at Wellington, and it is regarded as an early example of a prominent flatiron building. It served as the head office of the Gooderham and Worts distilling business until 1952 and was designated a heritage property under the Ontario Heritage Act in 1975.
That location puts a firm built around international trade and customs work inside a building first raised for a major 19th century Toronto trading and distilling business, on a stretch of downtown where the city's financial towers give way to the older warehouse streets of Old Toronto.
Frequently asked questions
- What kind of law does LexSage practise?
- LexSage focuses on two areas: international trade law, including anti-dumping and countervailing duty cases, customs and tariff classification, export controls and economic sanctions, and NAFTA, CETA and WTO matters, and Canadian sales tax law, including HST, GST, excise tax and Ontario's land transfer and employer health tax. It doesn't offer general litigation, family, real estate or criminal law services.
- Does LexSage handle anti-dumping and countervailing duty cases?
- Yes. The firm has represented importers, exporters and domestic producers in anti-dumping, countervailing duty and safeguard proceedings before the Canadian International Trade Tribunal and the Canada Border Services Agency, in cases involving China, the United States and other trading partners.
- Can LexSage help with a customs problem, like a tariff classification dispute or a NEXUS pass issue?
- Yes. The firm's international trade practice covers customs and tariff classification disputes, value for duty questions, penalty assessment appeals, and NEXUS pass confiscation appeals.
- Does LexSage advise on GST, HST or other sales tax issues?
- Yes. Alongside its trade practice, LexSage advises on the goods and services tax, the harmonized sales tax, excise tax, and Ontario's land transfer tax and employer health tax.
- Is LexSage a full-service law firm my business can use for everything?
- No. LexSage describes itself as a firm that supplements other law firms and accounting firms that don't have trade or sales tax work in house, rather than replacing a business's main law firm or general counsel.
- Where is LexSage located?
- LexSage's office is in the Gooderham "Flatiron" Building at 49 Wellington Street East, Suite 501, in downtown Toronto.
Where to find them
The Gooderham "Flatiron" Building, 49 Wellington Street East, Suite 501, Toronto, Ontario M5E 1C9 · 416-307-4168
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