Pape Salter Teillet LLP

About Pape Salter Teillet LLP

Pape Salter Teillet LLP traces back to 1980, when it started as Pape & Salter, one of the first firms in Canada built exclusively around representing Indigenous peoples. Its founders, Rick Salter and Art Pape, were childhood friends who grew up in Toronto and found a shared interest in social justice. Rick had been part of Students for a Democratic Society, and Art had led peace and anti-nuclear organizing. Both went on to work with the Company of Young Canadians in Indigenous communities, alongside figures such as Harold Cardinal, before enrolling in law school at the University of British Columbia and founding the firm soon after. Art Pape died in 2012 and Rick Salter in 2021.

Métis lawyer Jean Teillet joined in 1994, and the firm was renamed Pape Salter Teillet when Jean Teillet made partner in 2005. Now more than 45 years old, the firm works from offices in Toronto and Vancouver on behalf of Indigenous Nations across the country, in rights litigation, land and resource protection, economic development agreements, government-to-government negotiation, and treaty and governance work. It has acted as counsel or intervenor in nearly every major Indigenous rights case to reach the Supreme Court of Canada since the 1980s, and Chambers and Partners ranks it in Band 2 nationally for Aboriginal Law. Best Law Firms in Canada named it its 2026 Law Firm of the Year for Aboriginal Law/Indigenous Practice.