Powell & Weir

About Powell & Weir

Powell & Weir is a small Toronto law firm that concentrates on employment law and labour relations. Michael Lane Powell and Gordon J. Weir co-founded the firm in April 2002, and it operates from an office on Gervais Drive in Toronto. Powell was called to the Ontario bar in 1980 and worked as an associate at Rovet & Associates, a Toronto labour law firm, until 1985. That year Powell co-founded Griffiths & Powell, a general practice firm in North York, and headed the firm's employment law division. Weir studied at Queen's University and the University of Toronto, earning a B.A. and LL.B. from Queen's and an M.A. from U of T, and belongs to the Law Society of Ontario and the Canadian Bar Association.

The firm represents both employers and employees, handling wrongful dismissal claims, the negotiation and drafting of employment contracts, and employment standards and human rights matters. Weir's practice centres on the employer side, representing companies, public sector employers, managers and executives in collective bargaining, grievance arbitration, and before labour relations boards and tribunals. Powell has appeared as counsel before the Ontario and Canada Labour Relations Boards, the Superior Court of Justice, the Court of Appeal for Ontario, the Federal Court and the Supreme Court of Canada, and has published articles on the law of wrongful dismissal.