Ryder Wright Holmes Bryden Nam LLP

About Ryder Wright Holmes Bryden Nam LLP

Ryder Wright Holmes Bryden Nam LLP is a Toronto law firm that works exclusively for unions and individual workers in labour and employment matters. It's based at 2 Berkeley Street in the city's Corktown area, its only office. The firm traces its founding to 1989, when Alick Ryder, David Wright, Pamela Chapman and Kevin Whitaker left Gowlings to start a practice devoted to union side work. Its lineage runs back further still: predecessor lawyers included James McRuer, a former Chief Justice of Ontario recognized for civil liberties work, Andrew Brewin, a Q.C. who defended the rights of Japanese Canadians and later sat as an NDP member of Parliament, and Ian Scott, a Q.C. who served as Ontario's Attorney General from 1985 to 1990. The firm took its current five name form, Ryder Wright Holmes Bryden Nam, on Labour Day 2022, as new partners joined the practice alongside earlier members' retirements.

The firm represents unions and workers in labour relations, human rights, professional regulation, pay equity, workplace health and safety, and pension and benefits matters. It appears before labour boards, arbitrators and human rights tribunals as well as the courts, up to the Supreme Court of Canada, and it also provides investigation and conflict resolution services to trade unions. Canadian Lawyer magazine named it a Top Union Side Labour and Employment Law Firm in 2024, and the firm is listed in the Best Lawyers directory.