SM Legal Professional Corporation

About SM Legal Professional Corporation

SM Legal Professional Corporation is a small Toronto business law firm founded in 2017 by Samuel Michaels, a year after graduating from Osgoode Hall Law School and getting licensed to practice in Ontario. The firm works with founders and privately held companies on incorporation, contract drafting, share and asset purchases, and mergers and acquisitions, and it steps in when disputes come up between founders, clients, or suppliers. A second lawyer, Reuben Van Gaalen, joined as an associate after earning a J.D. from Robson Hall at the University of Manitoba in 2022 and focuses on corporate law and commercial transactions, including corporate structuring, governance, and financing. Trademark filings for Canada and the United States go through a trademark agent on the team, and the firm also does employment law work centred on Employment Standards Act compliance, some civil litigation, and drafting wills and powers of attorney.

Before starting the firm, Michaels ran the Legal Information Network of Canada during law school, a flat fee service that answered legal questions for fifteen dollars each instead of charging by the hour, a project The Globe and Mail covered in 2014. That model carried into SM Legal's own pricing, which is mostly flat fee after a free initial phone consultation. The office is on the 27th floor of Brookfield Place at 161 Bay Street in Toronto's Financial District.