Ursel Phillips Fellows Hopkinson LLP

About Ursel Phillips Fellows Hopkinson LLP

Ursel Phillips Fellows Hopkinson LLP (UPFH) is a labour law firm at 555 Richmond St. W. in downtown Toronto. UPFH was created in its present form in 2012, but its roots go back to one of the first union-side labour law firms founded in Ontario in the 1960s. The firm has grown from a small firm with a handful of lawyers into a team of about 45 people, and all four names on the door, Ursel, Phillips, Fellows and Hopkinson, still belong to lawyers working at the firm today.

Labour law has been UPFH's main focus for almost five decades. The firm also practises employment law, human rights and constitutional law, civil litigation, professional discipline and regulation, and criminal defence, appearing at every level of court up to the Supreme Court of Canada. UPFH has acted as Representative Counsel for employees and retirees in major insolvency proceedings, obtaining protection for Air Canada employees' pension benefits in 2004, Algoma Steel retirees' pension and health benefits in 2018, and Sears Canada employees' termination pay in 2020, and it now represents pensioners and employees connected to Hudson's Bay Company and Nordstrom Canada in similar CCAA proceedings. During the pandemic, UPFH was among the first firms to litigate whether labour arbitrations could proceed virtually while workplaces were locked down.