A senior partner in our Commercial Real Estate Group, Sidney has a very broad business and commercial law practice.
In addition to his traditional real estate law practice involving the purchase, sale and financing of commercial property, he is consulted regularly by industry, title insurers and lawyers for his expertise and his practical and creative approach to real estate problem solving, trouble shooting, and getting deals done. He also serves as counsel to the Lawyers’ Professional Indemnity Company and title insurers, providing opinions, strategy and litigation support regarding the standard of practice of real estate lawyers in Ontario. He is also an arbitrator and mediator of real estate and commercial leasing disputes.
He is considered one of the leading members of the Ontario real estate bar. From 1990 to 2000, he was the co-head of the Real Estate Law section of the Ontario Bar Admission Course. He continues to chair the Law Society of Ontario's annual Real Estate Law Summit which he founded in 2004. A noted teacher, he is a frequent speaker at continuing legal education programmes for the Law Society, the Ontario Bar Association, and many local Ontario law associations on a wide range of real estate law-related topics.
In 2008, he was awarded the Law Society Medal for his contribution to the practice of law in Ontario.
Sidney is the author of "The Law of Subdivision Control in Ontario", a text on Section 50 of the Planning Act and is generally considered by Ontario lawyers as the leading expert on subdivision control in the province. He co-authored "Real Estate Conveyancing in Ontario: A Nineties Perspective", for the Lawyers’ Professional Indemnity Company, which analyzed the role of lawyers in real estate transactions in Ontario. He is a contributing author to "Agreements of Purchase and Sale" and to the 5th edition of "Falconbridge on the Law of Mortgages".
Sidney has authored special bulletins for the legal profession on mortgage fraud in real estate transactions, published annotations on leading judicial decisions and issued cautions to the profession on the standard of real estate practice. He is a past member of the Executive of the Real Property Section of the Ontario Bar Association and was the co-chair of the 2002 Special Lectures of The Law Society of Upper Ontario. He chairs The Law Society of Ontario’s Annual Real Estate Law Summit. In 2015, he was elected a Bencher (governor) of the Law Society of Upper Canada. Much in demand as a speaker, Sidney has been a leader and educator in continuing education programmes for lawyers in Ontario.
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