Biography: Commercial Litigation

Mr Woods is the senior partner of the firm, which is located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

He graduated from the Faculty of Law of McGill University in 1974 where he received a BCL and LLB, standing first in the National Programme. He also obtained a BA in 1970 (Honours in Economics and Political Science) from McGill University. Mr Woods was awarded the MacDonald Travelling Scholarship in 1974 to study Comparative Law at the Université d'Aix Marseille in France.

Since 1976, he has practised exclusively in litigation and arbitration and has pleaded at all levels of the federal and provincial courts in Ontario and Quebec, including the Supreme Court of Canada. He has also acted as president or member of an Arbitration Tribunal in numerous commercial arbitrations and has acted as attorney in many commercial and international arbitrations, either ad hoc or ICC.

Mr Woods was recently appointed by the Supreme Court of Canada as 'amicus curiae' in the case of Scotia McLeod v The Bank of Nova Scotia & al, SCC, 28871 to plead the appeal before the Supreme Court of Canada held on 4 November 2003 dealing with the seizability of pension fund accounts in financial institutions in the Province of Quebec.

Recently, Mr Woods represented the purchaser parties in the largest leveraged buyout in history in the matter of BCE Inc v 1976 Debentureholders, [2008] 3 SCR.

He is a member of the Faculty of Law and lecturer in civil litigation at McGill University. He is the author of Cases and Materials in Civil Procedure (Carswell Legal Publications, 1987) and numerous articles and papers, including Measuring the Results of Class Actions, International Bar Association Conference on Class actions, Rome, 2007. He is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and Litigation Counsel of America and the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in London. He is also a member of the panel of arbitrators of the American Arbitration Association, the Canadian Bar Association, the Quebec Bar, the Law Society of Upper Canada, the Law Society of British Columbia, the Law Society of Alberta, the Law Society of England and Wales, the American Association for Justice, the American Bar Association, the International Bar Association, the London Court of International Arbitration, the Federation of Defence and Corporate Counsel and the Canadian Commercial Arbitration Centre. He is also a governor for life of the Quebec Bar Foundation.

He has been identified by Lexpert Magazine as one of the leading US/Canada cross-border litigators in Canada in 2005 and 2009, as one of the leading 500 lawyers in Canada in 2008, as one the leading litigation lawyers in 2007, as one the 100 most creative lawyers in 2006 and as one of the leading 500 lawyers in Canada in 2005.

In 2010, Mr Woods received the James A Robb Award from the Faculty of Law of McGill University. The award celebrates those who give of their time and efforts to support the Faculty of Law in the pursuit of its academic endeavours.