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Bruce Leonard

Bruce is a partner in the firm's Insolvency & Restructuring Group. Bruce is a veteran in the field of international insolvency and has been prominently involved in a number of international associations. He is Immediate Past Chair of the International Bar Association's Committee on Insolvency and Creditors' Rights (comprising 1,200 lawyers from 80 countries); Founding Member, Chair and Director of The Insolvency Institute of Canada, a limited membership invitational organization of senior insolvency professionals in Canada established in 1990; Past Chair of the Insolvency Law Section of the Ontario Bar Association; and Past Vice-Chair of the International Bankruptcy Subcommittee of the American Bar Association's Business Bankruptcy Committee.

Bruce is a Member of the American Law Institute, where he is the Chair for Canada and Co-Reporter for Canada for the Institute's Transnational Insolvency Project. He is a Life Patron Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and an international participant in the United States National Bankruptcy Conference. Bruce is also a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy and a Director of the American Bankruptcy Institute. He is Co-Director of the LLM Program in Insolvency Law at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, Canada's only graduate program in insolvency law. Bruce is a frequent writer and speaker on international insolvency and reorganizations and has authored or edited the following works: Co-Editor, Current Developments in International Insolvencies and Reorganization (Graham and Trotman, London, 1994); Co-Editor, Multinational Commercial Insolvency (American Bar Association: Chicago, 1993); Author, Guide to Commercial Insolvency in Canada (Butterworths 1988). In addition, he is a Contributing Editor of Norton Bankruptcy Law and Practice, a Contributing Editor to the American Bankruptcy Institute Journal and a member of the Editorial Board of Tolley's Insolvency Law and Practice (London). As a practitioner, Bruce has been involved in many of the most significant reorganization cases in Canada and internationally, including, among others: Olympia & York, Confederation Life Insurance, Johns-Manville, Cadillac-Fairview, Dome Petroleum, Massey-Ferguson, Bramalea Inc., Everfresh Beverages, Standard Trustco, Eaton's of Canada, Canadian Airlines International, Stelco Inc., Air Canada, Nortel Networks and AbitibiBowater. Bruce also acted as lead agent for the Federal Government of Canada in connection with the court-supervised sale of both General Motors and Chrysler. The transaction involved over US$12.5 billion of new Canadian Government financing and included a host of extremely time-sensitive issues, including cross-border bankruptcy, M&A, financing and litigation.

Education

LL.B., Osgoode Hall, York University, 1968
B.A., University of Manitoba

Achievements

• Who's Who Legal:Canada 2010 (Insolvency & Restructuring)
• Euromoney Expert Guide's "The Best of the Best 2008"
• Martindale-Hubbell, AV Preeminent^TM rating
• Euromoney Expert Guide's "The Best of the Best 2006"
• The International Who’s Who of Insolvency & Restructuring Lawyers (Most Highly Regarded – Global)
• Euromoney Expert Guide to the World's Leading Insolvency & Restructuring Lawyers, 2005
• Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory 2004
• Euromoney Expert Guide's "The Best of the Best 2004"
• Euromoney Expert Guide's leading lawyers 2003
• Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory 2003

Call to the bar

Ontario, 1970

Associations

• American Bankruptcy Institute
• American Bar Foundation (Life Patron Fellow)
• American College of Bankruptcy (Fellow and first Canadian elected to the Board of Directors)
• American Law Institute
• Canadian Bar Association
• Insolvency Institute of Canada (Past Chair)
• International Committee of the United States National Bankruptcy Conference (Chair)
• International Insolvency Institute (Chair)
• Ontario Bar Association
• United States National Bankruptcy Conference 

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