David I.W. Hamer

David I.W. Hamer

David I.W. Hamer is a partner in our Litigation Group in Toronto, Ontario, having articled with the firm before his call to the bar.

Mr. Hamer is a graduate of the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, and has undergraduate degrees from the University of Toronto and from Oxford University, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar.

Mr. Hamer helped found the firm's National Class Actions Practice Group as a first co-chair. He is co-author of the definitive book for class action defendants, Defending Class Actions in Canada published by CCH, now in its second edition. Currently he is working on a contribution to a major new text on world class actions that will be published by Oxford University Press. Mr. Hamer is co-chair of the International Class Actions Subcommittee of the American Bar Association's Committee on Class Actions and Derivative Suits.

Mr. Hamer is frequently invited to lecture on various litigation issues, most recently on cross-border class actions at the ABA's National Institute on Class Actions in New York in November, 2008 and on medical monitoring in the context of toxic torts and hazardous substances for the International Association of Defense Counsel in Carlsbad, CA in February, 2009.

Practice Experience

Mr. Hamer's wide-ranging civil litigation practice has included commercial disputes, mining cases, product liability claims, class actions defence, international trade cases and professional negligence and discipline. Since the beginning of his career he has had extensive involvement in complex litigation involving expert evidence in technical subject areas ranging from engineering design, leading-edge medical science through to economic analysis of business issues.

His product liability work has frequently involved insurance coverage issues, the marshalling of insured and uninsured claims, and the prosecution and defence of claims involving members of various learned professions.

Mr. Hamer has appeared in trials and on appeals at all levels in Ontario, including the Supreme Court of Canada, and before a wide variety of administrative tribunals. At the very beginning of his career, he was assigned to the firm's team dealing with the dispute between the provinces of Québec and Newfoundland & Labrador concerning power produced at the Churchill Falls hydroelectric project in Labrador. This involved trial and appeal work in a civil action as well as a constitutional reference to determine the validity of provincial legislation enacted by Newfoundland during the course of the dispute. Both cases were ultimately decided by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Mr. Hamer's experience also includes:

· class action defence work concentrating on ant-trust, consumer and product liability cases brought in multiple jurisdictions across Canada;

· managing a large contract claim on behalf of a leading petrochemical producer against Ontario Hydro through trial and appeal;

· representing Canada's nuclear power interests in a long hearing conducted by a special panel of Ontario's Environmental Assessment Board that considered Ontario Hydro's Demand/Supply plan to provide for the province's power needs in ensuing decades;

· representing a major public company in numerous product liability and insurance coverage disputes;

· representing physicians across Ontario in complex civil liability trials and appeals, and before the discipline, fitness to practice, and quality assurance committees of their professional regulator; and numerous appearances before the Canadian International Trade Tribunal and its predecessor, the Anti-Dumping Tribunal.

Mr. Hamer has been a frequent instructor in trial advocacy skills, under the auspices of the Osgoode Hall Law School and the Advocates' Society, as well as within the firm. He has also conducted an extensive alternative dispute resolution practice using private mediators to assist in the settlement of a broad range of claims.

Mr. Hamer is listed in the 2009 edition of The Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory, a guide to the leading law firms and practitioners in Canada, as a leading lawyer in the area of litigation, medical negligence, product liability and professional liability.

He is a member of the International Association of Defense Counsel, the Canadian Association of Rhodes Scholars, the Advocates Society, the Canadian Bar Association and the American Bar Association.

In 2003, Mr. Hamer and his spouse established Starfish Greathearts Foundation (Canada)/La Fondation Greathearts Starfish (Canada), the Canadian member of an international group of charities that funds projects in South Africa in support of children who have been orphaned or made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS.