Hilary Laidlaw is counsel in our Tax Group in Toronto. As a Certified Specialist in Estates and Trusts Law, her practice focuses on estate litigation, estate planning and administration.
Ms. Laidlaw represents both personal and corporate clients in a wide variety of estate disputes, including contested wills, dependant support proceedings, trust variations and incompetency matters. In addition, she also advises clients on estate planning, including the preparation of related documents such as wills, trusts and powers of attorney.
Having begun her career with McCarthy Tétrault, Ms. Laidlaw assumed a senior management position within the trust industry from 1998 to 2001, benefiting her legal practice with the skills and experience acquired during that period.
She is a frequent lecturer and participant in conferences and continuing legal education seminars addressing current issues in the law of estates and trusts. Ms. Laidlaw has written extensively in the area for both professional publications and other media and has made numerous television appearances on current events programmes. She has been an instructor for both the Institute of Law Clerks of Ontario and for the Law Society of Upper Canada Bar Admission Course in the Estate Planning and Administration Section and served as head of that section from 2001 to 2006. Following restructuring of bar admission, Ms. Laidlaw now sits on the Advisory Committee for licensure examination. She is a former member of the editorial board for the CCH Canadian Estate Administration Guide (to which she also contributed materials) and the executive of the Trusts and Estates Section of the Ontario Bar Association from 1990 to 1999, serving two terms as acting chair from 1996 to 1998, and serving as past editor of the section's renowned quarterly publication, Deadbeat. She is currently a member of the Toronto Estate Planning Council and a past member of the National Committee of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners.
Ms. Laidlaw appears in the 2011 Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory, a guide to the leading law firms and practitioners in Canada, as a leading lawyer in the areas of estate and personal tax planning and estate litigation. She was also listed in the 2012 Best Lawyers in Canada in the field of trusts and estates and named by Best Lawyers as 2012 Toronto Trusts and Estates Lawyer of the Year. She was recently honoured as the 2010 recipient of the Ontario Bar Association's Award of Excellence in Trusts and Estates Law.
She received her BA and LLB from the University of Toronto and was called to the Ontario bar in 1988.