Website: torys.com
Head office address (Canada): 79 Wellington Street West, TD South Tower, Toronto, ON M5K 1N2
Year established: 1941
Ownership structure: private LLP, Canadian
Target market/client profile: Canadian and international organizations seeking business law counsel across pensions, employment, M&A, and related matters
Number of professional staff: over 1,000 staff
Canadian office locations: Toronto (head office), Calgary, Montréal, and Halifax
Torys LLP is a Canadian business law firm operating from five offices across Canada and New York. Torys says 85 percent of its work involves collaboration across its practice groups. The firm also says it advises 10 of North America’s largest pension funds by assets on their global investment activities.
Torys traces its roots to 1941, when John Stewart Donald Tory founded J.S.D. Tory and Associates in Toronto. Tory had studied at Osgoode Hall and earned an SJD from Harvard University before practising at the W.N. Tilley firm.
He left to start his own corporate law practice at a time when Canada’s post-war economy was picking up. That timing helped the firm attract corporate clients across Canada in the years that followed.
In 1954, J.S.D. Tory’s twin sons John A. and James M. came aboard with law school peers William DesLauriers and Arthur Binnington. With the four on board, the practice expanded and the firm was renamed Tory Tory DesLauriers & Binnington.
J.S.D. Tory passed away in 1965, and his sons took over at just 35 years old. In 1972, the firm merged with Kimber, Dubin, a Toronto litigation boutique led by Charles L. Dubin, later Ontario’s Chief Justice.
In 2000, the firm merged with a New York corporate law firm whose roots dated back to 1948. The merger gave the practice a cross-border presence and led to a new name: Torys LLP.
The New York office gave Torys LLP a direct base for advising clients on US and international transactions. That foundation drove a period of expansion across Canada in the years that followed.
Torys LLP opened its Calgary office in 2011 to reach clients in Alberta’s energy and resources sector. Two years later, in 2013, it opened a Montréal office to serve Quebec’s business community.
In 2014, the firm added a Legal Services Centre in Halifax, a hub for high-volume legal work using fixed-fee pricing. In 2025, Torys LLP served as legal counsel for CC&L Infrastructure’s acquisition of three Ontario wind projects, a transaction covered by Benefits and Pensions Monitor.
Torys LLP provides legal counsel across the following practice areas:
Beyond pensions and employment, Torys LLP also covers competition law, intellectual property, real estate, and government matters, among other areas.
Matthew Cockburn serves as managing partner of Torys LLP. His role also covers professional and administrative responsibilities across all the firm’s offices. Cockburn holds an LLB from the University of Toronto and a BA from Queen’s University.
Cockburn leads Torys LLP’s management team alongside the following senior figures:
Talbot and Stevenson lead the Pensions and Employment Group alongside these partners:
J. Robert S. Prichard, O.C., O.Ont. serves as non-executive chair of Torys LLP, advising clients and representing the firm externally. Prichard works with boards of directors and senior executives on corporate governance, public policy, and complex regulatory issues.
Prichard and Cockburn work together to guide firm strategy across all offices. Each of its five offices is led by a dedicated managing partner for regional oversight.
Torys LLP works with organizations across Canada and the US, from large corporations and financial institutions to government bodies. Its work spans the following sectors:
Torys LLP says it acts for more than 45 percent of the S&P/TSX 60 through its New York office. The firm also says 55 percent of its work involves clients it has partnered with for over a decade.
Torys LLP has earned recognition from several Canadian legal and industry organizations in recent years. BPM has also covered the firm’s pensions and employment lawyers on regulatory developments affecting plan sponsors.
In 2023, we featured Torys pensions partner Stephanie Kalinowski on pending federal legislation for plan sponsors dealing with missing pension members. Kalinowski discussed how the draft legislation would help administrators move through defined benefit plan wind-ups.
On the pro bono side, Torys LLP lawyers and staff dedicated 6,000 hours to causes in the past year, the firm says. The firm is also a:
All five Torys offices hold LEED certification. For more on legal service providers in the pensions and benefits space, visit our BPM legal directory.
The firm’s renewable energy portfolio now represents 2.4 GW of gross capacity
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Torys is excited to welcome Stephanie Kalinowski as a partner in its Pensions and Employment practice in Toronto. Stephanie brings more than two decades of practice to Torys and will deepen the firm’s experience in all areas of pensions and employment.
