Lawyer Profile Detail

Biography

Marc-André Blanchard is the Chair and Chief Executive Officer of McCarthy Tétrault. He practises civil and commercial litigation, and provides advice to companies on strategic and public policy issues.

Mr. Blanchard has worked on matters involving shareholder disputes, contested mergers and acquisitions, class actions and boards of inquiry. He advised Rio Tinto plc on the acquisition of Alcan Inc. He has represented CGI in an arbitration proceeding concerning an important outsourcing contract. He was part of the litigation teams involved in the fight over the control of both Air Canada and Le Groupe Vidéotron Ltée. He represented a Canadian university in an important international arbitration case. He also represented Rothmans, Benson & Hedges in the constitutional challenge of the Tobacco Act.

Prior to becoming Chair and CEO, Mr. Blanchard served two terms as the Regional Managing Partner, Québec region, and was a member of the firm-wide leadership team. He was the youngest lawyer to have been appointed regional managing partner of a Canadian law firm.

In 2005, he received an Arista award from the Jeune Chambre de commerce de Montréal, in the category "Young Professional in Québec." In 2004, he was selected by Lexpert magazine as one of the "Top 40 Lawyers under 40." In 2003, the Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf honoured him as a leader of the new generation, and in 2000, La Presse and The Gazette named him one of the 40 young leaders in the province of Québec.

Mr. Blanchard appears in the Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory, a complete guide to the leading law firms and practitioners in Canada, as a leading lawyer in the area of corporate commercial litigation. He also appears in the 2005 Lexpert/American Lawyer Guide to the Leading 500 Lawyers in Canada, as one of the "Top 40 under 40," and in its 2006 edition as one of the "25 Litigators to Watch." He appears as a leading lawyer in class action litigation, corporate and commercial litigation and in defamation and media law in the last edition of Best Lawyers in Canada.

He holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the Université de Montréal (1988), a Master’s degree in Public International Law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (1990), and Master’s degrees in both Public Administration and International Affairs specializing in International Trade Law from the School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University (1992). He was called to the Québec bar in 1992.

Mr. Blanchard was president of the Québec Liberal Party from 2000 to 2008. He actively participated in the transition teams of several governments at both the federal and provincial levels. He is the Chair of the Board of the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC), an institute affiliated to the Université de Montréal, and a board member of the WoodGreen Foundation. He has been an active member in cabinet campaigns of United Way since 2004. He is a member of The Conference Board of Canada since October 2012.

He is married to Monique Ryan and has two sons, Laurent and Adrien.