Malcolm M. Mercer was re-elected as Treasurer for a second term by the Law Society’s governing body on June 27, 2019. The Treasurer is the top-elected official of the Law Society, which regulates Ontario’s lawyers and paralegals in the public interest.
Elected as a bencher in 2011, 2015 and 2019, he became Treasurer in June 2018. Prior to that, he served as Chair of the Advertising and Fee Arrangements Issues Working Group, Chair of the Professional Regulation Committee and Co-Chair of the Alternative Business Structures Working Group. He also served on numerous other Law Society committees, task forces and working groups and was an active member of the Law Society Tribunal.
Committed to issues of legal ethics, he is a member of the Canadian Association for Legal Ethics and Co-Chair of the CBA-FLSC Ethics Forum. He is also an adjunct professor at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University, where he teaches legal ethics.
In 2013, he was recognized by the Canadian Bar Association with the prestigious Louis St. Laurent award. He is a former director of Pro Bono Law Ontario and is currently Chair of the board of the Victorian Order of Nurses Canada. He is also a member of the Immigration Appeal Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board.
In 2014, he was voted one of the Canadian Lawyer’s Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers.
Treasurer Mercer was called to the Bar of Ontario in 1984 after receiving an LLB from the University of Toronto (1982). He also holds a B.Sc., in systems design and engineering (1977).
He is a partner in McCarthy Tétrault LLP’s Litigation Group in Toronto, with a focus on commercial and corporate matters and professional negligence. He was the firm’s General Counsel and is the former co-leader of its National Litigation Practice Group.