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Harris is one of Western Canada’s largest workplace law and advocacy firms. We provide practical advice and creative solutions for our clients.
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We are one of Western Canada’s largest workplace law and advocacy firms
About us
Since 1992, Harris & Company LLP has been helping businesses like yours to meet their workplace goals. Through our firm values we:
- Provide outstanding client service;
- Maintain a deep understanding of our clients’ businesses; and
- Build ongoing client relationships.
The size of our firm ensures that we have the bandwidth to be there when you need us. Our lawyers are leaders in their respective fields, ensuring that our clients receive a wealth of knowledge and experience. We integrate with your team to better understand your workplace, industry, organizational goals and legal needs. We provide practical advice and creative solutions.
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Our history
Harris & Company LLP was formed in 1992 when a group of employment and labour lawyers decided to leave their full-service firm to create a legal boutique which would allow them to focus solely on workplace law. We suspected back then what we now know: that we can serve our clients better if every lawyer in the firm immerses themselves in this area of law and studies the business environments where this legal advice is needed. As a result, our firm has become one of the largest and most recognized employment and labour law firms in Western Canada.
As testament to the legal talent we have been able to develop, past Harris lawyers have gone on to become arbitrators, tribunal members, and Provincial and Supreme Court judges. Many of our senior-most lawyers are now mentoring the next generation of leaders. Over the years we have grown steadily—both organically from within and by hiring laterally to bring the brightest and best practitioners into the firm. To further broaden this depth of experience, in 2014, we merged with Taylor Jordan Chafetz boosting our labour, litigation, and administrative law offerings.
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Committed to the communities we serve
We know how lucky we are to live in this part of the world, to be in the business we’re in, to have the clients and staff we have, and to be in a position to give back. We consider it a duty and an honour to support and help to strengthen the communities where we live and work.
Harris Helps: Sole Food Street Farms
Earlier this year, we began a new charitable partnership with Sole Food Street Farms (wholly owned by Cultivate Canada—a registered charity). They also love to help. They convert vacant land in the downtown area into urban farms and employ those facing complex barriers to employment such as addiction, poverty, housing insecurity and mental health issues. Not content to just “make work”, Sole Food Street Farms produces artisan quality produce that is sold to chefs at some of Vancouver’s finest restaurants.
Sole Food relies on farm revenues for nearly half of their annual budget. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, their ability to generate revenue through restaurant sales is severely limited. Rather than losing their crops and laying off their staff, they have shifted gears for the 2020 growing season.
During the pandemic, Sole Food is committed to keeping its staff employed and donating fresh produce to front-line organizations feeding Vancouver’s most vulnerable citizens. Their goal is to offer employees a safe place to work, access to healthy foods, and a continued social connection at a time of distress. By donating produce, Sole Food will help to provide thousands of meals to people in the greatest need.
Our goal is to raise $50,000 to allow them to employ their staff and donate their produce to feed those in need. We are committed to matching up to $20,000 of your donations and another donor has generously agreed to match $10,000 of what we donate. This means if 800 people give at least $25 each, we will be able to reach our goal in no time at all.
If you can — please consider giving more than $25, or commit to ongoing monthly giving… ask your friends and family to participate as well!
The first 450 donations of at least $25 will receive a copy of Street Farm: Growing Food, Jobs and Hope on the Urban Frontier. Written by its founder, Michael Ableman, this inspirational book chronicles the history of Sole Food. It’s a story filled with hope and renewal – a perfect read for our present time.
Will you join us in helping those who face food insecurity, poverty and health challenges daily?
Charitable activities
We are proud to regularly support the Heart & Stroke Foundation, BC Children’s Hospital, United Way Lower Mainland, and Greater Vancouver Food Bank. At various points throughout the year we support many additional causes and campaigns as opportunities arise. Individually we contribute time and expertise as board members to a diverse range of charities and non-profits such as:
- Canadian Mental Health Association;
- St. Paul’s Hospital Foundation;
- One Girl Can;
- YMCA Foundation; and
- Kids Up Front.
The legal community
As one of Vancouver’s largest law firms, we have an important role to play in the legal community. We are committed to continually enhancing the legal profession and to promoting legal education, both within and beyond our walls. We recognize that students are the future of our profession and each year we welcome articling and summer students. We take pride in developing the best of the next generation of legal practitioners – giving them an in-depth taste of the nuances of our field. We also proudly sponsor of a number of fellowships, scholarships, and law school prizes, including the:
- UBC Civil Litigation Prize;
- UBC Stuart Clyne Prize in Labour Law;
- UBC Allard School of Law Faculty Scholar Award;
- UBC Adam Albright Memorial Award in Law;
- UVic Harris & Company Award in Legal Ethic;
- UVic Harris & Company Bursary; and
- TRU Harris & Company Prize in Labour Law.
Lifelong learning shapes our own development—even as seasoned lawyers. Harris’ practitioners are active in professional associations promoting legal education, including the Continuing Legal Education Society of British Columbia, the Canadian Bar Association, the Law Society of British Columbia, and the Vancouver Bar Association. Members of our team also frequently lecture and teach at the University of British Columbia Peter A. Allard School of Law.
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Your West Coast firm, with national reach
We know that for some of our clients, workplace issues don’t stop at the BC border. For this reason, we have set up referral relationships with law firms right across the country. Whatever and wherever your workplace needs, Harris can help. The most frequently utilized of all of our law firm relationships is our formal affiliation with the Ontario-based employment and labour law firm Hicks Morley LLP. While we continue to operate independently in our respective jurisdictions, through this affiliation we have further strengthened our national presence by delivering seamless, value-added services to our national clients through our shared knowledge, contacts and resources.
To round out this network of national legal service providers, we also maintain a roster of trusted accountants, pension specialists, OHS consultants, labour relations consultants, investigators, arbitrators and mediators. This ensures that our clients have access to a range of professional services expertise across the country, should the need arise. To speak with someone regarding your national workplace law and advocacy needs, please contact us.