Pitblado Law history mirrors history of Winnipeg

Celebrating 150 years of Winnipeg by Myron Love

William C. Gardner KC has a family history that goes back in Winnipeg 120 years. It seems fitting that the senior partner at Pitblado Law is a member of one of two law firms that go back historically that far and more.

And Pitblado – one of our city’s two oldest laws firms (matched only by MLT Aikins) continues to grow and evolve. Today, Pitblado Law proudly includes over 60 lawyers and over 70 staff including paralegals, administrative management, legal assistants and various support services, ready and capable of responding to client needs now and well into the future.

What is now Pitblado was founded in 1882 when a lawyer named Francis Beverley Robertson opened a law firm in downtown Winnipeg. According to the Manitoba Historical Society Archives, Robinson was a second-generation lawyer. Originally from Dundas, Ontario, Robertson first appeared in Winnipeg in 1881 and was called to the Bar in the province in 1882. At the time, the city had a population of 8,500, of whom 40 were lawyers.

Almost immediately, Robertson began taking on partners. The firm first became known as Robertson, Andrews and Howard. After the addition of more partners in 1884, the firm changed its name to Robertson, Campbell and Crawford.

Robertson’s most prominent case was his defense of the Aboriginal leaders who fought with Louis Riel in the second Riel Rebellion in Saskatchewan in 1885. He was able to get an acquittal for one, but the others were convicted. Shortly after, he returned to Ontario and subsequently died of kidney failure at a relatively young age.

Isaac Pitblado, for whom the firm is now named, was originally from Halifax. He arrived in Winnipeg in 1882 to attend the University of Manitoba. He was called to the Manitoba Bar in 1890 and, ironically, he first became a partner that same year in the law firm of Aikins, Culver & Company, J.A.M. Aikins being the founder of MLT Aikins. The firm was first rechristened Aikins, Culver & Pitblado and, later, in 1900, renamed Aikins, Pitblado, Robson & Loftus.

In 1903, Pitblado left Aikins and joined forces with Colin Campbell, the former partner of F.B. Robertson. The new firm was Campbell, Pitblado, Hoskin & Grundy.

(Colin Campbell ran for public office, winning a seat in the Manitoba Legislature. He became the Manitoba Attorney-General and served as both the Minister of Education and the Minister of Public Works. During his public service. He introduced a resolution for the northern extension of Manitoba's provincial boundaries, which resulted in Manitoba's present size.)

After Campbell’s passing in 1914, the Firm became known as Pitblado Hoskin and Company.

Isaac Pitblado became a very prominent member of the community. Among his many roles was that of vice-president of the Canadian Bar Association, president of the Manitoba Law Society, Registrar of the University of Manitoba (1893 to 1900), a Member of the University of Manitoba Council starting in 1888 and Chairman of the Board of Governors for the University of Manitoba. He was also selected in 1918 as one of the Commissioners for Manitoba on Uniformity of Laws and served on a number of Royal Commissions. He was a member of the prosecution team in the trial of nine leaders of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike.

In 1927, Isaac Pitblado was joined in practice by his son, Edward.

In the mid-1950s, the Firm was retained as counsel in Manitoba for International Nickel Company (INCO) in its multi-million-dollar development at Thompson, Manitoba. INCO had to build more than a mine; it had to create the entire town as well. The development involved the construction of a branch line off the Hudson Bay Railway, construction of an airport, the development of the town site with provision of water, roads, sewage facilities, construction of homes, schools and a hospital. Erskine Hoskin, Pitblado’s longtime partner, masterminded the entire operation and acted as lead counsel for the firm on behalf of INCO.

Hoskin passed away in 1960, at the age of 88, and Isaac Pitblado followed in 1964 at 97 years of age. Pitblado had remained active in the firm until just a few months before his passing.

Bill Gardner joined the practice in 1980. The son of the prominent lawyer William C. Gardner Q.C., himself a member of the Pitblado firm, the younger Gardner has degrees from Princeton and the University of Toronto’s Osgoode Hall law School as well as the University of Manitoba Faculty of Law. He had been in practice for a short time with a couple of law firms in Toronto before he and his wife decided to come back to Winnipeg in 1980.

Gardner reports that the modern-day version of Pitblado Law began in 1998 after the merger of Pitblado & Hoskin and Buchwald Asper Gallagher Henteleff. Each of Pitblado & Hoskin and Buchwald Asper Gallagher Henteleff were themselves formed after a series of mergers.

Buchwald Henteleff and Zitzerman was founded in 1966 while Israel Asper was – at that time – a partner in Asper Freedman and Company. The two firms merged in 1970 under the name Buchwald, Asper, Henteleff, Zitzerman, Goodwin, Greene & Shead. While Asper was soon after to become the leader of the provincial Liberal party and founder, in 1977, of CanWest Global Communications Corporation, the late Harold Buchwald and Yudi Henteleff (who was profiled in Lifestyles 55 about a year ago) were also prominent community leaders.

(Among other well-known Pitblado former team members have been Manitoba Premier Sterling Lyon, Gerry Schwartz O.C., the founder, chair and CEO of Onex Corporation, and, Brian Bowman, our most recent Mayor.)

The Gallagher name was added after another merger in 1993. The merger was a major news story at the time, Gardner recalls.

In May 1986, the Firm, then known as Buchwald Asper Henteleff, opened its new offices on the 24th and 25th floors of the Commodity Exchange Tower at 360 Main Street. The new firm, simplified to Pitblado Law in 2002, continues to operate out of these offices.

In recent years, Gardner notes, the firm, which offers the complete gamut of legal services, has begun extending its services to more distant rural areas of the province beginning with an office in the northern community of Arborg.

Throughout the decades, Pitblado has placed a strong emphasis on three core values – relationships, respect and results – which are reflected in the firm’s newly redesigned corporate website.

“We operate on a collegial basis,” Gardner says. “And we all like each other.”