Morris Cooper

Morris has been a civil and commercial litigator since his call to the bar in 1976, with a wide-ranging practice as lead counsel in every court, including The Supreme Court of Canada. He has applied that experience to business and shareholder disputes, professional negligence, title insurance claims, class actions, and much more.

His early career experiences in family law have given Morris a unique perspective in resolving complex inter-generational business and estate disputes, recognizing the human factors that drive litigation and block settlement.

Morris has been a commercial arbitrator since the late 1980s and an Adjudicator for the federal government under The Canada Labour Code since the 1990s. He is a strong advocate in favour of arbitration as an alternative dispute resolution tool, particularly in construction disputes and boundary and property access conflicts, where having the parties and the arbitrator collectively view the site represents a great advantage over our court system.

Morris is a consensus-building mediator, providing the parties and their counsel with insights into the strengths and weaknesses of their issues and offering creative solutions to seemingly irreconcilable positions. He is not a “carrier pigeon” conveying unrealistic offers and counter-offers, and is a tenacious mediator, keeping the parties talking and staying at the table until a deal can be hammered out.

Morris and his family have owned a 400-acre hobby farm and woodlot in southeast Muskoka
since 1986, where he now spends most of his time in classic rural fashion: i.e. repairing broken equipment.