Business Lawyers: directory of firms

Federal incorporation under the Canada Business Corporations Act is administered by Corporations Canada, which handles the incorporation itself, corporate name matters, annual returns, updates to directors, registered office and articles, certificates of compliance or existence, and dissolution. It also covers not-for-profits, cooperatives and boards of trade under their own statutes.

Provincial incorporation runs through provincial registries. The Ontario Business Registry handles more than ninety transactions online, including business name registrations and renewals, incorporations, annual returns due within six months of the fiscal year end, notices of change or articles of amendment, and dissolutions; it works through an Ontario Business Account and a company key, which a business can use itself or delegate to an intermediary such as an accountant or a lawyer. Quebec's enterprise register records the Quebec enterprise number, registration status, names used, addresses, officers and directors, and the names of ultimate beneficiaries, and the public can search it at no cost.

The practical question is rarely federal versus provincial in the abstract. It is where you will actually carry on business, what name you want to protect, where you will need extra-provincial registration anyway, and how much annual filing you are willing to maintain. That is the conversation to have with a lawyer before the company is created rather than after.

Since June 2019 most corporations created under the Canada Business Corporations Act have had to keep a register of individuals with significant control, and since 22 January 2024 they have had to file that information with Corporations Canada. An individual with significant control is someone who owns, controls or directs twenty-five per cent or more of the shares, measured by votes or by fair market value, alone or jointly with others, or who has control in fact over the corporation without owning shares at all.

The register records each person's full legal name, date of birth, citizenship, tax residency, addresses, the dates their control began or ended, and a description of that control. It has to be updated at least once a year and within fifteen days of the corporation learning of a change, and the corporation must take reasonable steps to keep it accurate, including asking shareholders annually. Filing follows the same rhythm: annually with the annual return and within fifteen days of a change to the register. Some of the information is made public. A few corporations are excluded because their ownership is already disclosed under securities law.

Alongside that sit the routine filings: the annual return, notices when directors or the registered office change, and articles of amendment for anything structural. Provincial registrations and any licences specific to the industry run on their own schedules, which is the part most often missed by a business that has grown across provincial lines.

Defined pieces of work are often quoted as a fixed fee: an incorporation with an organised minute book, a standard set of customer terms, a simple lease review. Ongoing or unpredictable work is usually hourly, sometimes against a monthly arrangement for businesses that need regular access. Registry filing charges, name search reports and similar third-party costs are billed separately from the lawyer's own account.

What moves the total is negotiation and diligence, not drafting. A contract that goes through five rounds with the other side's counsel, or a purchase where the diligence keeps uncovering gaps, takes far more time than the document itself suggests. Agree in the engagement letter who does the work, what is included, and at what point the lawyer checks in before the scope expands.

Business law listings on LokalMatch are directory entries: a firm, its location and the areas it says it practises in. You contact the firm yourself, and we don't sell requests for this service, so no firm has paid to be put in front of you for your particular matter. LokalMatch does not screen firms for competence in corporate work and does not rank or recommend them.

The check that matters is the regulator's own. Each province's law society keeps a public register and a complaints process, so confirm standing there, then ask the firm about the specific work: incorporations, shareholder agreements or the sale of a business are different practices. This page is general information, not legal or financial advice, and structuring decisions have tax consequences you should also put to an accountant.