Jeff St. Aubin is a partner in the Construction Group at Cassels. His practice is focused on assisting clients through all phases of the construction process. Jeff has acted for municipalities, cities, utility companies, private owners, general contractors, and contractors. In helping clients achieve their objectives, Jeff draws upon more than two decades of experience in the construction sector, including practical commercial insight from technical and management roles prior to becoming a lawyer.
A significant portion of Jeff’s practice is dedicated to efficiently avoiding, mitigating, and resolving disputes and challenges that arise during the construction process. These include procurement disputes, contractual claims for relief, contractual interpretation issues, lien and trust claims, enforcement of performance security, and responding to insolvencies. Responding to these matters requires an understanding of the client’s objectives and a legal strategy that may include, depending on the circumstances, risk and option analyses, executive briefings, negotiations, mediations, arbitrations, and court proceedings.
In advance of construction, Jeff assists clients with project structuring, preparing contract documents, responding to matters that arise during procurement, and negotiating and executing the construction contract and ancillary agreements. Jeff has prepared bespoke construction agreements, procurement documents, template contract documents, and has worked with a variety of standard form agreements.
Projects that Jeff has been involved with include subways, light rapid transit systems, heavy rail, nuclear facilities, bridges, hospitals, wastewater treatment plants, wind and solar developments, electricity transmission and distribution, and natural gas distribution.
Prior to becoming a lawyer, Jeff worked for ten years with an international engineering firm and served as the general manager for two telecommunications companies. This practical experience, which included managing complex multi-year construction projects, informs Jeff’s approach to legal issues in the construction sector where his focus is on efficiently delivering solutions that align with his clients’ business objectives. Jeff also completed a Master of Laws in Energy and Infrastructure Law, further focusing his development and practice on construction and infrastructure.
Prior to joining Cassels, Jeff practiced construction law at a leading international law firm, and he has also served as a legal director at Infrastructure Ontario.
