Larry Weinberg* is a partner in the Business Law Group at Cassels and serves as Chair of the firm’s Franchise Group. Since 1989 he has had a practice concentrated in the area of franchise law and providing all necessary legal services to franchisors. He is a member of the Canadian Franchise Association, where he served as a member of the CFA Board of Directors and as CFA General Counsel, and the International Franchise Association, where he serves as Chair of the IFA International Committee, and previously served as a Member of the IFA Board of Directors and as Chair of its Supplier Forum Advisory Board. He is also a Past-Chair of the International Bar Association’s International Franchising Committee and is a Past-Chair of the Ontario Bar Association’s Franchise Law Section.
Larry was the founder of, and to date has organised and chaired four Ontario Bar Association annual franchise law conferences. He is a member of the American Bar Association’s Forum on Franchising, and in 2006, he was the first Canadian lawyer to be appointed Director of the ABA Forum’s International Division and to a leadership role on its Governing Committee. In 2009 he had the honour of being Co-chair of the ABA’s 32nd Annual Forum on Franchising conference.
In 2004 he acted as co-editor of the ABA Forum on Franchising’s book entitled Fundamentals of Franchising-Canada. In 2017, he again acted as co-editor of the 2nd edition of this publication. As well he was co-editor and co-author of the Canadian Franchise Association’s first and still only official book publication entitled, How To Franchise Your Business. He is a co-author of the chapter on Canada for the ABA Forum’s book entitled International Franchise Sales Laws.
From 2014 – 2018, and again from 2021 – 2024, Larry received the Lexoogy Index’s (formerly Who’s Who Legal’s®) one and only worldwide Lawyer of the Year award for Franchise law. And for 2021 Larry was named by Best Lawyers in Canada®, as Lawyer of the Year for Franchise Law in Toronto. In each year from 2009 to 2023 Larry was named by Franchise Times to their “Legal Eagles” list of the top franchise lawyers in the United States and Canada. He and Cassels are each listed in the Lexpert® Canadian legal directory as being among the leaders in Canada in franchise law, and in 2014 Larry received the Lexpert® Zenith Award.
He is currently an adjunct professor at Western University’s law school, where he teaches the first course in franchise law taught at a Canadian law school.
Larry was called to the Bar of the Province of Ontario in 1989.
*Services provided through a Professional Corporation
