Igor Ellyn was the founding partner of Ellyn Law LLP and a senior commercial litigator, chartered arbitrator and mediator. He is well-known in the Ontario Courts and at the Ontario Bar as a senior legal counsel with particular expertise in shareholder disputes and complex commercial litigation and arbitration. Mr. Ellyn is a leader of the Ontario Bar. He is a Past President of the Ontario Bar Association. He is currently Chair of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, Toronto Chapter. He served also as Honourary Legal Counsel for Canadian Jewish Congress – Ontario Region. He has been actively involved in legal education in his fields of expertise. He has continued the practice of Ellyn Law as Ellyn Business Counsel.
Called to the Ontario Bar in 1973, Mr. Ellyn was designated Queen’s Counsel in 1985 and has been certified by the Law Society as a Specialist in Civil Litigation since 1989.
For more than 40 years, he has provided sound advice, sensible solutions and persuasive advocacy to his clients’ business legal disputes. He has also written and lectured extensively in his fields of expertise.
Mr. Ellyn has litigated successfully in the Superior Court of Justice, the Divisional Court, the Ontario Court of Appeal, the Federal Court of Canada and the Supreme Court of Canada. He also arbitrated cases in Canada and internationally, including ad hoc arbitrations, the ICC International Court of Arbitration and the London Court of International Arbitration. He has been involved in cases under the ADR Chambers Rules of Procedure, the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules and Quebec Code of Civil Procedure. He has also appeared in the High Court of Justice in London, England and has been counsel on complex commercial arbitrations in Quebec.
In 2009, he was admitted to the Bar of England and Wales (the Honourary Society of Lincoln’s Inn) and appeared in the High Court of England on two occasions. As a result of the English litigation and the lengthy UNCITRAL arbitration which preceded it, he developed experience in some aspects of English and EU commercial agency law.
Mr. Ellyn’s experience spans complex business and commercial cases, shareholders’ disputes involving closely-held and medium-size corporations, non-union employment law, investment and securities disputes, e-commerce and electronic copyright matters, commercial lease disputes, construction law, professional negligence, defamation, and estates. He was counsel on more than 90 decisions reported in the law reports, some of which were precedent-setting. He is recommended by senior lawyers and other professionals from Canada, USA and internationally and is highly rated by Martindale-Hubbell.
Apart from his trial and appellate experience, Mr. Ellyn is also a chartered arbitrator and mediator, and became a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in 2002. He is a member of the distinguished Panel of International Arbitrators of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. He is also a member of the arbitration panels of the ADR Institute of Ontario, ADR Chambers International and the Better Business Bureau of Central and Midwestern Ontario.
Mr. Ellyn is a leader of the Bar and served as President of the Ontario Bar Association, where, among other accomplishments, he founded the Equal Opportunity Committee. He has also written extensively about the law. Some of his articles appear in the Information Centre. Some of Mr. Ellyn’s publications have been archived in the libraries of major Canadian law firms. His 2005 article on Shareholders Remedies in Canada (See the Publications section of this website) was adopted for the curriculum of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Business Valuators. Some of his articles on Shareholder Remedies in Canada have been published around the world, including in India and on several websites.
He also co-authored the Canada chapter of the text Enforcement of Money Judgments (Juris Publishing, NY, 2009).
Mr. Ellyn has made presentations to law firms, the Canadian Bar Association, the Law Society of Upper Canada, the Osgoode Hall Law School Institute for Professional Development, the New York State Bar Association, the Cornell University International Labor Relations School, the Center for International Legal Studies and other organizations. He has lectured and participated in law conferences across Canada, the United States, and in several places in Europe and in Israel.
He was an instructor in the Law Society Bar Admission Course, an advocacy coach at the Intensive Trial Advocacy Workshop. He was Chair and Speaker at more than 40 professional legal development conferences. He was Chair of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists Conference in Toronto in August 2000.
In 1997, he received the Law Society’s Bicentennial Award of Merit. Active in many community and legal organizations, he has participated in legal conferences in Canada, USA, England, Ireland, France, Italy Poland, and Israel.
Prior to his law studies at the University of Western Ontario, he received a B.A. from Bradley University (Peoria, Illinois) in Psychology and International Relations.
Mr. Ellyn speaks English, French and Romanian fluently and is very conversant in Hebrew and German. He was born in Romania and came to Canada as a child. He is still an avid fan of several Toronto sports teams, which speaks to his optimistic nature. He also enjoys cycling, power walking, golf and healthy living.