Joel Richler

After almost 40 years of experience at Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP as counsel (litigation, arbitration and mediation), Joel transitioned his practice to act exclusively as an arbitrator and mediator at Bay Street Chambers (where remains a member) and now to Arbitration Place where he is committed to working with parties and their counsel to achieve the creative, efficient and fair conduct of arbitrations and mediations.

Joel obtained his Civil and Common Law degrees at McGill Law School in 1977-78 and was called to the Ontario Bar in 1980. To further his interest in arbitration, he obtained a Diploma in International Commercial Arbitration from the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in 2008 and was, shortly thereafter, designated as a Fellow of that institute. Joel was a member of the Arbitration Roundtable of Toronto and then a founding director of its successor organization, the Toronto Commercial Arbitration Society. In addition, Joel is a founding Fellow of the Canadian College of Construction Lawyers, and was, while practising as counsel, a Fellow of Litigation Counsel of America.

Joel has sat on many arbitral tribunals as emergency arbitrator, sole arbitrator, chair and party-appointee, including numerous ICC and ICDR appointments. He has acted as party-appointee and tribunal chair in many domestic and international ad hoc arbitrations, as a construction contract adjudicator and as a mediator in many domestic and international cases. Also, Joel has been accepted as a member of the Canadian and International rosters of the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), the roster of the BCICAC (British Columbia), and the Roster of Referees for the Ministry of Transportation (Ontario) and the Ontario Roadbuilders Association. He is a member of the International Arbitration Committee of ICC Canada, the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) and the ADR Institute of Canada (ADRIC). Joel also acts as the Treasurer of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (Canada Chapter).

While Joel has a broad range of experience in commercial disputes, he has particular interest and expertise in construction, procurement, shareholder and partnership disputes, franchise dipsutes, technology, professional negligence and all manner of commercial contract disputes.