Our Team

Wilfred M. Estey

Partner

	Direct: 416.865.7331 Office: Toronto Fax: 416.865.7380 Email: bestey@torys.com

	Bill founded the firm's Research Department and helps resolve difficult legal opinion issues.

Practice

Bill Estey has practised law with Torys since 1974 and has been a partner since 1980. He practised corporate/commercial and securities law from 1974 to 1981, in which year he founded the firm’s Research Department. As the Director of the firm’s Research Department, Bill’s practice involves conducting legal research, writing and reviewing legal opinions and memoranda, and reviewing and supervising research projects on a wide range of legal issues, including corporation law, contract law, partnership law, trust law, securities law, tax law, sale of goods law, secured transactions law and conflict of laws. He is frequently consulted about difficult legal questions by lawyers in the firm from virtually every practice area. Bill has also worked extensively with Torys’ litigators on major, complex cases, where he has helped analyze both strategic and legal issues. Bill’s consultative work includes, among other things, providing advice to others in the firm about legal issues, assisting in the structuring of transactions and helping to resolve difficult legal opinion issues.

Professional Involvement

Bill has written and spoken on various legal opinion matters for the Canadian Bar Association, the Law Society of Upper Canada, the Canadian Institute, Federated Press and Osgoode Hall Law School.

Bill is a member of, and the sole Canadian representative on, the TriBar Opinion Committee in New York. The Committee’s influential report on opinions, originally published in 1979, was substantially revised and published in 1998.

Bill served as law clerk to the Justices of the Supreme Court of Canada from 1972 to 1973 for Mr. Justice Hall and Mr. Justice Dickson.

Selected Publications and Presentations

Pre-Incorporation Contracts: The Fog is Finally Lifting
33 Canadian Business Law Journal 1 | 2000

Third-Party Closing Opinions
as a member of the TriBar Opinion Committee (New York), 53 Business Lawyer 591 | 1998

Legal Opinions in Commercial Transactions
Second edition, Butterworths, 1997. (The first text of its kind in a common law jurisdiction, it contains a comprehensive and completely updated analysis of legal opinion issues in a commercial context and a discussion of the liability of lawyers for the giving of negligent opinions.) | 1997

Personal Property Security Opinion Report
Co-author with others of the Personal Property Security Opinion Committee, Business Law Section, Ontario Bar Association, 1997. (The first comprehensive report on personal property security opinions in Canada, it includes a detailed Commentary and a form of Illustrative Opinion.) | 1997

Ontario Supplement To and Commentary On the Legal Opinion Accord of the Section of Business Law of the American Bar Association (1991)
Co-author with others of the Subcommittee on Commercial Opinions, Business Law Section, Ontario Bar Association, 11 Business Law Report (2d) 156 | 1994

Selected Media Highlights

February 14, 2011: Bill Estey to participate in pro bono project in Liberia

Memberships

Committee on Commercial Opinions, Business Law Section, Ontario Bar Association

Practice Areas and Industry Groups

Research and Precedents

Bar Admissions

Ontario, 1974

Education

LLB, 1972
Osgoode Hall Law School, York University

BA, 1969
University of Toronto