Profile

Lawrence L. Herman is a graduate of the the University of Saskatchewan (B.A., 1966) and the University of Toronto Law Faculty (1969).

After being called to the Bar in 1970, he served in the Canadian Foreign Service in the 1970’s in a variety of posts, at the United Nations in Geneva and in Ottawa, representing Canada in numerous international conferences and meetings, including the GATT, OECD and the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea. Prior leaving the External Affairs Department in 1980, he was the head of the Department’s Economic and Treaty Law Section in the Legal Bureau.

In private law practice, Mr. Herman appeared on behalf of Canada in the International Court of Justice in the Gulf of Maine boundary case in 1984.

For many years, he has concentrated his legal practice on international trade and business transactions, representing private sector clients, governments and international agencies, dealing particularly with the GATT/WTO, FTA and NAFTA (where he acts as counsel before dispute-resolution bodies).

He regularly represents clients at the Canadian International Trade Tribunal (CITT), in the courts and before Parliamentary committees.

Mr. Herman is Chair of the CITT’s National Advisory Committee and a member of the Trade Expert Advisory Council of the Canadian Department of International Trade. He was appointed to the Market Access Advisory Group (MAAG) of the former International Trade Department providing advice on business issues in the WTO Doha Round negotiations.

He has been a member the Executive Board of the Canada-US Law Institute since 2009.

Mr. Herman was on the Council of the International Bar Association’s Energy Section for many years. He has been chair of the Trade Policy Committee of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, a board member of the Energy Council of Canada, a member of the International Affairs Committee of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and several other business and government trade policy organizations.

From 1990-1993, he was the Chairman of the Canada-Taiwan Business Association.

In 2007, he was appointed Director, Task Force on Trade and Investment Rules of the World Energy Council, London, UK.

Lawrence Herman was named a Senior Fellow of the C.D. Howe Institute in 2011 and sits on the International Economic Policy Council and the National Policy Council of that well-respected think-tank. He was appointed as a Fellow of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute in 2020.

Lawrence Herman has been continually recognized as one of the country’s foremost international lawyers by such leading publications as: Chambers Global, Who’s Who Legal, the Lexpert/American Lawyer Guide to the Leading 500 Lawyers in Canada, the Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory, the Lexpert Guide to the Leading US/Canada Cross-Border Litigation Lawyers in Canada and Best Lawyers in Canada.

Lexpert bestowed him with its Zenith Award in 2012 for his contributions to the field of international trade law. In March 2017, he received the Canada-US Law Institute’s Sidney Picker Award for his contributions to the work of that organization.

Mr. Herman regularly  lectures on international law at Canadian law schools and business faculties. He was the CUSLI Distinguished Lecturer at Western University Law School in November 2016.

He was op-ed columnist on international trade and business for the Financial Post (Toronto) from 1993 to 1998 and contributes frequently to The Globe and Mail and other newspapers. He has authored over 100 opinion columns and op-ed pieces over the past 30 years.

Together with numerous articles in legal and business journals, Lawrence Herman has written several text books: Canadian Trade Remedy Law & Practice (1997), Canadian Trade Law (2008) and, most recently, Export and Import Controls, Sanctions and Other Trade Restrictions (2010).

Among other non-professional activities, he has served on the boards of Heritage Ottawa, Heritage Toronto, the Canadian Institute of International Affairs and Jazz-FM91, a public radio station in Toronto.  He was Chair of the Toronto Summer Music Festival (2016-2019) and since 2010 has been on the board of the Council on Business for the Arts, a not-for-profit corporation advocating closer ties between Canadian performing arts organizations and the private sector.