Frédéric Bérard

Me Frédéric Bérard holds a Doctorate in Law (LL.D., Université de Montréal, Unanimous Mention of Excellence and Dean’s Honour List), a Master’s Degree in Political Science (M.A., McGill University), and a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B., Université de Montréal, Dean’s Excellence List). He also pursued postdoctoral studies in Philosophy at Université Laval.

After working at Stikeman Elliott and Woods, he founded, in 2025, Frédéric Bérard Société d’avocats, a boutique firm specializing in constitutional and administrative law. Both he and his firm have been recognized by Best Lawyers as among the best in the country. Committed to defending fundamental rights, they initiated legal proceedings—within the broader challenges to Bill 21—aimed at setting limits on legislators’ use of nothwithstanding provisions, a case that is soon to be heard by the Supreme Court. On behalf of a grouping of 35 Quebec-based businesses, they also filed two lawsuits totaling nearly $500 million against the federal government for its policy reversals regarding temporary foreign workers. Among their clients are the MAMO First Nation Alliance, the Duplessis Orphans, and the SPCA.

Author of some twenty articles published in various academic journals and co-author of the monograph Précis d’interprétation législative, he has also delivered over a hundred lectures—including a TED Talk—across Canada and internationally, notably in Italy, France, the United Kingdom (Cambridge), Poland, Algeria, and Morocco. His work has been cited by the Superior Court of Québec, the Québec Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court of Canada. From 2016 to 2019, he served on the board of directors of the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF). In March 2019, he was appointed by the federal government to chair the national consultations surrounding the reform of the Official Languages Act, and in 2021, he sat on the Expert Committee established to support the reform of said Act. He is the founder and director of the National Observatory on Language Rights, a researcher at the Public Law Research Centre of the Université de Montréal, and a certified trainer recognized by the Barreau du Québec. He also serves as president of Maelström Médias, a leading provider of continuing legal education.

He is the author of several essays, including La fin de l’État de droit? (Renaud-Bray staff pick, quadruple bestseller, Palmarès Gaspard), Droit à l’indépendance (Prix des libraires, double bestseller, translated into English and published internationally, Palmarès Gaspard), Charte canadienne et droits linguistiques : pour en finir avec les mythes (bestseller and finalist for the Donner Prize, awarded to the best public policy book in Canada), Dérèglements politiques (bestseller, Gaspard rankings), La Terre est une poubelle en feu (bestseller), La bêtise insiste toujours (bestseller), L’homme de paille, and On nous tuera doucement. In 2016, Les Libraires magazine named him one of ten essayists under 40 transforming Québec. In March 2023, his book on the Omar Khadr case, J’accuse les tortionnaires d’Omar Khadr, published by Éditions Saint-Jean, was named finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Awards. To complete research for this work, the author infiltrated the Guantanamo Bay military base. His next essay, Au chevet de la démocratie, is scheduled for publication in January 2026.

A regular political and legal commentator on Cogeco, CFLO, Noovo, Radio-Canada, CBC News, CJAD, CTV, 104.7 FM, and 98.5 FM, Me Bérard has also contributed to Le Métro, BLVD, and Le Point (France).