Michael J. "Mike" Donaldson

Mike is an experienced litigator known for his strong understanding of business, determined advocacy, and creative problem solving. He has been repeatedly recognized as a leading lawyer by Chambers Canada, Lexpert, Best Lawyers, Benchmark, and others for many years for his work in arbitration, complex commercial litigation, and appellate advocacy.

Mike has argued over 50 appeals before the Supreme Court of Canada, Alberta Court of Appeal, Federal Court of Appeal, and various regulatory appeal tribunals, and has conducted dozens of significant private commercial arbitrations and complex civil trials, as well as cases before the securities commissions in Alberta and British Columbia.

He has handled claims in the electricity, oil & gas, midstream, petrochemical, and pulp & paper industries, in real estate development, in professional negligence, and in administrative and municipal law. Several of his arbitration cases before the courts have defined the jurisdictional boundaries between the courts and arbitration panels and have established important principles regarding enforcement and annulment of arbitration awards.

Mike also serves as Lawson Lundell’s General Counsel, is an adjunct professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law, and has taught effective writing, legal drafting, and written advocacy courses to lawyers and businesspeople in law firms, industry, government and regulatory bodies. Mike began his legal career with a clerkship at the Alberta Court of Appeal. He holds an LLM from Columbia Law School, where he was a James Kent Scholar in 2017. In December of 2024, Alberta’s Minister of Justice appointed Mike to the Alberta Rules of Court Committee for a seven-year term.