Mr. McElcheran has more than three decades of experience leading the restructuring practices of first tier commercial law firms, first at Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP and then at McCarthy Tétrault LLP. He offers restructuring advisory, mediation, arbitration and independent counsel services to participants in commercial disputes, particularly disputes arising from financial distress.
Fundamentally, insolvency is a business problem that requires a business solution. Effective and efficient resolution of disputes that impede restructuring can facilitate and streamline the multi-party negotiations that are necessary to achieve a revitalizing transaction for the business. Mr. McElcheran focuses on providing restructuring advisory, mediation and arbitration services to facilitate the discovery and implementation of effective and permanent resolutions of commercial disputes.
Mr. McElcheran has completed the Commercial Mediation Course offered by the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in London, United Kingdom and is a member of CIArb.
Mr. McElcheran was awarded the 2015 Murray Klein Award for excellence in insolvency law by the Ontario Bar Association. He is experienced in all areas of insolvency practice and was certified by The Law Society of Ontario as a specialist in bankruptcy and insolvency law from 1997 to 2020. Throughout his career, Mr. McElcheran has used creativity, commercial expertise and strong consensus building skills to advance the interests of debtors, creditors and other stakeholders with positions of critical importance in large restructuring and insolvency cases.
In addition to his text, Commercial Insolvency in Canada, published by LexisNexis Butterworths, Mr. McElcheran has published many articles on insolvency law and mediation. He has lectured extensively on matters of insolvency law at national conferences such as the Annual Review of Insolvency Law, the Turnaround Management Association and the Insolvency Institute of Canada. He is a frequent speaker at programs sponsored by The Law Society of Upper Canada, the Ontario Bar Association, Canadian Institute and Insight Information, and has published papers on a variety of topics related to insolvency law. Mr. McElcheran will teach a course at Queen’s University Law School in Bankruptcy and Restructuring Law in the Winter term of the 2015/16 academic year.
Mr. McElcheran is recognized as a leading lawyer in insolvency law and corporate restructuring in many authoritative journals including Chambers Global: The World’s Leading Lawyers for Business and various directories published by LEXPERT.
He received his BA (Hons.) from the University of Toronto in 1976, and his LLB from Queen’s University in 1980. He was called to the Ontario bar in 1982. He became a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in 2014.