Brian Yaworski, Q.C.

He acts as counsel and business adviser in a wide variety of matters for corporate, institutional, individual, aboriginal, government and private sector clients, as well as for clients in public and private business dealings, both domestic and international.

Brian has an interdisciplinary background in economics, business and law, and a broad base of business experience which he applies through innovative and practical approaches to problem solving in complex business negotiations and strategic planning.

His business and legal acumen includes the negotiation, structuring and implementation of transactional matters involving acquisitions, divestitures, takeovers, mergers, amalgamations, corporate financings involving both the lender and borrower private placement of U.S. and Canadian debt financings, refinancings, syndications, debt restructurings, corporate reorganizations and restructurings, and plans of arrangement.  Brian's practice emphasis is in the oil and gas sector including conventional and unconventional oil and gas, coalbed methane, gravel, natural gas liquids, infrastructure and production facilities including construction, ownership and operation of oil and gas exploration and development projects.

He also has extensive experience managing large projects, involving significant manpower requirements and multiple jurisdictions, the most significant of which was the acquisition by Amoco Canada Petroleum of Dome Petroleum and its related companies, including Hudson's Bay Oil and Gas, under a plan of arrangement and the related financings of Amoco Canada Petroleum.

For over 12 years, Brian served on the Executive Management Committee and as a director of an intermediate oilwell drilling contractor, which operated principally in Western Canada but also had some operations in the United States and internationally.

Prior to entering law, Brian worked as an economist for the Government of Saskatchewan in the areas of housing, health care, grain handling and transportation. He was involved on behalf of the Government of Saskatchewan in two Federal Commission Enquiries, namely, the Grain Handling and Transportation (Hall) Commission and the Costs of Transporting Grain by Rail (Snavely) Commission.

Brian has represented the boards of directors and independent committees of boards of directors and has served on the board of a number of private corporations. He has been active in political, charitable, educational, community and sports organizations.

He has served as a member of and counsel to the Calgary Committee to Canada's Olympic and National Hockey Teams, is a past director and officer of Flames Project 75 Hockey Association, renamed the Seamans Hotchkiss Foundation (a non-profit charitable organization formed by the Calgary Flames Hockey Club) and has acted as counsel and adviser to a number of sporting groups, including Hockey Canada, the Western Hockey League, the Calgary Flames Hockey Club, the Calgary Raiders Lacrosse Club and to athletes, coaches and administrators in hockey, baseball and lacrosse.

He has written and presented papers, and spoken on a variety of banking and energy matters, and has been a frequent seminar panellist and participant in banking law and energy law. For several years, he taught the Canadian Association of Petroleum Landmen course on freehold mineral rights and has lectured in commercial transactions at the Alberta bar admissions course.

Brian has also been a sessional lecturer in Economics at McMaster University, the University of Saskatchewan, the University of Calgary and Mount Royal College, and in energy law in the Faculty of Management at the University of Calgary.

Brian was appointed Queen's Counsel in Alberta in 2000.