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LETTE is an international law group with offices in
Canada (Montréal, Toronto), France (Paris), and Germany (Munich/Ulm),
and a network of close correspondants around the globe.
Our clients include corporations of every size, type and
nationality, involved in practically every field of endeavour,
including: banks and financial institutions, airlines, aerospace and
defence concerns, chemical companies, pharmaceutical companies, real
estate developers, and multinational corporations, as well as small and
medium-sized businesses, individual investors, government agencies,
embassies, and diplomatic representations.
We provide services in English, French, German, Italian,
and Spanish. Individual lawyers within the group possess additional
linguistic abilities. Many of our lawyers have been trained in more than
one legal system.
Although LETTE offers a broad range of legal services, our main areas of
practice relate to legal counselling in a large variety of business
sectors. We also provide professional services to individual clients in
areas such as estate planning, immigration and citizenship, domestic and
international taxation.
Whether acting for some of the world's largest corporate
groups or for dynamic entrepreneurs, we strive to take a
results-oriented, no-nonsense approach to our clients' problems and
opportunities.
While offering our clients solid expertise in the
traditional facets of business law is the foundation of our practice,
the lawyers and staff at LETTE also have considerable experience and
training directed at the multi-jurisdictional practice of law. Our
knowledge of languages, our understanding of foreign legal systems and
business practices, and our special expertise with the laws (including
tax laws) that apply particularly to international transactions put us
in a unique position to understand our clients' objectives and to ensure
they are achieved in the most practical manner.
In complex matters, we assemble teams comprising all
necessary skills to handle the assignment. Our policy in such cases is
that a team must have a strong leader with broad authority to focus and
prioritize the efforts of each individual, as required by the nature and
circumstances of the matter, and to take overall responsibility for
reporting to the client. Efficiency and cost-effectiveness are a
constant objective.
History
LETTE was originally founded in 1898 in Montréal, Canada,
as Duranleau & Monty. The partners of Duranleau & Monty achieved great
success and prominence, both eventually becoming Ministers in Canada’s
federal government.
Raymond Lette, an ambitious young lawyer from Paris,
moved to Canada in 1951 and shortly thereafter joined this prestigious
practice. Combining his knowledge of European laws, institutions,
languages, and customs with the solid base offered by the firm he had
joined, Raymond Lette began to develop an international practice the
likes of which was unheard of in Canada in those days. The Montréal
firm, known as Lette & Associates, quickly gained a solid reputation as
a leader in international legal matters, representing corporations,
governments, and individuals, Canadian as well as foreign, participants
all in the intensification of international relations in the decades
that followed World War II. Raymond Lette’s prominence as an
international legal expert is reflected in his close ties with the
worlds of academia and diplomacy (to which he belonged as the honorary
consul general of the Republic of San Marino). Raymond Lette became
senior partner in 1963.
In 1968, the group's first European office was opened in
Paris. In 1984, an office was opened in Toronto under the name Lette
Whittaker in response to clients' increasing requirements for
representation in what had become the financial capital of Canada.
In 2004, the group expanded into Germany, with the addition of Lette &
Knorr in Munich, a joint-venture with the law firm Knorr Rechtsanwaelte
AG (www.knorr-rechtsanwaelte.de). The Munich firm also offers the
benefits of an additional office in Ulm, Germany. In 2008, a
joint-venture was formed in Paris with the firm Alérion (www.alerionavocats.com)
under the name Lette Alérion.
Raymond Lette passed away in 1995. While Bernard Lette
currently assumes the position of Canadian Managing Partner, the group is
comprised of exceptional partners, associates, and staff members whose
talents and dedication combine to make it a top-notch international
business law group.
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