Joe is a technology, capital raising, and tax partner with a particular focus on high growth technology startups, IT contracting for companies managing digital transformation, and tax structuring for private enterprises and professionals.
Joe is Saskatchewan’s technology and startup lawyer, having assisted hundreds of prairie technology, innovation, and scientific startups through their critical formation stage and beyond. He works with founders throughout the startup life cycle, from the very early ideation stage, through concept development and formation, to growth, scale, and exit. His belief is that founders need the right legal setup to attract investment and proactively defuse legal bombs so they can focus on building and scaling their startups. Joe actively seeks out thoughtful founders who understand that the right advice from Day 1 will accelerate their startup towards investment and growth.
Joe provides “cradle to grave” business planning focused on the stages of building, growing, scaling and exiting a business. He brings a unique business sense to his advice having co-founded a legal technology start-up that was a participant in Saskatchewan’s first pre-seed business accelerator program. He is counsel to dozens of start-ups in the software, technology, blockchain, and medical industries. Joe also serves as the lawyer-in-residence for Co.Labs (a technology incubator in Saskatoon), the lawyer-in-residence for Cultivator (a technology incubator in Regina), and a legal coach for Opus (a technology incubator operated by the University of Saskatchewan). He is the Founder and Chair of the firm’s Technology and High Growth Startups Practice Group. He regularly presents to groups in the start-up ecosystem on legal issues such as formation, tax matters, employee incentive planning, privacy and cybersecurity, securing government funding, and raising capital (angels, venture capital, and private equity). He also provides ongoing advice to investment funds and regular investors active in the startup space.
Joe is also a trusted advisor to many small and large businesses for managing their digital transformation projects. Whether the business is evaluating new software, integrating its’ systems with another party, or building a new digital strategy, Joe brings a common sense business approach to these deployments. He works intimately with business teams to ensure these projects deliver on the value they promise, while managing key risks for his clients.
Joe is also a published tax lawyer, having written extensively on tax matters for organizations such as the Canadian Tax Foundation, the Canadian Bar Association, and the Law Society of Saskatchewan. He has completed the CPA Canada In-Depth Tax Course and was formerly an instructor for that course. In addition, he was formerly a sessional lecturer for a tax-focused class at the University of Saskatchewan College of Law. Joe advises several corporations and professionals (accountants, engineers, pharmacists, dentists) on tax matters and more general wealth planning.
Joe is also a firm believer in taking an innovative and scaleable approach to legal services. He regulatory tweets (@prairietechlaw) about legal innovation and is a current member of the Law Society of Saskatchewan’s Cloud Computing Task Force. His commitment to innovative legal solutions includes provision of a fixed-fee startup legal package to founders, drafting of template contracts for repeatable business use, and offering of flexible billing arrangements such as fixed-fee or success-fee arrangements.
Joe was recently selected by his peers for inclusion in on in The Best Lawyers™ in Canada 2024 in the field of Information Technology Law for Saskatoon.
EDUCATION
- Osgoode Certificate in Privacy Law and Cybersecurity, Osgoode Hall Law School, 2021
- Osgoode Certificate in Negotiating and Drafting IT Agreements, Osgoode Hall Law School, 2020
- Osgoode Certificate in Blockchains, Smart Contracts and the Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, 2020
- Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada, In-Depth Tax Course (Parts I, II, and III), 2017
- Canadian Bar Association Tax Law for Lawyers Course, 2014
- Admitted to the Saskatchewan Bar, 2012
- Bachelor of Laws (with Distinction), University of Saskatchewan, 2011
- Bachelor of Business Administration, Finance Major (with Distinction), University of Regina, 2009
Contact info:
j.gill@mckercher.ca
+1 (306) 664-1276