Keystone Legal is a boutique Alberta law firm based in Cochrane. It acts for individuals, families, professionals, founders and closely held businesses in matters where the personal and the commercial are bound up together, and it appears in person at the Calgary Courts Centre.
The practice is built on the view that legal problems rarely arrive one at a time. A dispute over a professional corporation is usually also a dispute within a family, and a question about who owns a piece of work is usually also a question about someone’s name and reputation. Files of that kind need one strategy, run by one lawyer who understands both halves, rather than a series of separate transactions handled by people who never speak to each other.
How the work is done
Most matters resolve without a hearing, and where that serves the client it is the better result. Every file begins with a clear assessment of what the client is trying to achieve and of what a court would realistically do, because that is what makes focused negotiation possible. Where terms can be reached, they are reached through direct negotiation, four-way meetings, mediation or judicial dispute resolution, and turned into an agreement or a consent order that will hold.
Preparation is what gives that approach its weight. Files are built from the outset as though they will be heard, with the disclosure, the evidence and the arguments assembled early rather than at the last minute. That work is what stands behind every proposal made at the table, and it means the firm is ready to proceed on the day the other side decides it will not settle.
What the firm takes on
Contested work forms a significant part of the practice. Family files run to parenting and decision-making, child and spousal support, the division of family property, and the disclosure and income questions that sit underneath all of them, together with emergency protection orders and urgent applications where safety is at issue. Estate files run to will challenges, contested administration, the removal of executors and claims by family members left without adequate provision. Business files run to shareholder and partnership disputes, oppression claims and questions of ownership and control. The firm also brings civil claims arising from intimate partner violence, harassment and defamation, including protective and injunctive relief.
Clients come to the firm during significant personal and commercial transitions. That includes family restructuring, succession and estate administration, changes of ownership and governance, and the contracts, image and likeness arrangements and intellectual property strategy that go with a working life conducted in public. It also includes privacy, reputation and professional regulation. The work is conducted with discretion, and alongside the accountants, corporate counsel and advisors a client already has.
Advisory work runs alongside. Clients come to the firm during significant transitions, whether that is a separation, a death in the family, a change in the ownership or governance of a business, or the contracts, image rights, and intellectual property that come with a public life. The firm also advises on privacy, reputation and professional regulation, including the response to a complaint before a professional’s regulator, for clients working in healthcare, law, accounting, engineering, finance and real estate. That work is conducted with discretion, and alongside the accountants, corporate counsel and advisors a client already has.
Where the firm acts
Advisory and uncontested work, including agreements, wills and estate planning, business and corporate matters, negotiated settlements and uncontested divorces, is available to clients anywhere in Alberta. Contested matters are taken where the file proceeds through the Calgary Courts Centre, which covers Calgary and the surrounding communities in the Calgary judicial district. Where a contested file is filed is set by where the parties live rather than by choice, so a matter that belongs in Edmonton, Red Deer or Lethbridge is not one the firm can run, and a caller will be told that on the first conversation rather than after a retainer is signed.
Working with the firm
The practice is virtual. Harassment and intimate partner violence matters are handled this way by design, so that a client can take advice privately and from a safe place, without attending an office. Meetings happen by video, telephone and email, which suits clients across the province and keeps the cost of a file on the work rather than the overhead, and meetings in person can be arranged on request in Cochrane or in Calgary. Documents are exchanged by email or, where a client would rather not send financial or personal material that way, through a secure Canadian file-sharing service that encrypts uploads and stores them in Canada, at no cost to the client.
Legal services are provided in English and in French, with support also available in Tagalog, Hindi and Punjabi.
The firm is led by Naomi Iskra, Barrister and Solicitor.
To speak with a lawyer about your matter, book a confidential consultation. Enquiries are answered within one business day, and urgent matters sooner.
CONTACT
Suite 107, 255 Railway Street East,
Cochrane, Alberta T4C 2C3
Phone and text: (587) 328-3328
Fax: (587) 328-3345
Email: info@keystone-legal.ca
Meetings by appointment. No walk-in office.
