Peter Collins is an experienced business lawyer whose practice focuses on commercial real estate in Alberta and elsewhere in western Canada. Peter has substantial experience in acquisition, leasing, financing, operations and sales of commercial property developments, and in particular, shopping centres and other retail developments, office buildings and industrial developments. He also attends to the corporate and general commercial law needs of clients.

"I started in a smaller firm where I had a general business law practice serving mostly small to medium-sized businesses. That work taught me the need to be practical and to always keep the bigger picture in mind. This helps when I'm providing strategic advice to a business client or I’m the senior person leading a team on a project." As a result, Peter has wide-ranging experience in business law, including construction, business litigation, foreclosures, insolvency and other commercial disputes and transactions. Clients rely on Peter for help on a wide range of business issues.

His years as a former litigator and as an in-house lawyer at Petro-Canada (now Suncor Energy) have given him a valuable, go-to perspective on what makes a deal work. "Clients don't deal with lawyers out of a passion for the law. Clients want to get their business and legal goals accomplished. That takes certainty, clarity, a detail-oriented thoroughness, practicality, and a relentless drive toward the client’s goals. Getting deals done sometimes also requires toughness and advocacy, qualities my years as a litigator have given me."

Most of Peter's clients are now mid-sized and larger, including pension funds, private equity funds, REITs, a chartered bank, and other institutional investors, landlords, tenants and related service providers.

Value to Clients

Regardless of the size, location or type of client or transaction, "my role is to provide strategic guidance to our clients and to educate them about their deal risks and tactics - in a clear and practical fashion - so that they can make an informed choice about the best way forward, and then get them to their goal," Peter explained.

Outside the Office

"I love to ski," Peter explained. "Glades, groomers and bowls are all fun, and powder days are the best!"

He also likes to bike (mountain and road), hike and travel. Recent destinations? The American Rockies, Switzerland and Indochina. Up next: the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu.