Description
Jean-Marie Pâquet began his career as assistant secretary and legal advisor to the builders and owners of Place Victoria in Montreal. He then worked as an attorney in the City of Montreal’s legal department, dealing mainly with municipal taxation and preparing contracts pertaining to municipal services at the Expo 67 site and real estate contracts (emphyteutic leases and rights of way for subway entrances).

From 1966 to 1977, Jean-Marie was a partner in a Montreal firm specializing in municipal law. During that ten-year period, he represented both taxpayers and municipalities in municipal taxation cases, and municipalities in governance, legislation, regulation, and contractual matters. He also acted as a legal advisor for a large Montreal university hospital. In 1978 he was a founding partner of Pâquet, Galardo & Nantais, which merged with Langlois Kronström Desjardins in November 2006. During that time Jean-Marie handled mainly municipal taxation and municipal law cases on behalf of taxpayers and acted as legal advisor for a large Montreal university-affiliated centre. He also acted in commercial real estate cases (leases, purchases, sales, various real estate contracts) and administrative law matters (public health law, judicial review, injunctions).

As a member of Langlois Kronström Desjardins, Jean-Marie focuses his practice on both municipal taxation and public health law. In the area of municipal taxation he acts on behalf of taxpayers, and in the public health area he represents a Montreal university-affiliated centre. He also handles real estate matters for a Montreal university hospital centre.

In the area of municipal taxation, Jean-Marie has represented a large government real estate body, major residential and commercial (office buildings and shopping malls) real estate owners, breweries, owners and operators of large hotels, and companies in the pharmaceutical, petrochemical, metallurgy, pulp & paper, tobacco, and petroleum industries, among others.

Associations & Achievements
1999-2008 - Société de développement commercial Destination centre-ville (downtown Montreal commercial development corporation): chairman of the board since 2004, director and secretary from incorporation in 1999 until 2008.

Presentations & Conferences
Municipal Valuation and Taxation, I.D.U., B.O.M.A., Court of Québec Judges, Conférence des juges administratifs du Québec

Representative mandates
Municipal taxation   
A pioneer in winning court recognition of the following points in municipal assessment for major real estate owners:

Tobacco industry: Exclusion of palletization equipment from the assessment roll

Petroleum industry: Exclusion of reservoirs involved in industrial production (e.g., crude processing) from the assessment roll

Manufacturing industry (petrochemicals, petroleum, mining, manufacturing, pulp & paper): Exclusion of all property involved in production by means of active participation in an integrated production process; use of replacement cost as a measure of functional obsolescence; total exclusion from the assessment roll of electrical and mechanical systems integrated into buildings and used mainly or intended mainly for industrial production purposes or to fight or control pollution; and verification of various cost-base adjustment factors calculated according to various versions of the assessment manual of the Ministère des Affaires municipales

Hotel industry: Use of net revenue in hotel assessments using the income approach

Commercial property: Application of the income approach

Single-purpose industrial properties : Zero residual value at the end of economic life; recognition of negative factors of a structural nature pertaining to manufactured products as evidence of economic obsolescence applicable to the property. 

Public health law   
In addition to acting as the de facto in-house legal advisor for a Montreal university-affiliated hospital while maintaining a private practice, also appeared before the courts with regard to applications that they supersede hospital centres in the management of health care and other matters pertaining to hospital administration.