Brown & Beatty and Sertus
Canadian Labour Arbitration— known as Brown & Beatty — is the “Bible” of Canadian Labour Law. Sertus is the grievance management software built by its Editor in Chief.
Canadian Labour Arbitration
First published in 1977 by Donald J. M. Brown, Q.C. and David M. Beatty, Canadian Labour Arbitration is the authoritative treatise on labour arbitration in Canada. It is the text employers and unions rely on when reviewing the merits of a grievance and preparing for arbitration.
The book has been kept current for nearly five decades. It covers the doctrine, procedure, and evolving jurisprudence of Canadian labour arbitration across every province and at the federal level, and is updated regularly as new decisions and legislation reshape the field.
Adam Beatty has served as Editor in Chief since 2015, continuing the tradition of keeping the text current with Canadian arbitration jurisprudence as it develops.
A note on affiliation
Canadian Labour Arbitration is published by Thomson Reuters and authored by Donald J. M. Brown, David M. Beatty, and Adam Beatty. Sertus is an independent software company, separate from the publisher and the text. Adam Beatty serves as Editor in Chief of the book and as co-founder of Sertus in his personal capacity; Sertus is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or a product of Thomson Reuters.
From the book to the software
Sertus is not grievance tracking software adapted for Canada. It is a grievance management software built from the ground up by the Editor in Chief of the pre-eminent text in Canadian Labour Law.
That grounding shows up in the product. Sertus reads collective agreements the way Brown & Beatty teaches them to be read. It flags timeliness issues the way an arbitrator would. It surfaces the precedents and doctrinal frameworks — just cause, progressive discipline, estoppel, culminating incident — that actually drive outcomes. And it does the work in the same vocabulary your labour lawyer, arbitrator, and counterpart across the table will use.
Tracking software records what you type. Sertus understands what you are doing.
About Adam Beatty
Adam Beatty
Co-founder, Sertus · Editor in Chief, Canadian Labour Arbitration(Brown & Beatty)
Adam is Editor in Chief of Canadian Labour Arbitration (Brown & Beatty) and has practiced and written in Canadian labour arbitration for almost twenty years. He co-founded Sertus to bring the same rigour applied in the text to the software labour relations teams actually work with every day.
Paired with veteran software builders
Putting the rigour of Canadian labour arbitration into software isn't a solo act. Adam partnered with co-founders who have spent careers building category-defining Canadian software — and a product and engineering leader with experience across legal, financial services, and enterprise tech.
Levi Cooperman
Co-Founder & CEO
Co-founder of FreshBooks, which grew into one of the most widely-used small business accounting platforms in the world.
Jeff Lindquist
Co-Founder & Head of Product & Engineering
Product and engineering leadership at Paytm, EY, Assurance IQ, and Telus Health. Leads product strategy and engineering.
Joe Sawada
Co-Founder & President
Co-founder of FreshBooks and Professor of Computer Science at the University of Guelph.
Peony Gerochi
Principal AI Engineer
Engineering leader with deep experience building and scaling engineering teams in complex, regulated environments.
Adam brings the legal rigour of the text. The rest of the team brings the engineering rigour to put it in software.
See the expertise in the product
We'll walk you through Sertus with your own data or a sample case.