Legal Services Retainer Agreements

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), as the Government of Canada’s National Housing Agency, is seeking to establish a pre-qualified list of legal firms through a Request for Supply Arrangement (RFSA) to provide specialized legal services across ten distinct categories: General Corporate and Commercial Advisory Services, Employment and Labour and Pension and Benefits, Litigation and Dispute Resolution, Commercial and Finance Transactions, Real Estate, Default Management and Prevention, Indigenous Law, Capital Markets, Information Technology, and Other. The arrangement, titled Legal Services Retainer Agreements and identified by solicitation number CMHC-SCHL-RFSA-4175, will result in the execution of Master Retainer Agreements with selected firms for a five-year term commencing in 2026. All work is expected to be performed remotely, primarily supporting CMHC’s head office in Ottawa, Ontario, although travel may be required with prior written approval and reimbursement limited to CMHC’s Travel Policy. The solicitation is restricted to Canadian suppliers only, with responses due by June 19, 2026, at 2:00 PM Eastern Time. Proposals must be submitted electronically in specified formats—pricing in Microsoft Excel and all other documents in PDF—with strict naming conventions and prohibitions on compressed or rich text files. Evaluation will occur in two stages: mandatory compliance with submission requirements including licensing and certification, followed by a weighted scoring process prioritizing firm experience and qualifications (25%), hourly pricing (25%), team qualifications (20%), discounts (10%), alternative fee models (10%), and use of AI (10%), with scoring conducted by a CMHC evaluation team using a 1 to 10 scale and allowing partial scores. Firms must propose firm ceiling hourly rates structured across five resource levels, weighted 10% for Senior Partners, 30% for Partners, 20% for Senior Associates, 30% for Associates, and 10% for Articling Students and support staff, with optional discounts and alternative fee arrangements permitted. All selected providers must carry a minimum of $1,000,000 in public liability and property damage insurance, maintain cyber and privacy coverage for three years post-termination, and comply with strict confidentiality and data protection standards, including immediate notification of any breach of solicitor-client privilege or confidentiality. Security requirements mandate that personnel may need to hold a RELIABILITY clearance or complete a security form, and systems must handle CMHC data classified