Legal and Business Career
In 1898, Meredith and his two closest friends from Laval, Charles Sandwith Campbell and James Bryce Allan (1861–1945) K.C. (brother of his cousins wife, Lady Vincent Meredith), took over from the ageing Sir John Abbott and William Badgley to become the firm's new senior partners. Since the departure of his father from Montreal to Quebec City in 1849, the law firm of Abbott (who had articled under his father) and Badgley had become the most influential in the city, which was then the financial capital of Canada. The firm's major clients included Canadian Pacific Railway, the Bank of Montreal, the Hudson's Bay Company, the Allan Line, the Bank of British North America, Molson Bank, Dominion Textile, Hugh Allan's Merchant's Bank and the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Campbell, Meredith & Allan continued the firm's dominance, acting as lawyers to the majority of the residents of the Golden Square Mile, the holders of 70% of Canada's wealth in 1900. Today the firm is known as Borden Ladner Gervais.
Created a Queen's Counsel in 1899, Meredith became Syndic of the Bar of Montreal in 1904/05; Councillor and Trustee of the Montreal Bar Association; Delegate of the Montreal Bar to the General Council of the Province, along with another close friend, Aime Geoffrion, 1906. In 1907, he was elected Bâtonnier of the Bar of Montreal, and in an address in this capacity before the Empire Club of Canada, he stressed the need for more justices in the Superior Court and declared his opposition to the proposed abolition of the Admiralty Court. He was the Solicitor to the Shipping Federation of Canada in the early 1900s, and represented his client company, the CPR, as their Chief Consul at the investigation into the sinking of the RMS Empress of Ireland, presided over by Lord Mersey. In 1930, Meredith and Sir Edward Beatty were received at the White House by President Herbert Hoover. Privy Council cases took him often to England, and he twice turned down offers to become a judge, preferring to maintain the business connections he held with many of his client companies.
His personal popularity, derived from graciousness of manner and sincerity of feeling, coupled with his intimate association with many of Canada's larger business concerns made him a desirable addition to the boards of a number of the country’s foremost corporations including: the Bank of Montreal; Royal Trust Company; Canadian Pacific Railway; Canadian Pacific Steamships; Standard Life of Edinburgh; Royal Securities Corporation; The National Steel Car Corporation; Canadian Cottons Ltd.; Lake Superior Corporation; National Liverpool Insurance Company (England); Montreal & General Investor Ltd.; The Banker's Trust Company and the Liverpool, London & Globe Insurance Company in England. When the National City Company of New York had a subsidiary in Montreal, Meredith was chosen as a member of the advisory board.
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