Every Sunday morning, Eddie and Brian Greenspan meet at the Senator on Victoria Street. Over hot breakfasts—Eddie orders boiled eggs while Brian likes his poached—they discuss the cases they’re working on. The two brothers share so many ideas about courtroom strategy that they could write off their breakfasts as business expenses. This winter, they’ve had a lot to talk about. Eddie and Brian, the most accomplished criminal lawyers in Canada, are in the middle of major cases. For more than a year, Brian has been at the University Avenue courthouse four days a week defending the Armour Pharmaceutical Company of New Jersey. The company has been accused of inadequately treating its blood product in the 1980s scandal that left thousands of Cana­dians with HIV and hepatitis C. The gruelling trial isn’t expected to wind up until late this spring. By that time, Eddie will be in Chicago, deep into his defence of Conrad Black, who faces charges of money laundering, racketeering and wire fraud, in the most anticipated white-collar criminal case since Enron.

At 63, Eddie is older than Brian by three years. In appearance, he’s more expansive, though Brian has also had girth issues. Eddie is low-key, except when he cracks jokes, throwing out Seinfeldian one-liners, and he has a higher profile than his brother. A series of defences in spectacular murder trials over the last three decades established him as a familiar figure on the front pages. Demeter, Buxbaum, Lorenz—an Eddie case needs only a last name to bring back its grim and thrilling place in courtroom annals. From the early 1980s to the mid-’90s, Eddie was also a regular presence in Canadian homes as the host of the popular CBC radio and television courtroom docudrama The Scales of Justice.

Brian is restless and high energy—sparks seem to fly off the man—and an elegant dresser. “He’s the fashion plate,” Eddie says. “Brian cares about beautiful things.” A first-rate defence lawyer, Brian remained under the public radar until recent years, celebrated by the criminal bar and the judiciary but specializing in criminal appeals that were infrequently covered by the press. “Eddie was the trial Greenspan,” Brian says. “I was the appellate Greenspan.” But in the mid-1990s, Brian took on more trial work. His clients have included such well-known figures as Alan Eagleson, and his trials have dealt with major public issues, like the regulation of the investment industry in last year’s Andrew Rankin case. Now Brian’s cases make the six o’clock news, too.

Each Greenspan has his own small firm and his own handsome offices. Eddie’s firm of seven lawyers, including Julianna, the older of his two daughters, works out of the old branch of the Imperial Bank of Commerce at King and Jarvis, which he bought in the mid-1990s. The office’s unexpected feature is a huge tank of tranquil-looking tropical fish. “When people come to see me, they’re in the most serious trouble of their lives,” Eddie says. “I want things in here that won’t make them feel worse.” Brian’s firm of six lawyers is installed in a renovated late-19th-century mansion at Bedford and Prince Arthur in the Annex. While Eddie operates strictly with pen and hard copy, Brian couldn’t function without computers and his BlackBerry.

After a typical Sunday breakfast at the Senator, Eddie proceeds straight to his office. Brian makes a detour to his weekly workout at the Cambridge Club—he slots in two others at home, at 5:45 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays, with Charlie Francis, Ben Johnson’s infamous trainer—then he too heads to his office. Both Greenspans work long, punishing hours and are often at their desks until midnight.