The top lawyer for Montreal-based plane and train maker Bombardier Inc. will retire at the end of the year, when a new general counsel, Alain Rondeau, is expected to slide into the pilot’s seat of the company’s worldwide legal department.

The company announced Thursday that Rondeau will replace Bombardier’s current GC, senior vice president and corporate secretary, Daniel Desjardins, who joined the law department in 1998 and has managed 175 lawyers spread across 17 countries.