About
Advocate, strategic adviser and community builder.
A partner at Gowling WLG and former Managing Partner of its Hamilton office, with more than three decades at the intersection of law, business, government and community leadership.
- Role
- Partner, Gowling WLG
- Called to the Bar
- Ontario, February 1992
- Experience
- 30+ years
- Recognition
- David Scott, QC Award, 2025
Philosophy
A lawyer's contribution does not begin and end with legal advice.
I have spent my career challenging narrow ideas about what a lawyer's role can be. Called to the Ontario Bar in 1992, I have worked as a commercial litigator, as Managing Partner of a national firm's Hamilton office, as a board member and as an adviser to organizations trying to do difficult things in public.
My approach to every client relationship, large or small, begins with understanding the client: their vision, mission and values, and what they are trying to accomplish. Whether I am engaged on a specific mandate or helping a client consider how a full-service law firm can support its business over time, I see my role as more than simply delivering legal advice. I am a steward of an important relationship between the client and the firm, responsible for understanding both, connecting the right people and capabilities, anticipating needs and helping navigate an increasingly complex business, legal and public environment. In every case, the objective is the same: to understand what the client is trying to achieve, marshal the relationships and resources that can help make it possible, and remain accountable for the quality of the relationship along the way.
In his own words
On practice, purpose and the city.
A short profile film produced on the occasion of the CIBPA Hamilton-Halton Professional Excellence Award, received in 2022, in which Lou discusses how his understanding of professional value has changed over a long career.
Practice & Leadership
Partner, Gowling WLG
Hamilton and Toronto. Commercial litigation, strategic advisory and mandate leadership.
Former Managing Partner, Hamilton
Led the office for four years, through a period of growth and renewal in which the office grew by roughly 40 per cent, to more than 50 lawyers and some 150 support staff, including the combination with Hamilton's Evans Sweeny Bordin LLP in January 2019 and deeper partnerships with McMaster University and Mohawk College.
Chair, OBA Pro Bono Committee
Recruited the Paladin pro bono platform to Canada and invited the Ontario Bar Association to steward its introduction.
Board & Executive Adviser
Board director and strategic adviser to Alinea Land Corporation; strategic counsel to HUPEG on the downtown entertainment precinct.
Chair, Hamilton 100 Commonwealth Games Bid
Led the campaign that saw Hamilton selected as Canada's candidate city for the 2030 Games.
Host, Mavericks
Cable 14 Hamilton. Long-form conversations with civic, business and institutional leaders.
Public Record
LL.B., Western Law
1990. Preceded by a degree in political science at Western.
Called to the Ontario Bar
February 1992.
David Scott, QC Award for Pro Bono Law
Ontario Bar Association, 2025, recognizing his role bringing the Paladin pro bono platform to Ontario.
Professional Excellence Award
CIBPA Hamilton-Halton, 2022.
The Best Lawyers in Canada
Recognized by Best Lawyers since 2012 for Corporate and Commercial Litigation, including the 2026 edition.
Commercial Litigation Review
Founder and long-time editor of the nationally distributed periodical, and chair of its annual national conference.
Community
Service that shows up.
Community work is not separate from the practice. It is how I stay close to the realities facing businesses, institutions, neighbourhoods and people, and it is where professional experience gets tested against problems that do not arrive neatly defined.
A consequential mandate deserves more than a narrow response.
If a decision, project or opportunity in front of you touches law, business, government and community at once, the conversation is worth having early.