McEwan Partners generated immediate buzz upon its formation
four years ago, and not without justification. The firm (whose official title is McEwan Cooper Dennis) is composed of some of the most venerated litigation talent in British Columbia. Ken McEwan, a Vancouver trial veteran, forged the firm’s identity upon splitting off from his former shop of Hunter Litigation Chambers (itself a dispute-resolution powerhouse) and cherry-picking some of the city’s other prized practitioners to bolster the bench. Those included Robert Cooper, who himself left McCarthy Tétrault in 2013 to form his own boutique) and Craig Dennis, who left his post at Dentons to join. “McEwan very much continues to be the commercial litigation powerhouse in town,” insists one peer, summing up a broadly held consensus. “All three of the lead guys are obviously very capable counsel and I’ve got a lot of time for each one of them. They have, if not the leading practice in town, then certainly close to it.” The firm’s status as a litigation-specific boutique allows it the freedom to pivot between plaintiff and defense work, with cases that are often
fairly novel in nature. “We send a huge
amount of files to McEwan,” confirms a peer, “because they are fearless and will take on things that the rest of us just don’t, or won’t, do!”
Ken McEwan continues to be “just a huge turbine of work,” according to local peers, one of whom marvels, “I don’t even know how he handles it all! He’s going to need to clone himself pretty soon!” McEwan once again proved his mettle as a trial lawyer in one of the highest-profile
cases in the country within the past year, that concerning the hotly contested control of the board of Rogers Communications, which was tried in BC. Working with counsel from Toronto (the similarly venerated litigation boutique Lax O’Sullivan), McEwan, along with
Emily Kirkpatrick, triumphed
in November 2021
with a much-anticipated decision from the BC Supreme Court that confirmed the validity and enforceability of a shareholders resolution submitted by
the client Edward Rogers on behalf of the Rogers Control Trust, reconstituting the
board
of Rogers Communications. McEwan was also counsel to an individual
in an ongoing regulatory proceeding involving
Bridgemark Financial before the British Columbia
Securities
Commission involving 65 respondents, another one of the province’s biggest legal engagements. “They had a really nice win at the Court of Appeal,” offers a peer. Illustrating the firm’s versatility and the novelty of the cases it attends to, McEwan and Kirkpatrick are also working in the plaintiff capacity (along with co-counsel from Koskie Minsky in Toronto) on a class proceeding on behalf of certain groups of prisoners who have been held in solitary confinement in the
BC correctional system between 2005 and 2015. The Notice of Civil Claim alleges that British Columbia’s overuse of solitary confinement is negligent and constitutes a number of breaches of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Dennis meanwhile acts for Take Two Interactive in a class action concerning the use of “loot boxes” in online gaming, which is alleged to be unlawful due to the ability to use virtual currency. “I am increasingly a fan of Craig Dennis,” offers a peer, “and I think he is really hitting that ‘sweet spot’ of his career in the market. He is a great mind and a gentleman.”
Owen James attends to commercial litigation, real estate disputes, environmental litigation and fraud.
