A skilled negotiator, strategic advisor, and passionate advocate, Sean is a tenacious litigator with a knack for cutting to the heart of an issue.
Sean is an associate in our Toronto Litigation Group. He maintains a general trial, arbitration, and appellate practice focusing on complex, high-stakes commercial disputes and professional liability. Sean represents clients of all sizes in a wide range of civil and commercial matters at every level of court in Ontario and across the country.
Sean understands the industries in which clients operate and the nuances and regulatory frameworks that lead them to exposure. He is a problem solver viewing his practice through the lens of clients’ business interests. Sean does what it takes to get the best results whether that means drawing on his experience as a trial lawyer, negotiator, or advisor.
Representative Cases
- Healthcare: Defence of physicians accused of medical malpractice at trial and on appeal as well as regulatory matters before the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario and its various committees.
- Professional Liability: Acting for or against professionals in errors or omissions claims. Sean has extensive experience representing lawyers at trial and on appeal in cases involving allegations of solicitor’s negligence, conspiracy, fraud, and defamation in civil, commercial, criminal, real estate, estate, and family law matters.
- Energy & Infrastructure / Retail and Consumer Markets: Acting for or against public-private entities, precious metal producers, smoke detector manufacturers, technology component manufacturers, and food and beverage companies in construction and product liability claims.
- Banking & Financial Services: Acting for various commercial parties in contractual, shareholder, partnership, and real property proceedings on the Commercial List.
- Insurance & Reinsurance: Representing numerous companies and professionals in claims against their insurers for business interruption and other losses suffered as a result of COVID-19 before courts across Canada.
- Real Estate: Defence and prosecution of various catastrophic injury claims (shootings, assault, sexual assault, car accidents, slip and falls, etc) for property owners, housing entities, and commercial companies.
- Defamation claims: Defence of defamation claims for individuals and companies.
A frequent speaker, blogger, and contributor to legal society programs and authoritative texts, Sean recently authored a chapter in the new, online, open-access annotated guide to the Ontario Rules of Civil Procedure, Civil Procedure and Practice in Ontario.
Selected Publications
- Sean Petrou, Rules of Civil Procedure Chapters, Parties and Joinder, Rule 6.1 - Separate Hearings in Civil Procedure and Practice in Ontario, Noel Semple (ed.), Canadian Legal Information Institute, 2021 CanLIIDocs 1991, https://canlii.ca/t/tbfg.
- 12 Steps to Avoiding a LAWPRO Claim, The Advocates’ Society – Keeping Tabs, co-authored with B Martin (June 2019) (online journal release).
- Avoiding Rescission of Directors and Officers Policies for Material Misrepresentation and Non-Disclosure, Insurance Law in Canada (Toronto: Carswell, 1997) (loose-leaf 2017, release 9) , vol 3.
Academic and Professional Involvement
Sean is a recognized leader among his peers. The Advocates’ Society recently appointed him a member of the Young Advocates Standing Committee, which comprises 40 lawyers under 10 years of call across Canada. In this capacity, Sean is part of the editorial board of the quarterly Keeping Tabs publication and a member of the Diversity and Inclusion Standing Committee.
Additionally, Sean was elected by his peers to the executive boards of the Ontario Bar Association’s civil litigation and health law sections where he assists with professional development programs and reform involving the Rules of Civil Procedure and the profession at large.
Sean received his JD from the University of Western Ontario Faculty of Law. While in law school, he was the Chief Information Officer of the law review, Western Journal of Legal Studies, and a supervisor at the pro bono legal clinic, Community Legal Services.
