Heyla Vettyvel

About Heyla Vettyvel

Financial institutions, public and private companies and other institutional clients bring their commercial disputes to Heyla Vettyvel, and real estate litigation is where the practice is most concentrated. Heyla is an associate litigator at Gowling WLG in Toronto who often has primary carriage of a file, working with clients directly on strategy and keeping the focus on practical answers that make commercial sense.

Arbitration is a large part of the work too. Heyla was on the defence of an International Chamber of Commerce arbitration over complex engineering and project-management claims, taking the lead on preparing lay witness evidence, writing key submissions and steering junior colleagues through a record of more than 65 million documents. In court, Heyla independently obtained summary judgment for a financial institution facing a claim tied to the sale of secured real property, then got an order for security for costs, and the appeal that followed was dismissed.

A business degree came before law. Heyla earned a BBA with distinction from the Schulich School of Business, specializing in accounting, responsible business and entrepreneurship, and then a JD from Osgoode Hall Law School. At Osgoode, Heyla was a criminal law division leader at the Community & Legal Aid Services Programme, competed in and judged a number of moots, and took on executive roles with the Osgoode Tax Law Association. The call to the Ontario bar came in 2018.

On the Tamil Bar Association's board, Heyla co-chairs the Finance Committee and is the president's delegate to the Ontario Bar Association's Council for the 2026 to 2027 term. Earlier came two consecutive terms on the executive of the OBA's Civil Litigation Section and a place on the Women's Law Forum executive, and Heyla has moderated and spoken at programs run by the OBA and the CBV Institute.