Jacob Polowin

About Jacob Polowin

Municipal law and civil litigation are the heart of Jacob Polowin's work as an Ottawa partner at Gowling WLG, with land use planning, development fights and expropriation coming up again and again. Jacob has acted for every side of the development industry: builders, municipalities and community organizations alike. Cannabis companies have also turned to Jacob for help with land use planning questions.

A lot of this work is argued at the Ontario Land Tribunal, where Jacob appears routinely and which was earlier known as the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal and, before that, the Ontario Municipal Board. Jacob has also appeared at every level of Ontario's courts. Jacob frequently works with outside experts too, from land use planners and traffic engineers to real estate appraisers and people who quantify business losses.

Jacob earned a JD at Osgoode Hall Law School and was called to the Ontario bar in 2016. Today Jacob belongs to the firm's national Municipal Law Group and its national Expropriation Law Group, and passes that experience on to students as a part-time professor at the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Law, teaching Municipal and Planning Law. In 2026 Jacob was one of four Gowling WLG contributing authors on the Ontario sections of the Chambers and Partners practice guide on zoning and land use.

Away from the office, Jacob serves as vice president and legal advisor on the board of the Tamir Foundation, a charity whose many programs support people living with developmental disabilities. Back in 2019, Jacob also co-chaired the Jewish Federation of Ottawa's Emerging Generation Chanukah Ball and sat on that group's steering committee.