Michael Paiva

About Michael

Michael Paiva is a founding partner of Unified LLP and leads the firm's Property and Commerce department, serving clients from the firm's Toronto and Waterloo Region offices. His practice covers land use planning, business law, and expropriation, spanning both litigation and transactional matters in real property (including municipal law, land use planning, expropriation, real estate, construction law, tieback and crane swing agreements, and commercial leases) as well as corporate and commercial law. Paiva works with land use planners and other professionals to secure development approvals such as official plan amendments, zoning by-law amendments, minor variances, site plan approvals, and building permits, and represents businesses and individuals facing expropriation of land or leasehold interests by government. He has appeared before the Ontario Land Tribunal (formerly the LPAT and OMB), the Superior Court of Justice, the Ontario Court of Appeal, and Construction Act ODACC. Before helping form Unified LLP, Paiva was a partner at Rodrigues Paiva LLP, having started his legal career as an associate lawyer, articling student, and summer student at Gowlings. Prior to law school, he completed a Master's thesis on Canada-US trade during the Mulroney-Reagan era, research that was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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