Cavanagh LLP

About Cavanagh LLP

Cavanagh LLP is a small civil litigation firm in Ottawa, with six lawyers practicing from an office on Roosevelt Avenue in the city's Westboro neighbourhood. The firm was previously known as Cavanagh Williams Conway Baxter LLP. Two of its named partners, Thomas Conway and Colin Baxter, left in 2014 to start their own firm, and Heather J. Williams, a co-founder and partner from 2002, stayed with the firm until being appointed to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in 2017. Founding lawyer Stephen Cavanagh was called to the Ontario bar in 1980 and continues to practice at the firm, focusing on professional liability, insurance coverage, and commercial litigation.

The firm concentrates on five areas: commercial litigation, including restructuring and insolvency, insurance and tort, professional liability, mediation and arbitration, and employment law. It runs a small firm model built around cost management, using techniques such as critical path planning and task-based billing to keep client costs predictable. Every lawyer at the firm volunteers at the Pro Bono Law Ontario clinic at the Ottawa courthouse, and Cavanagh pairs each articling student with a mentor as part of its student program.