Pouya Lajevardi

I came to dispute resolution from two directions, and I still work in both.

The first is law. I hold a JD from Bond University, and I am Director of Firm Operations at a Toronto litigation and ADR boutique. That role gives me active litigation exposure — personal injury, construction, regulatory matters under the Provincial Offences Act, and accident benefits under the SABS. What that exposure is actually worth in a mediation is unglamorous: I have seen how these files get built. Which productions turn out to be thin. Where expert reports talk past each other rather than disagree. Which issues resolve once someone puts the documents in order, and which ones never will.

The second is engineering. I work as a machine-learning and infrastructure engineer. That is current practice, not a former career and not an interest: I read code, model documentation, deployment topology, and the operational records that show what a system did rather than what a specification said it would do.

The two halves are not the same kind of thing, and the asymmetry is the honest part. A law degree on one side. A working engineering practice on the other. One is training I hold. The other is work I still do.

Mediation is where they meet. I hold Q.Med and Q.Arb through the ADR Institute of Canada and the ADR Institute of Ontario, and I have completed multiple sole mediations. I accept arbitration appointments in commercial matters — as sole arbitrator, as a party-appointed arbitrator, and in co-arbitration. Where a matter turns on a technical question, I read the technical material myself.

I run SML Company Ltd alongside the practice.

I accept appointments in six areas: construction and infrastructure; technology, AI and data; energy and the grid; insurance and accident benefits; shareholder and family-business disputes; and cross-border matters. What those have in common is a record somebody has to read closely, and a dispute that turns on what is actually in it.

I have also completed the Kompass Arbitration Certificate Program and the Stitt Feld Handy negotiation and ADR workshop sequence. Neither is a designation, and I name them precisely for that reason: process training is the easiest thing in this field to assert loosely, so it is worth stating exactly what it was.

I act as a neutral. I do not act for a party in a matter I take, and each party should have their own legal advice.