Profile
Patrick Brown initiated the Ontario Chief Coroner’s Review of Cycling Deaths and served for a year as its pro bono counsel. More than a decade on, its recommendations have helped shaped the Ontario-wide Bike Plan, the one-metre passing law, speed reductions, and major infrastructure improvements, and they still inform road safety efforts today.
“That is what influence should mean: work that keeps protecting people long after the file is closed,” says Brown, principal partner at McLeish Orlando.
That conviction was years in the making. Called to the bar in 1993, Brown did not set out to become a personal injury trial lawyer, practicing instead across specialisms like refugee hearings to pro bono counselling at Covenant House. Working second chair at a lengthy personal injury trial revealed his calling. “It became my ‘why’ for being a lawyer. Every case brought me face-to-face with someone whose life had been turned upside down.”
Joining forces with John McLeish and Dale Orlando to build a firm dedicated to that work gave him the chance to act on it.
As the cases mounted, Brown observed that many of the injuries – such as traumatic brain injuries and spinal cord injuries – and deaths he encountered were preventable, and that moving on to the next file simply was not enough. He became more active in the fight for policy change, not only in the courts but through protests and organizing and joining boards.
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Patrick Brown
Principal Partner
McLeish Orlando LLP
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Bio
Milestones
1993–Present
2008–2009
2011–2014
2015–Present
2018–Present
Called to the Ontario Bar and built a career advocating for seriously injured people. Patrick Brown has developed a leading plaintiff personal injury practice, with a particular focus on catastrophic injury, wrongful death, brain and spinal cord injury, and advocacy for cyclists, pedestrians, seniors, and children.
1993–Present
President of the Ontario Trial Lawyers Association (OTLA). Led the provincial organization representing plaintiff trial lawyers and contributed to consultations and submissions on civil justice and automobile insurance reform in Ontario.
2008–2009
Helped advance cycling and pedestrian safety reform in Ontario. Appointed as an Expert Panel Member for the Ontario Chief Coroner’s reviews of cycling and pedestrian deaths and served as pro bono counsel in connection with the reviews. His work earned him the 2012 Active Transportation Champion of the Year Award from the Toronto Centre for Active Transportation. Recognized by Best Lawyers in Canada since 2013 and as a Lexpert Most Frequently Recommended lawyer since 2014.
2011–2014
Founded and helped lead organizations advocating for vulnerable road users. Founder of the Vulnerable Road User Coalition of Ontario, founder and director of Bike Law Canada/Bike Law Ontario, and a founding member of Friends and Families for Safe Streets. His advocacy has included government submissions, proposed legislation, and meetings with Ontario transportation officials seeking stronger protections for vulnerable road users.
2015–Present
Recognized for sustained leadership in law, injury advocacy, and road safety. Named the Ontario Safety League’s 2018 Road Safety Advocate of the Year and the Ontario Brain Injury Association’s 2018 Professional of the Year. Named one of Canadian Lawyer’s Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers - Changemakers in 2026.
2018–Present
Milestones
“I learned early that a lone lawyer knocking at the door earned nothing but sore knuckles. But when you show up with a coalition representing thousands of citizens, doors swing open with a hello”
Patrick Brown, McLeish Orlando LLP
“That is what influence should mean: work that keeps protecting people long after the file is closed”
Patrick Brown, McLeish Orlando LLP
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“I learned early that a lone lawyer knocking at the door earned nothing but sore knuckles. But when you show up with a coalition representing thousands of citizens, doors swing open with a hello,” he adds.
Brown’s recognition over the past 18 months reflects decades of groundwork coming together. The Cycling Death Review’s findings have taken on fresh relevance in protecting Ontario’s cycling infrastructure, while the Coalition to Reduce Auto Size Hazards (C.R.A.S.H.), which he works on with Christopher Waters and Albert Koehl, has drawn national attention to the danger oversized pickups and SUVs pose to pedestrians and cyclists. His push for Vulnerable Road User laws has been just as persistent, running to five private members’ bills he has helped initiate.
The same instinct shapes how Brown measures his courtroom work. He has secured some of the largest personal injury recoveries in Canada, but it is the lasting impacts of these cases that stay with him. After the death of a two-year-old child in an unlicensed daycare, a groundbreaking ruling allowed the lawsuit to proceed against the Ministry of Education, becoming the catalyst for new child-protection laws and an overhaul of the province’s daycare system.
“It is a real and human form of litigation – exhilarating and at times gut-wrenching, high-stakes and enormously worthwhile,” he says.
Inside the courtroom and beyond it, Brown is unequivocal about protecting people and making roads and communities safer. Individual cases expose the patterns that need changing and become opportunities for reform. “That work is the engine of everything else: the cases inform the advocacy, and the advocacy improves outcomes for future clients,” he says.