By Fabian Dawson
Mata Press Service

Long before Joven Narwal, KC began walking into Canadian courtrooms to defend people facing the power of the state, resistance to authority and exclusion had already shaped several generations of his family.

His great-grandfather, Jathedar Partap Singh of Kot Fatuhi in Punjab, came to British Columbia in the early years of the last century, worked in lumber mills and became part of a generation of Indian immigrants whose experiences in Canada sharpened their political awareness about colonial rule, racism and the struggle for freedom.

“My great-grandfather was a revered revolutionary leader who openly challenged British colonial authority, organized political meetings across Punjab and repeatedly chose imprisonment rather than renouncing his beliefs,” Narwal said.

His grandfather, Tara Singh Bains, challenged discriminatory immigration barriers in Canada in the 1950s, while his father, Pritpal S. Narwal, arrived in 1976 after practising law in Hoshiarpur but was unable to continue his legal career here and instead became a notary.

For Narwal, those stories were part of the landscape of his childhood and helped shape the way he came to understand power, institutions and the role of the lawyer standing between the state and the individual.

Growing up in Vancouver’s Punjabi Market, groomed for the law by his father and surrounded by a family history steeped in resistance and public service, Narwal would eventually see both sides of the justice system.

“My father had been a lawyer in India, but he never had the opportunity to practise law in Canada. In many ways, my decision to become a lawyer was about carrying forward the dream he never had the chance to fulfil here,” Narwal said.

The family office in Punjabi Market became part of his childhood, placing him close to a community going through a turbulent period of political conflict, criminal prosecutions, accusations of extremism, gang violence and intense police and media scrutiny.

“The stories I grew up with were about people standing their ground when institutions or governments pushed against them, and that shaped how I came to see the law and the kind of practice I wanted to build,” Narwal said.

Inside the System

Narwal graduated from UBC’s law school in 2007 and was called to the British Columbia bar the following year before beginning his career as Crown counsel in Vancouver.

Working as a prosecutor gave him an early view of how much authority the state possesses once it decides to proceed against an accused person, and he has described that experience as an important lesson in the consequences of prosecutorial discretion.

“The most valuable lesson was the understanding of the awe-inspiring power a prosecutor holds and the importance of principled decision-making in the exercise of it,” he told UBC’s Law History Project.

He later took leave and moved to New York to complete a Master of Laws at Columbia University, arriving at a time when the financial crisis was shaking Wall Street and major American white-collar criminal prosecutions were showing how quickly one investigation could expand into securities enforcement, civil proceedings and reputational damage.

The model he saw there helped broaden his view of criminal defence. When Narwal returned to Vancouver, he began developing a practice that crossed the traditional boundaries between criminal law, securities litigation, professional regulation and other areas in which the legal consequences were profoundly damaging a person’s life, career and reputation.

That practice became Narwal Litigation LLP, which he founded with his wife, Cheryl D’Sa, KC and which has increasingly moved into cross-border investigations, extradition proceedings and matters involving overlapping criminal and regulatory exposure.

D’Sa has built a prominent career of her own as a litigator and mediator and is now managing partner of Narwal Litigation LLP. She became the first visible-minority female president of the Vancouver Bar Association and in 2026 became Second Vice-President of the Law Society of British Columbia. She currently co-chairs the Law Society’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee and its Bullying, Harassment and Discrimination Task Force, while also serving as vice-chair of its Finance and Audit Committee.

The couple’s careers have developed along different paths, but both have remained closely connected to British Columbia’s legal community while raising a family around the same profession that shaped Narwal’s own childhood.

When Allegations Hit

Much of Narwal’s work now takes place in an area where an allegation itself can inflict damage long before a court reaches a verdict, particularly when the person accused is a professional, corporate executive or other public figure whose livelihood depends heavily on reputation.

“When someone is facing an investigation or enforcement action that could cost them their freedom, career or reputation, I see my role as defending beyond the specific legal jeopardy. We are also trying to protect their dignity, their future and the people around them who will live through the fallout of collateral consequences,” Narwal said.

That philosophy came sharply into focus in the prosecution of Shaun Pollard, the former chief financial officer of Westhaven Gold Corp., who had been charged with insider trading and tipping offences under the B.C. Securities Act.

Pollard was charged in September 2024, but the prosecution ended in October 2025 during the trial after Narwal’s cross-examination of the lead investigator exposed serious issues with the investigation.

According to Narwal’s subsequent account, the investigator attempted to destroy investigative records while under cross-examination, the B.C. Securities Commission had a practice of destroying contemporaneous handwritten investigative notes, and exculpatory material had not been provided by its enforcement branch to the criminal branch and Crown counsel. The Crown terminated the prosecution.

For Narwal, the case became a cautionary tale for a broader argument about the risk of wrongful prosecution in the financial and regulatory world.

He argued that tunnel vision, poor investigative practices, missing records and withheld evidence can destroy careers and reputations while drawing families into years of uncertainty, even where the allegations ultimately fail.

He also argued that investigative notes are fundamental to accountability because they allow prosecutors, defence counsel and the courts to reconstruct how evidence was gathered and determine whether an investigation was fair.

“The grim legacy of wrongful convictions should be tragedies of the past, not ongoing realities, yet the same systemic failures that give rise to them continue to plague our justice system today,” Narwal said.

The Pollard prosecution is one of several recent cases that help explain the direction Narwal’s practice has taken.

In another 2025 matter, a second Securities Act prosecution was terminated after the defence exposed what it called a fatal flaw in the prosecution theory. The firm also points to a high-profile double-fatality driving case in which Narwal and his team challenged important evidence arising from the police investigation before the accused, Dilpreet Singh Sandhu, was acquitted on all counts.

Testing the Investigators

That focus on the conduct of investigations is now playing out in one of Narwal’s newest cases involving veteran Vancouver police officer Kalwinder “Kal” Dosanjh.

Dosanjh, a 26-year member of the Vancouver Police Department and founder of the KidsPlay Foundation, was charged in September 2026 with four counts of fraud over $5,000, four counts of theft over $5,000 and one count of breach of trust. Police said the allegations involve at least 19 complainants and conduct dating from 2017 to 2025. Dosanjh has denied wrongdoing and none of the allegations have been proven in court.

Narwal has questioned why Vancouver police investigated one of their own long-serving officers rather than referring the matter to an outside police agency. He has said the court process will now provide an independent forum in which both the evidence and the conduct of the investigation can be tested.

For a lawyer whose career has increasingly centred on how institutions investigate, accuse and exercise power, the Dosanjh case brings that question into an unusual setting, with Narwal defending a police officer while scrutinizing the police investigation that produced the charges.

Other cases show how broad his practice has become.

Project Husky grew out of a five-year Canada Border Services Agency investigation into an alleged immigration fraud scheme involving permanent-residency applications and the Yukon Business Nominee Program.

Narwal represented Shouzhi Stanley Guo, who was charged along with four others in connection with the investigation. After 27 days of trial, the defence sought a directed verdict on the basis that the Crown had failed to produce evidence capable of supporting a conviction. Guo was acquitted without the defence being required to call its own case.

Narwal’s record also includes securities litigation in which he successfully appealed a $7.3-million B.C. Securities Commission disgorgement order, secured dismissal of fraud allegations through a non-suit motion and litigated the scope of the commission’s freeze-order powers.

His cases have reached the Supreme Court of Canada as well.

In R. v. Albashir, Narwal represented Kasra Mohsenipour in a Supreme Court of Canada appeal dealing with whether an accused could be convicted for conduct committed while a declaration that the underlying criminal law was unconstitutional had been temporarily suspended.

Beyond the Courtroom

Some of Narwal’s most consequential work never reaches a courtroom because he has developed an extensive pre-charge practice aimed at resolving investigations before charges or other public enforcement action occurs.

For clients whose careers and reputations can be irreparably damaged by public allegations, preventing a case from reaching that stage can matter as much as winning a trial years later.

That work has also become increasingly international as regulators, prosecutors and financial intelligence agencies share information across borders and investigations that begin in Canada develop parallel dimensions in the United States or elsewhere.

Narwal told Canadian Lawyer this year that the restructuring of American white-collar enforcement and increasingly close coordination between Canadian and U.S. authorities were among the most consequential developments facing Canadian criminal and regulatory defence counsel in a decade.

“White-collar cases do not stop at the border. A Canadian investigation can quickly draw in U.S. prosecutors, regulators and cross-border enforcement agencies, so defence counsel has to see the whole field from the start and anticipate where the case may go next,” he said.

Professional discipline has become another major part of his work.

Narwal says he has defended hundreds of lawyers in Law Society investigations and hearings, which he has described as some of the most meaningful work of his career.

His work before professional regulators also intersects with an issue he has increasingly addressed outside the courtroom, which is the potential for systemic racism within institutions that exercise investigative and disciplinary authority.

Race and Accountability

That became particularly visible after retired B.C. Supreme Court Justice Selwyn Romilly was handcuffed and detained by Vancouver police in 2021 while officers were searching for another man.

For Narwal, the incident echoed the wrongful arrest 47 years earlier of Romilly’s younger brother, Valmond Romilly, who was then a lawyer and later became a provincial court judge.

Narwal used the comparison to ask how two Black brothers could encounter strikingly similar treatment from the same police department almost half a century apart, while also pointing out that the institutional response had changed. Vancouver police and the mayor apologized after the late Selwyn Romilly’s detention, and the department later changed its handcuffing and arrest policies.

When Narwal received one of Spice Radio’s Hands Against Racism Awards in 2024, he broadened the argument by calling on professional and financial regulators to publicly examine enforcement outcomes for racial disparities and greater transparency.

By then, his own standing within the legal profession was also growing.

Narwal was appointed King’s Counsel in 2023 and the following year was named by Canadian Lawyer among Canada’s Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers, with the publication highlighting his criminal, securities and professional-regulation work along with his teaching and advocacy.

Narwal Litigation was selected as one of Canadian Lawyer’s Top Criminal Law Boutiques for 2024-25 and again for 2026-27.

The latest Chambers Canada guide places Narwal in a nationwide ranking for White-Collar Crime and Government Investigations, describing him as having a strong reputation for representing people facing allegations involving fraud, tax evasion, immigration and professional discipline. References quoted by Chambers praise his preparation, strategy and ability to explain complex issues.

The 2027 edition of The Best Lawyers in Canada recognizes him in criminal defence, securities law and corporate and commercial litigation, and he has been listed by Best Lawyers since 2022.

Benchmark Litigation has also named him a 2026 Litigation Star in white-collar crime and shortlisted him for White Collar Crime and Enforcement Litigator of the Year for the sixth consecutive year.

Discipline Beyond Law

The accolades tell part of the story, but the route that brought him there says more about Narwal, the son of a second World War veteran.

For the past 15 years, Narwal has taught at UBC’s Allard School of Law, where he developed advanced courses dealing with white-collar crime and criminal organizations.

“When I started teaching, I relied heavily on American cases because there was far less Canadian material to draw from. Over time, that changed as my own practice grew, and today many of the cases I teach are ones I was counsel on,” Narwal said.

He is also admitted to practise as defence counsel before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

The Circle Closes

There is a symmetry to Narwal’s story that is difficult to miss.

His great-grandfather confronted colonial authority, his grandfather challenged discriminatory immigration barriers, and his father came to Canada with a law degree he could not use here.

Narwal went on to become the lawyer his father had wanted to be in Canada and later served as the first visible-minority president of the Vancouver Bar Association in its more than 126-year history.

His wife would later make her own mark on the organization as its first visible-minority female president, giving the family another connection to a professional institution that once would have looked very different from the one Narwal encountered as a young lawyer. She also received her King’s Counsel designation in 2023.

Today their son is growing up around a law office much as Narwal once did in his father’s notary practice in Punjabi Market.

Across those generations, the institutions have changed, but the questions remain familiar. They are questions of fairness, belonging and what happens when an individual stands against an institution with far greater power and resources.

Narwal found his place in that struggle through the law.

“My family history has instilled in me a profound and sacred belief that every person, irrespective of who they are and what they stand accused of, deserves dignity, procedural fairness, and a meaningful opportunity to be heard in defence of their fundamental rights. I have devoted my professional life to serving and safeguarding those values,” Narwal said.

Fabian Dawson has been named a finalist for the 2026 Jack Webster Award for Excellence in Legal Journalism.