James Cain

James Cain practises construction, commercial, real estate, and corporate law at ATAC LAW, moving between the transactions he helps structure and the disputes that can arise from them. His clients include contractors, consultants, and property owners, developers and strata corporations, and businesses, insurers, investors, and First Nations pursuing economic development. Working across both, he understands how a commercial arrangement can give rise to a dispute, and how often its resolution is already present in the documents that created it.

Construction is the mainstay of his practice. He pursues and defends claims over unpaid accounts, deficiencies, delay, holdbacks, and cost overruns, professional negligence, builders liens under the Builders Lien Act, and disputes under CCDC and other project agreements. He is engaged equally at the transactional stage, drafting and reviewing construction contracts and supplementary conditions, tendering documents and subcontract terms, liability agreements, easements, and the documentation on which a development proceeds. Because he understands how a project is assembled, he assesses a claim in the context of the whole, including the relationships intended to endure beyond it.

His wider litigation practice encompasses strata and property disputes, commercial leasing, loan and debt claims, shareholder disagreements, estate litigation, professional liability, and judicial review of administrative decisions. He guides clients through case assessment, pleadings, document production, interim applications, negotiation, mediation, and trial preparation, appearing before the Provincial Court and the Supreme Court of British Columbia and in matters before the Residential Tenancy Branch and other administrative decision-makers.

Beyond his litigation practice, James advises businesses and investors on share purchases, shareholder and vesting agreements, employment and independent-contractor arrangements, financing obligations, product and regulatory questions, and corporate governance. He has contributed to significant economic development work for First Nations, from transactions and corporate restructurings to participation agreements, construction and infrastructure projects, and resource-development opportunities. He begins the same way on almost any file, examining the client's position against the contract, the correspondence, the financial record, and the governing legislation, then developing a strategy proportionate to the risk. Enforcing payment, protecting a professional or property interest, structuring a transaction, or resolving a multi-party construction dispute, he holds to advice the client can act upon and to outcomes that are sound in law and in business.