Stephen Posen

For decades, Stephen has been one of the names Canada’s commercial real estate industry turns to when a lease matters. The Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory has consistently recommended him in Real Estate – Commercial Leasing, and he is listed in the Lexpert/American Lawyer Guide to the Leading 500 Lawyers in Canada and in The Best Lawyers in Canada for Commercial Leasing Law and Real Estate Law.

Stephen’s practice centers on complex commercial transactions, especially leasing. He acts for developers, landlords, property and asset managers, and national and regional retail chains on office, retail and industrial properties, from shopping centers and mixed-use projects to ground leases and single-tenant sites. Clients value his command of the details that decide a lease’s long-term value: rent and operating-cost structures, assignment and change-of-control provisions, guarantees and security, and landlord and tenant remedies.

His knowledge of leasing is also relied on when disputes arise. Stephen acts as counsel, arbitrator and mediator in lease-related disputes and is retained as an expert witness on commercial leasing practice. That experience on the dispute side informs how he drafts: he writes leases with an eye to how they will be read if a relationship is ever tested.

Stephen’s leasing work often connects to the wider real estate deal. On acquisitions, dispositions and financings, he reviews and structures the lease portfolio that supports a property’s value, including estoppel certificates and subordination, non-disturbance and attornment agreements (SNDAs) required by lenders. On mixed-use and condominium developments, he advises on retail and commercial leasing within the project. His practice also includes construction law matters as they relate to leased premises.

Before joining Dickinson Wright, Stephen practiced at Minden Gross LLP, where he was Co-Chair of the Commercial Leasing Group. He is now a Partner in Dickinson Wright’s Toronto office, supported by the firm’s cross-border platform across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, which is especially useful for U.S. retailers and landlords entering or growing in the Canadian market.

A graduate of the University of Toronto, where he earned both his B.A. and his law degree, Stephen has spent his career in the city whose skyline and shopping centers he has helped shape through the leases behind them. He is known among peers as a teacher as much as a practitioner: he has written book chapters on landlord and tenant remedies, distress, lease transfers and lease security that other lawyers use as practical guides, and he continues to speak at industry conferences, most recently on ground leases at the ICSC Canadian Law Conference in April 2026.

• Presenter, “Unique Issues for Ground Leases (and When Your Landlord is a Ground Lessee),” Canadian Law Conference, The International Council of Shopping Centers, April 2026
• Contributor, Chapter 7: “The Tenant’s Remedies for Wrongful Distress,” Distress: A Commercial Landlord’s Remedy, Second Edition (2021).
• Contributor, Introduction, Landlords’ Rights and Remedies in a Commercial Lease: A Practical Guide, Second Edition (2017).
• Speaker, “Landlord’s Rights and Remedies: Tenant Defaults – Monetary and Non-Monetary,” Springfest 2016 (2016).
• Contributor, “Transfers of Lease, Assigning, Subletting and Change of Control”; “Guarantees, Indemnities, Letters of Credit, Security Deposits and Land Security,” Shopping Centre Leases, Second Edition (2008).
• Contributor, “The Tenant’s Remedies for Wrongful Distress,” Distress: A Commercial Landlord’s Remedy (2001).