403.260.1470
Paul conducts insurance and commercial litigation and arbitration. He also leads the firm’s written advocacy workshops.
To solve client problems, Paul deploys his decades of experience advocating in multi-million-dollar trials, hearings, and appeals before the Court of King’s Bench and the Court of Appeal, and before domestic and international arbitration tribunals, and securities commissions.
Paul has resolved commercial litigation/arbitration involving:
- insurance, construction, product liability, professional negligence, oil and gas, shareholders’ remedies, directors’ and officers’ liabilities, and corporate transactions, mining, securities, intellectual property, injunctions, representative actions, competition, electricity distribution, environmental assessment, franchises, commercial leasing, and international law.
In addition to numerous articles, Paul is a contributing author to books, including Arbitration World, 5th ed, and The Guide to Energy Arbitrations.
Outside of work, Paul has volunteered to advise those who can’t afford lawyers. He also volunteered as officer/director with several musical charities in the past, including Calgary music schools, and the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra. In a related vein, Paul is a violinist who has played in a professional orchestra, on national TV, and with his teenage son. He enjoys reading, and playing tennis. Paul earned an Oxford Blue award with the Oxford Hockey Team, but alas, retired long ago from contact sports.
Paul relishes practicing at Brownlee LLP, because of its collegiality, and the agility of its litigators. He appreciates its innovative spirit—for instance, in pursuing pioneering ways to advocate.
REPRESENTATIVE WORK
Litigation involving:
- Insurance defence for construction defects,
and professional liability, involving office
towers, hotels, condo/apartment buildings, parkades,
mining plants, and factory equipment - Chemical, and window product-liability
- Real-estate latent defects
- Architect, engineer, doctor, lawyer, auditor,
and director negligence - $1 billion joint-venture dispute over a
petro-chemical-plant - Oil & gas leases, including right-of-first-
refusal injunctions - Contested arrangement for one of the largest
- Canadian corporate deals
- Immigrant-investor-fund litigation over a
luxury hotel
Insurance coverage opinions
Domestic arbitration involving ADRIC, VanIAC, UNCITRAL, CIRA, IBA, and customized ad hoc rules:
- $6 million gas-processing-plant arbitration (to a
successful award in seven weeks) - $500 million highway-construction arbitration
- Interpretation of architectural drawings
- Defects in manufactured construction supplies
- Damage to plant packaging equipment
- Construction environmental liability
- Oil royalties dispute with a government
- Domain-name disputes
International arbitration involving ICC, LCIA, UNCITRAL, IBA, and ad hoc rules:
- Investor-state telecommunications investment
- Construction of solar-power plant
- Oil & gas construction in the Middle East, and Asia
MEMBERSHIPS
- Canadian Bar Association
- Law Society of Alberta
WHY LAW
As a student, Paul enjoyed sciences and arts equally, but after watching a surgeon breaking off pieces of skull from a couple of feet away, Paul veered towards the arts and social sciences. His professors tried to convince him to become a professor of intellectual history, but Paul ultimately opted for a less contemplative and more active life in the law. (Might having six lawyers in the family have been another factor?) Paul loves his choice, because each day is an intriguing chance to analyze, create, and collaborate to solve wide-ranging problems.
Paul recommends the law as a profession. His advice to students is to drink in lessons from senior lawyers, but also to foster a questioning attitude that continually seeks to improve methods. Don’t be easily satisfied with “That’s how we have always done it.”