403.260.1470
Paul conducts insurance and commercial litigation and arbitration. He also leads the firm’s written advocacy workshops and mentoring programs.
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.
Besides 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 music education charities in the past, including the Calgary Music Academy Centre 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 the most innovative ways to advocate.
REPRESENTATIVE WORK
- Litigation involving:
· Insurance defence for construction defects,
and professional liability, involving office
towers, hotels, apartment buildings and
mining plants
· Chemical 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
· Environmental liability arising from a
construction project
· Oil companies’ royalties dispute with a
government
· Domain-name disputes -
International arbitration involving ICC, LCIA, UNCITRAL, IBA, and ad hoc rules:
· Investor-state dispute relating to a
telecommunications investment
· Dispute over construction of solar-power plant
· Disputes over oil & gas related construction
projects in the Middle East, and Asia
MEMBERSHIPS
- Canadian Bar Association
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.”