Insurance Law Conference 2023

Course Chairs
Richard B. Lindsay, KC — Cornish Margolis Boyd, Vancouver
Gregory J. Tucker, KC — Owen Bird Law Corporation, Vancouver

About the Course Chairs
Richard Lindsay, KC is a mediator/arbitrator with Cornish Margolis Boyd in Vancouver. His practice for over 40 years focused on general insurance litigation, with particular emphasis on products liability, engineering, energy, and fire related matters. Richard's areas of specific interest include complex multi-party litigation, construction, professional liability, subrogation, fraudulent claims, coverage, and catastrophic injury cases with significant liability issues. Richard has extensive trial and appellate court experience.

Appointed Queen's Counsel in 2003, Richard was admitted to the BC bar in 1978. He obtained a Bachelor of Engineering in 1971 from Carleton University and a Bachelor of Laws in 1977 from UBC. His pre-law experience was as a Civil Engineer.

Richard is past president of the Canadian Defence Lawyers which presented him with the celebrated Lee Samis Award of Excellence in 2006. He has served on the Hearing Panel pool for the Law Society of BC. He is a past Fellow of the prestigious American College of Trial Lawyers and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators

Richard has chaired CLEBC's Insurance Law Conference since time immemorable.

Greg Tucker, KC is head of Owen Bird's insurance group, and practices commercial litigation, with a focus on insurance, including coverage, energy, marine, defence and subrogation, arbitration and appraisal, and non-insurance counsel work.

Greg lectures regularly for CLEBC and other professional educational bodies. He is author of the Interlocutory Applications Chapter of the Civil Litigation Handbook.

Faculty
Sepideh Alimirzaee — McQuarrie LLP, Surrey
Mary Ellen Boyd — Cornish Margolis Boyd, Vancouver
Andrew N. Epstein — Lindsay LLP, Vancouver
Gordon G. Hilliker, KC — Barrister & Solicitor, Belcarra
Mercy Iannicello — Dolden Wallace Folick LLP, Vancouver
Professor Erik S. Knutsen — Faculty of Law, Queen's University, Kingston, ON
Dennis C. Quinlan, KC — QA Law, Vancouver
Christopher J. Reed, PEng. — Reed Engineering Consultants Inc., Langley
Heather Sanderson — Sanderson Law, Calgary
Nikta Shirazian — Owen Bird Law Corporation, Vancouver

Click here for full faculty bios

• we are all familiar with the tripartite relationship of insurer, insured and defence counsel—but can three become a crowd?
• who controls the defence when there is a reservation of rights?
• how, and to whom, should defence counsel report in these circumstances?
• how does the insured's duty to cooperate with the insurer square with its own interest in protecting itself against uncovered claims?
• how can insurance defence counsel avoid breaching the duty of undivided loyalty when the interests of the insurer and the insured are not fully aligned?

• what is an "expert" in fire?
• the accepted methodology of fire investigation
• avoiding bias in investigations
• recent "case law findings" and what it means to your cases

• principles of interpretation and cncepts
• emerging patterns in large case populations
• are we more literalist constructionists than we think?
• implications for risk assessment