For more than 30 years, Kathy has provided legal advice to a wide range of clients, focusing on general civil litigation including estate disputes, real estate disputes, foreclosures, and personal injury.
She has conducted numerous trials in the British Columbia Provincial and Supreme Courts, including trials on claims of resulting trust, wills variation, priority disputes, fraudulent conveyances, collections matters, and personal injury claims. She has appeared in the Court of Appeal on several occasions, including as counsel on various estate litigation appeals.
Kathy has also prepared a number of contested chambers applications on issues involving the validity of a will, priority disputes and fraud (resulting in Mareva Injunctions), including the high-profile case of Ian Thow in which she was the first counsel to successfully freeze Mr. Thow’s assets and expose his fraud. She was described in a Vancouver Sun column by David Baines, published on August 5, 2005, on this matter as, “ …a low-profile but high-powered partner with Campbell Froh May & Rice …”.
She was also successful in reclaiming monies owed to a creditor by fraudster and convicted murderer, Charles Kembo, in 2005. Prior to his conviction, Kathy acted for one of few creditors who got restitution from Kembo by securing a judgment against a home that Mr. Kembo and his spouse owned.
More recently, her focus has been on estate litigation, handling many different kinds of issues arising from the distribution of one’s estate including claims of resulting trust, disputes over the validity and enforceability of a will and claims to vary a will. While less high profile than the fraud cases, these cases are no less important to her clients. Many of the decisions she has been involved in are cited with frequency in the estate practice area (McKendry v McKendry, 2017 BCCA 48).
In other areas of her practice, Kathy acts for lenders on both residential and commercial foreclosures and insolvency-related matters and has experience in the Federal Court of Canada dealing with issues of copyright and trademark infringement and tax appeals.
She strives to use creative solutions in the resolution of her files, with the goal of being as cost effective as she can for her clients.
Kathy articled in downtown Vancouver and was called to the bar in 1990, after which she practiced for almost three years in Hong Kong on two large commercial litigation matters before returning to BC in 1993. From 1993 to 1997, she practised in downtown Vancouver and then joined CFMR in 1997, becoming a partner in 2004.
Kathy lives in Richmond with her sons, Zachary and Shane, and their two cats, Calli and Max.
Kathy has acted as counsel on a variety of matters including:
