Joe has more than 30 years experience as a civil and criminal law litigator with a diverse range of experience in the Provincial, Supreme and Federal Courts. His practice has focussed in the area of personal injury, insurance law and commercial litigation. He also has extensive experience with fishing and maritime law, a natural outgrowth of his family’s long involvement with the British Columbia fishing industry.

In 1985 Joe qualified as a mediator, completing the Mediation Training course given by the B.C. Justice Institute and National Centre for Mediation Education in Washington, D.C. Since 1987, Joe has had an active practice as an Arbitrator and Mediator. He has mediated over of 3,500 cases involving personal injury, insurance disputes, commercial disputes, contracts, professional negligence, construction (“leaky condo”), family, partnership matters, estate matters, corporate shareholder disputes, and disputes involving Crown corporations and Ministries. He has acted as an Arbitrator and as Counsel in domestic commercial arbitrations involving insurance issues, franchising, construction, partnerships and general commercial disputes.

In 1993 Joe took part in a lengthy multi-party Mediation Institute seminar orientated towards the design of multi-party negotiation processes, aboriginal interests, cross-cultural dynamics and the structuring of the complex multi-party agreements. This training also included institutional and public conflict resolution. His training with multi-party mediation was extended in 1995 to include environmental disputes.

In 1995 Joe participated in a course, ADR & Negotiation for the Defence, given by the American Defence Research Institute (DRI) in San Francisco. In 1996 he attended Harvard Law School’s Advanced Mediation Course. In 1997 he participated in a Harvard Law School mediation workshop at Simon Fraser University, and in 1998 attended a Defence Practise Mediation and Arbitration Seminar given by DRI in Chicago, Illinois. In June 1999 he attended the Advanced Mediation Course at Osgood Law School, Toronto, Ontario.

• Member and former director (2006 to 2010) of the B.C. Mediation Roster Society and alternative dispute resolution sub-sections of the Canadian Bar Association
• Member of the Defence Research Institute and a past member of the Joint Committee on Dispute Resolution
• Vancouver International Arbitration Centre (VanIAC) Panelist
• In January 2004 Joe spoke on the topic of mediation in Mexico at a Medical-Legal Conference presented by the B.C. Trial Lawyers and Department of Continuing Medical Education, Kelowna Hospital.
• He gives regular lectures to PLTC students and for Continuing Legal Education (CLE) on the topics of negotiating and mediation.

University of British Columbia, LL.B., 1969
University of British Columbia, B.A., 1965