Profile

Kim is a partner in Kennedys’ Auckland office and brings more than 20 years’ experience to her practice in insurance litigation. Her focus is professional indemnity, public/product liability, directors’ and officers’ insurance and statutory liability, as well as property and fire and general insurance. Kim acts for most insurers writing business locally and also receives instructions from Lloyd’s-based underwriters and global insurers writing business in New Zealand.

Admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand in 1988 following graduation from the University of Auckland, Kim joined Kennedys as a partner in 2011, after 12 years as a litigation partner at a commercial law firm in Auckland.

She has extensive experience with mediation and alternative dispute resolution and has been an Associate Member of the Arbitration and Mediators Institute of New Zealand for many years. Kim is a founding member of the New Zealand Insurance Law Association and is currently the secretary of the New Zealand Chapter of the Australian Professional Indemnity Group.

Kim also contributed to the fourth edition of Kennedys’ Global Legal Handbook, one of our most popular guides, which outlines the main legal and procedural issues that case handlers may encounter when dealing with claims across 53 jurisdictions globally.

Work highlights

  • Acting on behalf of liability insurers for a waste management company being prosecuted under local health and safety legislation and successfully negotiating one of the first enforceable undertakings in New Zealand, thereby avoiding prosecution.
  • Successfully defending solicitors against allegations of fraud, dishonest assistance, breach of fiduciary duty and negligence in the High Court.
  • Defending an engineering company against allegations of breach of contract and negligence in respect of the design and manufacture of gas compressors for use on floating off-shore oil platforms.
  • Representing insureds in complex multi-party litigation involving “leaky building” syndrome.
  • Cyber - coverage counsel and privacy response counsel for a large retail bank in New Zealand.