Susan Kim

Practising member of the Law Society of British Columbia, called to the British Columbia bar in 2000. Verify standing

Susan Kim is a senior Korean family and estate litigation lawyer. She graduated cum laude from the University of Toronto with a double major: B.Sc. and B. Comm, and had her graduate thesis on moral development published in Child Development before going to law school in 1994.

Upon graduating law school in 1999, she articled at Davis & Co, and was called to the BC Bar in 2000. After working at downtown law firms, she started her own law firm in late 2003 doing real estate conveyances, small business purchases and sales, corporate law, commercial leases, wills & estates, creditors remedies, civil litigation and family law. During the past 8 years, Susan’s practice has focused largely on family law, civil litigation, commercial law, wills & estates and estate litigation.

As most of Susan’s clients have family property and businesses in multiple jurisdictions, including Canada, Korea, India, Philippines, and China, she is well versed in conflict of laws and complicated business structures to bring to your case. As one of the first Korean family law litigators in BC, Susan has created precedents that are now commonly used in family law including requisite documents for non-English marriage certificates or its equivalent for filing to initiate a family law proceeding in BC.

Approach:

Susan has successfully litigated family law, commercial, estate and civil cases in Provincial Court, Supreme Court, Federal Court and the Court of Appeal. She brings her years of experience at all levels of the Courts to wisely guide and advise her clients through the litigation process. While Susan focuses on finding practical and efficient solutions to limit the taxing nature of litigation, she is able to take the matter to trial should the need arise.

Susan excels at divergent thinking.  She thinks outside of the box because it’s what feels intuitive to her.  People who are convergent thinkers are good at finding one answer to a problem. Susan will find 100+ answers if you’ll let her. This comes in handy when crafting a settlement agreement for a complicated financial situation that needs a creative touch, one that is win win for both parties.

Her relationship with her clients is a collaborative one. She works closely with her clients to determine what they wish to achieve, whether it is realistic based on the law and what they can do to achieve their goals. She likes to set up the case to succeed – the sooner the better.

She believes you shouldn’t let others define you. Only you should decide. Her recommendations are to ignore others’ opinions and define yourself. The same goes for litigation. She commonly hears her clients say, “my spouse says I am going to lose because of …” [you fill in the blank].  Susan’s response to that is let the outcome speak for itself. She regularly obtains special costs against opposing parties. The worse their behavior, including methods of intimidation and harassment, the higher the chance she will get special costs for her client.