Bio
With his broad-reaching knowledge in commercial litigation, occupational health and safety (OHS), as well as insurance law, Gary Zimmerman brings a unique set of skills to the Insurance and Risk Management group at McLennan Ross.
He is highly skilled in the key areas of high-stakes litigation and appeals and is one of only a few lawyers in Canada with extensive experience in Anton Piller matters. He has acted as an Independent Supervising Solicitor and Counsel of Record in cases relating to these civil search warrants across Alberta.
In his commercial litigation practice, Gary’s experience allows him to navigate complex and often contentious corporate disputes and lengthy development matters for clients including shareholders, directors and officers, large energy companies, and claimants in land disputes. He has been lead counsel on numerous multi-party, high-stakes litigation files and has pursued and defended numerous complex actions involving contractual, shareholder and commercial disputes, landlord and tenant matters as well as product liability cases. He also assists with technology and forensic technology matters and investigations of data breaches.
He has gained significant experience in the appeal process as a past member of the Subdivision and Development Appeal Board (SDAB) in Strathcona and regularly representing clients in front of the Alberta Court of Appeal. He was also the chair of the Landlord-Tenant Subsection for the Canadian Bar Association and the Landlord Tenant Advisory Board for the City of Edmonton.
In OHS matters, Gary designs and executes customized in-house occupational health and safety training programs for clients across Canada. He has presented more than 70 seminars in the past three years for clients, including Alberta’s largest medical group and some of Canada’s most prominent retail, oil, energy, and manufacturing companies.
In the area of insurance, Gary advises major institutional insurance clients on automobile, commercial general liability, and property matters. He represents major institutional, automobile, commercial, and general liability and property insurers on liability, damage, coverage, and subrogation issues. He provides coverage opinions regarding insurer's duty to defend and duty to indemnify and promotes and defends fire loss claims.
Well known for super-responsive and timely service, Gary enjoys getting to know his clients and developing strong relationships. He makes sure they know all their options and both the positives and negatives of their case. Never losing sight of his clients’ end goal, Gary finds the path to get there as cost-effectively and as quickly as possible.
Words that describe Gary include trustworthy, dependable, reliable, and ethical - he’s the sort of guy who declares a $5 chocolate bar when he crosses the border. It was his competitive nature and love of winning, though, that drew Gary to practise litigation. He recognizes that sometimes it can be about losing gracefully or with as little damage as possible, which, in his books, is just a different kind of win. He thrives on the strategizing involved in litigation and as a musician and drummer, he loves the performance aspect of it too.