Jim has been recognized in Martindale-Hubbell as a top business lawyer in Canada with a BV Peer Review Rating and has been recognized in Best Lawyers Canada in the area of Corporate Commercial Law.

Jim is the former President of the Premier's Technology Council which was established to inform the Premier of BC on all technology related issues and to advise government on how to make British Columbia a global magnet for high-tech investment growth and job creation. Jim was a former member of the Board of Directors of the Pacific Carbon Trust, a crown corporation established to deliver BC based greenhouse gas off-sets and carbon credits. Jim has also sat on a number of public and private company boards including Vecima Networks Inc. (TSX:VCM) and QHR Technologies Inc. (TSX-V:QHR) where he chaired the Compensation and Corporate Governance Committees. Jim has previously been a member on a number of not-for-profit Boards including Quantum Networks – an NSERC-funded Innovation Platform out of the University of Waterloo, DigiBC (Digital Media and Wireless Industry Association), Vancouver Enterprise Forum and the BC Technology Industry Association. Jim has also been a guest instructor for the Professional Legal Training Course for the Law Society of British Columbia and has been a contributing author for prior editions of the BC Company Law Practice Manual as well as an adjunct law professor at the University of British Columbia.

Jim is a much sought after guest speaker and lecturer and serves as an advisor and mentor to a number of established and emerging businesses.

Jim has extensive experience assisting his clients with mergers and acquisitions, fund creation and venture capital financing in a range of industries with a focus on emerging technology companies. Jim has been involved in the structuring and creation of a number of top-tier investment funds and has assisted those funds in the investment and acquisition of portfolio companies. Other areas of practice include complex corporate structuring, complex re-organizations (s.85, s.86, s.51) estate freezes, rollovers, corporate finance, corporate governance and corporate strategy, set up of Eligible Business Corporations and Venture Capital Corporations which offer tax credit incentives under the Small Business Venture Capital Act administered by the Province of British Columbia. Jim assists his clients with business formation (BC Incorporations, Unlimited Liability Companies, Federal Incorporations, Extraprovincial Registrations, Cross-Border Registrations, Limited Partnerships, VCCs, Business Name Registrations, Societies, Benefit Corporations), blockchain, artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, hardware and software licencing agreements, technology transfer, joint venture agreements and financing arrangements for debt and equity transactions. Other areas of practice include non-disclosure and non-circumvention agreements, internet and website agreements, privacy regulations, manufacturing, distribution, licensing and acquisition agreements, research and development agreements, share and asset purchase agreements, letters of intent, memorandums of understanding for a range of industries, and assistance with Requests For Proposals process and submissions.

Artificial Intelligence

Jim advises clients on both sides of the AI shift — companies building AI products and companies adopting someone else's. That work includes AI product and model licensing agreements, rights to training data and ownership of model outputs, AI and data-use provisions in commercial contracts, privacy and data governance, diligence on AI assets in M&A and financings, and internal AI use policies at the board level.

Most AI legal risk is not new. It is the familiar set of questions — who owns this, who is liable when it is wrong, and what did we promise the customer — asked about a technology that moves faster than the paper describing it.