Roy Donghee Kim
P.Eng., BASc, MEL, JD
Associate Lawyer
Roy Donghee Kim is a trial lawyer at ATAC LAW and a professional engineer whose practice concentrates where technical judgment comes under legal scrutiny. He acts for engineers and engineering firms facing regulatory complaint and discipline, for individuals answering criminal charges and driving prohibitions, and for individuals and businesses in the civil and commercial courts. Before his call to the bar he spent ten years designing complex Engineer-to-Order products in mechanical and electrical engineering, steel construction, and naval architecture in South Korea, Canada, and the United States. He reads a technical record the way the people who produced it do, and builds the argument from what it will support.
Professional regulatory defence sits at the centre of his practice. Roy represents registrants before Engineers and Geoscientists British Columbia, from the first response to a complaint through investigation, interviews, negotiated resolution, and citation hearing, and he has carried EGBC matters into judicial review before the Supreme Court of British Columbia. He prepares will-say statements and witness lists, argues questions of privilege before a discipline panel, and makes submissions on penalty and costs, negotiating terms of suspension with counsel for the regulator. Because he holds the credential his clients hold, he can assess what the standard of practice required at the moment in question, and where the regulator's theory departs from it.
Roy also maintains an active criminal defence practice, appearing in the Provincial Court of British Columbia on remand, bail, sentencing, and trial, obtaining and reviewing Crown disclosure, negotiating release conditions, and preparing resolution proposals supported by rehabilitative material. In driving matters he argues immediate roadside prohibition and 24-hour driving prohibition reviews before RoadSafetyBC, and petitions the Supreme Court of British Columbia for judicial review of an officer's decision where the review itself does not resolve the matter.
His civil practice runs across construction, property, and commercial disputes. He advances and defends builders liens under the Builders Lien Act and the payment, holdback, and deficiency claims beneath them, appears before the Residential Tenancy Branch for landlords and tenants, conducts foreclosure proceedings, and acts in strata disputes, defamation claims including those over online reviews, wrongful dismissal, and shareholder disputes. He also drafts construction and subcontract agreements, employment terms, and licences to encroach. Roy practises in English and Korean, and much of his work comes from Korean-speaking clients. He establishes what the documents and the legislation will support, identifies the point on which the matter will turn, and takes the shortest course to a result. He knows when a technical question needs an expert, and when it needs only a lawyer who already understands it.
- Commercial Real Estate and Disputes
- Construction Law
- Corporate & Commercial Law
- Criminal Defence
- Employment Litigation
- Estate Litigation Law
- Expropriation Law
- Family Law
- Indigenous Economic Development
- Infrastructure Law
- Intellectual Property Law
- Litigation and Dispute Resolution
- Personal Injury
- White-collar Crime Law
- Student counsel at The Law Centre (focusing on criminal law), University of Victoria
- Student clinician at Business Law Clinic, University of Victoria
- Student clinician at Environmental Law Clinic, University of Victoria
- Student clinician at Immigration Law Clinic, Victoria Immigrant and Refugee Center Society
- Barrister and Solicitor, Law Society of British Columbia
- Professional Engineer of British Columbia
- Professional Engineer of Ontario (past)
- Member of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME) (past)
- Member of the IEEE Transformer Committee (past)
- Juris Doctor at University of Victoria
- Master of Engineering Leadership in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at The University of British Columbia
- Bachelor of Applied Science in Mechanical Engineering (Mechatronics Option) at University of Toronto
- Successfully defended our individual client criminally charged with assault resulting in a stay of proceedings.
- Successfully defended a person criminally charged with assault resulting in a stay of proceedings.
- Successfully defended an individual client criminally charged with assault, resulting in an absolute discharge: R v LAQ, 2021 BCPC 288 and Successfully defended another individual client criminally charged with assault, resulting in a stay of proceedings.
- Successfully defended our individual client criminally charged with assault resulting in an absolute discharge: R v LAQ, 2021 BCPC 288.
- Acted for our construction manager client in a successful Supreme Court of British Columbia trial against the defendant owner for damages resulting from contractual disputes over CCDC 5A contract [Construction Management Contract for Services developed by the Canadian Construction Documents Committee (CCDC)]: JM Bay Properties Inc v Tung Cheng Yuen Buddhist Association, 2022 BCSC 81.
- Successfully defended our trade contractor client in a Supreme Court of British Columbia hearing against the general contractor’s claim to cancel our client’s builder’s lien resulting in a settlement in favour of our client.
- Successfully defended our engineer client in a successful Provincial Court of British Columbia trial against the plaintiff owner’s negligence and breach of contract claims.
- Successfully defended our businessperson client in a Supreme Court of British Columbia trial involving breach of non-competition, non-solicitation, and confidentiality agreements with the plaintiff business.
