Full Profile
Carolena Gordon has been the firm’s Senior Partner, since July 2021 and sits on the firm’s Management Board. In addition to this role, she is an experienced litigator who runs a practice focused on all aspects of dispute resolution and risk management for a range of insurance and commercial clients, with a special interest in the infrastructure sector.
Carolena has extensive domestic and international experience in a broad range of litigation and insurance matters, particularly the defence of construction professionals, their firms and insurers. Her clients span diverse industries and range from engineers in public-private partnership projects to directors & officers and professional orders.
Over her 25-year career, Carolena has handled complex, large-scale insurance and commercial disputes. Her practice also focuses on technology errors and omissions, cyber liability and data privacy, director and officer liability, risk management and class action defence. She was instrumental in successfully negotiating Quebec’s first settlement of a class action dealing with sexual abuse and has extensive experience representing construction professionals defend against major claims.
A creative problem-solver, Carolena is, first and foremost, a litigation and trial lawyer who applies clear strategic focus from the outset. Her talent and abilities to understand her clients’ ultimate goals and guide them onto the best path to dispute resolution is what has earned her the respect of her peers.
Carolena is a Fellow of the Construction Lawyers Society of America. Carolena is recommended in the 2020 and 2021 editions of Chambers Canada as a leader in the field of Insurance: Dispute Resolution and in the 2021 edition of Legal 500 in Insurance Law. She was again selected by her peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in Canada 2020 in the fields of Construction Law and Insurance Law, for which she has been consistently listed. She is also recognized in the 2019 edition of the Lexpert Special Edition on Canada's Leading Infrastructure Lawyers and Canada's Leading Litigation Lawyers for which she has also been consistently listed. Moreover, Carolena has been recommended in The Canadian Legal Lexpert® Directory 2019 in the field of Professional Liability and, again this year, in the field of Litigation – Commercial Insurance.
Carolena was chair of Clyde & Co’s North American Board and the Canadian Management Board until June 2021 and led on office openings in Vancouver, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Denver. She was previously a member of the firm’s global Management Board between 2015 and 2017 and has been heavily involved in the firm’s innovation initiatives.
Carolena is also a frequent speaker on infrastructure issues, insurance, professional liability, cyber security and risk assessment.
Experience
- Representation of an institution in several class actions of international scope involving allegations of sexual abuse and successful negotiation of the first settlement of class actions of this nature in Quebec.
- Representation and settlement of $85M of claims following the collapse of the Montreal Olympic Stadium roof for a wrap-up liability insurer.
- Successful representation of Collège des médecins du Québec in an interlocutory and permanent injunction raising charter rights and the Order’s powers to investigate. (Gauthier v. Deschênes and Collège des médecins du Québec, 2010 QCCS 4760).
- Successful representation of a services corporation in provisional injunction proceedings involving issues related to insurance and unfair competition.
- Successful representation of several insurers before the Court of Appeal concerning the duty to defend where multiple insurance policies respond. (Compagnie d’assurances Temple v. Compagnie d’assurances ING, 2007 QCCA 82)
- Successful representation of a professional order in a civil litigation suit in a long term trial (Poulin v. Collège des médecins du Québec, 2011 QCCS 813; 2013 QCCA 187; Leave to appeal to the Supreme Court dismissed on June 13 2013, No 35289).
