Canadian Lawyer InHouse

JANUARY 2017 6 INHOUSE News Roundup How to get your daily dose of risk management A s Catherine Chow puts it, lawyers can see grey sky on a blue-sky day. That's what makes them perfectly positioned to be the ones helping to identify risk and shepherd management of that risk in an organization. As the vice president legal and general counsel of The Keg Steakhouse + Bar, Chow has helped lead a focused approach to identi- fying what could be trouble for the popular Canadian restaurant chain. With 10,000 em- ployees and operations across North Ameri- ca, The Keg has its share of risk to track. Since 2006, Chow has been the only in- house counsel at the company, and while she doesn't carry the full responsibility for risk, she has helped identify where risk can be tackled to reduce the cost to the bottom line. "For us, the most common risk is a cus- tomer coming in and having a slip and fall or a food incident," said Chow, speaking last week at an Association of Corporate Coun- sel B.C. chapter panel in Vancouver about how to tackle risk management. The panel, called Picking the Low- Hanging Fruit: Lessons in Getting Early Wins in Support of Enterprise Risk Man- agement Goals, featured Chow, David Bowles, associate general counsel of Urthe- Cast, Richard Thomas, senior vice president and chief compliance offi cer of PI Financial, Mark Morrison, partner at Blake Cassels and Graydon LLP, and it was moderated by Andrew McLeod, partner at Blakes. Over the years, as The Keg has devel- oped its risk analysis systems, it has used data gathering to discover simple but im- portant things, such as slip and falls are more likely to happen in Whistler than they are in the lower mainland, Toronto or Arizona. It makes sense, but when you put it all together, you can fi gure out where and when you need to target the problem. In 2013, The Keg decided to consolidate all of its insurance under a single carrier and Chow led the negotiations for its corporate CATHERINE CHOW Check out in-house counsel's best networking tool! The 2016/17 Lexpert CCCA/ACCJE Directory & Yearbook online edition is a user-friendly, outstanding key resource for all in-house counsel. Along with immediate access to more than 4,100 listees at more than 1,500 organizations, you'll also find fresh editorial content, information on deals and links to important resources. Directory listees and CCCA members can also receive log-in credentials for access to detailed contact information to be able to connect with colleagues or research the in-house bar. ANYWHERE. ANYTIME. ANY DEVICE. CONNECT WITH IN-HOUSE COUNSEL COLLEAGUES AT LEXPERT.CA/CCCA Untitled-1 1 2016-12-07 9:13 AM

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