Media Release: Expert defendant litigator Kim Waygood has joined insurance law specialists HBA Legal, bringing with her over a decade of personal injury, insurance and dispute resolution expertise.
Waygood joins as Senior Associate under Partner Hamish Craib, after over 12 years with Ashurst (formerly Blake Dawson). She specialises in professional indemnity and insurance disputes, as well as workers' compensation and public liability litigation.
Managing Director Brett Ablong said the addition of Waygood greatly strengthened HBA's position and offering in the Brisbane legal insurance market.
"Over her career, Kim has been seconded into the legal team at one of Australia's largest supermarkets no less than four times – this has boosted her understanding of clients' commercial considerations on a day-to-day basis.
"As a result, Kim is skilled at helping clients achieve commercial outcomes because she can provide both legal and strategic advice, in addition to negotiating and advocating on their behalf".
Craib who worked with Waygood at Ashurst for four years said: "The most impressive thing about Kim is her can-do attitude. She is a genuine problem solver: the definition of a team player – whether that be within our team to achieve exceptional results for our clients, or as an extension of our clients' teams while acting on their matters.
"She's an absolute gun in the public liability space and we are thrilled to welcome her into the HBA family."
Waygood said joining HBA was exciting personally and professionally.
"HBA has quite a reputation in the market of doing things differently. It has deliberately, I think, positioned itself to work with clients in a way that is very different compared with the approach of the big firms.
"HBA is a small to medium sized operation but the benefit of that from an employee perspective is that you get all the benefits of that smaller environment, yet the work and the clients we work with is the calibre you'd expect to find at a big firm," she said.
Waygood's employment move is the latest in a string of top insurance lawyers joining the NewLaw leader. Last month it opened a Melbourne office bringing in Senior Associate Nicole Kelidis from the in-house legal team at Woolworths. A few weeks prior, well respected Perth solicitor Deirdre Pennock joined HBA's ranks, moving across after 10 years with Sparke Helmore.
HBA Brisbane also recently welcomed paralegal Fran Aguinaldo who is currently completing her Bachelor of Laws from the Queensland University of Technology. Later this month legal secretary Sarah Munce joins the team from Barry Nilsson.