Susanne Katja Raab

Director

Susanne Raab is a lawyer at Pacific Medical Law, Adjunct Professor of Law at Allard Law School at UBC and an advocate for people living with disabilities.

Susanne’s practice focuses on representing individuals who have suffered injuries as a result of medical malpractice, with a focus on birth injuries and catastrophic brain and spinal cord injuries. Prior to joining Pacific Medical Law, Susanne spent much of her legal career representing physicians in complex medical malpractice and birth injury actions.  She has appeared before all levels of court in British Columbia, as well as the Supreme Court of Canada

Susanne has been consistently recognised as a leader in medical malpractice litigation by Best Lawyers in Canada and Canadian Legal Lexpert® Directory . Susanne is also a Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America, an honorary trial lawyer society whose membership is limited to less than one-half of one percent of North American lawyers, judges and scholars.

Susanne spends a considerable amount of her time on providing legal education to lawyers and health care providers.  She is an adjunct professor of law at the UBC Allard School of Law where she developed the curriculum for and has been teaching the medical negligence course to upper year law students since 2019.  She has also lectured on health law related topics throughout Canada and internationally.  She serves on the Education Committee of the Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia and on the Executive Committee of the BC Health Law section of the Canadian Bar Association, where she creates opportunities for lawyers in British Columbia to share knowledge.

Outside of the courtroom, Susanne is actively involved in advocating for children living with disabilities.  She is the founder of CP Support Canada – which provides bursaries, resources and community support for families raising a child with cerebral palsy in Canada.   She also served as President of the Cerebral Palsy Association of British Columbia for several years and founded the Advisory Committee of the Cerebral Palsy Association of British Columbia.

Classes/Seminars

• Guest Lecturer, Masters of Health Administration, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, 2024
• Chair and Presenter, “Primary Pitfalls in Prosecuting Medical Negligence Cases against Physicians and Strategies to Overcome Them”, Trial Lawyers Association of BC, Medical Legal Conference, Vancouver 2021
• Presenter, “Civil Litigation Basics 2021”, The Continuing Legal Education Society of BC, Vancouver, 2021
• Chair and speaker, “A Patient’s Right to Know – A comparative analysis of the scope of a physician’s duty of disclosure of potential harms vs. actual harms” International Academy of Law and Mental Health, Rome, 2019
• Speaker, “A Child’s Right to Decide – the Sliding Scale of Capacity to Accept or Refuse Medical Treatment”, International Academy of Law and Mental Heath, Prague, 2017
• Chair, “Proving Physical and Psychiatric Injuries”, Trial Lawyers Association of BC, Medical Legal Conference, 2017
• Speaker, “A Physician’s Duty to Disclose Medical Errors”, BC Radiological Society 2016
• Speaker, “Claims for Nervous Shock- Advances in the Law and Medicine”, Trial Lawyers Association of BC, Medical Legal Conference, 2016
• Speaker, “The Treating Physician as an Expert Witness, Issues of Procedure, Admissibility and Bias”, Canadian Bar Association, National Health Law Summit, 2015
• Medical Ethics Guest, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia,
• Speaker, “Civil Litigation – Causation in Medical Malpractice Cases”, Continuing Legal Education, 2014
• Speaker, “Nursing Liability in the Context of the Evolving Nursing Profession”, Greater Vancouver Legal Nurse Consultants Association, 2014
• Chair, Medicine for Lawyers, Continuing Legal Education, 2014
• Chair, Merging of the Minds, Trial Lawyers Association of BC, Medical Legal Conference, 2013
• Speaker, “The Influence of Counsel on an Expert’s Report – Where to Draw the Line”, Greater Vancouver Legal Nurse Consultants Association, 2013
• Speaker, “Medical Malpractice Litigation: The B.C Experience”, Ontario Trial Lawyers Association, Medical Malpractice Conference, 2013
• Speaker, “Making way for the modern mother: The campaign for improved work life balance in private practice”, Lunching with Leaders, The Law Courts Inn, 2013
• Chair, Persuasion and the Complex Case, Trial Lawyers Association of BC, Medical Legal Conference, 2012
• Speaker, “The Foundations of Expert Reports: Writing and Admissibility”, Trial Lawyers Association of BC, Medical Legal Conference, 2012
• Speaker, “What is Admissible, and What isn’t Admissible in Expert Reports”, Greater Vancouver Legal Nurse Consultant Association, 2012

Honors and Awards

• The Best Lawyers in Canada– consistently recognized as a leading lawyer in Medical Negligence since 2015
• Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America – consistently recognized since 2017
• Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory – consistently recognized as a Leading Practitioner in Medical Malpractice since 2017

Professional Associations and Memberships

• Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia, Education Committee
• Canadian Bar Association – Executive, BC Health Law subsection
• Canadian Bar Association – Executive, Benevolent Society
• American Association of Justice – Birth Trauma Litigation Group
• Cerebral Palsy Association of British Columbia, President and Chair of Advisory Committee (Past)

Publications

• Does Failure to Disclose a Medical Error Amount to Liability? by Suanne Raab for the Verdict, Issue 170, Fall 2021
• The Evolution of the Law of Informed Consent by Susanne Raab for the Verdict, Issue 164, Spring 2020
• What are a Physician’s Legal and Ethical Obligations to your Injured Client? by Susanne Raab for the Verdict, Issue 159, Winter 2019
• The question of medical negligence in British Columbia’s Cambridge affair by Susanne Raab for The Lawyers Daily – June 26, 2018
• B.C. College of Physicians and Surgeons protects public by delisting uncertified doctors by Susanne Raab for The Lawyers Daily – June 20, 2018
• Adverse Inference – Failure to call a Physician by Andrea Donaldson and Susanne Raab for the Verdict, Issue 154, Fall 2017
• The Effective Use of Medical Literature by Lindsay McGivern & Susanne Raab for the Verdict, Issue 149, Summer 2016
• Medical Errors: Physician’s Duty To Tell The Truth – The Whole Truth  by Susanne Raab, for the Verdict, Issue 141, Summer 2014
• Michael Bortolotto: A Rebel with a Cause by Susanne Raab, for the Business Examiner, October 2014

Reviews