Andrea Akelaitis provides advice and representation on a full range of environmental and regulatory matters. She was a founding partner of the law firm Letcher Akelaitis LLP in Vancouver, BC.

Ms. Akelaitis has appeared before all levels of British Columbia Courts. She is called to the bar in Alberta. Ms. Akelaitis has successfully represented clients in significant historical multi-party contaminated site matters, both through litigation and through alternate dispute resolution.

Ms. Akelaitis has acted as advisor and counsel on many of British Columbia’s significant contaminated sites matters including before the Environmental Appeal Board on behalf of the successful party (Domtar Inc.) in Seaspan ULC v. Director, Environmental Management Act and Domtar Inc. et al. Ms. Akelaitis also acted for Domtar Inc. in the Alberta Environmental Appeals Board case dealing with brownfield redevelopment, Human Health Risk Assessment and contaminated sites issues, Cherokee Canada Inc. et al v. Director, Red Deer North Saskatchewan Region, Alberta Environment and Parks.

Ms. Akelaitis works in permitting, compliance, defending environmental prosecutions and environmental assessment regulatory and litigation issues. She has also had significant experience working in foreign tort issues concerning environmental law matters. Ms. Akelaitis has acted for a range of Canada’s leading corporations and has acted for the Nisga’a Nation in litigation involving important aboriginal law and environmental law issues, including project environmental assessment and has worked on First Nations contaminated sites matters.

Ms. Akelaitis is a leader in air quality and odour management regulatory issues and in a range of issues related to recycling and waste management, including composting. She acted as co-counsel in the leading Canadian air quality odour management decision, West Coast Reduction Ltd. v. District Director of the Greater Vancouver Regional District (BC Environmental Appeal Board).

Ms. Akelaitis has co-chaired the Pacific Business & Law Institute course on contaminated sites for the last five years. She is a past appointee of the B.C. Ministry of Environment and Parks to the Board of Directors, and for the Contaminated Sites Approved Professional Society (CSAP), serving two terms. She has authored and presented “Provincial Environmental Law, Regulations and Policy” and “Groundwater, Regulation and Quality Control”. She has presented on allocating contaminated sites environmental risk for CLEBC, including co-chairing a CLEBC conference on contaminated sites. She delivered a paper on Expert Evidence at the National CBA Environmental Energy and Resources Summit on Environment in the Courtroom in Calgary. She has presented at the CBA National Environmental, Energy and Resources Law Summit on contaminated sites issues.

In addition to being a leader in the field of environmental law, Ms. Akelaitis has extensive commercial litigation experience and acted as counsel in significant BC Supreme Court cases involving economic force majeure, Directors and Officers liability, product liability and aviation cases.