Liability Waiver: Getting Help to Create Your Own

Chun T. Wright, “Chunnie,” represents companies of all sizes throughout the country. Chun works with a variety of businesses that rely on liability waivers and similar agreements, including adventure tour operators, outfitters and outdoor recreation companies. These are just some of the matters that she handles for her clients: contracts (e.g., waiver of liability and assumption of risk agreements, participant terms and conditions, vendor agreements), risk management issues, international matters, intellectual property, corporate formation, strategic business decisions, and litigation.

Chun also provides outside general counsel services to companies that do not have an in-house legal department but want to enjoy the benefits of having a single point of contact for their legal needs.

Chun enjoys handling her clients’ legal concerns so that they can focus on what they do best – provide their participants with unforgettable adventure vacations, recreational excursions and other enriching experiences. She seeks to resolve her clients’ legal issues quickly and efficiently,with strategies and insight derived from years of in-house and litigation experience.

As a member of the Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA), Chun has presented webinars on important legal issues that affect adventure travel companies, provided valuable legal templates as an ATTA membership benefit, and presented a risk management seminar at ATTA’s annual summit. Chun is also a contributor to the eBook titled Living the Dream! An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Starting and Operating A Successful Adventure Travel Company.

Chun’s extensive legal experience includes a vice president position at the trade association that represents U.S. video game publishers, litigation positions at major law firms in the San Francisco Bay area, federal prosecution as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia, and a judicial clerkship for the Honorable Emilio M. Garza of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Chun received her J.D. from the University of California Berkeley School of Law and her B.B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin.

Chun has explored over 40 countries by foot, plane, train, automobile, boat, bus, elephant, camel, and scuba gear. Some of her most memorable adventures include the Everest Base Camp trek, summiting Kilimanjaro, camel riding in India, safari in South Africa, scuba diving in Fiji, hiking China’s Great Wall, and skydiving in Virginia.

Tracey L. Knutson is an attorney whose primary practice involves working with recreation and adventure sports commercial operators, public land administrators and recreation oriented educational groups. An experienced trial lawyer, Tracey defends recreation companies and sports groups from liability claims, often negotiating pretrial conclusions that minimize time and expense. In addition, she provides risk management and training services.

Tracey's belief, when it comes to recreational endeavors, is that risk and opportunity exist simultaneously. Learning how to maximize the opportunities in your recreational endeavors by minimizing or mitigating the risks is a key component of operating a quality adventure sport or recreational endeavor or business.

Tracey graduated from Montana State University with a B.S. in Sociology in 1983, and from the University of Minnesota Law School (J.D. granted by University of Montana) in 1989. Tracey served in the United States Peace Corps between her undergraduate and graduate training. During and following law school Tracey worked in the Missoula, Montana County Attorney’s office, in private law offices, and as a law clerk in the Alaska Court System before joining DeLisio, Moran, Geraghty & Zobel in 1992, where she became a partner. In 1998 Tracey joined Rod Sisson as a partner in Sisson & Knutson where she continued her extensive trial practice. In 2003 Tracey began the firm of Knutson and Associates and she has oriented the firm’s focus practice on recreation and adventure sports defense. Tracey has had a rich background of insurance defense litigation, defending oil field companies, native housing authorities, insurers, outdoor recreation and adventure or sports entities and a variety of other clients. She has tried numerous tort litigation style cases and regularly participates in appellate level practice. Tracey has an extensive history of charitable, community and volunteer oriented activities; she held an elected position within the Municipality of Anchorage on the Girdwood Board of Supervisors from 2003-2006.

Tracey’s personal interests have long been outdoor oriented. Throughout her youth and adult years she has been an avid resort, helicopter and backcountry skier, a sea kayak guide, an avid fisher-woman, hiker and camper. Tracey's interest in recreation oriented legal work began a number of years ago. She and one of her former partners successfully defended, through trial, the State of Alaska in a civil suit brought by a young man injured in a diving accident at one of the State's recreation areas. Since that time, working with the legal issues surrounding defense of public lands and recreational liabilities has become the part of her practice which she finds to be the most interesting, challenging and worthwhile. Not to mention, fun!

Tracey currently represents recreation and adventure sport oriented brokers and insurance companies, trade associations, educational groups and commercial operators. Among her commercial clients are: rafting businesses, kayak tour operators, heli-ski companies, lodges, hunting and fishing operators, flight seeing groups, hiking and horse trekking businesses, ski industry operators, snowmachine and ATV tour groups, commercial mountain biking companies, tandem paragliding businesses, indoor rock gyms, etc. Tracey’s clients are largely people who are hard working, conscientious and very excited about getting other folks into the outdoors. Because she believes strongly in educating herself in her client’s areas of work and because she believes strongly in personal responsibility (hence, her focus on defense work) she currently holds a number of certifications in the outdoor recreation area and continues to do some guide work herself.

Memberships: Alaska Bar Association, State Bar of Montana, American Bar Association, Colorado Bar Association - Entertainment and Sports Industry Forum, Sport and Recreation Law Association, International Amusement and Leisure Defense Association, Sports Lawyers Association.

In April 2007 Tracey was appointed by the Secretary of Transportation, Mary Peters, to sit as a Representative on the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC); the COMSTAC advises the Department of Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Space Transportation and Congress on regulatory and safety issues in the U.S. commercial space transportation industry; Tracey sat on the Risk Management Working Group of COMSTAC for 2+ years, concluding her term in 2010.