Photo: Contributed
Okanagan Edge and the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce are partnering to showcase some of the region’s most exciting entrepreneurs through the “Top 40 Under 40” program.
Sponsored by BDO, the “Top 40 Under 40” recognizes high-achieving professionals in our community and showcases their accomplishments. This marks the sixth year the chamber has conducted a “Top 40” showcase. Honourees will be featured throughout the year on Okanagan Edge.
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Kate Snowsell’s entire legal career has been spent at Doak Shirreff Lawyers LLP. While she attended law school in Edmonton, she was born and raised in the Okanagan and knew she would return home to practise here.
Snowsell began as an articled student at Doak Shirreff in 2009, in 2018 she joined the partnership and somewhere in between she had two incredible children, who are now 5 and 8.
When Snowsell first started at Doak Shireff she was practising primarily in litigation focused practice areas. When the chance to practise in estate and incapacity planning and estate administration came up, she jumped at the opportunity. This area brought together the two aspects of law that she enjoys most: interacting with clients and drafting documents. The subject matter can be really heavy, but Snowsell is passionate about making sure people have their estate and incapacity planning in place so that their loved ones’ grief is not worsened by situations that could have been avoided had their affairs been in order.
Snowsell is also passionate about educating individuals on issues related to wills and incapacity planning. To achieve this, she enjoys partnering with other professionals to deliver seminars on the topic.
When she is not delivering seminars, Snowsell enjoys her position on her firm’s in-house marketing committee and has been a member of the board of directors for the Kelowna Estate Planning Society since 2017.
Snowsell is a past member of the board of directors for the MS Society of Canada’s Okanagan chapter and has been involved with not-for-profit organization Mamas for Mamas since it was a small grassroots organization in 2014. Snowsell is extremely proud of the national charitable organization it has become in such a short period of time. Snowsell also provides pro-bono legal services to Mamas for Mamas on an ongoing basis, both as a not-for-profit organization and to the mamas in the community who reach out through Mamas for Mamas and are in need of legal advice or services. Mamas for Mamas is doing incredible work in its fight against poverty, in our community and beyond, and she is grateful to be even a little part of their huge success.
Doak Shirreff strongly supports local community initiatives and fundraising, and for the firm’s 50th anniversary it ran a 50 Good Deeds campaign, where it gave back to the community in 50 different ways over the course of 2018. Snowsell also volunteers her time as both a volunteer and a participant in numerous community events, including the MS Walk, Sugarplum Ball, Cycle for Strong Kids and various Mamas for Mamas fundraising events.
Snowsell has a bachelor of arts degree with a major in psychology and a minor in sociology from UBC Okanagan and a bachelor of laws degree from the University of Alberta.
Snowsell loves being a mom. While it might sound cliché, being a mom to two wonderful kids is her greatest achievement. She doesn’t know that there is any greater honour than being called “mom.”
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