Rose Shawlee*

Rose is a member of our Wills & Estates  and Individual Tax Planning Groups. She brings more than 15 years of experience to her practice, which is primarily focused on assisting families and businesses with their planning, succession and reorganization, estate, and business needs.

She strives to make life’s inevitabilities, death and taxes, less daunting a topic for clients while being alert to the complications these raise from a legal, family, tax, probate fee, and cost perspective.

There are many tools offered by the legal system to achieve estate planning and business succession intentions, but rarely are all of them necessary. Rose’s objectives are two-fold: ensuring that clients are aware of the various tools, while at the same time making sure that problems aren’t over-solved by implementing mechanisms that aren’t proportionately practical or offer limited cost-benefit.

Rose is a regular contributor (as presenter, author, and editor) on topics of estate planning, estates, corporate freezes, and trusts for the Continuing Legal Education Society of BC and the Pacific Business & Law Institute. She also provides community learning seminars in respect of personal planning, estates, and business succession and tax planning.

Experience

• Works collaboratively with clients and their advisors (accountants, financial planners, insurance advisors, family enterprise advisors, and the like) to create and implement integrated planning models
• Advises and assists clients with their personal estate and incapacity planning, including evaluating the appropriateness of and preparing Wills, Powers of Attorney (enduring and limited, as circumstances require), Representation Agreements, and Trusts such as family trusts, joint partner trusts, alter ego trusts, and insurance trusts
• Assists individuals and trust companies in navigating the probate process and the ongoing administration of estates and trusts
• Advises and assists attorneys appointed under Powers of Attorney in understanding and carrying out their responsibilities
• Advises and assists business owners with their corporate planning and transitioning their businesses to the next generation, employees, or purchasers, including estate freezes and reorganizations, while (in the case of generational planning) being mindful of the family relationships and impact of planning on the family dynamic

Professional Activities

• Past Co-Chair, Canadian Bar Association Elder Law Section
  • BC Branch
• Special Committee Chair, Canadian Bar Association
  • BC Branch
• Member, Law Society of British Columbia
• Member, Canadian Bar Association
• Member & Membership Chair, Estate Planning Council of Vancouver
• Member, Estate Planning Council of Canada
• Practice Coach, Canadian Bar Association, BC Branch

Speaking Engagements

• Estate Planning Best Practices – The Wealthy Life with Sybil Verch, February 2024
• Trusts & Various Reporting Rules – Where are we Now: CPA and STEP Nexus Day, October 2023
• Tax Planning for Family Succession—Freezes, Trusts, and Traps: Wealth Preservation and Succession for the Family Enterprise 2023 seminar, CLE BC, June 2023
• Drafting Wills:  Wills and Estates Basics for Paralegals and Legal Support Staff 2023, CLE BC, March 2023
• Incapacity Planning: Enduring Powers of Attorney and Health Care Agreement (what happens when they come into effect?): Everyone Legal Clinic, October 2022
• Beyond the Bar: Adventures in Law with Jeff Rose, KC: June 2022
• Inter Vivos Trusts: Advanced Wills & Estates for Paralegals and Legal Support Staff 2022, CLE BC, June 2022
• Strategic Philanthropy: Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation, 2022 & 2021
• Practical Considerations of Distributions of Trust Property: The Well-Advised Trustee, June 2021
• Stacking Lifetime Capital Gains Exemptions Using a Trust—the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Estate Planning Council of Canada, March 2021