Doak Shirreff Lawyers LLP

Legal work in a growing city bends toward the things that growth produces. Property deals, construction contracts, business sales, estates and the disputes that come out of all three. Kelowna is the service centre for the whole Okanagan, with the hospitals, the university campus, the airport and most of the region's larger employers, so a downtown firm here tends to see matters from well beyond the city limits.

Before a first appointment, a few things make the meeting more useful. Ask what areas of practice the firm covers and whether your matter is one they take on, since a general practitioner and a specialist will approach the same problem differently. Ask how fees are structured, whether hourly, fixed for routine work such as a conveyance or a will, or contingent, and what a retainer would look like. Bring whatever documents you already hold, including correspondence, contracts and filings, because the first half hour usually goes on establishing facts. And ask about timelines, since court schedules and land registry processing sit outside any firm's control and shape a matter more than most clients expect.