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Lawyer earns Queen’s Counsel status

A former Salmon Arm resident has been honoured for his work as a lawyer with the Queen’s Counsel designation.
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Herman Van Ommen Queen’s counsel

A former Salmon Arm resident has been honoured for his work as a lawyer with the Queen’s Counsel designation.

Herman Henry Van Ommen practises as a regional managing partner with McCarthy Tétrault LLP. His practice involves real estate litigation, corporate litigation and professional discipline proceedings. Van Ommen was elected as a bencher of the Law Society of BC in 2009 and is currently the chair of the Discipline Committee and vice chair of the Rule of Law and Independence Committee. He also has served as an instructor at UBC’s law faculty.

Thirty lawyers were appointed this year with the honorary title of Queen’s Counsel, announced by Minister of Justice and Attorney General Shirley Bond.

The Queen’s Counsel designation is an honour conferred annually on members of the legal profession to recognize exceptional merit and contribution.

Van Ommen attended Salmon Arm West in his elementary years and then went to JL Jackson for his junior high years.  He quit school in Grade 10,  as he felt that school wasn’t of interest to him. His family was poor and he wanted to contribute to the family income. At that time, work in the bush was plentiful and paid well.

Once he had worked for a few years, Van Ommen realized he didn’t want to work as a logger for the rest of his life and went back to school at Salmon Arm’s Okanagan College Adult Basic Education course for his GED. He took first year university here in Salmon Arm, went to Simon Fraser for his next year university and then completed his undergrad degree at McGill in Montreal. He attended Law School at UVic and then articled in Salmon Arm with the earlier configuration of the current Brooke, Jackson, Downs, known as Robertson, Brooke, McManus. He then returned to the Lower Mainland to practice.