Kelsey Buchmayer

About Kelsey Buchmayer

Kelsey Buchmayer is an associate at Gowling WLG in Ottawa, practising in estates, trusts and Indigenous law. Buchmayer sets up trusts and reviews ones already in place, with a specialization in trusts for Indigenous settlors and beneficiaries.

Government experience came first. As a federal policy analyst at Indigenous Services Canada and Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, Buchmayer helped write and roll out legislation, prepared budget submissions and supported the negotiators in the Specific Claims Branch. Today, specific claims negotiations under Ottawa's Specific Claims Policy are part of the practice too, along with business files and litigation, class actions included, for Indigenous clients.

For estate planning, the advice starts with the client's real circumstances. Finances, business interests, relationships at home and any appetite for probate planning all shape the plan. It's a subject Buchmayer writes about on the All About Estates blog, covering questions like whether an insurer can demand probate before paying out a policy and how death affects married and common law partners differently. Clients can work with Buchmayer in English, French or Spanish.

Called to the Ontario bar in 2022, Buchmayer holds a JD from the University of Windsor, where a clerkship in Yellowknife at the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories and the Global Rounds of the Jessup international moot were part of law school. Outside work, it's hiking, travel and paddle boarding, and back in university days it was varsity rugby and ultimate Frisbee.