Meet Shannon McDonnell! The Newest Member of Stock Legal

Hi! I’m Shannon McDonnell and I’m thrilled to join the Stock Legal team!

My estate planning practice has evolved from years of litigating family law, probate and trusts and estates matters. My litigation background allows me to advise clients on their estate planning goals from a real world perspective and I strive to provide peace of mind to each and every client.

I was born and raised in Glen Carbon, Illinois and I got my start as an attorney in Madison County, Illinois. In between all of that, I graduated with a BS from Florida State University, had a career as a handbag’s designer for Dillard’s department stores, and graduated from SLU Law. While in law school, I worked primarily as an Illinois Rule 711 attorney under the Violence Against Women’s Act for Land of Lincoln out of their office in Alton, Illinois.

After graduating from law school in 2012, I joined my family’s law firm in Edwardsville, Illinois and began specializing in family law while assisting my clients with their resulting estate planning needs. Upon my father’s decision to retire in 2016, I decided to take the next couple of years to help wrap up the family practice, launch a self-care business I had been developing since law school, i.e., Hossmas, move to Benton Park, plan my (our?) wedding, advise homeless teens through Covenant House Missouri and travel with my wonderful husband, Al. Although lawyering took the back burner from 2016 to 2018, I did continue working as a contract attorney. As a result, I can now tell anyone anything about Relativity’s e-discovery software. I logged an inordinate number of audiobooks during those treacherous e-discovery contract hours. In 2018, I began practicing again, this time focusing my practice on probate and trusts and estates litigation and transactional matters. 

After enthusiastically embracing all that is the modern-day remote-attorney while birthing our first [pandemic] baby, I decided it was time to leave litigation. Fate stepped in and immediately connected me with Katie, Dan, Jayne and Sara, and I’m beyond excited to focus and specialize in the transactional side of estate planning here at Stock Legal!