As general counsel of MDA Space, David Snarch sits at the centre of a global space business that designs and launches satellites, delivers services from space and in-orbit, runs classified programs and sells complex systems to governments and commercial customers who expect zero surprises. He is responsible for legal, contracts, and regulatory compliance matters in a business built on advanced space technology, rather than a commodity product.
“MDA Space, as a space company, operates in a fairly highly regulated sector, given the sensitive nature of our systems, products, and various operations,” he says, and being public “adds a layer of regulatory oversight on the company.”
Those pressures can manifest in cross-border work, where certain information or solutions cannot move without government approval.
“We have customers internationally,” he says, and “certain systems and products that we develop and export to different jurisdictions require export licenses, which can be quite complex.” At the same time, parts of the business are highly classified, so his team must ensure that the appropriate clearances are obtained, Snarch adds.
As with many global businesses, anti-corruption risk is another persistent area of focus. MDA does business in many different countries and often relies on distributors or third-party representatives, which requires “a fairly comprehensive third-party due diligence program to ensure that we understand whom we’re doing business with and that they operate with a level of business ethics that we expect and can trust,” Snarch says. Regulatory enforcement has ramped up in this area over the last decade, he notes.
That kind of regulatory complexity suits a lawyer who cut his teeth in high-velocity deal work. Snarch’s comfort in a fast-paced environment stems from a transaction-heavy start in private practice at Lawson Lundell in Vancouver, where he worked in the corporate finance and M&A group and pursued every transaction he could handle. In the early part of his career, he sought to experience it all, including IPOs, reverse takeovers, and private equity investments.
Senior partners “took me under their wing and really showed me how to critically think about issues and solutions and staying ahead of the curve on transactions,” says Snarch, while also providing “leadership development both as a lawyer, as a team member and honestly as a person.”
The turn in-house started when one of the colleagues in Lawson Lundell’s corporate finance and M&A group left. A senior associate came into his office and said, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news,” then announced he was joining “this company called MDA, as we were then named,” he says. A few years later, the same colleague called back with a quiet invitation: “We haven’t posted anything, but we’re looking to hire another lawyer. Would you be interested in just coming for a coffee?” That coffee led to three interviews and an offer, just as Snarch was weighing whether to commit to the partnership track at Lawson Lundell.
He chose MDA, now MDA Space, because he wanted to see the whole picture, not just the closing binder. He wanted “to really feel what it was like to be entrenched in a business and understand… what it was like to solve problems from the business side of the equation,” he says. In private practice, he felt outside counsel often “only see part of the story” and never reach “the operational implications of decisions or evaluation of legal risk.”
Inside MDA Space, the learning curve was intentionally steep. Snarch knew he couldn’t be effective until he understood the business in detail, so he spent his first six months embedded with engineers, dissecting how the technology worked and how operational decisions were made. In a company that launches satellites and space tech into orbit, rather than shipping basic products, he had to rebuild his instincts around risk, timing and complexity. The process was humbling: He was surrounded by deeply technical people who thought in a completely different way, and his job was to translate that into sharp, relevant legal advice without slowing them down.
Today, he runs a relatively lean legal function, with a small team covering the needs of a complex, global business. There is no room for narrow specialists; instead, “we tend to hire folks that really are well-rounded in-house lawyers that have a broad range of corporate commercial and other relevant transactional experience,” he says, and “maybe they haven’t dealt with every subspecialty that you’d encounter in-house, but they can pick it up fairly quickly based on their broad range of experiences.” For highly technical or sensitive matters such as intricate IP matters or thorny employment issues, the team still taps external firms, but with a clear goal of learning from that input and reducing its dependence on outside counsel over time.
Snarch’s expectations for how that small group operates are sharp and uncompromising. The legal team’s job is to understand the pressures, priorities and risk trade-offs facing internal stakeholders, then work alongside them rather than react after the fact. That means spotting issues on the horizon early, shaping mitigation strategies before deals or programs harden, and treating legal input as part of business planning, not an end-stage hurdle.
The goal is simple, according to Snarch: “Our business stakeholders want to understand, they want certainty, and they want to be able to proceed and execute on opportunities without having big surprises.”
What keeps Snarch in the role is a mix of intellectual pressure and belief that the work matters beyond quarterly results. He measures every job by whether it gets him out of bed in the morning, and this one certainly does because it stretches him and aligns with his sense of purpose. He works alongside engineers who view MDA Space as a once-in-a-career opportunity, and he shares their sense that the projects they are working on could become part of Canada’s space legacy.
“People might be writing textbooks about the new Canadarm3, or maybe it’ll end up on the $5 bill again,” Snarch says – which drives his team to push harder, knowing the stakes are bigger than a single contract.
For lawyers moving in-house, his advice centres on mindset and how you present yourself within the business. He wants new counsel to absorb as much as possible about the company, its products and its people, and to invest time with colleagues outside the legal team so they understand how work gets done. That effort changes how legal is seen: instead of being the last stop in a process – “We’ve got to get the lawyer to sign off on that” – he wants to hear business partners say “let’s get Dave’s view on this. Maybe he’s got a bright idea,” reflecting a shift from gatekeeper to problem-solver grounded in trust and strong internal relationships.
David Snarch will be a judge for the 2026 Canadian Law Awards. Nominations for this year's awards close on January 30.