Where
did you go to school (undergrad and law?)
BYU (Provo) and BYU (Provo).
Why
did you go to law school?
I always planned on graduate school of some
kind or another, and I had been accepted to a few PhD programs during my senior
year of undergrad, but I fell in love with a sophomore and we got engaged. I started looking for graduate programs
available at BYU so he wouldn’t have to transfer. I had enjoyed my Communications Law course,
so I quickly put together an application for BYU’s law school and sat for the
LSAT. It was very last minute and not
particularly well-reasoned for such a life-changing decision. Lucky for me, I loved everything about law
and law school.
What
type of law do you practice?
Estate planning and administration.
Do
you have children; if so, how many?
Two children: Charlie (8) and Cici (3).
What
have you done since law school?
I graduated from law school in 2006 and had my
first child one month later. I was a
full-time, stay-home parent for the next four years, but I usually had some
part-time or contract work going on that I could do from home, including a job
with Kaplan PMBR, researching and writing their bar study materials.
Shortly after we moved to California, I
interviewed with an estate planning solo practitioner who had a specialty in
special-needs planning. I had a strong
personal interest in her practice area because I have family members with
special needs, and I agreed to work part-time for her as a clerk until I got my
license. This turned into full-time work
as an associate attorney until she closed her California office. When the office closed, I was nine months
pregnant with my second child, and my family really needed my supplemental
income. I set up a home office in the
corner of my apartment and took on a few clients on my own during the
transition, and I became an expert at nursing a baby while I pecked out my
documents with one hand.
I found a position with another solo estate
planner who needed some help on a temporary basis. My work for him allowed him to bring in more
business, and the temporary position turned into full-time permanent work and a
rewarding mentoring relationship.
My family moved to Orange County in 2012, and I
took my own clients for a few months while I looked for another position. I’ve been at my current firm for almost two
years where I am a full time associate doing estate planning, trust
administration, probate, conservatorships, and some trust litigation.
How
do you balance being a busy mom and a practicing attorney?
Here are a few sanity-saving tools related to
keeping my mom world and my professional world from falling apart:
1. I married a man who supports
my career wholeheartedly and enthusiastically shares parenting
responsibilities. Really, the list could
end here because, if I am ever successful with balancing, this is 99 percent of
the secret to my success. (Hopefully he
would say the same thing about me.)
2. I find and pay for childcare
providers who love my kids and who are not shy about sending me reminders when
I am in charge of the preschool snack or my son needs to have his Cub Scout
uniform after school. I also depend
heavily on my kids’ teachers, church leaders, and friends to keep the household
rolling.
3. I am in a practice area with
relatively flexible deadlines and manageable workloads. Sure, I have made more than one frantic phone
call to my neighbor to meet my son’s school bus because a meeting or court
hearing ran late, but this is the exception rather than the rule.
4. I try to focus on what I
accomplish instead of what I am missing.
This morning I fed, shoed, and hugged both of my kids before I left for
work with my wallet, keys, and cell phone all in my purse. This is a successful morning. Who cares if I didn’t start the dishwasher
and I only mascaraed one eye?
Looking
back on your path, what advice would you give a new attorney?
Take pride in being an attorney and pursue your
career goals with passion and confidence.
Take advantage of your “new attorney” identity
because it gives you an excuse to spend time on legal research, try new
theories and strategies, and ask dumb questions from more experienced
attorneys.
Also,
what advice would you give a new attorney with young children?
It will be tempting to ignore your degree and
your license and focus solely on your kids, especially if you can afford
it. My advice is, if you do take time
out of paying legal work, to stay positioned for re-entry. You could do this by continuing to stay in
touch with professional associations, volunteering, or simply subscribing to
and reading a legal trade journal. I
know from experience that it takes a long time and a lot of effort to elbow
your way back in to practicing law, and it helps to keep a foot in the door.
If you have young children and you are working
in a job that takes you away from your kids, my advice would be to find and
keep caregivers who you trust and who may even be better than you are at some
of the parenting responsibilities. (I am
the first to admit that my babysitter does a better job than I would at keeping
my kids’ noses wiped.) When you can
trust your caregiver, you can focus your attention on being a terrific lawyer.
What are the things you enjoy
most about practicing?
In
general, I love being a lawyer, but I think my favorite part of my job is
meeting new clients for the first time.
My practice gives me the chance to meet hundreds of new families every
year and to have meaningful conversations about them about their background and
their goals. It is gratifying to have
these conversations when I am in a position to help them with their next steps.
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