Though in a sense, I was helping people at the bank, it wasn’t satisfying. In my third year of law school, I landed an internship with the San Diego volunteer lawyer program where we help guide low-income clients through the legal process and point them in the right direction. Through it all, I found I was really good at listening to clients, seeing where they were coming from, and sympathizing with them. Seeing the outcome and the relief in people’s faces when you tell them that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that they will get through this was exactly what I had been searching for.
So, after finishing law school in 2013, I began working at a small law firm in the West Valley of Phoenix the following year. During my eight years there, I worked on many cases like bankruptcy, civil litigation, and estate planning, but most of it was family law. I ended up leaving at the beginning of summer and took off a few months to put some miles on my soul. I traveled, went international for a bit, and just got out and did some great things on my own. After my travels, one of the attorneys here, Ryan Claridge — an old friend of my younger brother — reached out to me and told me how the
Genesis Family Law and Divorce Lawyers was looking to add an additional experienced
Arizona divorce attorney. After interviewing I felt they had similar beliefs about how to treat clients and their desire to be the best family law firm in Arizona were aligned with mine.
Many attorneys here have families or have gone through divorces or other difficult family law issues, and I’m quite literally the opposite. I have no kids, I’m not married, and I’ve never been through a divorce, so I’m one of the rarer ones. Some clients feel more comfortable with an attorney with some experience on that level, which is very understandable, but I see my unique stand as positive. I can look at things from a legal perspective and focus more on the objectives. Since I’ve worked in family law for as long as I have, I’m still able to understand and sympathize with clients rather than treat them as another case, as some may assume. When clients come to me, there are times when they’ll pour their hearts out, and I appreciate the trust they are instilling in me.
Though it may not be a matter of law, I’m still more than willing to talk and better understand their situation. It’s rewarding to see the client in the beginning — when they may be going through one of the most challenging situations of their lives — to the end when they can finally get some relief and feel better about where they are. I can take control of their burdens and put them on my shoulders, and when I see their smiling faces, it’s just a completely different feeling, and that’s what we strive for.
