it was very interesting how i found my

way to law first of all i am the eldest

of three sisters

i think my father always wanted to be a

lawyer and never graduated college

and i think that he always pushed me in

that direction

when i was graduating ucla i really

wanted to go into broadcasting

and i spent a summer at a local

television network and i saw how poorly

women were treated by male executives

and i knew that i never wanted to be

disrespected and put in that position

and then when i was speaking to my dad

about it my dad said

go to law school so i said okay

and i was the first in my family to

graduate college and then i went to law

school and i hated law school from the

moment i started until the moment i

did it it was awful

but then i started working first in

personal injury and i worked for an

attorney where

he didn’t even give me my own office i

had to share an office with him

and he paid me a thousand dollars a

month so when i asked him to increase me

to uh fifteen hundred dollars a month he

wouldn’t do so and so i said this is not

for me then i got into

working with victims of domestic

violence and i decided i love this

because i’m a people person i love

hearing people’s stories i love helping

people i like when people

transform themselves when they go to

being a victim to becoming

empowered and strong

and i then opened up a domestic violence

restraining order

practice where we worked with

individuals who were victims of domestic

violence

and then naturally from that came

divorce so i would make appearances for

people with very low income

and i would charge like 25 or 35 dollars

a day to go to court

and from there it kind of took off

so i really never

had

the traditional training that somebody

would have at a large firm

but i was very tenacious and i was very

hungry to learn and i’m a very

competitive person so i was able to

develop a very strong practice from

those humble beginnings

[Music]

what guides my work philosophically as a

family family law attorney i think

is helping people and making their lives

better

and what i say to clients when they

initially see me

is

even though this is very scary and the

future

isn’t necessarily certain at this point

in your life and it’s going to be

different from what you experienced

before

it could be different in a positive way

so it’s not like somebody is coming to

see me because they’ve been diagnosed

with a terminal illness they’re coming

to see me

for a divorce or for custody related

issues

and my goal is to make them feel

that this could be something for the

better in their life so they’re

getting rid of a bad relationship a

dysfunctional relationship

maybe they’re becoming a better parent

because they don’t have the other parent

to lean on so they have to

establish a closer relationship with

their children maybe they need to learn

more about

finances and you know how to

pay your bills and how to prepare a

budget and how to learn about assets so

all of those things help you

individually become a better and

stronger person so that’s my goal to see

you at the end with a smile on your face

saying you know thank you for helping me

get through this i never thought that i

would end up the way i’ve ended up in

such a positive way