I was born in New England, just outside Boston, Massachusetts, and spent my childhood there. When I was a teenager, my family lived in a picture perfect small town in Northeastern Pennsylvania. From the combined junior/senior high school with scarcely 100 kids in my class, I went on to college at Yale University, majoring in European history. At the time I thought I wanted to be a Foreign Service Officer.
During the summer after college graduation I worked at the State Department as an intern, and then entered the School of International Affairs at Columbia University. However, my love of history reasserted itself, leading to a transfer to the graduate school. I earned my Master’s degree and finished the course work for a Doctorate, but discovered that academia had lost its charms. Finally I wound up back in New England at Harvard Law School.
My first experience as a lawyer was an internship at a blue chip Wall Street law firm, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. My first full time job as a lawyer was in Atlanta, Georgia, with what is now Alston & Bird, an international mega-firm. They were formative experiences, teaching me what it was to be a first class lawyer.
Family ties brought me to San Diego, California, where I worked with Hugh Friedman and Lew Silverberg, two outstanding attorneys, dealing primarily with FDIC litigation in Federal Court, corporate bankruptcy, and business and construction litigation, all of which I thoroughly enjoyed. I also started doing divorces. In those days it was possible to know virtually everyone in the San Diego legal community, and civility among lawyers was not yet an issue. It was good time to practice law.
After a few years a former colleague from Atlanta asked me to join Shapell Industries in Beverly Hills as Associate General Counsel. Shapell Industries was then a public company and one of California’s largest home builders. That was a wonderful learning experience and a great deal of fun. Despite its size Shapell Industries was still a family business, and at times resembled a busy delicatessen at lunch time.
Joy, my true love, had by then appeared in my life. She had been IBM’s first female sales rep, and when we met in San Diego she was managing a branch office of Raytheon Data Systems Division of Raytheon Co. The company transferred her to Washington, D.C. about a year before I went to Shapell. After three years of our jetting back and forth across the continent, I yielded and moved to her, which proved to be an excellent decision. I passed the Maryland Bar and practiced real estate lending work at Weinberg & Green, a large firm in Baltimore, Maryland, until Raytheon Data Systems Division disappeared in a corporate acquisition in 1985.
Then we returned to California. I opened my own office in Carlsbad, we married at long last, and we’ve been here ever since. Joy manages the operation of our firm. From time to time we’ve had associate attorneys and law clerks. At the moment it’s me, Joy, and our paralegal, Brendan, and interns who join us now and then. We run a tight ship, but a happy one. Our practice is largely dispute resolution, and some of our most complicated cases are in Family Law.
A contested divorce involving a successful couple with children often includes real estate and business appraisals and analysis of complex financial assets, such as pensions and stock options. All the assets must be valued and divided. Spousal and child support determinations start with income determination, which can spawn mountains of documents and repeated court appearances. Finally there is child custody, which may produce accusations of aberrant conduct, psychological evaluations, and never ending courtroom drama.
I’m proud to say that in 2011, I became a Certified Family Law Specialist, a designation awarded by the Board of Legal Specialization of the State Bar of California only after an applicant completes many dozens of hours of special education, establishes proficiency in trial skills, passes an arduous full day examination, and satisfactorily completes a detailed application showing extensive experience in family law matters.
We try our utmost to reduce the emotional trauma experienced by our divorce clients, to encourage them to view property valuation and division and income determination as accounting issues, and to put their children’s best interests first. Clients bent on revenge by child manipulation find themselves unwelcome in our office if they do not reform their conduct.
Dispute resolution covers a wide range, and disputes come in many different shapes and sizes. Some, particularly non-disclosure disputes between home buyers and sellers, are often resolved by mediation. I have done more of them than I can count. Construction contracts often contain mandatory arbitration clauses. If mediation doesn’t work or arbitration isn’t mandatory, disputes often become full blown civil litigation in the courts. Usually several lawsuits are being handled by our office at any given time. I have to add that boundary line and easement litigation are some of my favorite things.
We continue to do residential and commercial real estate transactions, including leasing; formation and maintenance of corporations and limited liability companies; and document drafting. Familiarity with these areas is a major plus in our divorce practice. They also have their counterparts in dispute resolution. Contract disputes between buyers and sellers are the flip side of commercial real estate transactions. Evictions are the flip side of leases. Disputes between shareholders of corporations and members of limited liability companies frequently lead to dissolution lawsuits. Fraud never takes a holiday.
We started an electronic data base shortly after opening our office. It now contains over 10,000 clients, among them judges, other lawyers, doctors, educators, business owners, working people, and mom and pop. Every one of them has initially received a free consultation. We are particularly fond of our Marines and others who have served our country.
Since 1998 I’ve been a proud member of the Carlsbad Hi-Noon Rotary Club, where I’ve served on the Board of Directors and been in charge of International Service. We are heavily involved in water purification projects in Africa and in the world wide eradication of polio. I also belong to the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce, where I am active on the Legislative Affairs Committee. I’ve also been a Director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of San Diego.
My professional and community activities demand considerable time and attention. I served as a Director of the Bar Association of Northern San Diego County for three years and frequently arbitrate attorney-client fee disputes for the Association. I also belong to the San Diego Bar Association and The Honorable Fiorenzo V. Lopardo Chapter of the American Inns of Court. I’ve had Certified Mediator Training and been a Judge Pro Tem. I also participate in the San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Program, representing clients who cannot afford legal services.
Joy and I are celebrating our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary in January, 2012. This year, 2011, is my twenty-sixth year of practicing law in Carlsbad, California. Please stop by our office and say hello. “How can we help you?” is the first thing you’ll hear, and we mean it.