It was interesting is that I started out 20 years ago just in family law doing pro bono because I actually was a lawyer in a big firm in Tampa. And I did corporate complex litigation and employment law. And employment law was very kind of similar to family law because it was about people and their stories. I’d get to investigate why someone was fired, so it was really interesting. I did family law pro bono at that time and then about a year into it I get recruited to go work for a boutique firm in Miami, Florida. It was very different. It was one guy who was really well-known for doing multimillion-dollar case. I left my job that I spend four years all through law school trying to get and then also worked there for a year at a big firm to go try something that I feel like was closer to my passions.

I got there and it’s been an interesting ride ever since. I eventually moved to Minnesota in 2000 and when I was in Miami, I did about half of civil litigation, suing people for fraud or class action litigation. I continued to have litigation and civil cases but I also did the really large asset divorce cases and learned how to do those pretty well. When I came to Minnesota, I switched focus and I’ve done 100 percent family law and then some things like harassment restraining orders or OFPs. I found that the civil background in civil litigation has really served me well because civil litigators seem to use a little more variety in discovery methods than family law attorney’s, so that’s really helped me. I also, because I have a business degree undergrad I have found that to be really useful in understanding complex family law cases involving businesses.

I’ve been here, my law partner and I Lymari Santana; we formed Mack & Santana 10 years ago. It’s been great. We are very fortunate to have had a lot of interesting wonderful people come through our doors and were glad to be able to help them.