one piece of advice that i almost always
give to my clients is that they cannot
control the other side
they can only control themselves and
some of these situations can feel very
out of control so
encouraging clients you can control your
own behavior and i often encourage
people to keep in mind the acronym
biff biff which stands for brief
informative
focused and friendly and keeping their
communications with the other side
brief informative focused and friendly
to kind of encourage them to have
respectful communications with the other
side
yeah so some of my personal background
that
i incorporate into my current practice
it was an experience that happened while
i was in still in law school and then
the beginning of my my practicing
career was my parents both got sick at
the same time became disabled
and after a long struggle with them and
kind of going through the suffering
with them ultimately they they both
passed away and this happened over the
course of a few years but
from that experience i can’t help but
bring that into my practice it informs
how i relate
to my clients
because i experience the suffering with
my parents and i experienced a loss
when they passed away and my clients
whether they’re going through a divorce
or
or a death of a loved one they’re also
going through a loss and so i think that
that
that experience that i had allows me to
be authentically
involved
with my clients and really try to you
know be compassionate for what they’re
going through and how they’re feeling
i have had a number of leadership
positions in the community and related
to the bar as well currently i am
serving on the membership committee for
the afcc which is the association of
family and conciliation courts which is
an organization that
really is designed to support families
going through conflict i am also on the
board for stepping stone which is an
organization that
helps people going experiencing
homelessness so i’ve been serving on
that board for about a year and a half
and then i’m also the current president
of my rotary club in rapids rotary
for for the if you don’t know what that
is it’s a service organization or our
mission is service above self and so we
fundraise and we find a need in a
community and we need it whether we’re
meeting it financially or
with with our own hands and showing up
for projects