I was born to a single mother in rural Montana. I was raised by my grandma on her ranch. My mother struggled with addiction and was not able to care for a precocious, high-spirited child like me. My grandma died when I was four years old and I started living with my mother. After that, I had experiences with child protective services and was put into short-term foster care more times than I can remember.

Many of my mom’s boyfriends hurt and abused her in front of me. I remember trying to make “traps” out of coat hangers and Legos to keep bad men away from my mom.

I was often left alone in our small trailer while my mother waited tables. Ironically, though my mother worked in busy restaurants, I was hungry most of the time.

When I was about 7, my mother and I moved to Moab, Utah where she met and married my stepfather. He was a good man and I inherited a step-family who knew how to take care of a child. Growing up in a small town I learned to resolve conflicts amicably, face-to-face, honesty, and quickly. But I also learned that sometimes a fight is exactly what you need when something is important to you.

I dropped out of high school when I was 16. I earned my GED and worked my way through college at the University of Utah. When I graduated, I worked a lot of different jobs, including a counselor at a long-term group home for teenage boys. I always wanted to go to law school.

I turned 30 in my first year of law school at Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland, Ohio. I attended law school on an academic scholarship.

After I graduated from law school, I served as a Judicial Law Clerk to three different Washoe County Family Court Judges. I now own a small law firm in Reno and practice exclusively in Family Law. Prior to that, I served as a Family Court Master for the Second Judicial District Court in Washoe County for seven and a half years. In that role, I heard over 18,000 cases involving many family law issues, including child support enforcement, domestic violence and protection orders, juvenile guardianships, juvenile dependency cases, divorce, custody, visitation, and adoption cases.

Prior to my service as a Court Master, I was a Deputy Attorney General at the Attorney General’s office. I also worked to represent parents in Juvenile Dependency cases. I am a Certified Mediator through the National Judicial College.

I believe that being a good judge and a good lawyer also means being a good teacher. Helping people understand what’s happening and explaining legal matters in a straightforward way is one of the best parts of working in the law. I have taught family law issues locally, at the statewide Nevada Family Law Conference, and at national judicial conferences. I also taught aspiring paralegals at a local career college.

Read more about my professional experience.