About Gretchen

Hey Gretchen:  I thought you were working for a law firm?  Why the new solo practice?  Why the blog? 

Answer:  Yes, I was working for a law firm.  I was happily working for Davis Miles, PLLC, in Arizona.  Wayne took a job out of state and Davis Miles graciously allowed me to telecommute for the next few years while we moved around the country and finally settled in Maryland. 

Why the new solo practice?  While I loved working for them, having zero face to face time was draining, as was the schedule, with an Arizona time zone while I lived on the East Coast.  At this point in my life and career, I had no evening time during the week at all for family or friends, and it was tough to make new contacts here in Maryland.  And while I value all my friends around the country, I wanted to have people that I could call up on a Friday afternoon to go have coffee with after work, or just go to dinner with my husband.  I couldn't even join the church choir because I'd miss all the rehearsals on weekday evenings. 

I respect how Davis Miles allowed me this flexibility at a time in my life when I really needed it, and thank Ron Jones and all the attorneys I worked with there, for their patience in being willing to practice with someone they never had a chance to see in person, at least for the past year & a half.  Heck, I had to teleconference just to give a CLE presentation.  I know webinars are commonplace these days, and it was an interesting experience to conduct one, but I prefer the face to face contact.

So I am going solo here in Maryland. 

Why the blog?  I have taken a course in mediation, which works well with my background as a therapist and divorce lawyer.  We all know how tough times are these days, and while I've been in practice for 20 years as a lawyer, and as a therapist before that, no one around here knows me so I don't have a lot of contacts yet.  No one here knows me, but you wonderful friends around the country who have followed my practice may be able to give some insight about me and my services to potential future clients.  I can also post advice and thoughts online about issues that don't require legal analysis, without compromising my ability to earn a living by getting paid for my legal analysis.  My first post was derived from a conversation I had with a very good friend.  A very long, painful conversation, which was much more detailed than I posted, but which inspired me to blog. 

I hope to be able to help some people with my insights derived from my experiences as a lawyer and as a therapist, without breaking confidences and without interfering with my current practice.  In other words, the things I might be willing to talk about at a cocktail party or in a continuing education seminar are fair game, but the things that could compromise my ability to provide a legal service to individual clients will be off limits here.

So far, most of my post ideas are from private e-mails.  I hope sometime some of my friends will choose to share their thoughts online in comments to my posts, to give me inspiration.  I also hope to re-organize the posts so that they're searchable by topic rather than by date.  We'll see.  Keep tuned for further developments!  Like my wonderful, roller-coaster life, it's bound to be exciting.  WHEEEEEEE!!!!!