Profile

I handle any and all employee matters that come up in the workplace. I primarily do preventative counseling for companies to stop problems before they crop up.

I draft and formulate employee policies and procedures.

I counsel companies about employee discipline. I investigate and deal with charges of harassment, discrimination and retaliation.

I also counsel executives who need help starting or ending an employment relationship.

My practice is geared toward companies that would be considered emerging companies or start-ups. I often get calls from a start-up company after the problem happens and we have to backtrack to fix the problem. To help prevent problems from occurring in the future, I put together the necessary policies and practices.

It ranges from the parking lot of Costco, where I’ve had many conference calls, to Starbucks, where I’ve written many investigation reports.

I have a virtual office in Beverly Hills where my business phone calls go. They are patched through to wherever I am, which usually means my house.

I have conference room hours per month that I am entitled to use and a day office if I need it. I don’t need a full time office because of the nature of my work.

I do most of my work over the phone and computer. I also conduct independent investigations for law firms on harassment and discrimination claims and that’s done at a client worksite.

It’s incredibly flexible.

I work about 10-15 hours a week on average but the time per week varies a lot depending upon what’s going on.

It’s pretty great. I can decide if I don’t want to take something on. I don’t have to take something if it’s not going to fit. Flexibility is the key to everything. I couldn’t imagine giving up the flexibility that I have to spend time with my two daughters.

I’m my own boss. It’s very liberating. It’s scary at times but very liberating.

It varies. I do a lot of work with Silicon Valley clients. I frequently deal with start-ups so often I’m dealing with a CEO or President or General Counsel. A lot of start-ups don’t have a designated HR person that just does that job. At bigger companies, I usually deal with an HR person.

Rarely. I sometimes travel to do an investigation or sexual harassment training.

Acknowledgment that clients have big issues, analyzing and offering objective advice, presentation skills including the ability to speak clearly and get your points across. It’s also important to keep your cool and not get rattled.

I really enjoy the set-up I have now. You can’t beat the schedule. The flexibility has allowed me to have a better quality of life.

I like the substance of my work. I think employment law is endlessly fascinating. It never ceases to amaze me what employees and employers do in the workplace—people who know better. I’m constantly surprised. There are new circumstances and stuff that comes up that blows me away.

I like preventative counseling because I like to get in there before a problem really gets to litigation.

I love the people I work with even if I don’t go into an office everyday. My law practice group consists of four of my women friends. We worked together in a large Silicon Valley firm. It’s a really supportive and great thing.

Not much. Sometimes I don’t like the job when it’s a tough day and I have a lot going on. Sometimes at night, I have to pop the computer back on to get something done after the kids have gone to bed. I’m exhausted but the client wants it done the next day. Those types of things crop up. But there isn’t much I don’t like.

Because I am my own boss, I have a lot of flexibility. I also have a full time nanny who works 9-6 during the week.

People who take risks and are not afraid to buck conformity.

My father. He raised me as a single parent from when I was 10. He really put family first. In a lot of ways, that’s what I did when I left the big law firm.

It was when I was a paralegal before I went to law school. I learned the importance of acknowledging that issues are important to clients, to be timely and responsive. I’m in a client driven business and my clients need to know that they are important to me.

I enjoyed law school and I’m glad that I’m a lawyer. But a lot of people don’t make it. You need to find something that is going to interest and engage you. I think it is important to figure out what subject matter interests you and then if you can figure out how that translates to everyday work as a lawyer.

I might have taken the risk to leave a large law firm to do what I’m doing now a little earlier.

I’m a very risk adverse person and for me to run my own company doesn’t really suit my personality at all. It was only when I had my oldest daughter that I took the leap. I was faced with the prospect of leaving her and working who knows what hours.

When I was working in a big law firm, there was a lot of pressure—some I put on my self and some the firm put on me. I was going into the pre-partnership years and I knew those were going to be tough years. I think it’s ended up the way it was supposed to. But I was definitely too risk adverse to do this prior to having kids. Kids motivated me.

I didn’t really think through why I went to law school. I remember when I was in high school, my friend’s dad was a lawyer and I thought that seemed pretty great. I didn’t really know what he did. I don’t even know to this day what kind of law he practiced. It seemed pretty great. And I thought that would be good.

In college, I was an English major and I had my heart set on writing. Then I took some political science classes and loved them and changed my major. Political science majors often go to law school and I took some undergrad legal classes and women studies classes where we studied women legal scholars and I really enjoyed it.

After college, I worked for a law firm. First I worked as a file clerk and then I moved up to a paralegal for one of the corporate partners keeping track of minutes and corporate books for corporations and then I was off to law school.

After law school, I worked for two large law firms and most of what I did was litigation. I never had the nerve to leave a large law firm until I had my first daughter Ella almost five years ago.

I left a big law firm and joined a couple of my friends and started a smaller employment law practice that mostly focuses on counseling. Now we are five women — all women — in an entity that is a very supportive and fantastic environment. It’s much different than a large practice. Employment law is especially suited to a small practice.

It was a challenge to leave the security of a law firm and start out on my own. It’s a challenge to build business, keep business, and run a business.

But at a large law firm, there are a lot of challenges working and succeeding and being fulfilled, especially if you are a woman. Even though there is equal pay, equal numbers of women coming out of law school and being hired by reputable firms, when you look around at the end of the day, not a lot of women partners are left standing.

I feel there is a lack of ability to conform and to acknowledge that there are certain issues that would help women stay in the workplace like flextime and childcare.

I would not have left my law firm after the birth of my first daughter if there had been on-site childcare. I would have given it a try. But the thought of leaving my six month old who wouldn’t take a bottle, going 25 minutes away, and not being able to see my child at all during the day wasn’t appealing. I am happy with my decision to leave big firm practice.