After 14 years as legal support staff and 26 years as a general practice lawyer, I grew my focus into helping individuals and families overcome financial distress. My clients feel reassured knowing of my blue-collar family roots. I graduated high school a year early, approximately 4th of 488 students. I attended college usually while working full-time and therefore understand tight budgets. As a business major, a Baldwin-Wallace College business professor stated that I was in the top 1% of all students to whom he lectured in the last 20 years. I had the highest grade of any law student in 1994 “writing-on” to Law Review at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, primarily due to my research skills and persistence. As a full-time practicing attorney, yet mother, I saw a conspicuous advantage in continuing my financial education before my child started school. My then six-year-old son walked with me when I received my MBA in 2008 from Ashland University. I had the distinct honor of becoming a Max Gardner’s Bootcamper: an exclusive group of consumer bankruptcy lawyers with a focus on making mortgage lenders follow ethical and legal processes – including guarding against robo-signers and predatory lending. As a lawyer and small business owner, my extensive research into budgeting and credit, in addition to representing recognized creditors in hundreds of foreclosures and collection cases, provided the knowledge to develop a street-wise financial awareness package that clients actually use on a permanent basis.  My clients appreciate my co-authored book, Shrewd Estate Planning and my book, Debt Relief with Dignity, a How-To Guide for Debt, Credit, Budgeting & Bankruptcy.  Written by a bankruptcy attorney with an MBA