I attended Kiva Elementary School and Xavier College Preparatory in Arizona. I then went to Evanston, Illinois to attend Northwestern University. I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Speech, having majored in Theater and Speech Education. I returned to Phoenix and coached debaters, taught theatre and began coaching lawyers. With a desire to practice locally, attending ASU's College of Law in Tempe, Arizona was a logical choice for where to earn my juris doctorate. While there, I served as Moot Court Chairman, co-taught "Courtroom as Theatre" and received upon graduation both the Excellence in Advocacy Award and Matheson Service Award.

 

I started practicing law as a prosecutor in the Vehicular Crimes Division at the Maricopa County Attorney's Office. Begam, Lewis, Marks & Wolfe then hired me to handle the day to day workings of the Multidistrict Breast Implant Ligitation, for which the firm was the state liaison. In addition to those responsibilities, I was a trial advocate in a successful plaintiffs personal injury and wrongful death practice. During the next decade, I represented plaintiff victims in a multitude of areas: juvenile prison release cases, auto wreck cases, slip and fall cases, burn cases, insurance bad faith cases, nursing home elder abuse cases and the list goes on. I have been published in The Arizona Attorney, The Advocate, and the ATLA Section Newsletter. I have served in leadership roles with the American Trial Lawyers Association, the Arizona Trial Lawyers Association and the Arizona Women's Lawyers Association.

 

After taking a hiatus to begin a family, I returned to the practice of law in 2009 when I was invited to serve as lead counsel in a probate dispute. While working through the issues, it was clear to me that many of the problems arose because of poor estate planning and poor communication within that family. I became passionate about helping families avoid this kind of problem by improving their estate plans and by helping them improve family dynamics with better communication strategies.

 

I opened my own practice in 2010 and served clients until I was invited to join Mark Bregman, Esq. in downtown Phoenix.  When our practice merged to become Dyer Bregman & Ferris, I decided that I preferred to help people outside of a large firm environment.  That is when I re-opened my private practice in May 2016 using my dba: Ahead Of The Curve Law®

 

My goal is to help families manage and transfer their assets during periods of incapacity and on death in the way that offers them the control they desire with the level of complexity that is right for their families.   I want to help them create a more fluid process more fluid.  I want them to consider protecting their assets from creditors and bankruptcy and divorce and understand how that is accomplished.  I want to help them control capital gains tax in the era where that is the greater risk than incurring estate tax.  Perhaps most, important, I want them to know that they can call me with with quetions and concerns without facing a big fee every six minutes!

 

I try to balance my practice with my family life, which includes my husband, Jim, and two sons, Luke and Sam. My 86 year old mother lives with me part of the year too. I am deeply committed to voluntarism and currently work with the Boy Scouts, in my sons' middle and high schools, at Valley Presbyterian Church and on the board for the Phoenix Chapter of the Society for Financial Service Professionals.