An independent contract attorney or freelance attorney. Take your pick.

I’ve operated my own practice for over two years now to serve small firms and solo practitioners with their civil-litigation matters. Before that, I worked for seven years as an associate in the Atlanta office of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP. In my practice now, the projects I’ve worked on have been long-term, helping on a case through written discovery to motion practice, and short-term, writing or editing one brief, for example. For a sampling of projects I’ve done, see this post on ways to use an independent contract attorney.

My goal with my practice is make other attorneys’ lives easier by working for them when they need extra help. I use technology to my advantage so that I can work efficiently. I subscribe to Westlaw and Jenkins Law Library, use Adobe Acrobat, and have worked effectively with attorneys that I have never met in person.

Niche practice: out-of-state subpoenas

I also have a niche practice in helping out-of-state attorneys have subpoenas issued in Georgia for documents or deposition testimony. I wrote Best Practices for Issuing Subpoenas: Depositions of Georgia Residents in Cases Pending Out of State, published in the Georgia Bar Journal in 2007. I also recently had another article published in the Georgia Bar Journal. That article provides an overview of how to obtain evidence outside the state in state-court litigation: Obtaining Out-of-State Evidence for State Court Civil Litigation: Where to Start? (Read the article by going to Vol. 17, No. 2.) And I’ve written several blog posts on this subject.

Professional activities

In addition to the two Georgia Bar Journal articles, I co-wrote Proactive Strategies to Prevent & Defend Products Liability Cases, published in the A.B.A. Products Liability Newsletter. I participated in Bryan Garner’s Critical Reader Panels for Garner’s Modern American Usage and Black’s Law Dictionary, 9th Edition. I also served on the board of Caminar Latino, Inc. from 2004 until 2007. I am currently participating in Project SALUTE, a pro bono program to assist veterans with federal veterans’ disability and pension benefits claims.

Before law school

After college, I taught English at two language institutes in Santiago, Chile. Then I moved to Atlanta and, through AmeriCorps and the Dominican Volunteers, worked at Grady Memorial Hospital as the Assistant Coordinator of Volunteer Interpretive Services.

In my not-so-spare time

There are several reasons that I don’t have the time to be inefficient in my practice. I live just outside Atlanta with my husband, son, two daughters, and yellow dog. I like to read, sew, knit, and make bread. Having my own practice gives me flexibility so I can volunteer at the kids’ schools, enjoy unstructured time with them on the weekends, or take a quilting class. And, yes, even edit a brief due Friday on Thursday night.

Finally, the standard bio information

Education

  • J.D., Georgia State University College of Law, magna cum laude, law review member, 2002
  • B.A., University of Virginia, 1996 (English & Religious Studies)

Admissions

  • State Bar of Georgia
  • U.S. District Court for the N.D. of Georgia
  • United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
  • Accredited Attorney for the Department of Veterans Affairs

Memberships

  • American Bar Association
  • Cobb County Bar Association
  • Georgia Association for Women Lawyers
  • Legal Writing Institute
  • Scribes—The American Society of Legal Writers