I am an attorney, located in Sacramento, California and licensed to practice law in California.
But I do so much more than practice law.
On this page I will tell you a little more about myself, my practice, my education and my experience.
My Practice Now
As described in much greater detail on my Services page, my goals are to protect families, and to help the whole world live more like family. To that end, I take independent action and offer services to clients. For all the details, please see my Services page.
My Practice Then
Since this website first began, my practice has consistently involved the aspiration of furthering a transition to a new kind of economy. At first I was calling this new kind of economy a “Resource-Based Economy.” To read about my switch in focus to the very similar “Natural Law Resource-Based Economy” (NLRBE) model, click here.
My practice has also aspired to help people legally “live” elements of an NLRBE. At first I did this by seeking clients who wanted to form entities, such as egalitarian, intentional communities or 501(d), and NLRBE-like businesses. But eventually I became uncertain about the 501(d) path, for legal reasons described in this blog post and the talk handout referenced in that post.
So, I transitioned to the idea of focusing on NLRBE-like businesses and family compound related work, rather than 501(d)s, because these approaches are less fraught with legal challenges than 501(d)s. See this 2015 blog post for more details.
However, I really didn’t end up engaging in much work related to NLRBE-like businesses or work related to family compounds. My family did experiment a bit with our own little extended family compound life and has grown more and more intrigued with having a family compound of our own. Other than that though I focused on legal work for my husband’s unrelated consulting business, political activism, my family, and writing and performing music in an NLRBE/gift-economy manner.
But then around early 2018 I began engaging on other legal and policy work again. That started with a huge attack on homeschooling in my state, California, and the way I rose to meet that challenge. To read more details about what I did to push back against that attack see my blog post “How I Helped Protect Homeschooling in California.” To read more details about what I’ve been doing more broadly since 2015, and about my current focus, please see my early 2021 blog post, “Where Have I Been and What’s Next,” and my Services page,
My Prior Education and Experience
In this section I’ll cover my background more generally, starting in college.
In my undergraduate days, I developed significant analytical and writing ability. I also accumulated a well-rounded understanding of economics, political philosophy, critical thinking and symbolic logic. I ultimately graduated from U.C. Davis, in the top two percent of my class (B.A. in Philosophy; Magna Cum Laude, 1994).
I began developing my legal expertise at Stanford Law School, from which I graduated with a Juris Doctorate, in 1997.
Over the decade and a half since graduating from Stanford Law School and passing the California State Bar Examination, I continued to acquire legal experience:
- After the Bar Exam, I spent a little over a year with the Tobacco Litigation Section of the California Attorney General’s Office. When that “limited term” position ended, I was six months pregnant.
- During the last three months of my pregnancy, I time spent with the Senior Legal Hotline. After having my first child, I spent about a year working in my own law practice, focused on non-profit entities.
- But, ultimately, I shifted my focus to helping my immediate family with its legal matters, while caring for my young children. I did a surprising amount of legal work during this period. I researched and advised on everything from business entity formation and operation, to tax law, employment law, real estate law, zoning law, estate planning, landlord-tenant law, copyright and more.
- And for years now, I have been advising my husband’s business, primarily on contract and tax law issues.
In addition to my legal experience, during this time I also acquired training in Nonviolent Communication (NVC), and NVC-based mediation. I also gained experience using and teaching NVC.
- Part of my NVC experience relates to my website, www.family-life-possibilities.com, through which I also honed my writing and public speaking skills. On related public speaking specifically, I taught NVC to parents in numerous workshop series, and at the Homeschooling Association of California’s annual conference.
- I also used my NVC skills in my volunteer work for Occupy Sacramento (OS), in late 2011 through early 2012. There I developed a unique method of NVC-based meeting facilitation. I was the primary facilitator of OS general assemblies for many months. In addition, I taught countless NVC and meeting facilitation workshops, to OS members and interested bystanders.
This NVC experience enables me to communicate with listeners in a way they tend to enjoy. It also enables me to distinguish between human needs and strategies for meeting these needs. This ability helps me remain flexible and open-minded, when analyzing and suggesting modifications to socio-economic models. In addition, NVC and accompanying neuroscience and historical analysis I have studied over the years, have together helped me understand a great deal about how to reduce the risk of physical violence and actualize peaceful, collaborative, societal transformation.
I have also repeatedly worked on offering family-related assistance to the world, starting with it years ago and recently circling back to it in my current practice:
- Through NVC, when I previously offered offer the kinds of courses described earlier on this page;
- Through www.family-life-possibilities.com, by offering information on family communication, breastfeeding, etc..
- Through homeschooling advocacy, especially in 2018. See this blog post for more information.
- And, most recently, through my reformulation of my current practice goals and services. See this blog post and my Services page for more details.
Lastly, for about a year after my time with OS, I was very active in the Sacramento/Davis Chapter of The Zeitgeist Movement (TZM). TZM is an organization dedicated to advocating for an NLRBE too. I only discontinued my active role in early 2013, due to concerns I had about the structure of the organization. During my time with TZM, I gave public presentations, both in person, and on our radio show.
Between my time with TZM, my time with OS, my NVC work, my legal work, my policy advocacy work, and my family-focused work and my law school and undergraduate experience, I have greatly honed my analytical, writing, legal, public interest lobbying and public speaking skills, especially as relates to goals I aim to further with my Services.
Personal Information
On a personal level, I live with my husband and two sons, our dog and cat. After I graduated from Stanford Law in 1997, my husband and I settled in Sacramento, not far from where my husband grew up. Our sons were born there in 1999 and 2004. We’ve practiced attachment parenting and self-directed homeschooling from the beginning. The 2020-2021 school year will be our last formal year homeschooling (in our case self-directed homeschooling, AKA “unschooling”). Our youngest son is graduating and our eldest already did a few years ago. Our eldest is a creative artist, focused on music, fiction writing and film-making. Our youngest is all about math, physics and computer programming/coding. We all hope to continue to live together in a family compound, collaborating and assisting one another through this journey called life. I currently record music with my eldest and am helping him set up a business focused on his creative endeavors. I enjoy a hobby as a singer-songwriter myself. You can read more about that, and where you can watch me perform online, in this blog post. I also still maintain a website I began years ago to educate the public about attachment parenting and homeschooling, www.family-life-possibilities.com.