I was seven years old when I decided I wanted to be a lawyer.

A first-generation immigrant, raised by my father, who is an adventurer at heart. I inherited his spirit for adventure. I don’t sit still. I also learned to work hard. Really hard.

It was in childhood that I began to experiment with storytelling. I wrote poetry and short stories and read novels. My adventures unfolded in my mind, taking me to magical places.

In the pages of books or through the tip of my Number 2 pencil, I was raising a sword to battle in Narnia or sailing in the Gulf of Mexico with my faithful teddy bear, Betty.

But in the real world, I was painfully shy. I cried when a teacher mispronounced my name in class. That happened a lot, with a name like mine. I cried on the first day of school from Kindergarten through 9th grade. I cried during band concerts because the music was loud. I cried when I saw my younger sisters on campus, also crying.

Turns out when you are afraid, you must learn to be brave. I learned to be brave for myself. But I also learned to be brave for others. Through that profound sense of mis-belonging and powerlessness, I developed a sense of duty to protect.

From the ashes we rise.

I still cry often. I profoundly feel the emotions and experiences of others. It has been the greatest power and greatest weakness of my life. I’ve learned it’s called empathy.

It is empathy that guides me when I stand at the side of a client whose husband is so severely brain damaged that he cannot remember who she is. My heart breaks with you. Your love notes and memories and photos swirl around me and I see your first dance at your wedding. And last vacation before his soul left you.

It is empathy that puts me in the shoes of a young father when he learns his son was badly burned in an operating room fire. That puts me in the hallway of the surgical ward as he desperately searches for his son. As he falls to his knees when he sees his son but cannot recognize him.

When I take a case to trial, I have dropped into my client’s story. I have lived it with every fiber of my body, eyes closed, lights off, I will tell your story. I will tell it with depth and honesty and passion.

The best compliment a client has given me: “I’ve always appreciated how you speak what I’m thinking in a much better way than I can. I should be able to do that better than anybody but turns out you can do it better than anybody.”

Thank you for trusting me to speak for you.

My work is not my job. My work is my calling.