I come to coaching  from a 25 year career in family defense.

From 1997 through 2022, I knew with a singleminded conviction what was mine to do. This certainty leant a gravitational ballast to my life.  It filled me naturally with a steadiness of resolve, even when storms raged, and kept me moving forward.

Then one day I could no longer feel its pull, and my career as I knew it came to a stopping point.  At first I felt relieved, unburdened.  Then I felt afraid, lost. Finally, when I could no longer see shore and still did not feel the familiar tug of movement, I dropped anchor.  And here I am!

I started my career in family defense through an internship in a community legal aid office in Wilmington, Delaware in the fall of 1997. It was there I discovered my love for defending families.  I went to law school to further that passion and chose New York University because it was the only law school in the country with a clinical program focused on turning out family defenders.  After law school, I earned the first Skadden Fellowship to represent parents in family defense cases, returning to Community Legal Aid Society, Inc. in Delaware, where I developed strong litigation skills while working on foster care reform at the state level.  After moving to California, I spent nine years representing children and young adults at Legal Services for Children in San Francisco.  During those years, I dove deep into learning how to remain curious, open-hearted and worthy of trust in a world that simply does not make sense. Later, I co-founded and led one of California’s only independent, interdisciplinary family defense organizations, East Bay Family Defenders, which merged with Legal Services for Prisoners with Children in 2023.

My experience as a lawyer for parents and their children shaped my approach to life and to the work of coaching.  My clients taught me how to love. They taught me how to listen. And they taught me how to show up. Over time, as my focus shifted from the individual to the organization, I began to lose touch with my innate gift: the practice of accompaniment, of staying present with someone on their journey.  This is what I’m returning to with coaching.

I am also a mother. My two young adult children have been alongside me from before their birth, coaxing me gently into a softer, more spontaneous, more alive version of myself.  It’s been there all along, but sometimes it takes another person to invite you into your own wholeness. I’ve experienced this as a lawyer and a mother, and now it is mine to offer it as a coach.