San Diego
When going through hard times in our life we are often told that all things happen for a reason. For Janice Brown, founder of Brown Law Group this may have been the case. As a young girl Janice had aspirations of a career as an on air news personality, but due to a serious bicycle injury as a young girl and what turned out to be temporary facial scars, she assumed this goal would be out of reach. Instead, she chose law as her new found profession and today is the senior partner of one of the most well respected law firms in San Diego. Growing up in Montana, Janice knew one thing for sure - she one day would move from Montana. Although she loved her home town, the friendly people and the small town feel, Janice knew she wanted to explore other locations and wanted more of a metropolitan setting to call home. The frigid winters and humid summers also added to her desire to relocate. After attending college in Missoula, Montana, she moved on to Spokane, Washington, to attend Gonzaga Law School. Janice completed law school in two years and upon graduation was offered a position in the Honors Program of the Tax Division for the Department of Justice in Washington DC. Her successes there were recognized when she was given an outstanding attorney award in Washington DC, quickly making her reputation in the legal community. Janice spent four years with the Justice department and in her last year and a half she was given San Diego as her docket; Janice spent a significant amount of time traveling from Washington DC to San Diego where she had to appear in court for hearings. “It was actually a very coveted assignment since every two to three weeks I found myself in San Diego. The climate and small town feel of San Diego was appealing, and when I was offered a position with Selzer Caplan, at a considerably higher salary than I was receiving at the Department of Justice, the climate lured me and a good job sealed the deal.” In 1988, Janice made the move to San Diego and has never looked back. Her experiences at Selzer Caplan were invaluable, allowing her to see how life worked outside of a government agency. “At the Justice Department I regularly had eighty cases I was overseeing at one time. When I moved to Selzer Caplan I had a handful of cases that I was assigned, and the expectation was that every single detail would be executed flawlessly. The standard of excellence that I was taught working at Seltzer has stayed with me throughout my career.” Janice had found a home at Selzer Caplan and spent 11 years working for them. Janice’s entrepreneurial spirit started to rear its head after a while and she took notice of the other lawyers and made a serious determination. “I looked at the attorneys that I knew and realized the ones who were the happiest were the ones with their own practices. The least happy ones were those who worked for the people that were happy.” It was this fact that spurred Janice’s desire to go out on her own. She and one of the other attorneys at Selzer Caplan decided to branch out and open their own practice. “This worked well for a while and I learned a lot about running a practice, but the partner I left with was more traditional than me and it began to feel as if I had not left my original firm. I decided that if I truly wanted the practice I dreamed of I needed to venture out on my own." Shortly thereafter ties were severed and Janice opened
Woman
J ANICE B ROWN
Brown Law Group. Brown Law Group specializes in employment law, an area that is by far her favorite aspect of the law. “It’s such an important part of the law. It impacts businesses of all sizes. The way I like to think about it is that I do preventative law, helping companies to avoid lawsuits. I teach firms and update them in areas such as how to assure that there is no sexual harassment in the work place, how to deal with disability, how to follow proper procedure should a termination be needed: By doing so, companies can save a lot of money avoiding problems before they occur.” Janice is also a speaker and teacher in these areas, traveling across the country to lend her expertise to corporations, a part of her job she hopes to expand in the future. Her speaking engagements allow her to reach back to her original dreams of broadcast journalism. Janice believes that no matter how much you think you know there
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is always more to learn and continues working on expanding her knowledge in all areas; not only the law, but also personal development. She has become an expert at networking, even creating her own system, entitled Cloudburst™ which she now teaches to other lawyers and business owners. Her unique networking plan has significantly increased her firm’s business and made life manageable for a busy senior partner. Although there are a lot of bad jokes out there about lawyers, and some are undoubtedly earned, Janice prides herself and her practice in maintaining the highest level of professionalism and ethics. Janice adds, “We play clean.” In her early fifties and navigating through a divorce - which admittedly is a sad event in any woman’s life - Janice has found a place of happiness; sharing time with her brother and his three children, growing her successful practice and spending time with her cherished friends. She admits that she no longer feels the “need” to be married.