Legal Issues Encompassing a Family Can Be Difficult. Feelings Can Range From Fear & Anxiety to Hurt & Frustration.
At GEM Family Law, Their Top priority is to Help You Navigate & Resolve Your Family Law Matters, So You Can Live More & Worry Less. Q: Can you share with our audience, the types of law you specialize in? GEM: GEM Family Law is a boutique firm specializing in family law matters only. This includes divorce, child custody issues, child support, modification of parenting and financial issues, adoption, and dependency and neglect cases. The attorneys at GEM represent clients in these actions through a variety of means: litigation (trial court work), Collaborative Law (a particular form of practice where the parties commit to keeping their cases out of court), and mediation. In addition, GEM offers neutral and expert services, such as serving as the Child and Family Investigator, serving as the Parenting Coordinator/ Decision Maker, serving as the mediator and/or arbitrator, or serving as the Child Legal Representative. This neutral expert work provides the attorneys a unique and beneficial perspective when representing their individual clients. Q: What aspects of the daily job of being a lawyer interest you the most? GEM: The four women who own and operate GEM family law are extremely passionate about serving the children and families of Colorado. Each and every day, they get to work directly with individuals who are facing substantial, life-altering transitions. This allows for the attorneys to serve, not only as legal representatives, but as legal “counselors,” guiding clients though emotional and difficult decisions. This is what inspires the Partners at GEM Family Law the most; being able to work with real people (as opposed to companies) and to see how their strategy and care can make a difference. Q: What advice would you give to young women who want to pursue a career as an Attorney? GEM: As a women-owned law firm, GEM is committed to mentoring and bringing up the next generation of women attorneys and business owners. The one piece of advice the partners at GEM regularly provide is to “go all in.” Find a field of work that you are passionate about so that your work is your profession and identity, as opposed to a 9-5 where you “punch the clock.” When you feel strongly about your work and the impact you can make, it becomes a driving force in your life, which leads to success. Each day will not be wonderful; however, the low points are manageable when you believe in what you are doing.
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Q: What’s your advice for women in male-dominated fields? GEM: Don’t be afraid to take up space. Women, starting from the time they are little girls, often feel like talking too much or raising their hand too much or expressing a strong opinion is to be tamped down. They question themselves, thinking that the men in the room know something they don’t or are smarter and better prepared. That’s simply not true. While it is imminently important to be prepared, particularly in the field of law, have confidence in your level of preparedness, because men do. When you know your case and you know the law, don’t be afraid to take the position and speak with conviction; people may call you names, but you will be the one with the success in the end. Q: Can you tell our audience one of your most memorable moments your career? GEM: For each of the GEM Partners, the most pivotal (and memorable) moment of their careers was having the courage to leave their workplaces when the time was right and to partner together for a new business venture. Leaving an established workplace is scary. When you start your own law firm, you not only face the unknown of whether or not clients will want to work with you (i.e., will you make it), but also whether or not the kind of work you bring in will be fulfilling and in line with your professional aspirations (i.e., will “making it” be worth the while). With GEM, each of the Partners describes a calm resolve they felt when making the decision to leave their established tracks and band together; they knew it was the right thing to do. The transition to such professional confidence and clarity was a notable change, indicating that the partnership and the new business was the way to go, and that the time was right. The business has, since that time, made strides that none of the Partners expected. Q: What’s one lesson you’ve learned in your career that you can share with our audience? GEM: Value your team. Behind every successful attorney are the teammates that make it happen. While it may not always be a perfect process, the collective effort is essential to a quality work-product. The more your team is valued, the more inspired they will feel to commit and truly care about the work that is happening. It is pure magic when you have a team of
staff and attorneys who are brainstorming creative solutions together and dividing a conquering a complex problem. The outcome of a multiple heads thinking about the same issue can’t be overstated; the team and resources of GEM Family Law is what sets it apart. Q: Which woman inspires you and why? GEM: The GEM Partners were devastated by the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. While this may seem like a common response when asked the question, “which woman inspires you,” Justice Ginsburg truly was inspirational. She left a mark like one that may never exist again, not just for the legal profession, but for women in general. Justice Ginsburg was headstrong through fear and doubt (which self-doubt she regularly spoke about). She was able to persist through these real-life feelings, ignoring setbacks that would otherwise cause one to stop achieving. She was one of only 9 women in her law school class of 500 men. She attended school while parenting her child and even supported her husband through his schoolwork when he was severely ill. Despite being exceptionally gifted and graduating at the top of her class, she was turned away from every law firm. Yet, she found a place for herself in a male-dominated world and used it, not simply to support herself and family, but to make actual change so that other women did not have to face the same realities she did. As the founding member of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project, and her distinguished career that followed, Justice Ginsburg was *the* gender equality crusader. While life as a female lawyer, and as a woman in general, is easier today
than it was for Justice Ginsburg, she never stopped fighting for improvements until the very end. She is a reminder of how important it is to ignore the nagging doubts in your head and to push through adversity. Q: Can you tell us how you manage your work life balance? GEM: Work life balance is a discussion topic that is common when addressing the issues working women face, and the Partners of GEM don’t have any ground-breaking advice to give, as work life balance sometimes just doesn’t exist. There is pressure on women to “balance it all,” and figure out how to manage their families and professional lives. In reality, it is a daily struggle and one that is sometimes lost. There will be guilt for not spending enough time with your family, and guilt for not getting through all of the projects on your plate. Women need to forgive themselves and just go with it, day-to-day, doing the best they can to triage the things that absolutely must be done (to include the children’s events that are a must), and to push other things to the next day. Another key is to build your team and learn how to delegate; we can’t do it alone, and have to be okay with loosening the reigns, knowing that someone else may not do it the exact way we would, but that we simply can’t manage it all. www. familylawco.com info@gemfamlaw.com
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