After graduating from Clarion University, first with my Bachelor of Science degree in Strategic Communications, and then with my Certificate in Advanced Paralegal Studies, I enrolled at Mississippi College School of Law. I greatly enjoyed law school, unlike how it’s often portrayed in movies and television. Law school was certainly academically challenging, though I believe my time in the Paralegal Studies program at Clarion gave me a great head start and allowed me to graduate with honors. 

Law school isn’t all academic, however. I took the opportunity to get as much work experience as I could, and received experience in client interviews, legal research, immigration, the death penalty, and education law. I was also the Teaching Assistant for Property Law in my second and third years of law school. My interest in writing and research allowed me the opportunity to have an article published, Then and Now: Pestilence, Police Power, and Private Property, in the Thomas M. Cooley Law Review during my final semester, which was also selected as Honorable Mention in the 37th Annual American Planning Association’s Planning and Law Division’s writing competition. 

Graduating law school during COVID meant a difficult job market, and after moving outside of Dayton, Ohio, I was hired as an Assistant Public Defender for Shelby County, Ohio. Upon passing the bar, I started by being assigned all traffic-related cases, and just three years later I am now the attorney covering all misdemeanors in Shelby County, from arraignment to appeal. I have also worked as a private attorney in a small firm and ran a solo practice where I took court appointed cases in several counties as well. 

In addition to practicing law, I am also an Adjunct Professor at Sinclair Community College, where I teach criminal justice classes in the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections, otherwise known as the state prison system. This has been a very enjoyably aspect of my career thus far. 

Still seeking opportunities to improve my practice, skills, and knowledge, I have participated in the Dayton Bar Association’s Leadership Development Class, the Ohio Bar Association’s Leadership Academy, the Ohio Bar Association Counsel of Delegates, and have been published in the Dayton Bar Association Bar Briefs magazine.