Law Firm: CM Law, PLLC in Atlanta, GA
Military Branch: U.S. Army Rangers
Rank: SGT/E5
MOS: 11B
Station: Hunter Army Airfield, GA
Years Served: 12
Tell us about your transition from the military to the practice of law. Even in elementary school, I always wanted to be an Army Ranger AND a lawyer. I know they seem like wildly divergent career paths. I did not come from a military family, and no one was in the legal profession. In fact, before my generation, there was no one who pursued a similar professional career path in the armed services or the law. So, it is interesting to note that of myself, a brother, and three same-aged male cousins, four out of five of us served.
Following active duty, I was able to use the GI Bill, loans and a part-time job to fund my college education and begin that journey to a legal degree. I applied to and was accepted to Georgia Southern University, and later to the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University. During college, I continued my service in the Georgia Army National Guard, serving as a Long-Range Surveillance (LRS) Team Leader.
How do you think your military service impacted your legal career? What are some lessons you apply to your practice today? I credit my military training for ensuring I had the discipline and ability to juggle so many responsibilities while staying laser-focused on my long-term professional goals while serving in the National Guard and completing my undergraduate, graduate and law degrees.
How do you think your military service impacted your legal career? What are some lessons you apply to your practice today? As an Army Ranger in the military, I served as a Non-Commissioned Officer, as a fire team leader, and as a Long-Range Surveillance Team Leader. The military is where I learned critical time management skills and how to plan for complex combat missions. This experience taught me the value of pace planning (primary, alternate, contingency, and emergency) and the importance of attending to every detail because, truly, in every aspect of life, the law, litigation, and the military, the devil is always in the details…
These strategies and tools learned in the military continue to serve me and my clients well. So now, when I am preparing for complex and lengthy trials, I utilize these same skill sets to lead my trial team from discovery through trial. By developing a mission strategy that is task-oriented early on, with clearly established and achievable deadlines, I can hold my team and myself accountable.
What inspired your military service and what drew you to the practice of law?
From age 10, I knew I wanted to be an Army Ranger and a lawyer – again, seemingly career-divergent paths. Although my grandparents served in World War II, I would not say that I came from a military family or had a legacy of military service. However, I have always had a deep-rooted sense of service to my country, and both my parents were teachers who instilled in me the value of educational achievement. My time on active duty and in the National Guard and my work as an attorney gave me the opportunity to achieve both – to secure an education and continue a life of service to the community and my clients.
I see my service in the 75th Ranger Regiment and my work as a lead trial attorney as very similar. Both require an ability to see the bigger picture and to identify strategies to disarm opponents or mediate resolutions while securing the best possible outcome for my teams and my clients. I also learned to aim high and view my work in both professions as pinnacles of achievement.