Welcome to Here’s looking at . . . me!
I’m JHSEsq and I jokingly tell people that I haven’t gone very far in life.
That is because, along with BigBob, #1Son, MattieBoo, Buddy and Sophie (aka Queen Sophia, ruler of the Homestead), I live in my childhood home in “Livable, Lovable Lodi,” California, the “Zinfandel Capital of the World”. (Yes, those are really the city’s mottoes.)
That’s a photo of me at four years of age standing by my mother’s roses in the front yard of the house in which I grew up. Those roses are still here . . . and so am I.
When I earned my Bachelor of Science Degree in Accounting, I had to face one inescapable truth: I just don’t care about financial statements, taxes, and all that the science of Accounting entails. I could not envision myself earning my “daily bread” in that profession.
So I decided to act upon an idea that had been rattling around the back of my brain for many years: I opted to continue on to law school. (I wish I had a photograph of the look on BigBob’s face when I announced that I was enrolling. It was priceless.)
Those four years were quite challenging, especially considering that MattieBoo was a special “gift from God” (the meaning of “Matthew”) during my third year of study. He was born just before 8:00 a.m. on Saturday, but I was back in class two nights later because finals were fast approaching. I was the only woman in the maternity ward with a Constitutional Law book and yes, I did study between contractions.
Unfortunately, my father did not live to see me graduate. He died just two months after MattieBoo was born, but he did get to see me argue a hypothetical case before three invited Supreme Court Justices (from Indiana, Montana and New Mexico) in the “Final Four” Moot Court Competition.
I graduated from McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento in 1993. While a student there, I realized that I really wanted to focus on civil rights and am proud to call myself a “civil rights attorney” doing, in the words of one of my favorite law professors, Larry Levine, “God’s work.”
I was a “baby lawyer” when Conservatorship of Wendland began in 1995. I could not
have foreseen that I would litigate the case all the way to the California Supreme Court where I secured a victory for my clients in 2001, setting a precedent on end-of-life decision-making that is still being debated — no exaggeration here — around the world. You can read about the case — the issues, players and the toll that monumental battle took on all concerned — at Robert’s Legacy.
I also write a weekly column every Sunday at Write Stuff.
When not working, blogging or building websites for charitable organizations, I can be found playing keyboards, flute, piccolo, acoustic guitar and singing in several different bands, including the Lodi Community Band and Stockton Concert Band. Playing the flute is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. With a special ensemble formed just for the occasion, the Delta Winds, I fulfilled another lifelong dream when I played my flute at Carnegie Hall in New York City on March 28, 2007.
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