One of my favorite things about being an ERISA lawyer is the process of taking complex and often intimidating laws and translating them into understandable and hopefully pleasing work product for our clients. As my fellow shareholders know well, if it can be put into a color-coded flowchart or timeline, I’m already on it! There is no shortage of high-stakes compliance challenges in the employee benefits world and I enjoy thinking creatively to come up with innovative solutions and methods.

I have practiced employee benefits law for over 20 years. Some of my career highlights include being one of a relative few to stay on top of the massive and nearly daily feed of Affordable Care Act regulations in the early 2010s. I gave dozens of presentations, authored numerous articles, and even participated in media coverage about this landscape-changing law. During this period, as new wellness regulations were being prepared by Department of Labor attorneys in Washington D.C., I had the added privilege of sitting at the table to give them feedback on the draft rules in my capacity as an appointed representative on the American Bar Association’s Joint Committee on Employee Benefits.

I received my Bachelor of Arts from the University of Washington, where I majored in English and minored in Spanish. I received my Juris Doctor from the University of Montana School of Law. I am licensed in Montana and Washington and live at my little Alki Beach place in West Seattle.