09/06/07

I'm a dad, husband, and lawyer living in Long Beach, California.

Job History

I am an attorney with the law firm of Callahan, McCune & Willis in Tustin California. The short version of my work experience before law school: pretty much everything. I worked for The American Heart Association as a technology coordinator responsible for all technology maintenance, installation and repair, and for training employees in the use of office technology. As a technology coordinator, I worked in offices in Irvine and downtown Los Angeles, and covered offices all throughout Southern California, from San Luis Obispo on the central coast to Imperial in the desert, and everything in between. Before that, I was an Administrative Assistant in the AHA's West L.A. office. Before that, I was the office manager of an art-framing shop in Tarzana, California. Before that I worked in quality assurance for a computer technical support firm in Burbank, California and in Denver, Colorado, and for a ticket sales company in Denver. I also worked as an actor for a classical theater company in Denver, in the melodramas in Nebraska, and in productions in Kansas City. Some of my roles included Christian in Cyrano de Bergerac, Radu in Mad Forest, Young Jesse in The Life and Times of Jesse James, and roles in Henry VI (parts I, II, and III), Richard III, Macbeth, The Italian Wedding, and Little Foxes.  During college and back into high school, I worked as a veterinary assistant, librarian, cook, waiter, bartender, bouncer, donut baker, newspaper delivery truck driver, carpenter, projectionist, assistant manager of a movie theater, and as a taco shell fryer in a fast food restaurant.

Law School

I graduated from law school ranked first in my class and was selected to serve as the student speaker at graduation.  I served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Western State University Law Review in 2003-2004, and as a Technical Editor in 2001-2002 and 2002-2003.  My article, "Freeze! I Had a Gun Six Years Ago and I'm Not Afraid to Use it! Six-Year-Old Information Is Not Unreasonably Stale to Justify a Protective Search in People v. Bush," was published at 29 W. St. L. Rev. 385 (Spring 2002).  While at Western State, I served as a Certified Law Student in the Legal Clinic where I took a conservatorship case to trial and obtained a positive judgment for our client.  I also received the Earl Warren full academic scholarship.

Undergraduate

I graduated from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, in 1995 with a B.A. in Theater from the College of Arts and Sciences, with a minor in History. I attended the University of Missouri, Kansas City for three and a half years on a full academic scholarship before completing my undergradutate education at UNL. Some of my college acting credits include roles in Macbeth, A Christmas Carol, Mad Forest, Scapino!, and Room Service.  As a student at UNL, I also directed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, for which I won a Best Director award. 

Organizations

I am a member of the California State Bar, the Orange County Bar Association, and the American Bar Association. I am also a board of directors member of Operation Jump Start, a non-profit mentoring organization in Long Beach, California.