My first job definitely influenced me in many ways. You see, after graduating from a business academy I got hired to be a secretary for a male attorney in my hometown. He owned his own firm, employed two male paralegals, and was in search of a secretary to help manage his firm. It seemed like a good job for which I was well trained. But what I wasn’t prepared for was how he treated women. You see, he turned out to be a narcissistic man who yelled at me at every chance he got and made me feel very small. The worst thing was that he didn’t realize how this affected me and somehow he thought that’s how you are supposed to treat women. I actually ended up only working there for 2 months because I could not handle coming home in tears every day. That’s not how I imagined going to work every day is supposed to feel.

Throughout the next two decades, I moved to the United States and got a series of customer service jobs. I did not come back to the field of law until after I finished my AA degree in 2004 and I was facing a fork in my path in my decision on what I wanted to be when I grew up. My boyfriend at the time mentioned I was good at arguing (with him mostly) so perhaps I should be an attorney. The thought intrigues me. Could I be a good attorney? I’ve always wanted to help people, I had an AA degree was in psychology, and helping families in the legal struggle was something I could see myself being quite good at and actually enjoy doing. So I decided to give it a try.

I got as far as graduating with my bachelor’s degree and passing the LSAT which time the 2008 economy crash came and I realized that investing over 200K on a law degree during this time was not the smartest financial decision for me. So I postponed my decision to go to a law school I went to work for a female attorney who owned a small firm in St. Petersburg. I liked working there and I learned quite a bit about the struggle of women in such a male-dominated field. The firm employed all women and I saw all 3 attorneys work very hard, twice as hard to get half the pay as their male counterparts in other firms. It didn’t seem fair. Also, I noticed that the struggle took quite a toll on my boss’s well-being and health. Something has to be done.

So I spent my 5 years as her office assistant doing my best to try to help her marketing and her brand to give her an extra edge. But I knew that I did not want to be an attorney. Instead, I wanted to help female attorneys to be more confident and help to prove to the world that they are just as good, if not better than all the male attorneys out there.