It's true that I took a long route to family law, but I think my experiences altogether have given me unique perspective. I know many, many fine people in the law, and in the Houston business community. Early in my career some of them showed confidence in me, and it was that confidence that really inspired me to make the career choices that I did.

Not all of my practice today is matrimonial law - I am called in to arbitrate, mediate and serve as a neutral case evaluator or special judge in commercial disputes as well. But the bulk of what I do really is help families, help them minimize the damage of divorce. We handle substantial cases now - multimillion-dollar contested divorces - and we prefer them to be resolved collaboratively and in good faith, which in our view serves everyone's interests.

I've been serving in my role - as an advocate, and as a mediator and arbitrator - for 30 years now, and I've come to anticipate the problems and challenges of each case. As a result we can often achieve results more efficiently.

Even now managing expectations can be very difficult. Emotions are always intense, and somewhat unpredictable. The range of emotions is vast - from "I want to eviscerate the other person" to "Just get me out of this!"

My undergraduate education concentrated on pre-med courses - and to some extent my work today benefited from that. I studied psychology, and much of that is really central to what I do today.

Not many of us get their feet wet in family law by serving as a judge first. But that is what happened for me. I served as judge in both the 309th Family District Court and the 269th Civil Court District. I'm proud of my service on the bench. They were very good years.

One thing I learned from these experiences was, if you want to build a rewarding career, make every effort not to burn professional bridges. When we opened our firm many of our first cases came from the business community, and the company I had previously worked.

We launched our firm over 30 years ago now, with four lawyers. Today we have a solid practice of 26 lawyers - tax law, estates and trusts, commercial litigation, in addition to family law. All of those practice areas complement our family-law clients today. There is just no substitute for expertise - and across disciplines.

Of course I feel blessed - I enjoy my work and I practice with a group of great people, including my two sons. Our clients benefit from all of that - our entire firm and its resources. More than anything I want our clients to feel they have been served - thoroughly, professionally and effectively.