Graciela Olvera: Well, thank you for having me here.
Jennifer: I would love to learn about what led you to family law. How did you become involved in family law?
Gracie: Well, I was in undergrad and I was studying or I was working towards a Bachelor’s of Social Work and I ended up working with my brother. He’s an attorney in Oakleaf and he’s been an attorney for about 30 years. But I started working with him and he did a lot of family law. Eventually, I ended up going to law school and I ended up in family law. That’s how I ended up there.
Early Aspirations and Family Law Practice
Jennifer: And one of the things we were talking about earlier was the fact that you knew early on, you really wanted to be in a position of helping people.
Gracie: Yes.
Jennifer: And of course, in family law, there’s lots of opportunities to help people. Tell us a little bit about that passion.
Gracie: Well, I always saw myself as a social worker. Maybe working at a community center or doing disaster relief or something. I even saw myself as a CPS worker at one point. But when I went to law school, I saw the opportunity that you can help families, you can do CPS work, and that was one of the things that I like the most about practicing is doing CPS cases. I started getting the appointments from the court representing parents and representing children, and I loved it. I really did.
The Realities of Family Law vs. TV Dramas
Jennifer: You make such a difference when you’re working with families who are in a stressful situation. Obviously, if CPS is involved, or also if you’re going through a divorce, or ending changing a relationship. I mean, those are all really stressful times. So, I think people, often when they’re facing litigation, a lawsuit, which that’s what a divorce is, or a custody case. They have a lot of ideas about what happens in the courtroom and I get those ideas oftentimes from TV dramas.
Gracie: TV.
Jennifer: Right?
Gracie: Yes.
Jennifer: What do you think is important for people to know when they are facing a lawsuit? In what ways does reality differ from what we see on TV?
Gracie: Well, it’s not like TV where one person is going win everything and the other one just gets turned out or put out without anything. It’s not like that. Somebody told me a very long time ago, that family law is just good people going through a very hard time in their life and it’s true. You’re going through a lot of stress, you’re going through a breakup, you’re going through the possibility of losing your child or having much less time with your child. Your finances are getting broken up so to speak or divided up and that leads some people to make some very bad decisions sometimes. What we need to just remember is that we are all prone to that or we can all fall into those pitfalls so to speak and we all make mistakes and you got to give people some grace.
