Page 4 - Cholewka Law

she was away attending college. Her grandmother had to file bankruptcy when she was in her 80s. And two days before Christmas last year her mother survived a drastic heart attack, which was a frightening experience for the entire family. Her approach to her clients is based on education, but also from personal experience. “I approach estate planning from a different side. I’ve seen it from the viewpoint of how medical powers of attorney and living wills work, and sometimes don’t work, and I’ve seen how they truly affect people.”Divorce proceedings are also challenging for all parties, especially when children are involved, she says. “I offer a way that more productively helps couples going through this situation and I try to keep their communication intact, especially when they have children because they will continue to communicate regarding the kids after the divorce. When you go down the road of trial and testifying against each other on the stand, it makes mending those relationships difficult later on. We focus on a different approach and focus on areas that we feel can really help and protect families.”A large part of staying on the cutting edge includes being a member of WealthCounsel – a nation-wide alliance of nearly 2000 nationally-recognized estate planning attorneys. “We are a very active group. I am the Arizona Forum leader, so I lead the state chapter of that group. It’s a group that is really staying on the forefront of what is going on, what tools we can use when Congress does all that tinkering, and how we can use that to our clients’ advantage. We’re always coming up with new ideas and bouncing new techniques off each other. My clients not only get my expertise, they get the expertise of that team behind me because we are always learning from those other attorneys.”THE SECOND CAREER ADVANTAGECholewka realized she wanted to be a lawyer while in the seventh grade when one of her teachers exposed her to the possibilities available in the world of law. The fact that one of her early role models was Abraham Lincoln fueled that ambition. “He was a self-taught attorney who just wanted to help others. He was a neighborhood attorney who was very trusted and full of integrity. That’s what I wanted to be when I was little. That’s who I looked up to,” she says.Her journey to becoming an attorney took a wide detour while she was an undergraduate and in pre-law. “It took me a pretty long time to get there because I worked for an attorney who was not very professional and I didn’t want to go into such a demanding occupation if it didn’t have professional people in it. So, I got a little turned off.”Her first career focused on fundraising and lobbying. She formed her own consulting firm, which became involved with organizing a gubernatorial campaign and fundraising for nonprofit organizations. She also worked for the Cleveland Indians in the community relations department for a year where she trained volunteers and organized fundraisers for their charity arm.The return to an interest in law involved two events that redirected the course of her life in mid-stream. She was picked for a federal grand jury, which required her presence for three days a month for 18 months. “I spent a lot of time with the federal prosecutors. I realized that there are a lot of good people in the world who are attorneys.”The second event was a visit to her brother-in-law, who was attending medical school at the University of Michigan. She says, “I was sitting on their law quad and I thought ‘I can do this’ and immediately began plans for attending law school. “Right before I started classes I decided that I didn’t want to do this for four years, so I quit my job, went to school full time and graduated in two and a half years. It was full steam ahead.”