Prior to my current practice, I negotiated numerous commercial real estate transactions and federal contracts on behalf of a federal agency for six years, while managing a real estate portfolio with owned and leased properties throughout Alaska, from Ketchikan to Barrow and Yakutat to Dutch Harbor. I also practiced part-time as a solo attorney, assisting entrepreneurs with business planning and formations. Before my federal civil service, I practiced as an associate attorney at a local law firm, assisting clients with real estate, business, probate, and Medicaid planning matters.

The first eight years of my legal career, however, were spent serving as a Judge Advocate in the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), which provided me with unexpected opportunities to make positive professional contributions at the regional, national, and international levels. For three years, I practiced in the areas of maritime law, international law, and military justice at USCG Headquarters in Washington, DC. During that time, I served on a temporary duty assignment as trial counsel with the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia, where I prosecuted more than a dozen cases for various offenses including sexual assault, unlawful entry, fraud, child pornography, desertion, and illegal drug use and distribution. My next assignment was as a faculty member in the International Law Department at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. For two years, I taught classes on the law of the sea, maritime law enforcement, and international humanitarian law in a number of venues, including seminars at other educational institutions and centers in Australia, Chile, Ecuador, and Mexico. My final assignment with the USCG began here in Juneau in 2008, when I served as the senior legal advisor to the USCG’s district commander, providing advice on maritime operations, environmental protection and compliance, regulation of commercial shipping and licensed mariners, criminal investigations and enforcement, administrative law, military justice, and international law issues.