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Martie Wallace is a Junior Partner at King Law Offices, serving clients across Mecklenburg, Iredell, Cabarrus, Gaston, and Lincoln Counties. Her practice primarily focuses on transactional law, including drafting wills and trusts, probating estates, adult guardianship, adoptions (both child and adult), name changes, and other non-litigation legal services. Additionally, she is the Vice Chair of the firm’s Transactional Law Practice Area Group.
I retired early (44 years old) from a 15+ year career in healthcare where I had “capped out” and could not move upward in my field without more schooling. To pursue an advanced degree in medicine, I would have had to repeat all of my core science classes because they were more than 5 years old. Instead, I decided to go to law school to fill my time, not sure if I would actually practice law. Turns out I found King Law Offices, and I love what I do!
Nothing stands out at the forefront of my mind.
Because I was 47 years old when I applied, I had no problem with the personal statement. I was honest and sincere. I had a lot of life experience from which to draw.
Oh my gosh…the LSAT. The biggest challenge was that no matter how much I studied, I stagnated around 150 on the practice tests and could not, for my life, increase my score! I think I scored 151 (or 152, I can’t remember) on my LSAT.
See above.
I was accepted to the only law school to which I applied.
I practice in the area of Elder Law, although I have not specialized. Once I am eligible to specialize, I hope to pass the test, which I understand is incredibly challenging to pass. What led me to practice in this area of law was the opportunity to help people who are suffering emotionally (grieving the physical loss of a loved one or the loss of a loved one’s cognitive ability) while needing to navigate legal issues that loss has created (estate administration or guardianship). On the flip side, I help my cognitively healthy clients proactively advocate for themselves should they suffer cognitive impairment in the future by helping them with their estate planning.
That’s a tough question – I think there are areas of law that will never go away because we will always be inherently ‘human’ with human emotions that have a huge potential to create issues requiring legal representation. For example, many areas of law aren’t going anywhere like family law (child adoptions, divorce, child custody, child support, alimony, etc.); estate law because we all die (estate administration); real estate law because many people own their own homes or rent homes that were purchased by someone else; personal injury because we are accident prone and negligent behavior will always be a ‘thing.’ There are so many more areas that will always be needed to protect the rights of individuals.
I think AI is going to pose even more legal issues than it already has, but I cannot intelligently add to its potential for being ‘future-proof’ because I have not done a deep dive into the subject.
As the government will most likely always be around, administrative law will likely not go anywhere and is always evolving, one of the latest examples is the Supreme Court’s Chevron opinion.
Because my children are grown, I barely had any sacrifices. In fact, being an attorney has most likely saved my children from constantly trying to insert myself into their busy lives because I’m lonely or bored!
Hahaha. I would do it for $2,000 if you’re being serious. I would do it for free if it meant staying employed at King Law Offices!
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