Associate, Real Estate & Family Law, Hale & Mercer LLP · Closings, estates, titles that were never retitled
Chicago · Hale & Mercer LLP · 911+ connections
I am an associate at Hale & Mercer working across real estate and family law: closings, estates, guardianships and the unglamorous paperwork that keeps families whole. The paperwork is boring right up until the day it is the only thing that matters.
Third-generation South Sider from Beverly. My grandfather was a Chicago police sergeant, my mother a court reporter, and I grew up hearing testimony read aloud at dinner. I remember documents. It has turned out to be useful.
Irish step dancing (teaching, now), 1950s sewing patterns on my grandmother's Singer, and defence in a women's beer-league hockey team.
Closed an estate today that had been open since 2019 because one deed from 1987 had the wrong legal description. Six years. One sentence. If you own property, read your deed once. Just once.
One year ago a widow in Beverly came in with a house bought in 1962 that was never retitled after her husband died in 1991. Forty years of records later, her granddaughter owns it now. Same kitchen. Same street. That's why I do this.
A will is not a formality. Neither is a power of attorney. The people who need them most are the ones who 'haven't gotten around to it.' The clinic at the Irish American Heritage Center does them free on the second Saturday. Come.
Second Saturday. The firm will have four volunteers there. Five, if Grace counts me twice.
Residential closings, estate administration, guardianships, title clean-up. The 2025 Beverly estate: forty years of records, one clear title.
Watched a year of estates go wrong for lack of a signature. Decided to be the signature.
My mother's office. Learned that the record is the only thing that lasts.
Chicago-Kent College of Law, J.D., 2023
Loyola University Chicago, B.A. English, 2018
Count the fences, read the deed. The two rules.