Gianinna Trivino, Esq.

I attribute my success to my family. I have an amazing family, a mother that never gave up on me, that always pushed me and was basically always there for me. My stepfather was the one that put me through law school, he funded law school, which is why I'm here. So yeah, I would say definitely family and their support.

The best career advice I've received came from my stepfather, who is a great businessman. He taught me that good work ethic is everything. Just have good work ethic, and you'll make it. You'll make it far. Hard work beats talent every time, and work ethic is everything.

I would tell them, you need to ground into your innate self-worth and believe in yourself like no other. And just carry that with you. As a woman in the field, it's really hard, because there's just a lot of not only older attorneys, but older male attorneys that think they can intimidate you, that you're just a softie. You really have to learn how to enter a courtroom with your head held high, and not let anybody make you feel small.

In my business, the biggest challenge is just juggling all the different caseloads and having to triage what needs my full attention right now. In the court system, the biggest challenge would be having to face judges that have already kind of tapped out, or already made their decision, prejudged someone before seeing or hearing the actual evidence or facts. That's always the challenge, like, are we gonna get them in a good mood or in a bad mood, or does this judge even care about her story or his story? Another huge problem is that attorneys down here charge exorbitant amounts of money. I just heard about a modification case where the damages were maybe 10 grand, 20 grand or so, and in order to prove his point in court, he spent about 400 grand on his attorney, and he had to pay opposing parties' attorney fees, another 60 grand. That does not have to be that expensive. The opportunity is to create something better. If you see this gap between the family court system and the families that want a certain outcome, the opportunity is to create it. If it's not there in the court system, we have to create it on our own, which is what I'm trying to do with collaborative family law. We're never gonna see the judge. We're gonna sit down together with a therapist, with a financial advisor, whoever it is. We're all gonna sit down like friends, and we're gonna make the best possible agreement for this family, tailored to their needs, to their lifestyle. We're in family law because we want to help families, but as attorneys, and this is why we have such a bad rap, we're draining them financially, and then they can't go on living a peaceful life when they have just been drained financially. Now they're upset, now they're pissed, now they're resentful.

In both my work and personal life, it's truth. Definitely truth and authenticity. I'm really big on the humane side of life, like, just always treating others with kindness. I know that sounds cliche, but I think it needs to be really drilled in nowadays. Just keeping that authentic, true heart open, and being kind to yourself and others. It doesn't cost us anything to just be kind, to just be nice. When you give kindness to someone, that kind of ripples into the future and into others, versus if you give them anger or sadness, they take it home and take it out on their kids or whoever's around them. If you show kindness to someone, they show that kindness to someone else.