Sheryl Seiden

I've been an attorney since 1996 and have been practicing as a family lawyer since 2000, so I've been in this field for almost 30 years now. What drew me to family law was watching my parents go through a terrible divorce in the state of New Jersey. I've always liked advocacy and representing people, and that's what drew me to being an attorney to begin with. Before focusing on family law, I did intellectual property law and insurance and general litigation law, and I worked at a big firm in New York City. But I felt like I was just representing corporations and it didn't make a difference - I didn't feel like I was really changing the world. Here, I feel like I'm making a big difference in what I do every day. A lot of what I do is working with clients, meeting new clients, and really helping them through difficult times. I mediate a lot, so much of my work is trying to help people settle cases. If I'm not mediating, I'm in the mediation room trying to help people settle or strategize for what's best for them and their family. I'm a certified mediator, which has certainly helped in my practice. People will say to me, 'Oh, you break up marriages,' and I say no, that's not how I view my role. I actually view my role in life as helping families in their time of need, leading the way to a successful resolution. By the time they come to me, the family's broken. I'm trying to figure out how to put the pieces back together. Although people are getting divorced, it doesn't mean that the family is being ripped apart. If you can acknowledge that the family unit is still an entity, I think it helps these people get through this in a more amicable way.