The start of it all.

Three years ago I thought our world was complete. I saw my wife, three boys and me living for many years in Alexandria, Louisiana. I had a thriving law practice and my wife loved her new position as part of the in-house counsel team for the city. Our boys were finally all three at Our Lady of Prompt Succor School and we were very active in the community. Life was good and we were contempt and happy in our safe environment.

As with life the one thing constant is change and change was headed our way. About six months into my wife's job the mayor of 18 years announced his retirement. Quickly a long list of candidates stood in line to run for the position. Two main candidates rose above the rest - the mayors assistant and a young lawyer who we considered a friend. Both were able candidates and a tough race ensued. My wife was advised to stay out of the race by her supervisor and that is exactly what our family did. The young attorney gained momentum as the race concluded and won in a landslide. Immediately, rumors started flying that he was cleaning house in the legal department. I got involved and was determined to fight for the job my wife loved. I thought through our past relationships and my wife's reputation for the quality of her work that saving her job would be an easy task. I thought the chances even better when the mayor hired as his first assistant a partner from the firm my wife worked with for four years. This partner was considered a close friend and mentor by my wife. Things seemed to progress well for the first several months and it appeared her job was safe. On the Friday before her birthday she got a call from the new city attorney who said he needed to see her on Monday morning regarding a personnel issue. It seemed odd and she called her mentor to inquire into it. She was told that there was nothing the mentor knew that should alarm her. So on Monday morning we shows up to her meeting to be summarily told she does great work but they are going in a different direction and that she was being let go. Her termination made the front page of the paper and she never received a call from the mayor or her mentor before or after that meeting. From that time forward our life and views of Alexandria changed, but this was just the first piece of the puzzle to fall into place.

I guess our eyes opened to the community and we started seeing the increase in crime. Although we loved our childrens' school it was located in a high crime area. It also  quickly became evident that we ran in the same circles as the people who had disappointed us so much in how they treated my wife in her job with the city. We started our first discussions of what options there may be for a life outside Alexandria. My wife's sister had moved a few years earlier to Rogers, Arkansas and we had visited her numerous times. The area was clean with great schools and a booming economy fueled by Wal-Mart, JB Hunt, Tyson and their vendors. Since my wife was starting a job search she included northwest Arkansas in her search. However, my practice was great and the search was a passive one at best.

The second big event that lead to our decision to move happened about 8 months ago. My law partner and great friend was struggling as he went through a divorce. It soured his desire to practice law and ultimately lead him to leave the practice and return to a previous career as a pharmacist. His struggles before coming to this decision had a negative impact on our practice and I was now a crossroads in my career. I need to mention my wife did find a great job with a local firm and was doing well in her position, but the battles over the years had left her with a desire to transition out of litigation. She had a desire to do in-house or foundation work. After almost ten years together my firms partnership was coming to an end. The economy was down and we owned a commercial building. The first big hurdle in terminating the partnership was dealing with the joint real estate. The building was too big for just me so we decided to put it up for sale. Amazingly, the building sold to the first person who looked at it (I knew when we bought it that the location was a prime piece of real estate). The second piece of the puzzle was coming into place.

This huge change in my professional life lead us to again re-evaluate our career paths. I was going to have to rebuild my practice as a solo practitioner (a notion I did not like), merge with another firm, find another partner, or look for job. The hard part is after ten years of practice you can't just shut the doors. There are clients to consider and I always prided myself on taking care of my clients. We decided that our personal and family goals would be best served if we both started to look for jobs outside of Alexandria. Our passive search had taken on a new course.

Still there were obstacles to clear - find a job, continue finding new attorneys for clients while working on a existing files that could be closed, sell our house and determine where and how far to look for a new home. We loved the northwest Arkansas area and had made several friends here over the years of visiting family. Our decision on where to look was easy for us. The harder part was to decide to leave family and friends especially my wife's parents who lived about a mile from our house. At the time we thought the job search would go much quicker than the ordeal of selling our home in a depressed economy and in a neighborhood with numerous houses on the market. As the job search intensified we decided we would like to complete our move in time for our three boys to start school in the fall. I contacted a local realtor and told her our house was available but we didn't want to put it officially on the market just yet. The next day she called and ask to show the house. She did and the prospective buyer made a great offer the following day with the caveat that we close in just over thirty days. Wow, we were amazed and took it as a sign we were destined to move. Luckily, the breaks kept coming our way as my wife was offered a wonderful opportunity to lead a non-profit group in northwest Arkansas. Her desire to do foundation work had come to fruition and we were on our way to northwest Arkansas in a move that was anything but traditional. Our family adventure was beginning and my first job search in more than ten years was underway.