IZZO & ASSOCIATES - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- SENIOR ATTORNEY
- SENIOR PARALEGAL
Dahlia is most likely the first voice you will hear when you contact our main office. She sees that new clients can speak with an attorney who can answer specific questions and determine how our team may assist them regarding their particular case.
Dahlia also serves as the firm's bilingual interpreter for Spanish-speaking clients. She is also our primary contact with the district and county clerks we work with, as well as other attorney offices, court coordinators and reporters, mediators, probate auditors, and other professionals such as forensic, therapeutic, investigative, or real estate professionals. Since Dahlia files our pleadings, she also supervises our main computer calendar, ensuring that timetables for discovery, mediation, judges' conferences, and court hearings are well managed.
Dan was licensed to practice law in Texas in April 2015 and joined our team soon after. He was first introduced to the art of law when he got the chance to tour John's law school campus in Illinois when he was only 12 years old. Perhaps it runs in his blood, but he has always had a thirst for knowledge.
Dan, however, had the opportunity to attend a private law school in Houston, Texas. Like Meredith, he is adept at legal research. In addition to his trial skills, Dan handles our firm's interface with State of Texas Attorney General cases. He also serves as our point counsel regarding probates, the creation of wills, and powers of attorney.
Dan has additionally adopted our team's strategy of first attempting to settle some, or all of each client's issues, if the parties are predisposed to do so, rather than dragging every case out, wasting time, money and causing additional emotional distress, as some lawyers appear to do. His understanding of John's legal philosophy serves him well. Our team's primary goal is first to understand each client‘s needs and second to provide an honest legal assessment of their specific fact pattern to guide them to an equitable settlement, if at all possible, while ALWAYS being prepared to win in court if all else fails.
Job Titles:
- FINANCIAL MANAGER
- SENIOR ATTORNEY
We were extremely fortunate to have Jerilynn join our team in 2013. She handles all of our day-to-day books and accounts. Perhaps most importantly, she is our primary bank interface, watching over all of our clients' precious trust funds.
Interestingly, Jerilynn not only holds an accounting degree, but she is also a Texas-licensed Certified Public Accountant. As a very busy daughter, wife, and mother of two extremely talented children, she has chosen to work part-time to devote more time to her family than a full-time CPA. John was pleased to acquire such a talented professional when he first interviewed her.
John is the founder of our law firm. He entered the field of law only after serving several decades in a host of other endeavors. He has been an educator, a business executive, and a lobbyist at the highest levels of state government. In addition to serving as managing director of an investment-banking firm, which dealt with large corporations, as well as foreign governments, John held the position of President and Executive Director of two non-profit organizations working for the best interests of families and children in the State of Arizona, before relocating to Texas.
He has also worked with diverse interest groups and government officials to draft complex statutory legislation reconciling Arizona law with the Texas Family Code. These individuals included the governor's staff, state senators and house representatives, clerk of the court, chief assistant to the state supreme court, judges, and presidents of interest groups such as Grand Parents United for Children's Rights. In addition, John was the co-author of a revision to the Arizona Family Code in the mid-1990s.
Here in Texas, for more than two decades, John has carefully developed a diverse family practice law firm that provides services dedicated to problem-solving and creative reasoning to best suit each client's needs. As an attorney in Central Texas, he practices the philosophy that it is always best to mediate disputes to save our clients both time and money, yet as a seasoned litigator to be prepared to fight for each client's rights when necessary.
Meredith was licensed to practice law in Texas in 2005. She initially worked at the firm as a law clerk just before her third year of law school, and John was so impressed with her that he waited out the whole next year until she graduated to hire her. The rest is history; she has worked closely with us as part of our team ever since. Meredith graduated cum laude from the prestigious University of Texas School of Law. While at the University of Texas, Meredith was a member of the University's Texas Review of Law and Politics. Before returning to her home state of Texas to attend law school, she attended Stanford University, where she was the Managing Editor of the Stanford Daily.
Meredith's diverse educational background in psychology and communication are vital tools that she uses to help our clients solve their legal issues. This background has served her well both at trial and in her role as our firm's primary drafting and legal research attorney. Quite often, a key component of settling a case or winning issues at trial for our clients is based on a firm review of statutory and case law stemming from prior Texas appellate decisions.