I was born in New Jersey, USA. My Father was a structural engineer and mother was a housewife. I am the youngest of two siblings who are all five years apart. We all grew up in the south and lived in Alabama for most of primary and secondary school. The family moved to Atlanta in my senior year of high school, and I went on to attend Emory University. College didn’t give me clarity on what I wanted to do professionally. I had a passing interest in law, so I decided to work at a law firm before going to law school. I picked up a phone book and picked three law firms close to home. One firm wouldn’t even meet with me despite my offering to work for free. The second firm said I had no experience which was the whole point of the internship. The third firm, gave me a home and taught me what it was like being a lawyer. Matthew McGahren saw something in me and pulled me from his file room when he realized I could do the work better than some of his paid employees. He gave me a real job and I worked my way up through his firm to become his law clerk. Unfortunately, the absence of a legal degree prevented me from going further, so off to law school.
I found myself in sunny Florida for law school. For many reasons that make up my work ethic today, I dedicated myself to school and graduated in the top third of my class. While some students took easy courses in their third year to raise their grade average, I prioritized externships to get experience. I interned at the Public Defender’s Office and at the State Attorney’s Office. My most memorable internship was with Circuit Judge Jenifer Davis. She did what most Judges do, have interns work on post-conviction briefs to clear their backlog. However, she saw something in my work and invited me to sit with her in her courtroom. Watching lawyers on a daily basis, how they argued motions, how they picked a jury, and experiencing the perception of a Judge taught me things that no book ever could. Before graduation, I had the notion to be a prosecutor, but Judge Davis thought that my empathy and ability to connect with people would be better served as a Public Defender.
As time passed, bar results came in and I passed on the first try. Two paths lay before me, one working at a foreclosure law firm making six figures or working for the prestigious 15th Judicial Circuit Public Defender’s Office run by the legend Carey Haughwout. I decided to be a Public Defender and was thrust into the life of a trial attorney employing a sink or swim approach. I learned to swim and before long, I was swimming better than most.
Met my wife in 2012 and married in 2013. With a child on the way, I left a loved career to pursue a career that better helped support the family. It was a surprise that Family Law also allowed me to connect with people. It allowed me to offer my hand and help guide them through a difficult time. Before you knew it, years had passed and I got very good at what I was doing.
In 2020, tragedy struck and my Wife was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer. The three years that followed were very dark, but family comes first and I did what I had to do. For three years, my Wife fought until she finally lost her fight on December 16, 2023. She died with her family surrounding her and with her husband holding her hand.
Saying goodbye for three years was a different experience. Took some time to myself and came back to work a few months later. Worked another eight months getting back on the grind and realized that all of the things I disliked about being a Family Law Attorney were things I could change now. I loved working with people and helping them. I did not love seeing them stressed about how they are going to pay their legal bill. I especially did not love being told I had to stop helping people because they ran out of money. Out of that desire to help, Vakil Family Law Solutions was born.
