Age: 33
Occupation: Attorney at Gough Shanahan Johnson & Waterman.
Time in current job: Almost four years.
Family: Husband Erik Pritchard. We are expecting our first child in October.
What’s been your career path since you started working? General litigation matters. I have been lucky to work with a senior partner at the firm and work on a wide array of interesting and challenging cases. I especially enjoy the civil rights and immigration work I have done.
Community service: President of Grandstreet Theatre; I have also acted in many shows at GST over the years — my biggest role was Anna in “The King and I;” president of the First Judicial District Bar Association; board member of the Montana Shakespeare Company; served in Peace Corps in Mali, West Africa.
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Hobbies: Foreign languages and travel. I love live theatre and to act and sing. I sing with the Helena Symphony and Montana Musikanten.
Education: B.A. in French, minor in Russian. Lived in France my junior year of college. Juris Doctorate. All degrees from the University of Montana.
What do you enjoy about your work? The fact that law is constantly evolving and I am constantly learning. That some days I help someone who otherwise would be lost in the legal system.
What do you like best about Helena? The people. They are friendly and warm. I also love the fact that I can walk five minutes from my house and be in the woods.
Something that would make Helena a better place to live and work: Bike lanes.
What do you do to beat stress? Sing with the Symphony Chorale and Montana Musikanten. When you are so focused on notes and music, you can’t help but forget the day’s stress. And you create beautiful music in the meantime.
What are the biggest challenges facing our community? Rising cost of health care and people’s inability to afford it. I understand this is a nation-wide problem, but it impacts many Helenans too.
The two most influential people in your lifetime and why: My parents. They taught me the basics — knowing right from wrong, treating others with respect, honesty. They have always been supportive of me and have believed in me even when I wasn’t so sure of my own abilities.
One word to describe yourself: Optimistic.
Book you’ve read that had a positive influence on you: I’d rather list a magazine that has had a positive influence on me, and that’s National Geographic. Each month it takes me to a place I have never been to before and reminds me how fantastic this world is.
If you were not in your current job, you would be: Learning a foreign language and traveling to a county where it’s spoken. Or trying out for a play at Grandstreet.
