I was born in Magnolia, Arkansas, and was raised in the countryside near Waldo, Arkansas. I received my undergraduate education at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. My degree from Arkansas is in English Literature, and this choice reflects my love of reading and writing.

While in college I was a member of the United States Army's Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). Upon graduation I received a Regular Army commission. During my three and a half years on active duty I served as a tank platoon leader, battalion adjutant, and assistant brigade adjutant in the Third Armored Division in the Federal Republic of Germany.

After leaving the Army I came to Virginia to attend law school. During this time I fell in love with Virginia and decided to stay here.

My first job as a lawyer was serving as a law clerk to Judge Glen M. Williams, a federal district judge in Big Stone Gap, Virginia. Thereafter, I entered private practice, but events soon led me to secure a second clerkship with Judge Orinda D. Evans, a federal district judge in Atlanta, Georgia.

The foundation of my ability as a legal researcher and writer comes from the two clerkships I served. During my respective clerkships it was my privilege to draft several opinions that the judges chose to publish. One such opinion that I drafted was Judge Evans' decision in Joiner v. General Elec. Co., 864 F. Supp. 1310 (N.D. Ga. 1994). Joiner is the middle case in the so-called "Daubert trilogy" that addresses the admissibility of expert testimony in federal court. In 1996 the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed Judge Evans' ruling in a decision reported at 78 F.3d 524. The following year the United States Supreme Court reversed the Eleventh Circuit and reinstated Judge Evans' decision; the Supreme Court's opinion is reported at 522 U.S. 136.

I have been in private practice continuously since my clerkship with Judge Evans ended. In total, my private-practice experience has included collections work, business "divorces" and work-outs, bankruptcy work from the perspective of both debtors and creditors, estate planning/litigation, general civil litigation, "second chair" for the defendant in a first-degree murder case (resulting in acquittal), much personal injury/wrongful death litigation, and several successful appeals to the Supreme Court of Virginia.