Young Lawyer Spotlight, 0820 WYBJ, Vol. 43 No. 4. 12
| Position | Vol. 43 4 Pg. 12 |
Leah Callaghan Schwartz Ranck & Schwartz, LLC Jackson, Wyoming
The Young Lawyer Section of the Wyoming State Bar strives to include, shed light on, and promote our own young lawyers (those aged 18-35 and/or within their first five years of practice) in the state of Wyoming. This article spotlighting attorney Leah Callaghan Schwartz of Ranck & Schwartz, LLC in Jackson, Wyoming, is the first in a series featuring the Bar’s young lawyers.
Leah grew up in Jackson, Wyoming. Like many of us, she left Wyoming to study (at Stanford University) before returning to her home state for law school and eventually for her career. Her desire to be close to her family and to raise her children in the Teton area were major reasons for coming back to Wyoming and eventually back to Jackson. Leah and her husband Brad Adams (a UW College of Law grad himself) share much in common with most Wyomingites including a love of the outdoors and the “open space and pace of life here.” As for hobbies, Leah describes them as limited since becoming a parent (“does changing diapers count?”), but, she says, “I love hiking and cross country skiing and I aspire to engage in the arts more (including singing and theatre) and I’m an avid reader and Shakespeare junkie.”
Similar to many young lawyers, Leah was not sold on law school from the get-go, despite her family’s legacy in the law (parents Bill (pictured at right) and Cheryl Schwartz are Wyoming lawyers and so were both of her grandfathers). She explains: “I fought against the idea of law school for some time because I felt I needed to chart my own course.” After college, she worked in marketing and spent some time as an outdoor educator. Ultimately, though, Leah was inspired by the example her parents set and what she saw of their practices growing up. “People came to them at some of the most challenging times in their lives, and they helped see them through. And it seemed they were always engaged in interesting issues and problems involving lofty and academic concepts but also normal people and relationships. It finally struck me that I could be a lawyer too while still carving my own path.”
Leah recalls deciding to attend law school at UW in a way that only those of us who have endured three years of Laramie weather can relate to. “I remember flying to Denver from San Francisco...
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