Kristin Sankovich, M.S., CCC-SLP

Kristin Sankovich earned her master’s degree in Communication Disorders from the University of Texas at Dallas.  She earned her bachelor’s degree in Spanish and Economics from the University of Texas at Austin, during which time she studied abroad in Spain.  Upon graduation, she spent a year in Colombia teaching English and further improving her Spanish.  Before entering graduate school, she spent 2 years in New York at an educational non-profit focused on serving students with learning disabilities, where she worked closely with families with many different Spanish dialects.  Kristin’s interests include optimal assessment and intervention for bilingual children, autism spectrum disorders and literature-based language intervention.

Emily McCullough, M.A., CCC-SLP

About Emily

Emily earned her master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology from the University of Texas, Austin, with a Bilingual Certificate. Before going to graduate school, Emily earned her bachelor’s degree in Spanish from Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C. She moved to Austin four years ago.

What Emily Does for Bilinguistics

Emily provides bilingual speech/language therapy for children in schools, in the clinic and in homes. She conducts evaluations and provides speech/language treatment to help children with communication disorders increase their ability to participate in daily life at home, in school and in the community.

How Emily Learned Spanish

Emily changed her major in college to Spanish following an exciting study abroad semester in Guadalajara, Mexico. Emily continued learning Spanish by teaching pesticide safety to Spanish-speaking migrant farmworkers and working as a medical interpreter in clinics and hospitals in North Carolina. She became interested in working with children when she worked with families and children in the Early Head Start program.

Fun Facts About Emily

Emily reversed the natural order of things by following in her younger sister’s footsteps to become a speech-language pathologist.

Emily has experience in set design for community theater projects.

Emily enjoys playing the piano.

Jing Fan

About Jing

Jing grew up in Beijing, China.  Came to America many years ago, stayed and started a family here.  She lived in New York City for a few years before moving to Austin.   Jing enjoys family time with her husband, son and daughter.

Jing is a native Mandarin Chinese speaker.  She does not speak Spanish.   She grew up in Beijing, China and finished her undergraduate study in Beijing.  She holds two graduate degrees: a Master of Arts degree in Elementary/Childhood Education from Teachers College, Columbia University and a Master of Arts degree in Speech-Language Pathology from the University of Texas at Austin.  Jing has extensive experience in teaching and working with children and families from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds.  She has provided direct evaluation and treatment services for children and adults with a variety of communication disorders, and supervised a number of new graduates during their fellowship years.

What Jing Does at Bilinguistics

Jing is a contract speech-language pathologist at Biliguistics.  She provides bilingual speech language evaluation and therapy in Mandarin Chinese and English.

Fun Fact About Jing

Jing teaches children Chinese at a local Chinese school.

Jin Fan, M.A, CCC-SLP

Jin’s bio coming soon!

Ellen Stubbe Kester, Ph.D., CCC-SLP

Dr. Kester founded Bilinguistics to meet the speech and language needs of children from diverse backgrounds. She co-chairs the Task Force on Cultural and Linguistic Diversity for the Texas Speech-Language Hearing Association and leads the bilingual speech-language pathology trainings for the Region 13 Educational Service Center. She provides workshops on bilingual development, assessment of bilinguals, and parent and teacher involvement for school districts and the State of Texas Early Childhood Intervention Program. She has performed workshops, trainings, and presentations both nationally and internationally. Dr. Kester teaches courses in language development, assessment and intervention of language disorders, early childhood intervention, preschoolers with special needs, and measurement at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research and clinical work address the important issue of differentiating bilingual children with typical development from those with language impairment, and identifying appropriate goals for intervention with bilinguals.

Brenda K. Gorman, Ph.D., CCC-SLP

Dr. Gorman earned her Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and Disorders from The University of Texas at Austin, specializing in language and literacy development and cross-language transfer of skills of bilingual children. She completed her master’s degree at the University of Texas at Austin in the Bilingual/Multicultural Speech-Language Pathology program and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Latin American Studies. Dr. Gorman has worked as a bilingual Spanish/English speech-language pathologist in New York City, California, and Texas in a wide variety of settings including school districts, Head Start centers, home-based early intervention, and private practices. She is an assistant professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Scott Prath, M.A., CCC-SLP

About Scott

Scott grew up in Sheboygan, Wisconsin and moved to Austin for school and stayed (like most of the city).  He, his wife, and daughter live to camp and hike and are happiest outside.

What Scott Does at Bilinguistics

Scott is the Vice President of the company and a jack of all trades.  On the business side of things, he assists Ellen in creating, communicating, and implementing Bilinguistics’ vision, mission, and strategic planning to integrate the many parts of the company.  On the speech pathology side, he maintains a caseload in the schools and clinic, conducts research on school processes, and presents throughout the state.  Scott also oversees the professional development portion of the business and works to build the presentations and continuing education courses that are viewed nationally.

How Scott Learned Spanish

Soon after Scott escaped from Sheboygan, he ventured to southern Spain in 1994.  He returned to the states and began to study Spanish in Wisconsin.  He soon moved to Austin, where people actually speak it.  In Austin, he pursued a degree in Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Texas.  On his grand student income Scott traveled in Mexico, Central America, and South America throughout college often taking “el conejo” (a bus) south from Austin to travel after his last final exam each semester.  He studied for a summer in Guatemala and eventually graduated from UT with a Spanish degree before beginning the communication disorders program.

Contacting Scott

You can email Scott at scott.prath@bilinguistics.com or contact him through the office at 512.480.9573.  Be sure you have a minute—he loves to tell stories.

Fun Facts about Scott

He is left-handed.

He hiked to 17,000 feet in the Annapurna Range of the Himalayas.

He served in the U.S. Army in a hoover craft unit on the East Coast.

He rebuilt a Volkswagen van and traveled across the United States for two months.

He traveled Eastwardly for 18 months through Europe, the Mediterranean, Asia, and Southeast Asia before returning to the West Coast.

He teaches Chen Style Tai Chi in Austin.

He is one of eight children.

He has an unhealthy fondness for invented words.

He’s been spotted before 6am carrying a giant sword across a field.

Most of his family members are named Tony.

Kara Sanchez, M.A., CCC-SLP

Kara earned her master’s degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders from Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas. Her studies focused on right brain language functions in the Spanish-speaking population. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin in Communication Sciences and Disorders. Kara’s clinical expertise includes implementing communication strategies to alleviate behavioral issues in children, addressing communication through joint attention, and using literature-based intervention. She has led our team in the development of many creative literature-based materials for bilingual children.

Keith Lebel, M.A., CCC-SLP

About Keith

Keith comes from a big and tight-knit family of Canadian descent. His early years were spent in the tranquil woods of rural Vermont where he grew up trout fishing and making real Maple syrup. High school graduation launched Keith onto the global scene with an exchange year in Lyon, France where he became fascinated with language learning and linguistics. Early college years were spent at the University of Massachusetts, a true melting pot, and Keith found his way to communication sciences. Having recently married his college sweetheart, Adriana, they ventured to her native Venezuela where he studied Spanish and taught English. While there, he interned at the Instituto Venezolano de la Audición y el Lenguaje. Graduate school entailed a rigorous bilingual clinical training program and research on bilinguals at the University of Texas at Austin. He moved back to Massachusetts and joined the team at Skinner Clinic in Holyoke, gaining a rich variety of clinical experience with adults and children in outpatient and inpatient settings. In 2009, the Mission of Bilinguistics, and the prospect of joining its amazing team, lured him back to Austin.

What Keith Does at Bilinguistics

Keith is the Clinic Manager.  He continuously works to improve all aspects of the care we provide to patients in our clinic.  He provides direct services as well and loves to collaborate with team members to share ideas and help them learn the clinic way. Keith is a team player, always ready to collaborate and contribute in other areas such as ECI, schools, and special projects. He loves to spread the word about bilingual speech pathology, giving live presentations regularly. He is also our privacy and security guru (HIPAA Officer) and our unofficial Information Technology director.

How Keith Learned Spanish

Keith grew up exposed to Canadian French at his grandmother’s house. Then he learned to speak French when he lived in Lyon, France on exchange. He had to choose a foreign language in French high school so he took Spanish. He was taught Spanish in French. Confused? Don’t worry he was confused for a while too! Anyway, he also studied Spanish at UMass and then lived in Venezuela where his wife is from…. Oh yeah, and she is a Spanish teacher!

Fun Facts About Keith

Keith is a former Team Vermont hockey player
He is about 10% Native American (Blackfoot Canadian Indian)
Keith shares random unsolicited detailed facts with anyone who’ll listen
He has two children: a girl and boy, who are being raised bilingually
Keith doesn’t have cable
He has sectoral heterochromia: a section of one of his blue eyes is colored brown
He is musically inclined and used to play jazz trumpet in high school. He also used to sing professionally in a 50’s style men’s quintet at wedding receptions, ski lodges, and other events.

Elizabeth Anne Alvarez, M.A., CCC-SLP

About Anne

Anne is a Texas girl, originally from the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.  She attended undergraduate and graduate school at the University of Texas.   After graduate school, she tried to move away but could not escape the charms of Austin.  Anne fell head over heels for a state air-guitar champion/firefighter and got married in 2009 – when she also fulfilled her dream of having a Spanish surname.  She loves being outdoors and being active (biking, running, playing ultimate frisbee).

What Anne Does at Bilinguistics

Anne just celebrated her fifth year at Bilinguistics.  She works in several settings: Austin and Bastrop ISDs, Early Childhood Intervention, home visits, and the Bilinguistics clinic.  She also gets to supervise graduate students from Texas State and the University of Texas during their off-campus practicums.

How Anne Learned Spanish

Anne began her love of the Spanish language and latino culture at an early age through bilingual family friends who taught her the joy of homemade tortillas and  “arroz y frijoles”.  She took Spanish classes through her school career and added to her undergraduate degree a concentration in Spanish at the University of Texas.  Anne spent a year in Spain eating tapas and practicing her language skills, returning to Texas with a Castilian accent (“grathias”), which was remediated after intensive speech therapy.  She continues to “work” on her Spanish skills by traveling throughout Mexico and Central America whenever she can.

Fun Facts about Anne

She just completed her third half-marathon
She loves to cook and host people in her home and makes a mean coconut curry
She is doing her part keeping Austin weird with a trolly bus in her backyard
She enjoys salsa dancing
She has roasted marshmallows at a volcano in Guatemala, visited castles in Portugal and Germany, and rode a bike through Tuscany.  Argentina is next on the list.

Adrianne Arrieta-Morales, M.A., CCC-SLP

Adrianne earned both her master’s and bachelor’s degrees from the University of Texas at Austin in Communication Sciences and Disorders. She was born and raised in Bolivia and has expertise in multicultural differences in family approaches to addressing developmental differences. Her clinical interests include speech development in bilingual children with cochlear implants and differentiating speech and language errors resulting from bilingualism and language disorders.

Marie Wirka, M.S., CCC-SLP

About Marie

Marie comes to us from the ‘Frozen Tundra’ of Wisconsin where she earned her master’s degree in Communicative Disorders at the University of Wisconsin — Madison.   Following her graduate studies, Marie worked as the Bilingual/Bicultural Speech-Language Pathologist for the Madison Metropolitan School District.   She joined Bilinguistics in 2009.

How Marie Learned Spanish

Marie developed a love for Spanish during high school, which led her to take more courses and visit Mexico during her undergraduate years at The University of Notre Dame.  After beginning her career as a speech-language pathologist, she resumed her language studies and took summer courses in both Spain and Mexico.  She then found herself relocating to Guanajuato, Mexico in 2006 where she studied, lived, and taught English as a Foreign Language for two years before moving to Austin.

Fun Facts About Marie

Was nominated for “best singing voice” at office birthday parties

Is an aspiring guitar player

Always recycles

Is known as “the spontaneous one”

Almost always flies stand-by

Has a tendency to turn eligibility reports into real cliffhangers – will he qualify??

Is always asking questions . . . and then answering them (aka, “The Wirka” method)

Could illustrate children’s books with her visual aids for therapy

And . .   Leads a secret double life in Mexico where she’s known as – oops, wrong website! 

Mary Bauman, M.S., CCC-SLP

About Mary

Mary grew up in northeastern Pennsylvania with a close-knit family.  She earned a Bachelor of Science in Audiology and Speech Pathology and a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania before relocating to Texas for graduate school.  She attended a program in Speech-Language Pathology with a bilingual emphasis at Texas Christian University and moved to Austin upon graduating from the program.  Mary enjoys most the way in which her career allows her to be creative and fulfilled through helping others.  She considers herself to be a life-long learner and takes joy in helping others learn.  Currently she holds a position as an adjunct faculty member at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, teaching courses through their graduate distance-learning program.  Outside of work, Mary is constantly on the go and enjoys getting involved in anything just for the sake of new experiences.  This craving for ceaseless excitement and play allows her to squeeze the juice out of each of moment, drink it up, and ask for more.

What Mary Does at Bilinguistics

Throughout the years she’s been with Bilinguistics, Mary has gained experience in a large variety of settings.  She has worked in several of the local school districts and special education co-ops, as well as provided early intervention services with children and families in their homes.  In our clinic, she has assessed and treated private clients individually and in groups, including groups for our summer speech and language programs.  Apart from therapy, Mary presents each year at the annual TSHA conference, in addition to other presentations, such as for AAASLP, Region XIII Education Service Center, and our own cultural competence boot camp.  Her creativity is sparked by getting involved in other company endeavors as well, such as creating a bilingual speech assessment application for the iPad, assisting with a Spanish version of Autism training modules, and providing input on projects such as for our SMILE home program for families.

How Mary Learned Spanish

Languages have always intrigued Mary as long as she can remember.  In second grade she borrowed a book from the library to teach herself to count from 1-10 in Swahili.  She learned Spanish as a second language in school, studying abroad in Spain in both high school and then again in college.  Mary earned two bachelor’s degrees, one in Speech Pathology and the other in Spanish to combine two of her passions.  She has been exposed to various dialects of Spanish and enjoys the subtle differences among them, including the Peninsular Spanish of Spain and other dialects of Spanish characteristic of Puerto Rican, Mexican, Cuban, and Peruvian speakers.

Fun Facts About Mary

Has a twin sister who is also a speech-language pathologist in Pennsylvania.

Won the championship title at her university’s own Fear Factor competition.

Absolutely loves dancing!  Her favorites are West Coast Swing and Blues, but she also enjoys various forms of country, Latin, ballroom, and swing dances.

Participates in unusual hobbies and activities:  flying trapeze, human bowling, polar bear swim, etc.

Is a recovering chocoholic.

Can fall asleep anywhere… literally, anywhere!

Is very crafty and creative.

Will dress up in homemade costumes for any occasion.

Alyson Hendry, M.A., CCC-SLP

About Alyson

Alyson is a Missouri native and grew up as a St. Louis Cardinals fan, with an appreciation for St. Louis style pizza and Ozarkian humor. She remained in Missouri to complete both her bachelors and masters degrees in Communication Disorders at Truman State University in Kirksville, MO.  She began providing therapy with Spanish speaking students in graduate school, which encouraged her to seek more opportunities and knowledge working with bilinguals.  Alyson moved to Austin, Texas to complete her clinical fellowship working with a bilingual pediatric population, and has found her professional calling.

What Alyson Does at Bilinguistics

Alyson works with children in the schools and our clinic. She spends most of her school time in the Preschool Program for Children with Disabilities (PPCD) classrooms, collaborating with teachers and working with children in their academic environment. She is one of our teammates helping to create fun, educational, and quality PPCD materials for all to use. In the clinic, she offers a social skills group, using Michelle Garcia Winner’s Social Thinking Thinking curriculum. Alyson presented at the 2012 Texas Speech Language Hearing Association Convention on Literacy Based Intervention-From Theory to Practice.

How Alyson Learned Spanish

Alyson began Spanish “lessons” in the third grade, going to and from Hebrew school, with her aunt, who is a high school Spanish teacher. She continued her Spanish studies throughout her school and college years and completed a minor degree in Spanish in Costa Rica in the summer of 2007.  She is headed to Spain this summer to continue studying Spanish, and of course to try all of “las comidas típicas” the country has to offer!

Fun Facts About Alyson

Alyson has a passion for trying new things.

She has completed four half-marathons and plans to train for a duathlon.

In the last two years, she has tried (and liked!) sky diving, rock climbing, scuba diving, and hang gliding.

She loves to go camping in hammocks.

She can read and write Hebrew.

She has played a musical instrument since she was 7 years old, and comes from a long line of musicians.

She likes to restore old furniture.

Her favorite food is frozen yogurt.

Katherine Marting, M.A., CCC-SLP

Katherine earned her master’s degree in Communication Disorders from Southeast Missouri State University. She completed her bachelor’s degree in Communication Science and Disorders with a minor degree in Spanish from the University of Missouri – Columbia. She studied abroad in Spain during her undergraduate degree, and later spent a month in Guatemala improving her Spanish and working in an orphanage for malnourished children. While feeding and caring for the children, Katherine provided language therapy and stimulation to those with language delays. Her interests include cleft lip and palate, swallowing disorders in infants, and bilingual effects on language learning and disorders.

Meagan Morgan, M.S., CCC-SLP

Meagan Morgan earned her master’s degree at Arizona State University, where she focused on bilingualism.  She earned her bachelor’s degree in Communication Disorders from the University of New Hampshire.  Meagan spent a semester in Spain during her undergraduate program.  She has worked in both clinic and school settings.  She has provided numerous professional development trainings for teachers, SLPs and graduate students on Cultural and Linguistic Diversity.

Carolyn Gutierrez, M.A., CCC-SLP

About Carolyn

Carolyn enjoys practicing salsa moves with her husband and exploring new parks and nature trails around town on foot and by bike.  She believes that the best things in life are free and that nature is a piece of heaven on earth!

What Carolyn Does at Bilinguistics

Carolyn can be heard saying, “Puedes hacerlo!” and “Eso!” as words of encouragement while she provides therapy to preschool through 5th grade students in the schools. She also conducts evaluations and is interested in building relationships with parents so they can facilitate their children’s speech and language development at home. Carolyn has begun to implement the Social Thinking and Visualizing and Verbalizing programs to best help her students.

How Carolyn Learned Spanish

Carolyn grew up in Miami and has a Cuban background so she was privileged to be in a Spanish-rich environment while eating mouthwatering Cuban food. She has practiced Spanish with friends from Latin America and as a participant of the Project Horizonte program for bilingual speech-language pathology graduate students at San Jose University in California. She is privileged to have a husband who speaks Spanish with her to hone her Spanish language skills.

Fun Facts About Carolyn

She makes a mean, homemade apple pie.

No one has eaten her husband’s flan OR guacamole “just once.”

Has cycled through downtown Barcelona.

Has kissed the Blarney Stone and now has the luck of the Irish (even though she is not Irish!).

Has lived and learned in the south, northeast, and west coast.

Patricia Villarreal, M.S., CCC-SLP

About Patricia

Patricia was born and raised in Laredo, TX.  She earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Texas at San Antonio.  After earning her bachelor’s degree, Patricia moved back to Laredo and earned her teaching degree at Texas A&M International University.  She taught high school science (biology, research and design, and integrated physics & chemistry) in Laredo for a few years.  During her experience as a teacher, Patricia became familiar with the challenges bilingual students with communication disorders were faced with in a language-rich academic environment.  It was then that she decided to go back to school to study communication disorders.  She earned a Master of Science degree from the University of Texas at Dallas.  As a speech-language pathologist, Patricia enjoys working in the school setting and collaborating with teachers and other professionals to provide the best education for students with special needs.

What Patricia Does at Bilinguistics

Patricia is working in the school setting full-time as a bilingual speech-language pathologist.  She has provided training for teachers and staff on typical speech and language development in bilingual children.

How Patricia Learned Spanish

Patricia grew up speaking English and Spanish with family members, care-takers, and people in the community.  She spent almost every summer as a child, up until her teen years, visiting her grandfather in Coahuila, Mexico where she was immersed in the northern Mexico culture and dialect.

Fun Facts About Patricia

She is a Texas certified educator.

Patricia has the coolest dog named Pepper.  Pepper enjoys riding in cars, going on runs, and swimming in the lake (or any body of water will do).

She is a baton twirler.

Patricia loves to vacation at the beach. She enjoys snorkeling and ocean kayaking.

Patricia, her mother, AND godmother all have the same name.

Lia Johnston, M.A. CF-SLP

About Lia

Lia is originally from the Pacific Northwest. She received her bachelor’s degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders from the University of Oregon, and moved to Texas to attend the master’s program in Communication Disorders and Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. She loves live music, dinner parties, hiking/backpacking adventures, and nearly anything crafty. She enjoys spending as much time as humanly possible outside in the beautiful Austin weather!

What Lia Does at Bilinguistics

Lia works primarily in Austin ISD with students age 3 through 5th grade. She enjoys collaborating with parents and teachers, and is currently interested in literature based language interventions and appropriate assessment of bilingual children with a range speech and language concerns.

How Lia Learned Spanish

After taking Spanish classes from middle school up through college, Lia immersed herself in Spanish through study abroad in Spain and travels in South America.

Fun Facts About Lia

She tries to ride her bike just about everywhere (unfortunately, not to work…yet!)

Her mom’s family is Estonian, and she grew up dancing in an Estonian folk dance troupe.

She’s currently working on becoming proficient at re-fashioning/sewing her own clothes.

She’s left handed.

She wants to spend some time on every continent- 4 down, 3 to go!

Lindsey Williams, M.S., CF-SLP

Lindsey Williams earned her master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology from Boston University.  She earned her bachelor’s degree in Spanish from the University of Georgia, Athens. Upon graduating from the University of Georgia, she spent three years in Madrid, Spain enriching her Spanish by working as a teacher’s assistant in the city’s bilingual public schools.  Lindsey enjoys working with a variety of age ranges, cultural backgrounds, and disabilities.

May-Ling Castillo Love, M.A., CCC-SLP

May-Ling (pronounced May-leen) earned her master’s degree in Communicative Sciences and Disorders from Michigan State University. During graduate school, she re-established a group called Organización de Logopedia y Audiologia (OLA) for undergraduate and graduate students in bilingual speech-language pathology. Before graduate school, May-Ling earned her bachelor’s degree in public relations from the University of Florida. She is originally from Nicaragua and grew up in Miami, FL where she experienced a variety of Latin American dialects on a daily basis. One of her interests is working within cultural parameters in the Hispanic population to help ensure proper assessment and treatment of English/Spanish bilingual children.

Gail Totten, M.A., CCC-SLP

Gail’s undergraduate degree is from Rice University. She taught English, Spanish and remedial reading at the secondary and community college levels in Texas and the Republic of Panamá, where she lived for 26 years. After earning her master’s degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders from the University of Texas at Austin, she worked as a bilingual speech-language pathologist for the Austin Independent School District and was a clinical supervisor at the UT Speech and Hearing Center. Gail retired in June 2008 from Austin ISD, having spent the last two years as the Coordinator for Speech/Language Services. She has presented at the state, national and international levels, and in Central America has participated in workshops and consultations with therapists there, and been part of a medical team performing craniofacial surgery. Gail is certified in the Hanen program.

Mari Jacobs

Mari’s career at Bilinguistics began in 2009.  She has over 16 years of office management experience in a legal office and is a capable and well-rounded business professional.   Mari enjoys the day-to-day interaction with the clients and families that come to Bilinguistics.  She feels fortunate to have the opportunity to work with a great staff and watch the progress of the clients.

Eva Uribe

Eva was born in Mexico and her primary language is Spanish. Eva was born with microtia and attended summer camp at Texas Lions Camp in Kerrville, TX where she first learned sign language.   Eva loved summer camp so much that after being a camper for many years, she went back to became a camp counselor for several more years.  Eva met many children with various disabilities and was in awe of their capabilities.  Texas Lions Camp had such a profound impact on Eva that she soon worked with children with disabilities and their families as a Deaf Education Teacher and as an Early Intervention Specialist.  Eva has a bachelor’s degree from The University of Texas at Austin in Communication Sciences & Disorders.

Anna Ray

Anna is the liaison between Bilinguistics and the local school districts.  Her duties include coordinating and facilitating the Admission Review and Dismissal (ARD) process and provide support to the speech therapists.  Anna, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, has over 17 years of management experience in a legal office.