Ha Thu Dao - Kent, WA

Ha Thu Dao Overview

I have been talking to so many people lately about mortgage foreclosure, car repossession and credit card collection that the individual facts seem to blur. The one striking fact stands out, and that is the financial crisis has caused husband travel wide and far to work a job that pays much less, wife and the kids forced to move back into her mother's home, where the elderly grandmother can hardly subsist on social security income; they all now have to figure out not just how things would be paid for, but how to share the limited three bedroom home. These are decent families, including friends and family members who are not afraid of hard work and who have relied on their own ability to make an honest living but who have lost the ability to do so due to layoffs and business failures. Meanwhile, I drive through street after street full of for-sale signs, as well as once beautiful looking homes now show clear signs of disrepair and internalize a harsh reality: this contrast is a courtesy of Wall Street.

As a refugee who left Viet Nam with the clothes on my back and arrived in this country with not much more in 1975, I learned about the American dream and aspired to live it. While working full time, I attended undergraduate at UW, and then law school at Seattle University (f/k/a University of Puget Sound). I was able to work terrific private and governmental jobs, including a position as a pro tem judge in the City of SeaTac. I also worked as an assistant attorney general for the State of Florida and argued before the Florida Supreme Court. Statistically, for my achievement, the industry put me in what they call "The Bar Register of Preeminent Women Lawyers "(The Martindale-Hubbell® Bar Register of Preeminent Women Lawyer/Martindale-Hubbell AV® Preeminent™). I am indeed your living walking example of how one can pull one's self from the bootstrap and becomes something great. I am your typical American.

My friends and relatives, out of love, would tell me that if they need a lawyer, they will be sure to contact me. My response to them is that I hope you never need a lawyer for your life would be blissful without any legal entanglement. But if you ever do, never mind their long list of credentials and how tall their building is or how they have fresh flowers in the reception area every time you come. Look for someone who is ACCESSIBLE to you. While the biggest complaint to the bar association across the country is that "my lawyer never returns my call," lawyers and law firms continue to pour money into marketing. It is indeed a very strange phenomenon that the lawyers work so hard to get your attention and earn your decision to hire them, but once you say yes, they move on and focus on getting more clients. That being the case, you have to conclude that their real skill is in getting clients and not working for the client's cause.

The fight against Wall Street and financial establishments will take more than one lawyer or one law firm. In as much as the client needs me to carry her legal burden, I need her to be my main source to write the cohesive and compelling story to be told to the judge or jury; herstory. Neither of us can obtain result by ourselves. It is only when we work together that we could form that formidable offensive or defensive team. What you get from me is a lawyer who is clear about which side of the law she is on and who doesn't waver or apologize for making the arguments on behalf of the client. My objective is not to have more clients; it is to serve you as the only client that matters.

Practice Areas

• Mortgage Foreclosure
• Car Repossession
• Credit Card Collection
• Financial Crisis