Focus on an AAARTA Fellow

Lauren Barros
Utah 		Durand Cook
California 		Simi Denson
Texas
Lauren Barros Durand Cook Simidenson
General Information: General Information: General Information:
1. Practice Affiliation: LRBFamilyLaw.com

2. Year Admitted to the Bar: 1993

3. Prior Occupation: Outdoor Educator

4. Law School: University of Utah		 1. Practice Affiliation: Family Formation, Adoption, Surrogacy, Embryo Donation, Egg Donation, Sperm Donation

2. Year Admitted to the Bar: 1969

3. Prior Occupation: Student

4. Law School: Cal Western University		 1. Practice Affiliation: ART

2. Year Admitted to the Bar: 2003

3. Prior Occupation: none

4. Law School: University of Texas
Your Law Practice: Your Law Practice: Your Law Practice:
1. What led you to a legal career? Wanting the power to help to make the world a better place.

2. Did you set out to practice adoption law and/or ART law or was it a natural progression? I (luckily) stumbled upon it after a series of twists and turns in my legal career. I set out to do environmental law.

3. Is there a particular aspect of the law you enjoy most? Least? I love working hard and using my experience and creativity to help people. I like the variety of writing, reading, giving advice, figuring out problems, and negotiating solutions. I have a love/hate relationship with trials. I like getting to know the clients I like, especially international Intended Parents in surrogacy cases, and having them over for dinner after they have their baby.

4. What is your greatest accomplishment as a lawyer? I helped bring LGBT equality to Utah. I started a free LGBT legal clinic. I represented many people for little or no money who had same sex parenting cases. And I have been a mentor to many lawyers and shown them it is fulfilling to work hard, but also be involved in the community, exercise, and be with family.

5. What is the greatest lesson you have learned from practicing law? Humility.

6. If you were starting over and choosing a career today, what would it be? Environmental law! And possibly, for the same reasons as before, I would end up doing what I am doing. In fact, I feel incredibly lucky to be doing exactly what I am doing for work. I love my family law/ART/adoption practice! And I am able to do volunteer environmental activism on the side. I hope to spend more time volunteering when my daughter goes off to college.
 1. What led you to a legal career?
A desire for education above and beyond the university.

2. Did you set out to practice adoption law and/or ART law or was it a natural progression?
Early on I stumbled into adoption law to help two families that were friends of mine who had issues with infertility. After completing those two adoptions, I then worked towards limiting my practice to adoption. A few years later, the assisted reproduction field developed.

3. Is there a particular aspect of the law you enjoy most? Least?
I enjoy adoption law, where we are instrumental in introducing a birth mother with a crisis pregnancy to a family that otherwise would not be able to become a mom or a dad because of incurable fertility problems.

4. What is your greatest accomplishment as a lawyer?
Being there for people when they need me.

5. What is the greatest lesson you have learned from practicing law?
To be a good listener and not assume that your position is "right."

6. If you were starting over and choosing a career today, what would it be?
Family formation law. 		1. What led you to a legal career?
I was interested in child welfare and healthcare access issues. I spent a summer in college working in foster care and knew I wanted to keep doing something related. I also loved writing and research-- sounded like a good match for being an attorney.

2. Did you set out to practice adoption law and/or ART law or was it a natural progression?
A little of both? After a brief stint in private practice, I worked for various state agencies in child welfare for about 8 years-- which was what I saw myself doing when I went to law school. Getting involved in ART was a natural progression for me, when I decided to pursue surrogacy in my personal life.

3. Is there a particular aspect of the law you enjoy most? Least?
Most-- helping people set up secure foundations for building families through surrogacy. I 100% believe in the beauty and promise of surrogacy and feel so lucky to walk part of the journey with these families.
Least-- On the rare occasion that a surrogate is left with bills or has IPs that breach in some other way, I feel like I have limited means to help. We need a better system to help these women.

4. What is your greatest accomplishment as a lawyer?
I just try to do my best everyday and treat my clients the way I'd want me or my family to be treated. That's accomplishment enough for me.

5. What is the greatest lesson you have learned from practicing law?
There's no way to contract around a bad match.

6. If you were starting over and choosing a career today, what would it be?
I love what I do-- but if I made a change, might choose to be on the medical side, as an OB or reproductive endocrinologist. I would still choose to be involved in family building, absolutely.
What Makes You "Tick": What Makes You "Tick": What Makes You "Tick":
1. What would anyone be surprised to learn about you? Although I appear very laid back, I am not.

2. What was the very first job you ever had? Reading out loud at a day care center for disadvantaged kids.

3. What is your greatest personal accomplishment (if different from your professional one? Raising a terrific kid.

4. Describe one of your most cherished memories. Today, hiking up Mt. Raymond on my skis with my husband and dog, in fresh powder, laughing and talking, and having dinner with my parents, daughter, and husband tonight, and giving my mom a HUGE hug.

5. What contributions do you make to help others? I try to pick up trash I see on the street or trail. I try to smile and say hi to people I don’t know. I try to really listen when people are talking to me, and have compassion for them. I try to give food to homeless people when I see them. I do a lot of volunteer work for the citizens climate lobby.

6. What inspires you to go beyond your legal career to help others? Helping others makes me feel good.

7. What would you like your gravestone to say about you? I don’t like to think about that. 		1. What would anyone be surprised to learn about you?
That I would just as readily live in the open at the beach than in a house.
 
2. What was the very first job you ever had?
Pulling weeds for a neighbor.

3. What is your greatest personal accomplishment (if different from your professional one)?
Being a person that people can count on, hopefully in every aspect of my life.

4. Describe one of your most cherished memories.
Working with a 17 year old birth mother traveling through town without friends or family who went into labor and placed her child for adoption. She asked me to be there as her labor coach, friend, family and attorney.

5. What contributions do you make to help others?
Hopefully my contribution to help others shows up in many areas of my life. But one that I am acknowledged for the most is helping new attorneys entering the field of family formation to get their feet on the ground. I expose them to the proper forms, procedures and fellow attorneys that practice in our field.

6. What inspires you to go beyond your legal career to help others?
My belief that "doing unto others as you would have them do unto you" is a perfect way of sharing one's love in this world.

7. What would you like your gravestone to say about you?
"He did it his way until the end, at full speed, sharing his life with others in love."		 1. What would anyone be surprised to learn about you?
I was the New Jersey State Dairy Princess.

2. What was the very first job you ever had?
My first on-the-books job was as a sales associate at The Right Start (a baby supply store) at the Bridgewater Commons Mall in Bridgewater, NJ. I made $6/hour. Off-the-books, I did a lot of babysitting and house-sitting and was a clown at children's birthday parties.

3. What is your greatest personal accomplishment (if different from your professional one)?
The easy answer is my family-- I have two wonderful daughters (almost 12 and 15) and am married to my best friend, Rick (a firefighter/paramedic). Second place: I was lucky enough to be a gestational carrier twice-- I delivered a baby boy in 2010 and boy/girl/boy triplets in 2013. Both families are close friends and I love seeing the kids grow up. Every now and then, I'll look at their Christmas cards on our kitchen bulletin board and think "I did a really cool thing."

4. Describe one of your most cherished memories.
When we announced my younger daughter's name in the seconds after she was born, she turned to us and smiled. It was pretty amazing.

5. What contributions do you make to help others?
I volunteer for several local organizations, including a food pantry in a housing project for the elderly and disabled and our local animal shelter. Mostly, though, I just try to be kind and make the world a little nicer where I can.

6. What inspires you to go beyond your legal career to help others?
Every night, when I turn off the light, I take a minute to think about my life and feel how grateful I am. I am safe, happy, cared for, secure-- so are my children and my family. I sincerely want that for everybody in the world. I don't want to impose *my* life on anybody else, but I do wish that feeling of security and happiness for others. That inspires me.

7. What would you like your gravestone to say about you?
Oh, gosh. I'm a minimalist-- I'd be good with my name and a date. Or no gravestone at all!