Vol. 71, no. 18
LC mother-daughter team begins an unusual law partnership at co-owned firm in Northwest Portland
They run an unusual business. Sitting for the interview, it’s more like being welcomed into a family living room than a law office. The interviewees sit conversing, correcting one another, finishing each other’s sentences, and sharing a mug of coffee between them. Kohlhoff takes a sip of her coffee, absentmindedly setting it back down in front of her daughter. This is not only a business but a relationship of give and take—a very successful one.
Theresa Kohlhoff (’80) and Elizabeth Welch (’04) are a unique duo. Both graduates of the Lewis & Clark Law School, they recently opened their mother-daughter owned and operated law firm in Northeast Portland. Their aim is to give advice for problems that real people have. They have no secretary and no phone operator. Kohlhoff describes their business as a “street-level business that [deals] with life-level issues.”
The family business began unexpectedly. Welch remembers walking into the kitchen where the architectural plans for her mother’s new law office lay spread. Her mother pointed to a square on the paper and said, “This could be your office.” Until that moment, the thought had never crossed her mind.
The idea soon became a reality. Welch attributes the decision to her financial situation at the time, “I had been so desperately poor for so long, when else was I going to do it?” Her mother quickly finishes, “It has always been in the cards.”
Kohlhoff began law school at the age of 29, after four kids, as a commuter from Corvallis. She was inspired to study law after she was asked to testify at hearings for the funding of an Alaskan public university. “It was the first time it crossed my mind that I could do something productive,” she said. When Kohlhoff began at LC, Welch often came along for the day. By age two, Welch had decided that she would become a lawyer as well. Her realization about her future strangely reflects her mother’s: “Over time, it seemed like a profession where you could live an intellectual life, you could be fierce, and you could be paid for it,” she said.
It is a risky and trying partnership, going into business with one’s mother, but Welch explains that her mother has always trusted her. While both agree that the most common sources of disagreement are generational differences and disparities in their law techniques, Kohlhoff maintains that “[their] trust level is very important, [and] Elizabeth has wonderful good sense.” Before beginning their practice, both agreed that they would be “50/50 partners, or as close as [they] could be,” and that is just what they have done.
Currently they are toying with a plan to offer free legal advice out of their firm one day a month to answer basic questions and give people who can’t afford a lawyer some direction. The two women also work as volunteers at St. Andrew’s legal clinic where they give free legal advice to those that can’t afford it. Welch explains, “If you scratch the surface of most people’s lives, everyone has something [to tell].”