WHY RISE?

When I started this firm, it was called Renauro Law. That’s what lawyers usually do. You graduate from law school or start your firm, put your name on the sign, and the law firm becomes, at least in some ways, about the lawyer. As the firm grew, I realized I didn’t really want that.

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The people who call us usually aren’t very concerned about whose name is on the sign. They’re trying to answer a much more important question: “Can this lawyer help me with what I’m facing?”

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They have been arrested, their family is falling apart, their kids may have been taken into DHS custody, they may be dealing with addiction or facing consequences from a mistake they made. Sometimes they didn’t do what they’re accused of doing at all. Whatever brought them to us, there are times when it genuinely feels like they’ve hit rock bottom.

 

That’s where the name Rise came from.

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I’ve had struggles in my own life personally, professionally, financially, and spiritually. One thing I’ve learned through all of it is that you can get knocked down a lot of different ways. I’ve made mistakes that created problems for me, and I’ve had things happen that I didn’t cause and couldn’t control. But the truth is the same either way: no one could make me refuse to get back up.

 

We see it all the time with clients working towards recovery from substance use disorders. At some point a person has to recognize that what they’re doing isn’t working and decide they’re willing to do something different. Getting sober is not something a lawyer can do for someone. Neither is rebuilding a family, repairing a career, or changing the direction of a life. But people can be given the right tools, the right information and the right help, and then make decisions that put them in a much better position than where they started.

 

That’s how I see our job. We can’t promise to make every problem disappear, and I don’t think it helps anyone to pretend we can. But what we can do is meet somebody where they are, explain what they’re actually facing, fight the legal battles that need to be fought, help them put together a plan for what happens next, and walk with them through the process so they don’t have to do it alone. If that means fighting a charge because the State got it wrong, we fight. If that means acknowledging a mistake and figuring out how to repair the damage and move forward, that’s what we work on. The circumstances are different, but the idea is the same. What happened yesterday does not necessarily have to determine what happens next.

 

My Christian faith is part of where that belief comes from. Isaiah 60 begins, “Arise, shine, for your light has come,” and talks about light coming out of darkness. That has always been part of what the name Rise means to me. I believe deeply in restoration, responsibility, truth and the idea that people have a purpose beyond the worst thing that has happened to them or the worst thing they have done.

 

You don’t have to share my faith to call us, and you certainly don’t have to share it for us to care about what happens to you. It explains something about why we built the firm the way we did and why we care so much about what happens to the people who call us.

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If you’re dealing with an arrest or some other crisis and you have no idea what you’re supposed to do next, you don’t need to have everything figured out before you call us. Most people don’t. Call us where you are. No one you talk to here will judge you or try to make you feel bad. We’ll figure out what you’re facing, what needs to happen first and what we can do to put you in the best possible position moving forward.

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Then you start getting back up.