His path to AVID
Courtroom skills, used to keep your family out of one.
Christian’s route to the law ran through business first — an economics degree from Bucknell University, then years in Washington, D.C. analyzing commercial real estate for CoStar Group, where he directed a team of researchers covering property sales, ownership changes, and market-moving deals. When he came to Arizona State’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, he arrived already fluent in the assets — property, businesses, investments — that estate plans exist to protect.
After earning his J.D. and admission to the State Bar of Arizona, he went straight into the deep end: civil litigation — years of independently handling court appearances, depositions, and settlement negotiations. It was demanding, high-stakes work, and it taught him things most planning attorneys never learn firsthand: how disputes actually start, what they cost families in money and years, and how much of that pain was preventable with better preparation on paper.
The courtroom sharpened his skills, but it also clarified what he wanted: work that changes the outcome for families before the fight starts. That instinct isn’t new — in law school he volunteered at the Arizona Legal Center fielding legal questions from residents who couldn’t afford counsel, and spent a year helping prepare Social Security disability cases. At AVID, he gets both halves: proactive estate planning that’s deliberately drafted to prevent conflict, and contested probate representation for families already in one — backed by real trial-bench experience most estate firms simply don’t have.
Off the clock, you’ll find him on a golf course or a hiking trail, at the piano, or deep in a sci-fi novel.