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When Megann Hendrix first arrived at law school, she knew her goal. “I wanted to help people, not businesses or corporations,” she says. That led her to specialize in elder law and estate planning. After graduating, she quickly became an accomplished attorney, earning a “Rising Star” award from SuperLawyers and being named an “Up and Coming Lawyer” by the Wisconsin Law Journal. In 2018, she became a partner at MacGillis Wiemer. Working in elder law, she often sees clients in crisis, fearful of losing everything because of their long-term care needs. She says the most rewarding aspect of her work is what drew her to it in the first place – helping those clients solve their problems and seeing the relief on their faces.
“I’ve always been a problem-solver.”
-Megann Hendrix
Q&A
Why did you choose to specialize in elder law and estate planning?
When I went to law school, I knew that I wanted to help people, not businesses or corporations, so estate planning and elder law seemed like a natural fit. I had some clerking positions in law school that gave me experience in these areas and I knew that is what I wanted to do after graduation. I’ve enjoyed working in these areas ever since graduating from law school. With elder law, I often have clients come to me in a crisis situation due to long-term care needs and I’m able to help them utilize some planning techniques to put them in a better financial position. With estate planning, I can help my clients ease the burden on their family by ensuring they have the proper planning in place for the future.
I’ve always been a problem-solver and I love that what I do every day is help people solve problems or configure the pieces of the puzzle to meet their goals. My knowledge and skills are utilized daily to help people navigate difficult situations or create a plan to minimize the crisis for their family.
What advice would you have for women who want to have a career in law?
If you want to have real work-life balance, then I would suggest setting clear boundaries from the beginning of your career and standing your ground. Women can be great lawyers, great leaders and great mentors without working 60 hours a week. There is still a lot of work to be done to change the legal culture, but I think that the pandemic has helped people achieve more work-life balance by ushering in remote work, which was not typical in the legal field before the pandemic. We need more women in partnership level positions, and we need to keep pushing forward. Complacency will not bring change.
