I am Managing Partner of Thyden Gross & Callahan, LLP, a law firm in Chevy Chase, Maryland. I am a mediator, collaborative lawyer and arbitrator.
I have authored or co-authored three books, “File for Divorce in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia”, “Money and Divorce” and “Fathers’ Rights (The Best Interest of Your Child Includes You)”. I write a column called “Daily Answer Desk” for DivorceNet.Com, and two blogs, “Maryland Divorce Legal Crier” and “Fathers’ Rights (Not Just Every Other Weekend)”. I lecture on family law at various seminars and have appeared on television and radio. I was selected among top lawyers in Maryland and DC by Super Lawyers Magazine and Washingtonian Magazine and I am rated “Superb” by Avvo.com and “av” by Martindale-Hubbell.
You can read more of my life experiences if you want to know how I got here. I was born in Jefferson City, Missouri, and grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, boyhood home of Mark Twain. When I was 16, I took a correspondence course and passed a government test to obtain a First Class Radio Telephone Operator License, and got a job as an announcer, news reporter and engineer at my dad’s radio station.
I studied Chemical Engineering at the University of Missouri in Columbia, and graduated in 1970 with a BSChE. Procter & Gamble hired me to work in its International Division in Cincinnati, Ohio. I was there for about a year when Uncle Sam drafted me for the Viet Nam War. I spent a year producing television shows for the Signal Corp. at Fort Gordon, Georgia, and another year working on long range patrol rations as a chemical engineer at the U.S. Army Labs in Natick, Massachusetts.
When I got out of the army, I went to law school at the University of Missouri in Columbia, where I made the law review and clerked for the Public Defender. I graduated with a JD in 1975. The Federal Communications hired me to come to Washington, DC, and work as an attorney in the Broadcast Division. After two years, Satellite Business Systems, a partnership of IBM, Comsat and Aetna. During that time, I earned a Master of Laws in Taxation from Georgetown University in 1982.
Trammel, Rand, Nathan & Lincoln hired me from Satellite Business Systems after two years, and I set up my own practice a year after that. I merged that firm into Amram, Hahn & Gross where I was the managing partner and worked on real estate tax appeals. Whiteford, Taylor and Preston hired me from that firm, and I co-founded Thyden Gross & Callahan, LLP, a year later.
I am past president of Metropolitan Washington Mensa and the Collaborative Law Society. I have served on the Board of Directors of Sheet Metal Manufacturing, Inc., Affiliated Community Counselors, Inc., and the DC Capitols Track and Field Club. I play racketball and I live in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with my wife, two sons and two cats.
