James J Gross

Managing Partner of Thyden Gross & Callahan, LLP, a law firm in Chevy Chase, Maryland.  Mediator, collaborative lawyer and arbitrator.  Author or co-author of four books, “File for Divorce in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia”, “Money and Divorce”,“Fathers’ Rights (The Best Interest of Your Child Includes You)” and "Splitxville".  Editor of two blogs, “Maryland Divorce Legal Crier” and “Fathers’ Rights (Not Just Every Other Weekend)”.  Speaker on family law at various seminars and appearances on television and radio.  Selected among top lawyers in Maryland and DC by Super Lawyers Magazine and Washingtonian Magazine, rated “Superb” by and “av” by Martindale-Hubbell.

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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.