John Stuart Morris

Lawyers are appropriately described as attorneys and counselors. I consider both portions of that description very important. The counselor portion of that description requires that I educate my clients so that they can make informed and intelligent decisions. Ask any educator, in any field, and they will agree that students who are engaged, interested, and studying on their own are much easier to teach than students who want the teacher to do all the work. Accordingly, I believe that when clients are willing to take some effort to educate themselves so that they can more fully understand the process that they are caught in, those clients are much more likely to be able to provide me with the relevant information I need to handle a case successfully. I am very much in favor of clients educating themselves and being active participants in their legal matters.

In each of my areas of focus, I am engaged in the task of helping individuals solve problems. In family law and other litigated cases, I help to solve current problems, and provide solutions that allow the individual to move on with his or her life. In estate planning, I help to create the plans that are necessary in order to avoid the problems which naturally arise when there has been a lack of planning. The commonality is that there is tremendous job satisfaction in knowing that I have helped a person in need.

What I like about my career:

My greatest job satisfaction from knowing that I have helped a person in need. The kind "thank you's" and warm letters of appreciation from happy clients is definitely the best part of my career.

 More information about my firm:

My law partner is also my real life partner. Shinju Morris and I were married in 1992 and we have two beautiful children; Caitlin and Alexander. As our business has evolved and grown, Shinju has spent more time managing our office and keeping current with changes in technology for our business. 

Chih-Yi Lin is an associate with the firm. She has been with the firm since shortly after its founding in 1997. She practices in the area of trust administration and family law. Ms. Lin also fluent in Mandarin and Taiwanese.

My strengths and style:

I can empathize with others, and this often leads to a greater understanding of their motives and goals. This understanding will often reveal solutions that would not be apparent to one who is unable to fully understand one's current opponent. While I would not go so far as to call it unique, years of experience lead me to believe that the trait of empathy is rare among lawyers.

I will not waste a client's money. Often this means taking a pragmatic look at the circumstances and understanding that it simply does not make sense, for example, to spend $10, to recover $1,. However, that being said, there certainly are times when the issues at stake represent more than simply money. In such circumstances, my goal is to educate my client as to the pros and cons of available strategies, so that the client can make an intelligent and informed decision about to how to proceed.

 Personal Interests:

I am a history aficionado; preferring primarily military and legal history. For sports, I enjoy tennis, softball, volleyball and bicycling. Although I have not had the time to remain active with it, I am also a great fan of the sport of fencing. In fact, it was on the UCLA Fencing Team that I first met my wife.  In recent years, Shinju and I have been active in raising funds and awareness for the Arthritis Foundation, and ride down the California Coast for an 8 day, 525 mile bicycle fundraising ride.  To date, we have raised more than 40, for the foundation.