My name is Ned Stratton and I am a personal injury attorney, husband, and father of four in Kennewick, Washington. I grew up in Edmonds, Washington, which is just north of Seattle.
I started my post-high school education at a two year college, where I met my spouse Ashley, and received a two year degree in Political Science.
After earning the two year degree I started a 4 year degree also in Poli-Sci and quickly realized that getting a 4 year degree in Political Science would give me almost no work options. So I went to the on campus employment counselor and asked what the highest paid bachelor degree was (definitely not how I would recommend choosing a degree). She said electrical engineering, so I immediately switched my degree to ECE (electrical and computer engineering).
This turned out to be a poor decision and I did not enjoy it. After finishing an engineering degree, and realizing I had no desire to actually be an Engineer, I went back to school and earned a second BA in business administration.
During this time I started a distribution company and had around 25 part and full time employees. After a few years of working 365 days a year, 70+ hour weeks, I decided this was not for me and I decided to go back to school and get a Master’s in Business Admin.
Before starting my MBA I became a real estate agent, thinking I could sell homes and go to school for an MBA at the same time. I really enjoyed the real estate market and did not enjoy the MBA program, so after the first semester I dropped out of the MBA and focused on real estate for the next several years.
The constant ups and downs of the real estate market took a toll on my family, and after a few years I again decided to go back to school, this time for a Law Degree. In 2008 I earned my law degree and took the patent bar. I went to work for a large intellectual property firm in Spokane WA. Just after I was hired there was a market crash and recession at the end of 2008, and by 2009 the firm I worked for had to lay off 10 lawyers because of lack of work, and the 4 new hires were the first out the door.
So I decided to start my own law firm and real estate office, and for a year I was the only employee of Stratton Law and Stratton Realty. After a year of doing mostly family law (divorces and child custody disputes) I decided that any area of the law would be better than family law, so I joined forces with Brian Anderson and am now an owner and partner at Anderson Law, a small personal injury law firm in Kennewick Washington.
While I enjoy suing and fighting with insurance companies and believe that no one deserves to be sued more (which is what personal injury law is all about), it can still often be a stressful job, and I often feel like there must be something more to life than this. So as an outlet and mostly for my own benefit I decided to start this blog and write some of my thoughts about life, the universe, and everything. I find that my family and my faith in God are far more influential to my life than my work and hope that this shows in my posts. I am far from an authority on life, the universe, or any subject, and am grateful for any feedback or comments that any reader has. If you are reading this I hope you enjoy and find some benefit from my posts. If you do find a post beneficial please share the post and add a comment.
Thanks for reading.
Ned Stratton