New legal practice opens in Sisters

Attorney Lauren Stoery. photo by Tom Chace.

Lauren Stoery moved to Sisters a year ago after years of private, corporate and criminal law practice.

She came here with her husband Scott, passed the Oregon bar and this November set up shop in Sisters as "Creative Solutions @ Law."

She has already made her mark locally with membership on the board of CATS (Community Action Team of Sisters), the Library Advisory Council and as a co-leader of the Sisters Art Literacy Program at Sisters Elementary School.

She also guides legal affairs for the Native American nonprofit Four Winds Foundation.

She graduated from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa and received her law degree from Loyola University in Chicago.

"I practiced law for over 20 years," she said.

She started in Naperville, a small town outside Chicago in Kane County, as an assistant county prosecutor and moved into litigation work in private practice before moving to Burlington, Vermont. There she went into corporate law as an in-house attorney for Bombardier, Inc., manufacturer of trains (for the England-France Chunnel), airplanes and large snow removal equipment.

Then she went to Benton Harbor, Michigan for five years with the Whirlpool Corporation.

"After a stint in Charlotte, North Carolina, with a Fortune 500 company, Compass Grove, we took a trip West and found Sisters," she said. "This was the place for us."

Stoery said her young son practically grew up without her because of work demands.

"Scott was both parents for many years," she said. "Now the boys also have a mother at home or very nearby. They like it. I love it!"

Her practice here will concentrate on business law: acquisitions, joint ventures -- "pooling resources" -- franchising, corporate leasing, equipment loans, venture capital.

"One of the most pressing needs I find is with family- owned businesses, selling part of the equity but keeping the family heirs involved," she said.

She is working as a team member with Paul Allan Bennett, Janet Brockway and Deb Sether in the five-year-old Art Literacy program at Sisters Elementary School. She feels guidance in the arts and reading is especially important in the full education of a child.

The Stoerys have two sons, one in the third grade and the other in the eighth grade at Sisters Middle School.

Education is of great importance to Stoery, who plans a series of seminars here offering free legal aid with other Sisters attorneys.

"They will be similar to a clinic where we will help those who have need in the area of credit and credit cards, Medicare, home and family businesses," she said. She expects to hold the first course in January.

Creative Solutions @ Law is located at 473 West Hood Avenue, at the corner of Cottonwood Street, in Pine Meadow Village.

Stoery can be reached by telephone at 549-1456.