Jeannette R. Marsala (she/hers) is the owner of Marsala Law Firm, an estate planning law firm in San Jose, California. She graduated from Golden Gate University School of Law in 2007, with a specialization certificate in Litigation with distinction. She also earned her Masters in law in Estate Planning in 2018. She graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a B.A. in Business Management Economics with honors in her major.
Growing up in San Jose, Jeannette initially wanted to be a computer engineer. However, after her first year in college, it was clear that engineering was not the right career path for her. After browsing through potential college majors, she saw "business law" and thought "I could do that. I could write contracts and advise businesses. But wait, that means law school..." So Jeannette's career in law began.
During law school, she received an internship doing commercial litigation and discovered that she enjoyed the law and motion, researching law and writing briefs. Jeannette decided to focus her legal career on litigation. After graduating law school and passing the bar exam, Jeannette worked at a boutique law firm in Los Angeles doing bankruptcy litigation.
After years working at bankruptcy firms, Jeannette wanted to switch paths to something closer to why she wanted to go to law school in the first place. After much discernment, she felt pulled to estate planning. Jeannette wanted to work one on one with her clients. She wanted to proactively prevent problems from dominating her clients' lives and not spending time reacting to past mistakes. She wanted to educate her clients on how to better plan and avoid Court. Jeannette was over spending her days in Court, and she wanted to help her clients avoid having to go to Court too.
From a young age, Jeannette has a passion for volunteering, improving her community and taking on leadership roles in her neighborhood association, volunteer organizations, Church, and business networking groups. When she graduated from Notre Dame High School, she earned the "Spirit of Notre Dame" award in recognition for her volunteer work. Today, she is an active volunteer with Child Advocates of Silicon Valley where she mentors and advocates for foster children. She started a project of installing Little Free Libraries in East San Jose with an emphasis on delivering children's books to underserved communities. Jeannette is currently on the San Jose Parkland Dedication And Park Impact Ordinance Fee Study where she can advocate for improvements to parks and playgrounds in San Jose.