Tammy\u00a0Schweinsberg.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe busy single mom of six children ranging in ages from six to 19 was born and raised in St. Petersburg. A student in Stetson’s part-time J.D. program, she is the first person in her family to attend law school. Neither of her parents finished college. Her father studied mechanics,\u00a0and her mother nursing.\u00a0Tammy started out as a teacher, but had always reserved a special respect for the work lawyers do. Decades prior, her father\u2019s lawyer had helped the family face difficult times during a divorce. Tammy suddenly found herself facing legal issues. She decided she wanted to pursue law.<\/p>\n
Navigating the school system as a mother of a child with Down Syndrome, Tammy learned firsthand the challenges of\u00a0 helping someone with a disability obtain the right resources. Tammy also struggled to assist her mother in a nursing home. She was motivated to find a way to help people with special needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cLife experiences help me be a better counselor,\u201d said Tammy. \u201cNo matter what you want to do, use whatever reason you have to go and do it,\u201d said Tammy.<\/p>\n
Tammy found that the elder law concentration at Stetson, and its close relationship to disability law, was a perfect inroad to helping people with special needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing in the elder law program opened my eyes to the issues,\u201d said Tammy, who works at the Law Office of Christopher Young, P.A., part time. She spent her summer interning for two months at the Pinellas Justice Center working on a complicated financial exploitation case. \u201cIf I can help someone with special needs not be a victim, I can help people,\u201d said Tammy.<\/p>\n
She credits Professor Rebecca Morgan, the co-director of Stetson\u2019s Center for Excellence in Elder Law, with always inspiring her to maintain a positive outlook. \u201cI feel that when I am around her, whatever it is I am having a problem with, I can do it,\u201d said Tammy.<\/p>\n
Originally scheduled to wrap up law school in May, Tammy pushed back her graduation one semester to help her young child recently diagnosed with ADD transition into Kindergarten.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to pare down and decide what your priorities are,\u201d Tammy said. She explained that when she started law school, she leaned on her children to help prioritize their time commitments. Private piano lessons and dance classes were dropped off the list and Tammy encouraged her children to take advantage of extracurricular programs at school. \u201cI used to cut into the margins,\u201d Tammy explained. \u201cNow if it\u2019s not important, we\u2019re not doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
“It’s never easy to go to school with school-age children, much less law school, \u201c Tammy said. \u201cSo when things get tough, as they usually do,\u00a0I remember the reasons why\u00a0I made my decision to attend Stetson Law. I lean on my support systems, and regroup. I persevere.”<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Tammy joined\u00a0her classmates celebrating graduation in December from Stetson Law. She received the Dean’s Award,\u00a0a special award for extraordinary service to the law school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Brandi Palmer Ask Tammy Schweinsberg how she feels about graduating from Stetson University with her J.D. and she will tell you that law school has blinked by in an instant. The busy single mom of six children ranging in ages from six to 19 was born and raised in St. Petersburg. A student in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2001,2019,6],"tags":[1758,652,1986,177,552,561,1190],"class_list":["post-19043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campus-life-news","category-featured-campus-life-news","category-student-features","tag-center-for-excellence-in-elder-law","tag-community","tag-disability","tag-elder-law","tag-service","tag-special-needs","tag-stetson-today"],"yoast_head":"\n
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