We are building a law firm for the entire region. However, Al decided to locate this first office just one block from his childhood home. While he continues to care greatly about the history and neighbors of his Brewerytown community, the most important reason he stayed to fight in the venerable building once owned by Fidelity Bank is that he must complete a journey that only he can. He knew of that battle and has been preparing for it for decades. He was caught off guard, however, by the ferocity of the sudden attacks by criminal elements that have been just as entrenched in his community as the corrupt politicians (more below).
Al was blessed to have a gracious and attentive mother who taught all 11 of her children the value of hard-work, good citizenship and education. He recounts that he doesn't have one lazy brother or sister and every one of them was or is a contributing member to society. Unfortunately, he was to learn that his father was among the worst human beings alive. The violence and cruelty that his father exacted upon his mother and his older sisters destroyed the precarious happiness they had built before his arrival. They never recovered from the damage he inflicted, though the relative peace and successes they attained remains a mark of their triumphant collective spirit. As is so often the case, the sins of the father are visited upon the sons. As his father's victims gathered their strength, they punished his father's children, particularly Al's older brothers. These young men never had the chance to live free and achieve their boundless aspirations. Yet, they did what older siblings so often and so effortlessly do: they protected their family from external harm and taught Al valuable lessons that gave him the kind of head start in life that the poorest family on one of the city's poorest blocks would normally never have. He is in debt to them for their sacrifices and prays that the Universe will be kind to them in their remaining days, wherever they journey.
Al is not on a mission to cure the evil deeds of his father, but hopes to alter the balance of good and evil remaining in his family and beyond, so that peace and opportunity become the primary inheritance his generation leaves behind. If there is karma, he will replace as much of the negative energy introduced and cultivated by his father as possible -- not attempting to undo the past (which is impossible), but to help carve out a positive and sustaining path for current and future generations. The name on the sign outside his new law office begins with an invocation of his father, but ends with the journey of his mother, a concept familiar to his family, though not yet completely understood and embraced by all of them.