Vickie Alvarez’s upbringing strongly influenced who she became. Her parents emigrated from Havana to Miami in 1960 just after Castro came into power. Her father had a high school education and his own business in Cuba, but spoke no English; her mother was a teacher and spoke a little English.  Both took blue collar jobs in Miami and pushed education on their two young daughters. And both daughters became accomplished professionals in business.

For Vickie, it was the cash-stuffed shoebox under her parents’ bed that inspired her to major in accounting in college. “When I was 24 I took my dad to open his first bank account – up until that time he had only used cash,” says Vickie. “When you consider most Americans don’t understand stocks and bonds, well forget about immigrants. They don’t have a clue.” Seeing how much immigrants didn’t know instilled in Vickie a very strong drive to educate herself in these areas. Business and accounting coursework in college clicked for her and she earned both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in accounting, and was certified as a public accountant in 1979.

She seriously considered getting a Ph.D. in business but decided on law school instead, viewing a law degree as much more versatile. Two and a half years later she graduated from the University of Florida law school and after that obtained a graduate degree in tax law.

She had always envisioned doing big transactions in a corporate setting. Still, she went to work for a small, seven-lawyer firm in Orlando, which she now says, “turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me.” The group was mostly younger attorneys, some fresh out of school, and they worked extremely hard, putting in additional hours on nights and weekends. A deep sense of camaraderie developed. But then the small firm was acquired by a large firm.

After trying out another small firm, which turned out to be too small – four attorneys – to practice law efficiently, Vickie finally landed at a large Tampa firm, just as she had always imagined.

Her destiny lay elsewhere, however. There were changes and mergers and eventual downsizing. Vickie found herself looking back on the early days at the small Orlando firm with fond memories. She decided to “take control of my own life and hang out a shingle.” By this time she had an abundance of experience with sophisticated estate planning and complex business transactions and she felt ready for anything that might come her way.

She has had her practice for eight years and employs one legal assistant. She is very happy to be concentrating on the areas of personal tax, estate and asset protection planning, probate, and general corporate and business formation, operations and taxation.