Community Highlights: Meet Eric Adams of Adams Law

Today we’d like to introduce you to Eric Adams.

Hi Eric, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I’m living a full-circle moment. My mother and father met in Los Angeles, CA in the 1980s. My father grew up in the San Fernando Valley after moving from Baltimore, MD at two years old. My mother was born in Costa Rica. She moved to Brooklyn, NY when she was seven years old and then to Los Angeles at 18.

I was born in 1987 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. I lived in the Los Angeles area (Hawthorne/Long Beach) until my parents decided to quit their 9-5 jobs and become entrepreneurs, moving the entire family to Birmingham, Alabama. As a 16-year-old, I was devastated to move so far away from home right before my junior year of high school. The entire experience was a culture shock, but it taught me some valuable lessons: 1) Embrace change; and 2) Find your way back to Los Angeles!

After some initial reluctance, I embraced the change. Cali kids tend to have this thought process that Los Angeles is the be-all and end-all. I was no exception. It’s easy to understand why. The weather is almost always great (It’s raining as I’m typing this) and you have the beach and mountains in close proximity, among other incredible attributes (Go Lakers!). So moving to a place like Alabama was initially tough for me because psychologically, the only reference point I had was the abuse Black people suffered from years of discrimination and violence. I knew Los Angeles was no racial haven. Some of my earliest memories of LA are of my father driving through Normandie and Florence Avenues, observing the aftermath of the “LA riots.” I understood very early on in my life why those “riots” occurred. My father also raised me to read books like “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” which had a profound effect on my career choice later in my life. I was raised in a racial and racism-conscious environment.

But Birmingham was different. The city felt extremely segregated and strictly black and white. I felt like a foreigner to everyone. Eventually, however, I saw the value in my experience. My parents were able to build a thriving business that provided for my siblings and me. I also embraced the state’s rich history of historically black colleges and universities by attending Oakwood University in Huntsville, AL where I majored in Finance. After graduating in 2009, I matriculated to The University of Alabama School of Law. There, I discovered my passion for criminal defense as a tool to help people navigate the criminal legal system with someone by their side who passionately and zealously defended their rights.

After law school, I became a public defender in the Boston, MA area. Prior to my job there, I had never visited the city of Boston, but by this time I was well-conditioned to embrace change so I saw it as an opportunity. The summer before I started work in Boston, I sat for the infamous California Bar Exam. I knew I always wanted to return to California, but I saw an opportunity to get valuable experience in Boston while I awaited my exam results. In Boston, I received great training on how to zealously advocate for my clients. So when the opportunity to return to California came around, I was ready.

My dream was to return to Los Angeles, but the opportunity to work for the LA Public Defender’s office had passed before I received my bar card. Instead, I applied to the Orange County Public Defender’s Office. Upon receiving a job offer, I put in my two weeks’ notice. My last day of work in Boston was on a Wednesday. By the following Monday, I had driven all my belongings to California and started work that morning. In the OC, I further honed my skills by trying as many cases as I could and litigating many issues that served to provide valuable experience for me. After three years, the opportunity arose to return to Los Angeles.

Approximately ten years after leaving Los Angeles, I was back! I took a job at the Alternate Public Defender’s office in Los Angeles County working downtown at the criminal courts building. At this job, I handled felony cases with increasing complexity. I enjoyed being a public defender. I enjoyed helping society’s most vulnerable population. I enjoyed giving people who look like me a voice. I enjoyed the competitive adversarial process. But ultimately, I felt there was more I could do.

I come from a family of entrepreneurs. Many of my family members started their own businesses and were successful in the process. I also felt that there were other ways I could help my people outside of the criminal legal system. One such way was estate planning. I realized we were in the midst of one of the greatest transfers of wealth in this country’s history. Many people began talking about creating generational wealth, but I noticed many people weren’t educated on a critical component of generational wealth: estate planning. Learning how to transfer wealth, from your home to your personal effects, to business interests takes a detailed planning process.

So with that in mind, I embraced change by leaving the Alternate Public Defender’s Office and starting my own law firm, Adams Law, in June 2021. Adams Law specializes in providing criminal defense and estate planning for clients in the Southern California area.

Personally, I further embraced change by getting married to my love, Jillian, settling with her in Los Angeles, and witnessing the birth of my son, Jay, in the very hospital I was born in, Cedars-Sinai.

I call this a full-circle moment because my journey encompassed my return to the city I love while embracing change in the process. This journey is even more fulfilling because in the process of embracing change, I’ve been able to effectuate it, personally and professionally.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I learned a really valuable lesson in the 5th grade that has stuck with me throughout my entire life. I started playing the flute in the 4th grade. I had a natural talent for the flute in that I could produce a clear sound from the moment I started playing thanks to my overbite (before braces). However, even with natural talent, learning to play an instrument well is very difficult. You have to learn a new language in reading music. Then you have to master fingerings to play the notes. As the music gets more complicated, it gets more and more difficult. And when you think you’ve reached a level of success, there is always something harder. And the only way to get better is consistent practice.

So after I’d been playing for about a year, I undertook the task of learning to play this song my mother loved. I just wanted to do something nice for her so I started practicing the song. I would practice and practice and practice some more. But I could not get this song down. One day, during my practice session, I became so frustrated I felt like quitting the instrument entirely. I could not get the fingerings down and even getting a clear sound had become difficult. I told my mom I was quitting. I was done. But she wouldn’t let me quit. She forced me to keep practicing. As furious and disheartened as I was, I kept practicing. Then something shifted. It’s like this light turned on in my head and all the practice I’d been putting in started clicking and translating into this beautiful melody. That day in my childhood stood out to me because it taught me something very valuable. There is power in pressing on at the moment you feel all is lost.

When I got to 6th grade, I entered a music competition and got the highest marks of any instrumentalist at the competition. In 7th grade, I made 1st chair at my middle school and 2nd chair in the all district band that made up 6th-8th graders all across the city of Long Beach. I’m not saying this to brag. I’m just pointing out that none of that would have been possible had I not pressed on when everything in my body was telling me this was too difficult to overcome.

So I approached life like that. In high school, my older brother Sam used to beat me in basketball all the time. I would try extremely hard to beat him every time we played and I couldn’t. He was just that good. But knowing what I experienced with the flute, I swore off playing him and I practiced daily until I was sure I could beat him. It took me about a year until the next time I played him, but when I did, let’s just say he was not happy.

In college, my parents had successfully built a real estate investment and management company that was thriving. It all came to a screeching halt in 2008 forcing my parents into bankruptcy and causing my family incredible financial strain. That experience would have scarred anyone and scared anyone from jumping back into real estate investing. But we all pressed on. Today, my wife and I have built a successful real estate portfolio. We’ve even become Airbnb Superhosts!

Law school was mostly a foreign world to me. It reminded me a lot of playing an instrument. The law has its own language and it requires a reframing of the way we think of the world. It also requires a lot of practice to be successful. Because of how difficult it was for me to adjust, I’d lost my scholarship my first year. But I pressed on. I knew I needed to press on because I knew that success would be just over that obstacle if I continued. I did press on and was able to pass the California Bar Exam on my first attempt at 24 years old.

As a lawyer, I’ve handled some extremely difficult cases that have had long-term implications for my clients. I’ve had teenage clients looking at spending the rest of their lives in prison and I successfully prevented such devastating outcomes. As a lawyer, you feel immense pressure to perform well and obtain the best outcome for clients, regardless of who they are. Thankfully, my life experience taught me to keep going even when the task at hand seems unobtainable. And I believe I’ve been successful because I don’t give up.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Adams Law?
Adams Law is a Southern California law firm specializing in criminal defense and estate planning. I represent individuals who are alleged to have committed crimes in the state of California, ranging from petty theft to murder. I also help individuals and families plan for incapacity and/or how their legacy will continue when they pass away through estate planning. People always ask me why I practice in such vastly different practice areas. And while the subject matter and legal process in each area is different, it is all about solving problems and helping people navigate difficult situations. Whether dealing with the potential loss of freedom or facing the fact of mortality, I bring a creative, compassionate, and courageous approach that my clients love. My clients know that I will listen to them, and they know that I will press on for them to find solutions even when things look difficult.

I want readers to know that Adams Law exists to serve the people. That I care about the issues and problems they have. And that when they need someone to advocate for them, they can count on me. I want them to know that I care about their legacies, and I care about how important it is to them to ensure that their heirs are provided for according to their wishes. We offer more than just canned responses and one size fit all approaches. At Adams Law, we listen to our clients and work with them to accomplish their objectives.

Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
My junior year of high school, we played in a semifinal playoff game to go to the championship. It was a really close game and we were down with only a few minutes left to go. I hit three 3-pointers in a row to give us the lead and ultimately win the game. We went on to win the championship that year. Hitting those three pointers to save the game was as exhilarating as any moment I’ve ever experienced.

Contact Info:

• Website: EricAdamsLaw.com
• Instagram: adamslawesq

Image Credits
Photo Credit- Justin Chambers
Mikeisha T. – IG: thirtythreefifteen