A People Person

Some turn to the law because they’re inspired by Atticus Finch or Perry Mason, some simply to make money. For Kaori Tanabe Eder, the initial push had a little something to do with sushi.

When she was young, during a trip to the United States, the family went to a sushi restaurant where the chef mentioned that a nearby mother and daughter came there every weekend. “When my dad asked what they did for a living,” Eder remembers, “the chef told us that the mom was a family law attorney. Since I was argumentative already, I thought lawyering would be a good profession for me to pursue and be able to afford sushi like the mom at the restaurant. … It was just a childish idea that ended up working out for me.”

Eder, who now practices at Margolin Family Law in Portland, has an international background: She was born in Japan and raised in Pereira, Colombia, where there were only two or three Japanese families. This was in the ’80s and ’90s, too, she says, “with Pablo Escobar still alive and very much active. There was ongoing violence, threats, murders. I saw a few dead bodies. My parents were always very careful about where I was.”

As a teenager, she came to the U.S. on her own to attend a tennis academy in Sarasota, Florida. “The tennis background helped me quite a bit because I’m OK with challenges,” she says. “I don’t shy away from difficult cases just because they might be emotionally taxing.”

For a time, Eder leaned toward international business law but it didn’t take. When she interviewed for an internship with a judge, one of the letters of recommendation mentioned how personable she was: “a people person,” it said.

“That got me thinking,” she remembers. “It was really boring to just read contracts and deal with transactions, so I started looking into family law and volunteering at a nonprofit called St. Andrew Legal Clinic, helping with intake. I really enjoyed it. I was mainly gathering basic information for the attorneys who were representing the potential clients. Eventually, St. Andrew hired me because they needed a Spanish-speaking attorney at their clinic to represent clients.

Family law allowed Eder’s people skills to shine. “It’s a very personal moment when they come to you, and even though you just met them, they are very open about whatever their personal history is and what their needs are,” she says. “I really enjoy that aspect of family law—that you have a personal connection with your clients right away, and it’s a kind of instantaneous trusting relationship that you form with them.”

Her international background helps here, too. “I’ve seen a lot of things, living in so many different places, and it helps me be pretty open-minded and nonjudgmental,” says Eder. “That’s important when you’re talking to clients—so they feel comfortable talking to you about anything.”

As an immigrant, she feels fortunate to have come to the States when she did. “It’s a lot more difficult now,” she says. “It’s too bad because the United States might be losing a lot of talent.”

She adds: “Hopefully leadership changes. Hopefully it’s a temporary glitch. But even now there’s still a lot more opportunity in the United States—especially for people like me, where I grew up. There are more doors that are open than closed in the United States, so I would encourage people to still try. If they want to.”