 From Theater Major to Family Law Career… Next Step Could Bring Victoria Radke Full Circle
Right now, she is in the process of ending her 15-year tenure as staff attorney for the Friend of the Court (FOC) in Escanaba, Michigan. She and her husband are moving to a small Wisconsin town about 25 minutes south of Green Bay. Radke’s first love was theater, her major at Eastern Michigan University. In her senior year, she took a class in theater contracts that piqued her interest in law. After graduation, she worked as a legal secretary, first in Colorado and then in the Detroit area. Law school seemed to be an obvious next step. While a law student, Radke pursued areas with which she had become familiar in her legal secretary position, including corporate and employment law. She was thinking of those as possible areas of practice. “It didn’t turn out that way,” she says without regret, and notes that her experience in those areas has been helpful to her in her FOC work—when she needs to evaluate business assets or read corporate and partnership tax returns. Radke, who grew up in the Detroit area, moved to Escanaba when her husband accepted an engineering position there. She had no previous experience in family law. “I had to hit the ground running,” she recalls. “The former FOC here [was] not an attorney, and there had not been one in this office for several months. There was quite a backlog of cases.” Before long, she was up to speed and now speaks warmly about the work she has been doing since shortly after passing the bar: “I love working in child support. It is greatly satisfying to get a support order, see it enforced and get money to these families and kids who need the assistance.” In moving from Escanaba, she leaves not only the FOC office, but also the local theater company, Players de Noc, where her most recent role was that of Lady Macbeth. Radke’s responsibilities include not only establishing paternity and child support orders in family support cases, but also enforcing interstate judgments already in effect, a function handled by the prosecutor’s office in most Michigan counties. Escanaba is in one of only five Michigan counties in which those duties are handled exclusively in the FOC office, and that role has given her the opportunity to interact with her colleagues all over the country and the world. “Right now, I’m waiting on a case from Spain,” she explains. “We have a judgment here, the payer parent now lives in Spain, and we have asked for assistance. I also have an active case in Australia, and, of course, I talk with my counterparts all over the United States and Canada. That is a part of my job that I have really enjoyed. That’s been wonderful.” Radke says she keeps in touch with her classmates although she doesn’t see them often. “I’ve suggested having some alumni functions up here,” she laughs. “There are quite of few of us, although we’re pretty spread out.” Her work as a member of the representative assembly to the State Bar brings her to Lansing occasionally, and she recently made a point of visiting MSU-DCL’s building on the MSU campus. A graduate of the law school before the move to East Lansing, she was pleased to see that everything in the building was “state of the art.” Radke will leave the FOC office after hiring and training her replacement. In moving from Escanaba, she leaves not only her position, but also the local theater company, Players de Noc, where her most recent role was that of Lady Macbeth. Is she planning a change in careers as well as a change in scenery when she moves? Radke says that she will take some time off before making that decision but is clearly intrigued at the possibility of making another change. “I love practicing law,” she says emphatically, “but, if there is another opportunity out there, who knows? I’d love to teach. If an opportunity arose to manage a small theater somewhere—a regional theater—I would certainly look at that.” |
||||||
