This is me.Not a highlight reel.
Neurodivergence. Ex-Counsellor turned Lawyer Headhunter. Hockey. Music. Fatherhood. And somehow, a career I was built for all along.
Junior Hockey & Start of University
I graduated high school and stepped into university, unsure of what I wanted but following the path I thought I was supposed to. I was deep in junior hockey — speed, discipline, relentless competition. Balancing the rink, school, and a growing social life was not easy. That is when the partying began. The grit I built on the ice was real. So was the collision between who I was and who I thought I should be.
Early Career & Life Shifts
My competitive hockey days were behind me. I was offered a partial scholarship to play at the University of Utah but I chose partying instead. I bounced through blue-collar jobs before landing at the City of Abbotsford as a Utility Worker. But beneath the surface things were unravelling. My drinking escalated from lifestyle to dependency and by 2011 alcoholism had taken full control. On paper I looked functional. Inside I was lost.
Alcoholism and Recovery Journey
Total chaos. Failed relationships. Broken friendships. I was losing everything, including myself. My last drink was April 4, 2015. I was on my death bed. That was my bottom. April 5th, I was at Orchard Recovery Center on Bowen Island. This chapter did not start with clarity — it started with collapse. What followed was slow, unglamorous, and real. Healing is not erasing the past. It is learning to live with it.
New Beginnings
After years of darkness this was the start of rebuilding from the ground up. The chaos had quieted, replaced by clarity, purpose, and a fragile sense of hope. In 2016 I met my wife at LAX — sober, present, and without the mask. For the first time I got to meet someone as myself. In 2017 I finished my schooling and founded BMR — a counselling practice for youth and young adults facing mental health and addiction struggles. I thought I had found my calling but deep down something still felt missing.
Career Pivot, Growth and Family Expansion
Launching my counselling practice was meaningful but something felt off. I was still carrying trauma I had not fully faced. By 2019 a pivot was inevitable. Then I met Warren Smith. He saw something in me before I did and that conversation sparked a fire. Legal recruitment. I had no idea what I was doing at first so I did what I always do when the stakes are high — I worked. Studied late into the night. Learned practice areas, firm structures, and markets. It was not starting over. It was starting stronger.
Growth, Music, Diagnosis, Life Balance
In 2022 music re-entered my life in a profound way — a way to give shape to emotions I could not always put into words. That same year I received a diagnosis that made everything click: AuDHD. It gave me language for lifelong struggles and permission to approach life differently. Van and I welcomed our second daughter and our family of four is thriving. Life is loud, messy, beautiful, and full of love. Present, creative, loving hard, living fully, and helping top-tier lawyers find their place in a world that often forgets the human side.
The hardest decision I have ever made. And the best.
A standard night for me was a 26-ounce whiskey followed by 6 to 8 beers. Every night. Seven days a week. I was not drinking to unwind. I was drinking so I did not have to think about why I feel the way I feel. My last drink was April 4, 2015. My neighbour found me passed out in my doorway, covered in vomit. She thought I was dead. Twenty-four hours later I was admitted to Orchard Recovery Center on Bowen Island. What followed was not a clean transformation. It was slow, unglamorous, and built one day at a time. Putting down the bottle did not give me a perfect life. It gave me a real one.
Last Drink — April 4, 2015
Was literally on my death bed. That was my bottom.
Orchard Recovery Center
One day at a time. Quitting began with collapse, not clarity.
Over 100 Pounds Lost
A nervous system finally settling. A body learning to be present.
11 Years and Counting
Not on a timeline, not in a straight line. Still going.
A person with ADHD or Autism does not always use substances to have fun.
They use them to shut up the brain. It is not about fitting in at social settings or having a casual drink like everyone else.
It is about feeling calm and normal. Not drunk or high. Not fun. Just quiet.
Two nervous systems. One person. A lifetime of not knowing why.
The diagnosis did not change who I am. It gave me language for who I have always been.
Diagnosed at 35
AuDHD — Autism and ADHD. A diagnosis that finally made my life make sense.
Masking
Decades of performing normalcy. It worked — and it cost everything.
What Changed
Tools, language, and permission to stop pretending.
In My Work
Pattern recognition. Empathy without the filter. Hearing what is not being said.
You were not sabotaging anything. You were living inside a neurological contradiction with no name for it.
Find ResourcesSkates. Bruises. Brotherhood.
From player to coach — hockey has been a constant.
The game taught me how to show up, fall down, get back up, and keep going — every single time.Those lessons did not stay on the ice.
The version of me that was here long before the headhunting.
Guitar since 14. Still going. Never learned theory — never needed to. It was never about being good. It was about feeling something.
Recruiting is not just about sourcing the best resumes.
It is about pattern recognition. Energy. Risk. Timing. Human behaviour.
Loyal, direct, and paying attention in a way most people never will.That is what you get.
If any of this resonates — let's talk.
"Let's have an honest conversation."
I work with lawyers planning their next move and with the firms and general counsels who need to find the right one.
