Campion champions several causes, including her own

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In 2009, when everyone else ducked into dark alleys to avoid the merciless eye of the economic downturn, Angela Campion hung out her shingle.

“I’d worked with entrepreneurs in Milwaukee for seven years and always admired their energy and willingness to take a risk,” she said. “I didn’t know if I could do it, but I did some soul searching and made a business plan.”

Campion specializes in business, tax and estate planning services. When the economy went south, she saw an opportunity to provide struggling businesses with general counsel services to meet different budgets.

She offers clients different billing options to suit their budgets, including flat monthly fees that allow people to be proactive and call before a potentially expensive problem arises.

Campion, who earned her law degree at Marquette University, said she always knew she was going to follow her commercial litigator father into the profession, but wanted to get far enough out of her small hometown of Woodstock, Ill., to “establish her own credibility.”

“I grew to love Milwaukee during school and never left,” she said.

Besides operating her own firm, Campion teaches tax classes at Marquette and serves as vice chair and treasurer of the Salvation Army of Southeastern Wisconsin. During the holidays, she rings the trademark bells.

“It’s only two hour shifts, and people are smiling at you and wishing you a ‘Merry Christmas’ so it’s actually pretty nice,” Campion said.

Her law career is always her first priority, however, said Campion’s friend of 13 years, Kerry Dwyer.

“We’ll have made a plan to run up to the cottage and I’ll call to see if she’s on the road yet, and she answers the phone at her client’s home where she just had to stop off and make a house call,” Dwyer said. “That kind of thing happens all the time.”

Dwyer, formerly of Assurant Health, said she admires Campion’s constant motion, though, personally, she wouldn’t want to work that hard, she joked.

“I’m always advising her to say ‘no,’ to not take on every little sob story,” Dwyer said, “but I actually admire that she does all that she does, and still manages to be such a wonderful person and friend.”

And Campion’s entrepreneurial timing speaks volumes about her self-confidence, she said.

“With all of that uncertainty, she took a gamble on herself,” Dwyer said. “I admire that.”