Nell channels early interests

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Kay Nell can rest easy knowing her daughter’s early fascination with crime has manifested in positive ways.

Tricia Nell, the lead attorney in her own practice in Green Bay, said there was a kernel of interest in law implanted by her lawyer father, Rick Nell. But the deeper drive for courtroom justice started as a kid on the couch, watching TV crime dramas and documentaries about the West Memphis Three.

“I was obsessed with crime stories,” Nell said. “With my mother, the joke was, ‘Tricia, either you’re going to end up being a serial killer or you’re going to be a lawyer.”

Living with her mother under meager conditions, Nell worked two jobs to pay for her undergraduate sociology degree at St. Norbert. She carried that degree and her earlier goals onto law school at Michigan State, where she held two jobs and an unpaid internship at a district attorney’s office 90 minutes away.

Nell rose to shareholder within a few years on the commercial side at Green Bay-based Liebmann, Conway, Olejniczak & Jerry SC. She went out on her own last year to focus on personal injury and civil cases, including a substantial sexual harassment win against the U.S. Postal Service.

Maintaining the work ethic that got her through school, Nell also devotes time to giving back. She founded Dress the Girls, an organization to connect high school students seeking employment and higher education with professional attire. What started in her basement, gathering suit coats from friends and nylons from Kohl’s, has developed into more of a traditional shopping experience in conjunction with the YWCA, including resources for putting together resumes and a life coach.

“I didn’t have nice suits to start either,” Nell said, “but I scrounged and bought or borrowed and had people help. There’s always a way to help people.”

Along with Dress the Girls, Nell sits on the board of the United Way and Boys and Girls Club, participates in a local version of Dancing with the Stars to raise money for the Red Cross, offers legal insight for Green Bay’s WBAY Channel 2, and fits in the occasional college keynote address.

“I’ve found [Tricia] remarkably convenient to work with in a field where lawyers can be hesitant to respond,” said Laura Nelson, paralegal program chair at Green Bay’s Globe University. “As busy as Tricia is, she finds a way to make time for the student who has a question.”