After real estate and business, Nudo moves on to legal career

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Anthony Nudo may be new to the practice of law, but he brings with him a wealth of experience in business and real estate.

The new lawyer at Guttormsen & Terry stared started selling and investing in real estate when he was 18. He also became a part owner of a title company, Southshore Title & Closing Services Inc., and got a seat as an alderman in Kenosha.

Then the 2008 recession hit and his prospects suddenly seemed a little dimmer. But with a little encouragement from the Kenosha mayor, John Antaramian, and State Rep. Peter Barca, Nudo decided to go to night school to get his undergraduate degree at Carthage College.

And it was his work as an alderman that made him decide to go back to school again – this time to become a lawyer.

“I was intrigued by the law,” Nudo said. “That’s the push I think I needed to say, ‘All right, I’m going to do this.’”

Nudo worked on his degree for four years at Marquette University Law School and juggled going to school part-time year-round with, among other things, selling real estate, running the title company and clerking for a local attorney.

“The partner here, Todd Terry, had a tremendous impact on my career and how I act as an attorney and where I want to go,” he said. “I actually started working with him even before law school and clerked with him the whole time through. So, I kind of grew up with him.”

Terry, like Nudo, started law school at Marquette in his mid-30s and took the part-time track, continuing his work as a police officer in Racine.

“He’s been very patient with me,” Nudo said. “He gets it, and it’s a lot of practical teaching. You can only learn so much in law school.”

Nudo now works on civil matters, ranging from drafting up estate plans to handling disputes over leaky basements. And while Nudo started law school thinking he wanted to specialize in transactional work, he’s finding that he enjoys litigation.

“I want to help people – not in the criminal sense but more in the civil sense – in planning not just estate planning but also business planning, a lot of the stuff where I can use my real life experience, and now my legal skills, to help people. ” he said.