Oliver Ayon, J.D.

Why I Do What I Do

When I was a 8 years old, one of my favorite movies of all time, Mighty Ducks, was released. The movie incorporated two of my favorite things at the time, a movie about sports and the main character of the movie was an attorney. While “Coach Bombay” only had a few scenes where his character actually portrayed an attorney, the job of an attorney stuck with me. As I got older, my interest in being an attorney only grew, but for a different reason from when I was a younger. My ethnic background is Filipino. A large portion of the Filipino community is employed in the medical field, but very few occupied the legal space. I can remember being a kid at the Filipino family parties and hearing the “adults” discuss topics, such as the law, politics and religion.

As I grew older and was more able to understand the conversations, it was quite clear to me that the “adults” weren’t so sure of what they were saying. As I continued to get older, mainstream media made the idea of attorney so glamorous that who wouldn’t want to be an attorney. Mainstream media never conveyed the part of how grueling or chaotic an attorney’s job could be. I had met Melissa when I began working for a law firm in 2004. She was actually the first to recognize my potential to become a lawyer and pushed me into that direction. For the last 12 years, I have been in the banking industry, with a concentration in State and Federal Regulatory Compliance. Working for big banks was not the reason I became an attorney. My intention in becoming an attorney was to be an expert in the language of the law in order to provide assistance to my community. That is the path that I am moving forward with today. 

Practice Summary

I am a former Chief Compliance Officer and Shareholder of a multi-jurisdictional law firm. Prior to becoming an executive, I was a litigator. My practice summary includes creditors rights, bankruptcy, real estate, state and regulatory compliance, contract dispute, business transactions, litigation, information security, vendor management, of counsel and general counsel services.