Page 3 - Christina Milone

After her second year of law school, the professor helped set up an internship for Milone with Maryland’s Department of Housing and Community Development. “I had really great mentors that summer. And, as there were no other interns in the office, the lawyers took me under their wing and became lifelong friends,” Milone says.
There she honed in on the type of law she would practice and at the same time gave conscious thought as to the person she wanted to be while practicing law. “I give them a lot of credit for that,” Milone says. She also notes that there were people along the way that served as “reverse mentors,” displaying extreme behaviors that she knew she didn’t want in her own repertoire.
“I never envisioned I’d be running a firm, and my early experiences have stayed with me,” she adds. “I try to be mindful of the way I communicate and I try to keep emotions out of things. I have remarkable colleagues all around me and one of the greatest things I’ve learned is to work in a collaborative environment.”
Miller & Milone, P.C., The Legal Home
The firm was a family practice founded by her father in 1970 and Milone worked there in high school in an administrative
capacity. “It was a very different practice then – just a few people,” she says. While she was glad to attend law school and explore her options, she was pleased to eventually return to the firm.
“When I first started it was just one practice area,” explains Milone. “Then an opportunity presented itself and I came back to develop it.” Now, the firm has grown to include five distinct prac- tice areas – civil litigation, elder law, discharge planning, Medicaid and in- surance denial management.
The practice divisions grew equally with Milone managing one area and the firm founder managing the other. Af- ter the firm founder experienced some health issues eight years ago, Milone took over management of the entire firm. Although the founder had a dif- ferent style of leadership, Milone took the founder’s wonderful qualities and built on those to usher the firm into its next era. She explains, “The director of our Medicaid area, Aracelis Casillas has been with us for 22 years, the elder law partner Tammy Lawlor has been here for 20 years. We have some really great longevity from the people who lead the different divisions.”
The Importance of Focused Client Relationships
The first year of transition was chal- lenging as the firm continued to grow, but Milone hunkered down to sort through any growing pains or organizational structure issues. As demands at the firm grew, she brought on CFO Karen Till, whose experi- ence and insight helped change the direc- tion of the firm, an HR director and IT director to ensure smooth operations and reporting. Milone was keen to further em- power the firm’s staff to make its own deci- sions without a bottleneck at higher levels. “I hired managing attorney, Alicia Weiss- meier. She had a very good dynamic and knew what it was like to work with different groups of people. She’s now my COO and is a tremendous value,” Milone says.
Each distinct department within the firm serves as an expertise portal through which a think tank of knowledge, ideas and solu- tions are shared for both simple and com- plex problems. The team is fluid in catalyz- ing the application of new knowledge and adapting to serve their clients – and clients’ trust placed in Miller & Milone is strong. “As far as our clients go, we don’t go out and solicit,” continues Milone. “We’re very for- tunate that generally our clients are asking
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