Smoky Hill alum Tara Mager is the definition of community.
She’s a killer lawyer at Mager Law Group, an all-women law firm representing all areas of personal injury law.
“People always say women are challenge to work with; the conception is they can be really catty or build each other up,” she says to #ImFromDenver. “I’m very blessed to have a law firm full of women who have no interest other than to help build each other up.”
Her road to law started early, with those around her suggesting she should take up law as a career. Something Mager says might’ve been because she was a “bit of a pain in the butt.” Her mother is a paralegal – a title she still holds to this day as a paralegal at Mager Law Group- and would bring Tara to work with her.
“It would be take your daughter to work day,” Mager reminisces. “I would do copying and use the typewriter to label files when I was little.”
While others wanted her to become a lawyer, she always thought she would follow in her dad’s footsteps, becoming an entrepreneur and going into business. Soon enough, time passed, and it was time to get a job. Mager reverted back to the “take your daughter to work” days, and decided to start working in a law firm officially.
Like most life-changing careers, she remembers her first case. However, that wasn’t the case that help define what kind of lawyer she wanted to be. While in grad school, Mager was working as a paralegal on a case where a young woman was run over by a semi-truck and suffered significant injuries that would enable her to have children.
“It really struck me to become an advocate for people,” she says. “When I saw what you can do to help somebody, that was it.”
The fuel for helping others was matched with a desire to be present in the community, that ignited a love for charity. She’s also the Co-Chair of the Annual Make-A-Wish Holiday Wish Store at Children’s Hospital.
“I was thinking about this the other day; a lot of what I do in the community is always focused on direct assistance,” she says. “I think there’s a trend, and it matches what we do here. We’re working directly with people and really trying to make a difference in their lives.”
Mager is sponsoring the T-Off 4 Tatas, a golf charity event helping financially assist those with breast cancer.
“This event, in particular, it’s a long story. The short version is that Christina, who is one of the co-founders and breast cancer survivor, is somebody who my family has known for a really long time. Her daughter is a law clerk at my firm, and she’s amazing.”
With so much on her plate already, Mager says her efforts aren’t about “finding time; it’s about making time.”
“We get 24 hours in a day, and when you have people who are amazing, as I do at my office, we’re really aligned in terms of values. So it works.”
