Marcela Halmagean

M Halmagean PLLC | Attorney at Law

MARCELA HALMAGEAN FOCUSES HER LAW PRACTICE ON THE INDIVIDUAL NEEDS OF EACH ONE OF HER CLIENTS. “I’m innovative, creative, daring and I do my homework,” she says. Her commitment to researching and applying the law, insisting on close attorney-client communication, full availability, and aggressive representation has earned her clients’ respect.

Her general practice revolves around business and family law, whether such practice involves litigation, mediation, or collaborative law. She is committed to working with each client closely to research and use the law to support the facts in each case.

During her professional tenure, Halmagean has worked for large corporate concerns, managing outside counsel on behalf of her employers, representing them in legal matters, including white-collar crime cases, breach of contract and partnership disputes. Because of her background, her passion lies with cases that involve complex fact structure and issues that tend to be rejected as “losers” by other attorneys.

Marcela Halmagean has a two-year degree in Public Speaking, an undergraduate degree in Accounting, an MBA, and has been licensed by the Texas Supreme Court as an attorney since September of 1997. She is also a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE). For all the years she has been working as an attorney, she has built a bond with each and every one of her clients. “I work with them directly as opposed to assigning them to an associate attorney or a legal assistant,” she says. “Every client, regardless of the area of law, needs a whole lot of support and a periodic reality check to complement the legal advice for which they are paying. When you combine that with a whole lot of carrying, and full access and availability, it makes for long-lasting relationships.”

Educated right here in Houston, Halmagean immigrated to the United States from Romania in 1983 at the age of 19. She quickly learned English and went on to building her educational credentials. By 1997 and only thirteen years after coming to this country as an immigrant, she passed the Texas Bar Examination while sitting for it under the Texas Bar Examination “Rule of 86.” The “Rule of 86” allowed her to sit for the Bar Exam before she graduated law school and once she successfully completed 86 credit hours before the final semester in law school.

While attending law school, Halmagean clerked with the Harris County District Attorney’s office in the Special Crimes Division, assisting prosecutors with the preparation and prosecution of white-collar crime cases. Later, she worked on the criminal defense side as a law clerk for Hinton Susman Bailey, a prominent Houston criminal defense law firm.

After she passed the Bar Exam and graduated law school in May of 1997, she accepted her first job as project counsel consultant, in Zurich, Switzerland, for one of the then “Big Five” Accounting Firms. She was assigned to what today is largely referred to as the “Holocaust Project.” During this period, Halmagean served as the legal liaison on banking and privacy-law issues while supervising the risk-management and compliance functions for the project. While in Zurich, Halmagean was offered a position as an Associate General Counsel for a multi-national corporation with its headquarters in Europe. She accepted the offer and was transferred to Princeton, NJ, where her oldest child who is now 18 years old and a freshman student at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, was born.

On September 11, 2001, and only months after her first child was born, Halmagean was in Washington DC on a job-related matter while her family was in Princeton. The trauma of having to live through the anxiety and fears that September 11, 2001 brought caused her to rethink her priorities. On that day, she decided to leave the corporate arena and start her own law practice…back here, in her adopted hometown. From that day onward, she never looked back.

Currently, Halmagean is a member of The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, The State Bar of Texas, Houston Bar Association and an Alumnae of the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston–Business and Professional Women’s Association. “I’m one of the few attorneys out there who love their work. Since I have been in private practice, I have been waking up every morning with the most difficult dilemma on my mind: whether I should take time off and spend it with my children or whether I should schedule them for activities so I can work with my clients on their pressing issues. With time,” Halmagean says, “it got easier, of course. Our oldest is now in college and our 13-year-old boy is beginning to exert his independence from his mom and dad. The one thing that has been consistent in my life is my passion for my children and my clients…but when my children are going to be long gone, tending to their own adulthood, my clients will still be here. My clients give me purpose and for as long as I feel that way, who needs therapy, right?” Halmagean also admits that tending to her clients and their needs at full availability fills a void that is now left by having one child out of the home and in college, which is a transition for a parent, especially if all planning in life was done around that child. “I’m grateful for the opportunity I have been given to help people in need. There isn’t a more satisfying feeling except perhaps for learning that your child is emotionally adjusting very well in college, while far from home.” The giggle was soft but audible. “I’m here to stay, I guess.”

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M HALMAGEAN PLLC
1800 Bering Dr., Ste. 280
Houston, TX 77057
713-975-1202
www.halmagean.com