From Special Ops To Elder Law: Meet Anthony Figueroa

A calm lawyer can change the outcome of a family’s hardest season, and that’s why we’re excited to introduce Anthony Figueroa, our newest attorney in the Shelby, North Carolina office. Anthony brings an uncommon background to estate planning and elder law: nearly nine years in the US Army, including psychological operations, plus the lived discipline of working high-stakes problems where details matter and emotions can’t run the show.

We talk about what pushed him toward law in the first place, including how attorneys influenced real decisions during deployments and why he wanted that same kind of impact back home. That mission-driven approach connects directly to the work many families need most: wills and trusts, powers of attorney, healthcare directives, long-term care planning, and guidance when situations turn complicated. If you’ve ever searched for an estate planning attorney in Shelby NC or wondered where to start with elder law in North Carolina, you’ll hear what steady, practical counsel sounds like.

Anthony also shares a refreshingly grounded take on law school. Instead of buying into the fear, he treated it like a nine to five job and focused on time management, consistency, and learning the craft. We close by talking about the temperament required for tough cases, including protecting hard-earned property, supporting veterans and their spouses, and helping families work through conflict without losing sight of the simplest workable solution.

If you’re in the area, come meet Anthony at our Shelby office and tell us what you want to protect. Subscribe, share this conversation with a friend, and leave a review so more families can find trustworthy estate planning and elder law guidance.

Transcript

Introducing A New Shelby Attorney

Greg McIntyre 0:10

Introducing, proud to introduce a new attorney with our firm working out of our Shelby office, hailing originally from New Jersey, and by way of the United States military, where you're I don't want to butcher your specific job.

Anthony Figueroa 0:36

Yeah, I was a I was in special operations in a job specifically called psychological operations over in the army.

Greg McIntyre 0:43

So this is a very almost scary smart individual for me to sit beside. And I'm I'm I'm really, really honored to have him in our firm. So I'm here with Anthony and Brenton, my law partner. Anthony, I'm going to let you say your full name the way you want to say.

Anthony Figueroa 1:06

So it's Anthony Figueroa.

Greg McIntyre 1:08

Anthony Figueroa, which is rolls off the tongue. It does. Does Anthony Figueroa? And and Anthony is an estate planning and elder law attorney with our office, also engaging in litigation. And I can't wait to talk about what brought you to our firm, what made you want to be an attorney in the first place? Because you have this great path leading up to being an attorney. And you went to Elon, that's your alma mater. That's correct. Right? Went to Elon University.

Military Experience Sparks Law Career

Anthony Figueroa 1:44

So, what made you want to be in a truck? So, my entire life, I had worked in various different professions, you know, before the military, I went to ENT, did some construction all over the place. Um, but and I was constantly surrounded by people, especially in the northern New Jersey area, tons of attorneys, tons of professional um, you know, uh people in the professional realm business. Um didn't really quite know where I was going to go into until towards the tail end of the military of all places. Um, on my a lot of my deployments, I worked with attorneys, and the attorneys had such a big impact on what it was that we could do operationally. Um I realized that I didn't want to do the military long term, but I realized that I could have that same impact back home in the United States. Um didn't know how exactly I wanted to go about doing that route until I got into law school, was in law school, um, and realized if I can couple the impact I could have and just make that impact on my community instead, um, the same way we did with the military. So I thought that that would be a good route for me to go. Plus, uh the incentives of being an attorney were definitely stood up. So sure.

Greg McIntyre 2:47

And you put you put your town in in the military. You were in for for eight, nine years, just under nine years, just under nine years, right? Um, and in the US home. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, no offense. I was in the U.S. Navy. Okay. There's a there's definitely in a inner inner uh, I guess, uh agency rivalry there, armed forces rivalries nick. Yeah, you know, um, what does the army stand for? Well, you gotta tell me that one. Aren't ready for Marines yet? Uh there. No, I'm getting punched. It's a better punch. But anyway, and I would deserve it, by the way. Okay. What's the Navy stand for? Uh I don't have a good one for you guys, but never even volunteer yourself. That one adds up for the Navy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But uh, you know, I I'm we have a lot of clients who are veterans. Um, we have for years assisted our clients with veterans' aid in attendance pension benefits. Um, I am a member of the American Legion and big supporter of our armed forces. So thank you for your service. Thank you. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart, mate. Same year. Yeah, same year, absolutely. And uh so how'd you like law school?

Law School Culture Shock And Strategy

Anthony Figueroa 4:05

Law school was good. Um, it was a culture shock for me. I had actually got I came to law school about three months after my last appointment. So I was going free from that military mindset into a completely different type of environment. Um, went from, you know, working a professional job for most of my life to going back into the educational field, which I wasn't ever really that big of a fan of. But um, so when I got to law school, everything was gonna be. Um, but I learned that I really enjoyed learning that area, you know, that that type of education, the hands-on approach to everything was awesome. Um, it was difficult. I didn't think it was as difficult as they were telling me it was gonna be, but I think it was just more about time management because everybody was telling me it was gonna be the worst thing that you're ever gonna experience was. Yeah, and I was like, well, I think if I just treat this like a nine to five job, it's gonna go well. And that's exactly what I did, and it worked out just fine.

Brenton Begley 4:56

Funny how it works, you know. The worst thing you've ever experienced is the worst, worst thing you've ever experienced. So for a lot of those people who have just gone to college, never had really to really buckle down acknowledged because you can you can make it law school without having to have like a really hard path. I mean, I mean, I took political science as a major, and for me that was pretty easy because I was interested in it. Like law school. Yeah, exactly. I knew I wanted to do law school, so I just took political science for that, right? So, you know, once you get into law school, um, you know, a bunch of people freak out about the perceived difficulty of it because you know they make you sit in in a room and they say, look to your left, look to your right, one of those people won't be here at the end of this. And it's like, yeah, you know, that's probably right because a lot of people aren't ready for that challenge. But I mean, if you've gone through special operations selection, if you've been in the military for nine years, you probably, you know, stick and stay in something pretty challenging.

Anthony Figueroa 6:00

Yeah, it wasn't the most difficult thing. Yes, for sure. That was for sure. But it was it was it was challenging. It was it was definitely challenging. And uh, you know, I I can see why you just working in the different internships I worked or even being here, it's challenging for a reason. You weed out people that maybe should not be in that career professional thing in the first place, especially with the amount of um weight that you have dealing with clients, I think, on a daily basis. So um they're looking for the best people for the job.

Brenton Begley 6:25

So someone who's conscientious, someone who is going to be able to, you know, do the work and keep up with the cases. Um, and if you can't make it through the law school coursework, then you probably shouldn't be in the train.

Temperament For Elder Law Challenges

Greg McIntyre 6:39

I agree. Yeah, I mean, you know, the the your your history suggests that you take on hard things and challenges and through suffering grow, right? Through through you know, through through that process, grow. And then I guess you came out of one really big challenge into another in law school and did super well there as well. So uh, you know, the practice of law very similar to that, not the suffering necessarily part. We don't want to suffer, right? Yeah, we want to grow, right? Um, but uh we're you know, I I just think we're blessed to have you here. We're glad you're here. Um I think you fit. Um you know, I think we're Morgan behind the camera was saying we were twinning today, like we were all kind of dressed the same. Um I promise you we do have a myriad of other attorneys in our our firm that aren't all dressed in blue suits in the same, right? Um uh but uh but we're very glad to have you here. Brittany, you've been working really closely with Anthony. Um how's he doing?

Brenton Begley 7:52

Yeah, a lot of promise. I mean, Anthony, um, so far so good. And the temperament that you have, I think, is well situated for our clientele, and especially with some of the cases that we handle. Speaking of challenges, certainly we deal with a lot of challenging cases, whether that's helping people protect hard-earned money property, even complex um situations where you have one or multiple family members that do need a very extensive long-term care, or litigation cases that maybe you know are challenging, whether it's the relationships that are involved with those cases, or just the legal concepts that are involved with those cases. So that that does take um or require an individual with a certain temperament, certain willingness to get in and really grind.

Greg McIntyre 8:39

And um, you know, that's not be scared of that circumstance, case, or situation.

Brenton Begley 8:45

Right. Right. I mean, you know, and be able to see the force from the trees and really kind of step back, detach yourself emotionally from it, and and and see if you can find a simple solution to the problem. You know, that's that's a great attribute for an attorney to have because a lot of attorneys get excited, they get in the weeds, and certainly that's important to really know the law, know the issues. Um, but sometimes you can lose the force from the trees and really just push and push and push um, you know, on a single or multiple legal issues without cutting through straight to the heart of his funding solution. So, you know, based on what we've seen so far, I think you're on the right path.

Greg McIntyre 9:24

I appreciate that. Awesome. He's gonna be um phenomenal. I mean, uh a great benefit to Cleveland County and beyond at our Shelby office. Um, you guys, I'd love for everyone to stop by and say hello to um our new is attorney, our new newest attorney, uh Anthony. And uh, you know, thank him for his service, get to know him, um, and just you know, he'd be glad to say hey, hang out with you for a little bit. I invite our current clients to come by. Um, I just you know, I'm extremely thrilled that Anthony's with us. Looking forward to helping people out as we uh move forward.

Anthony Figueroa 10:05

So yeah, awesome.

Greg McIntyre 10:07

Uh Anthony, you do you want to say anything to close us out here?

Meet Anthony At The Shelby Office

Anthony Figueroa 10:11

Uh sure. Uh I'm gonna be here at the Shelby office. I'm looking forward to meeting everybody that comes in. Uh, you know, I've been here for a couple weeks so far, and everybody that comes in is super receptive to everything that we have to say. Um, the clients have all been great. So I think this would be a good cool opportunity to be a part of a firm that has such a huge impact already on this location. The firm's growing really quick, so I know that this is going to continue to you know expand in North Carolina, maybe outside of North Carolina, you never know. Um, so to be a part of a big team like that is is super

Speaker 10:38

exciting. So looking forward to having you guys over at the Shelby location. Thanks, guys. See ya. Yep.