Thomas A. Niemeir is the Volunteer Lawyers Program (VLP) September 2019 Outstanding Volunteer of the Month Award recipient.
Mr. Niemeir grew up in Hutchinson, Kansas, attending the University of Kansas. He went into accounting to focus on taxes and small businesses and earned a Masters of Science and Accounting. However, after graduation, he did not enjoy the auditing he was doing so he decided to go to law school, attending the James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona. He had worked a little while for a real estate attorney but he quickly decided to hang out his shingle and started working as a general practitioner.
He has practiced most areas of law but has focused on family law specifically for about twenty-five years after starting out with an interesting annulment case. In October, it will be his thirty-ninth year practicing law overall. The quality he likes most in a lawyer is honesty. In his career, he has been excited to be on the vanguard of some important family law developments including winning a step-parent visitation/cohabitation agreement custody argument in Pima County Superior Court at the time of the same argument prevailing in Cook v Cook in the United States Supreme Court. If he could meet any SCOTUS Justice, it would be Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
Mr. Niemeir’s volunteering started around 1989 when his office-space mate, Joubert Davenport, encouraged him to try it. He has stayed with it since then, volunteering for domestic relations classes and clinics, Service Center clinics, and taking direct referral cases since 2004. He volunteers with both SALA VLP and StepUp2Justice. He enjoys helping people accomplish things in their cases and can see direct results as he assists people to represent themselves pro per. He will step in when called, even with less than twenty-four hour’s notice, to cover a clinic when the original volunteer is unable to do it, and that is enormously valuable to keeping clients on track in their cases so they do not miss deadlines or wait too long for appointments.
Mr. Niemeir has a longtime marriage and a daughter attending graduate school at the University of Missouri in animal husbandry. Growing up, she had the wonderful experience of having many different types of pets. Currently the Niemeirs host a dog, two birds, two turtles, and eight cats. Mr. Niemeir’s hobby is fantasy roleplaying, in-person.”
