Or how does a lawyer become a web designer/developer?
My oldest son was born in February 1993. At that time there wasn't much of an internet as we know it now but there were two well known proprietary services with forums, messaging and the ability to make friends with others around the US or Internationally. I was a member of both CompuServe and Prodigy.
While I was pregnant a group was formed on Prodigy of women all expecting a child in February or March 1993. Not long after the children were born we had a round robin of photos and letters that were mailed from group member to group member, each removing their old photos and notes then replacing them with new ones before sending it on to the next person. Seems rather quaint in this day and age doesn't it.
Within a year (as memory serves) Prodigy launched a beta program called Prodigy Internet which was my first exposure to what we know as "the web". I signed up and created my first web site to share pictures without the delay of mailing a round robin. Members of the group would scan pictures in or send them to me by mail to scan and post online.
At the time we thought it was pretty cool stuff. Now I'm just glad that the "Way Back Machine" doesn't actually go that far back in time.
Later my husband was to be transferred overseas and I transferred my private clients to other attorneys and resigned from my position with In-Home Medical Equipment. For some reason working 60+ hours a week no longer appealed to me.
We ended up not going overseas, instead we had a second child. I had a few clients that I still worked with but only part time and rarely in litigation. (I still like trial work but not the hours that are required to do the job right.) My husband and I had met dancing and we were both on a swing dance team. I made a website for it, one for couple of other groups we were involved with (neighborhood association, etc.) when someone asked me to create a site for them. It was not something I was willing to for free so we worked out what it would cost them. That group still has a website and I have not been associated with the site for at least 4 years. While they had the distinction of being my first paying web client they also had the distinction of being the first one that I fired.
From there things snowballed a bit and over the years I've created and/or managed over 70 different websites. Over the years learned more because I believe firmly in standards and complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act as well as privacy protection legislation. As a bit of a standards nut I ended up learning how to write the server side code necessary for the type of sites I work on to ensure that the output meets my standards.
Maybe it is because I miss some of the interaction of litigation or perhaps educating juries and advocating comes naturally I have been contributing to newsgroups from the old CompuServe/Prodigy days to the present. It could also be that I believe in paying back those that have helped me by helping others which is why I have created this site and the by-expression.com website. Expression Web Designer has the best standards compliant yet easy to use interface I've seen in any web editor and I've used a lot over the years. EWD is still in beta and while it will probably not replace all the tools I currently use from what little I've used it so far it may well turn out to be my primary tool replacing Dreamweaver/TopStyle from that position.
What about FrontPage since Microsoft gave you an MVP award for that product?
Simple, I began using FrontPage in 1999 or 2000 because a client asked me to use it since they believed (wrongly it turned out) that they would maintain the site themselves. The version available at the time was FrontPage 2000 and I discovered that it had some features not in other editors I was using then. FrontPage does not deserve the bad reputation that many have saddled it with. The current (and last) version is 2003 which can produce standards compliant and accessible websites but only in the hands of someone who takes the time to learn how to use it correctly.
That is another reason for my participation on community forums and mail lists.
Or perhaps my presence there (and here) is simply motivated by wanting to avoid my real work. <g> Answering questions is fun and a great way to learn more yourself. Research is one thing law school teaches you and I can't stand to not know the answer.
See you in the by-expression forums and other places.
My last full time position for a company other than WiserWays, LLC (which I founded in 1999 and incorporated with Stephen Rasey a few years later was as Corporate Counsel for In-Home Medical Equipment. In-Home was a manufacturer and distributor of durable medical equipment.
After working with people with disabilities and having family members with disabilities helping to provide access to the internet for those who may have difficulty due to a physical disability seemed an important goal.