At law school, observers tell you, the biggest thing they teach is not the law. Instead, they teach you a different way of thinking. How to think like a lawyer.

Allison and Jake Emanuel are shown here with their crews and equipment. All photos courtesy of Allison Emanuel.

“You don’t really learn how to practice law,” confirms Allison Emanuel, CTSP. “That happened to me. I was thrown into a courtroom a month after I passed the bar exam and had no idea what to do. But it definitely (helped). I started my practice right out of law school. I didn’t have a lot of teachers or mentors like you do if you go to the prosecutor’s office or the public defender’s office, but I had the skills I learned in law school.”

It was that same mode of thinking that helped her start and grow a tree business in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
“The research skills and the tenacity, I think, have absolutely helped the business get where it is today,” says Emanuel, co-owner and manager of Trees by Jake LLC, an accredited, five-year TCIA member company based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. “I don’t take ‘no’ for an answer. If there’s something I don’t know, I’m going to find the answer and figure out how to do it.”

A different career plan
Tree care was nowhere in Emanuel’s career plans when the Denver native attended Colorado State University. After working for a criminal law firm while an undergrad, she moved to Tulsa in 2008 to study at the University of Tulsa Law School. There, she studied criminal law and went to work as a criminal defense attorney after graduating and passing the bar exam in 2011.
Before then, however, she began a romance that could have been crafted by writers at The Hallmark Channel if they were collaborating with writers from the Tree Care Industry Association.

In 2009, her landlord needed some tree work done. The landlord hired a young climber to take down a tree. Jake Emanuel was a crew leader for another tree care company in town, but took down this tree as a side job. It changed his life.

“That’s how we met,” says Allison Emanuel.

They married in 2012. She drew up the paperwork to start Trees by Jake in 2013. The expectation remained that she’d be the family breadwinner, Jake says, and he would make a modest living.

“When we first started, it was just a truck and a trailer and Jake, and then we had one employee,” Allison Emanuel recalls. “From the beginning, I helped with the insurance and the payroll, which was minimal at that point. As it took off in 2016, I quit my job to take over management at Trees by Jake full time.

“I was a criminal defense attorney for five years and decided I’d had enough of that,” she says. “At that point, Trees by Jake had grown to the point that it needed full-time management. So we decided that was a good time for me to try and jump in and see how that was going to go. I was just not happy at my job anymore.”

Many young lawyers learn that the legal profession can be a grind in general. For idealistic defense lawyers, the job can be particularly thankless, Emanuel says.

“Defense attorneys play a very important role (in the criminal justice system), and I’m still very passionate about that, but (some of) the cases I saw were the worst of the worst, and that takes a toll on you,” she says. “And then, the clients are just not appreciative of your efforts.”

When given the opportunity, Allison Emanuel jumped into the role of business owner, running the business side as her husband ran things in the field.

Without going into detail, Jake mentions that there were clients his wife believed were simply in a bad place and she could have helped to a better outcome, but the system worked against them. On the other side of that, as every lawyer knows, some criminal defendants are guilty, and her oath bound her to providing a vigorous and effective defense.

“I did my job as a criminal defense attorney,” she says. “I held the prosecution and the police to the standards that are constitutionally required, but I didn’t feel great. I had the feeling they were going to get out and reoffend. It was a conflicting job for me.”

Running a business
So, taking advantage of an opportunity, she jumped into the role of business owner, running the business side as her husband ran things in the field. These days, Trees by Jake does a healthy residential and commercial business in greater Tulsa, while also specializing in emergency response in Oklahoma and surrounding states. The company employs two full-time crews.

In the beginning, Emanuel recalls, “Jake had to be on the job site all the time to make sure production was getting done. I was able to focus on compliance and organization, which was something he wasn’t able to do, because production required him to be on site all the time. That’s definitely something I think, with my legal background, I’ve been able to do. That’s helped grow the business at the rate it’s grown, that laser sight I have on compliance and organization. I am constantly looking for ways to help make the business more efficient.”

When the Emanuels started, they were not only close emotionally, but also spatially.

“For the longest time, I worked from the truck, so I would be on job sites with Jake and I’d be in the truck working. He’d be on the job site with crews, and I would bring my computer and my iPad and just work from the truck,” Emanuel recalls.

“I would do bids with him, and that’s really how I learned,” Emanuel says. “Much of what I know about the tree industry is just from rolling with him for several years and learning everything I could about the industry. He would explain something to me, and I didn’t know what he was talking about. So I’d want to see it. That way I could be better with clients and actually explain to them what was happening.”

Jake Emanuel says his wife’s ability to think like a lawyer is the key element she brings to the table.

“Her ability to teach herself something she has completely no knowledge of is probably the best thing about her,” he says. “She also has a high standard, and when she sets the standard, she doesn’t waiver from it, no matter what. No matter how it affects her emotionally or whatever. If that’s the standard we set, then there’s no going around it.

“That’s the way it needs to be,” he adds. “Whereas I would say, ‘Oh, this employee feels this way or that way, let’s make an exception here.’ That’s a slippery slope. She never lets us fall into that trap, and that’s the way it needs to be, especially when we work in such a safety-oriented business here. So (she brings) her ability, but then on top of that she has this ability to learn something she knows she needs to learn and doesn’t have any help really from outside sources or from me.

“She can go online and just start reading articles and websites, and she can just read and read and read until she learns the right way to do something and get something figured out,” he continues. “For instance, the legality that goes into running an LLC and all that kind of stuff is not something she learned in law school. She didn’t go to business school. She just had the ability to go out and learn the best way to start the company and how to keep it running.”

While some couples find that the realities of working with their spouse fail to match their expectations, the Emanuels say they’ve thrived on the arrangement.
“We actually enjoy working together,” Allison says. “It gets a little stressful sometimes, because when you’re stressed about something at work, so is the other person. It’s not like you can come home and vent to your spouse. ‘Oh, my day at work was crazy.’ That other spouse is usually stressed about the same thing.

“So sometimes that can present a challenge, for sure. But as far as working together and being on the same page about a lot of things, I am very happy with the direction that’s taken. I hear it can be difficult to work with your spouse, but our bigger issue is definitely that when one of us is stressed, the other one usually is, too.”

Allison Emanuel, seen here with Jake, learned about tree care by going to job sites with her husband. “I’d want to see it. That way I could be better with clients and actually explain to them what was happening.”

Parallels from courts to tree tops
It’s fair to say that her second career has proven more rewarding than the first, Emanuel says. She likes the people in the commercial tree care industry, and says that after the thanklessness of lawyering, it’s nice to hear clients – especially the emergency-response clients – praise the work of her crews.

“I know that’s not me; it’s all the crew who shows up to pull the tree off the house,” she says. “But the feedback we get from them and how appreciative they are of the work the crew members do is something that Jake and I both take a lot of pride in.”

Comparing “tree guys” to lawyers: Similarities and differences?
“I don’t think there are any similarities,” she laughs. “Tree guys definitely have more muscles. I am very impressed with the blue-collar work ethic, and I’m not saying lawyers don’t have work ethic. They do. Law school is not an easy thing. Passing the bar is not an easy thing. Being a lawyer is not an easy thing. But, I think the ability to roll with the punches and the adrenaline (helps); they deal with all types of stuff – even with brand-new equipment, there are breakdowns.
“They deal with weather, they deal with big equipment, they deal with, oh, the tree – you get up there, you find something different. Or ‘Hey, we couldn’t tell something from the ground,’ Or, if the tree’s on the house, ‘If we do it this way, it’s going to shift. So we have to change it.’ Their ability to adapt and think on the fly and just roll with the punches is something that is so impressive to me. I’m a lawyer, so I’m very type A, and if I plan something and it doesn’t go that way, it’s not as easy for me to just roll with the punches. Their ability to do that, I think, is amazing.”

David Rattigan is a former correspondent for The Boston Globe and People magazine who has written for the Tree Care Industry Association for 19 years. He’s received 15 awards for journalism and is currently an adjunct communications professor in Massachusetts. His work has appeared in seven national magazines including Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News, The Robb Report, The Christian Science Monitor and Lawyers’ Weekly USA.