SARA SENICA SEEKING JUSTICE AND HELPING OTHERS

NILES – At its best, the law should be a profession where the goals are to seek justice and help others and that’s what attorney Sara Senica strives for at her Niles area practice.
Senica, who many likely know by her former name, Sara Bell, has been practicing in Berrien County since 2003. She currently has her own law office in the Longmeadow development off of Niles-Buchanan Road between Niles and Buchanan.
While she’s a native of a small town in central Illinois, Senica now considers Southwest Michigan home. “I’m from a town named Tonica that has 700 people, it’s similar in size to Galien,” she said. “Everyone is like family.”
For her, being a lawyer is about helping people even if that means meeting with them on evenings or weekends. “I love what I do, I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” she said. “If somebody needs you to stay late, you stay late. A good lawyer will take a call on a Saturday.”
“I care about my clients and want to be able to reassure them if something happens on a weekend,” she added. “Nobody comes to a lawyer when things are going good. They come when it’s the worst time of their life. I can’t always fix everything but I can help them through it.”
Senica credits her family for her work ethic. “I’ve worked since I was 10 years old,” she said. “My parents had a hardware store and I would clean, dust, mix paint, and get items for customers. I loved doing that. I always remember my dad would say to treat people the right way no matter if you’re having a bad day yourself.”
Her interest in the law goes back to the University of Illinois where her favorite subjects were political science, law and history. “I had no idea what I wanted to do growing up,” she said. “I wanted to do everything from running a daycare to being a teacher and even being an electrician.”
Senica attended and graduated from Valporaiso University Law School before moving to this area. She was a law clerk for a year for Berrien County Trial Judge Lynda Tolen before joining Lou Desenberg’s law firm in 2004.
Her court experience goes back to her law school days when she interned at an Illinois prosecutor’s office during the summers. “I got to do a lot of traffic and DUI cases,” she said. “I’d see people at their lowest point but I also had the chance to encourage and counsel them. That showed me that the goal of the law is to do justice and not just punish.”
She credits Desenberg for taking her under his wing when she was first starting out. “After I spent a year as a law clerk for Judge Tolen, Lou hired me to job shadow him so I could take over his practice,” she said. “He was a fantastic mentor and John Colip taught me a lot too. You don’t see that a lot.”
It was that experience with Desenberg and Colip that cemented her interest in having a practice that concentrates on civil matters. She now concentrates entirely on civil rather than criminal in her practice, taking cases ranging from wills and probate to helping businesses incorporate.
The five years she spent with Desenberg got her started on her current path of having several municipal clients. Desenberg had four municipal clients and she has expanded that to 10 municipalities in Berrien and Cass Counties. Her clients include St. Joseph Charter Township, the city of Bridgman and several south county townships.
“I love the public service nature of it,” she said. “Luckily, my boards like each other as people, want to do their best and still respect each other even if they disagree. My goal is to find creative, cost effective solutions and get them in a position where they don’t need me as much.”
She noted that her work as a municipal attorney has her sometimes acting as a prosecutor in civil infraction cases involving local ordinances. “Those instances are pretty rare, the local governments I work with don’t want to give tickets, they want to work with people not punish them,” she said.
Senica has been out on her own with her own practice since 2011 after spending a year in partnership with Jessica Fette and Don Dettman in Benton Harbor. “I loved working with them but I’m a south county girl, I like being closer to home,” she said. “I live here and love having my office here.”
She’s made a point to not only have her practice here in Southwest Michigan but also become involved in community organizations. She’s on the boards of the Southwestern Michigan Economic Growth Alliance and the Niles-Buchanan YMCA. She is still on the Y’s executive committee after being board president from 2011-13.
Her goal with those organizations is to promote the Niles-Buchanan area but also to break down the barriers between the north and south county. “I want to break the barriers between the north and south county so we can better serve everybody,” she said.
She’s been active in professional groups throughout her career including being the president of the Berrien County Bar Association a few years ago.
While lawyers don’t always have a good reputation, she doesn’t think it’s always a fair criticism. “I challenge anyone who doesn’t like lawyers to look at local boards, there will always be a lawyer donating their time,” she said. “Sometimes the bad rap is deserved but people will find lawyers leading and serving and doing a lot of thankless jobs.”
If it sounds like Senica’s life is pretty busy, it is. She does still have time for hobbies including fishing and just about anything having to do with the outdoors. She is a fan of the Michigan State football and basketball teams and has even gone so far as to name her weimaraner dog Izzobella after MSU basketball coach Tom Izzo.