Elena Fewell Howard       she / her 

Of-Counsel Attorney

✤ Dedicated attorney and family oriented

✤ Experience with state and federal nonprofit formation

✤ Enthusiastic about nonprofits and small business

Elena grew up in Yolo County, California. She has resided outside of Yolo three times her life: Sacramento county, the Bay Area, and San Diego. She majored in social work as an undergrad at CSU Sacramento. Her prelaw work experience includes working for a large health plan provider coordinating insurance benefits and processing claims for payment, and working in a group home as a residential counselor. It was while attending law in San Diego where she built lifelong relationships and met her husband, Jeremy. It's also where she befriended the principal of this firm, Michael Jonas.

Throughout law school she worked for an independent established law office where she was mentored in the practices of family law, bankruptcy and civil litigation. She sat for the California bar examination three times in California. Finally, in 2011, she passed the California bar while pregnant with her first son whom she swears willed her to push through the tedious examination. The news of her passing the bar exam was bittersweet as it was the same day that her father passed away.

After law school, Elena worked for a small insurance defense firm in Sacramento as a legal secretary, then as a paralegal and earned her way to an associate position. During this time she worked on a variety of legal projects including contracts, federal trademarks, settlement releases, and civil litigation.

Her full-time legal career transitioned into a part-time and contract based legal practice. She was able to spend more time with family as a mother of 4 young children who are neurodiverse superstars while concurrently caring for her maternal grandmother who suffered from dementia caused by Alzheimer’s.  

In response to some life occurrences and after thoughtful consideration, her full-time legal career transitioned into a part-time and contract based practice. This was due to her desire to spend more time with family as a mother of 4 young children, one of whom is special needs. At the time, she also prioritized caring for her maternal grandmother who suffered from Alzheimer’s.

Elena supports commercial cannabis educational activities which involve an interplay between community stakeholders and business owners. She has volunteered with Yolo County Cannabis Coalition, The Edens Gathering and Women Grow Sacramento. Her contributions include budgeting and event coordination, vendor insurance coordination, event marketing and set up. Her last event brought together business persons in the industry and those whose services are ancillary but necessary to the industry in order to give them the arena to foster those business relationships. For a time, Elena worked in office in a non-legal capacity for a Yolo county cannabis farm management company assisting with a variety of tasks including payroll, human resources and METRC data entry. 

Elena is calm, kind, and easy to talk to. She speaks directly and assertively, but always has an empathetic ear. She understands the importance the firm has in helping clients both with their dreaming and reality testing. She’ll candidly tell you if something requires more research or a deeper dig. She loves to play with software, tech platforms, and gadgets. She enjoys the peace and quiet and productivity levels that come with a sleeping household. In her scant free time, she does she enjoys long walks, reading books and more books, crosswords, and old movies including but not limited to: Imitation of Life 1959, Calamity Jane, Barefoot in the Park, Mame 1958, On A Clear Day, anything with Frank Sinatra, Danny Kaye, Jane Fonda.