Eugenia Kesselring

A tax lawyer who began as a return preparer, and still reads a return the way an examiner will.

Eugenia grew up two streets from the office, above her parents' upholstery shop, where the quarterly estimated payment was a family event. She studied accounting, prepared returns through law school, and spent her first years in practice representing the accounting firm's clients in audits and collection cases.

She opened Kesselring Law in 2011 to do that work for people who would never call a downtown firm: a nurse with three unfiled years, a contractor with a payroll tax balance, a surviving spouse with an estate return due. She still takes every first meeting herself.