Patricia L. Hill

Once she settles in at the Firm, the next thing on Trish Hill’s to-do list is to schedule a gorilla-trekking trip to the Virunga Mountains in Rwanda.  “If my 65-year-old mother can do it, I can do it,” she says.  And that’s that.

The Virunga Mountains are a long haul from Centerville, the Dayton suburb where Trish grew up.   Before she was a kindergartner, she could read “Little House on the Prairie.”  She says she had the kind of parents who challenged her; they weren’t big on participation trophies.  Trish will also tell you her parents taught her the value of being well rounded.

Her father, Allen, was an engineer/businessman who began his career as a co-op student at Dayton Power & Light and, by the time he retired, was running the utility company.  Trish’s mother, Chris, was an English major and, as of this writing, had completed her 35^th trip to Kenya, where she supports a Marianist elementary school called Our Lady of Nazareth.

Trish was 30 years old when her mother took her on one such trip.  “My whole perspective changed – I mean in terms of really understanding what’s important.  You’re with these children and these people who have absolutely nothing and they’re smiling and holding your hand and so eager to be talking to you – it humbles you.  Their happiness is so not dependent on physical possessions.”

Trish couldn’t have imagined such a scenario when she graduated from the University of Dayton and set out on a career as a civil engineer.  She quickly realized she was far more suited to working with people and than with bridges and culverts.  An environmental law professor at UD helped put her on the path to becoming an attorney.

She is predisposed to laughter and comes across as being more interested in other people than in herself.

In her relations with clients, she works to do what the best litigators should do:

“I work hard to educate them to be able to understand why we’re making the decision we’re making, taking the approach we’re taking, and what alternatives aren’t the best … It’s about what’s in the best interests of the client – and that’s about reaching a resolution with the best possible outcome.”