As a college student landing a national ESPN internship, Erin Bajackson seemed destined for a career in sports broadcasting.
But life took her down a different path — and today, she couldn’t be happier.
Bajackson is now a family law attorney in Kansas City, Missouri, at Albano, Richart, Welch & Bajackson. Her practice spans a wide range of cases — everything from divorce and custody modifications to paternity, orders of protection and guardianships.
Getting here wasn’t a straight line.
“I knew in my heart of hearts that I was interested in the law, and that I wanted to be an attorney someday,” Bajackson said.
A sports life
Bajackson grew up in Texas, just outside of Dallas. Her father was the statistician for the major sports teams in the area: the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, MLB’s Texas Rangers and college teams at University of Texas at Arlington. Sports were simply a way of life.
“That was just part of the fabric of who I was when I was with him,” she said.
At a young age, she looked at the situation practically and knew that sports reporting was the ticket, at least for the time being. But she knew it wouldn’t be forever.
The summer before her senior year at The University of Kansas, she got one of six national internships with ESPN in Bristol, Connecticut. But at the end of the internship, she could tell that the ESPN life wasn’t for her and moved on.
She took a reporting job in Wichita Falls, Texas, covering the same teams she had grown up watching. A second role followed in Kansas City at an all-sports cable channel, where she had more airtime and experience.
Soon, the pressure of constant exposure started to weigh on her.
“I was about to get married, Twitter was becoming a thing, and my boss wanted us to start tweeting four or five times a day,” Bajackson said. “He wanted us to make the viewers feel like they were at arm’s length all the time, and as a woman in this industry that was something I did not want.”
That’s when she revisited her long-standing interest in the law.
A new direction
She decided to stay local and applied to the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law.
“I felt like they took a chance on me, and I never wanted to lose sight of how appreciative I was for that, and I still am every day, even my bad days,” Bajackson said.
She wasn’t sure what kind of law she wanted to practice, but by the end of her 1L year, family law stood out.
During her second year, Bajackson had an assignment and used the opportunity to write an article with a family law angle. Her article, “Best Interests of the Child – A Legislative Journey Still in Motion,” caught the attention of her professor Mary Kay Kisthardt, editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.
Kisthardt submitted it for publication in the Journal — an honor previously given to only two other students.
“I didn’t know the enormity of that at the time,” Bajackson said.
That same year, Kisthardt introduced her to Mike Albano, now her law firm partner. Bajackson thought she was helping with a presentation, but the meeting took a turn.
“His secretary came in and was handing me 401K information,” she said. “I’m just a 2L at this point, and I said, ‘I thought this was just for me to do this project for you.’ He said, ‘Oh, no, I want you to stay and clerk for me after that.’”
Bajackson appreciated the clerk opportunity and learned “the stuff they don’t teach you in law school,” things aside from legal theory and legal research. After a few months, she became a paralegal. Once she finished law school, the firm asked her to remain as an associate.
“I’ve only ever had one job in my lawyer realm,” she said. “But if I hadn’t gone to UMKC, and if I hadn’t met Professor Kisthardt, I don’t know where I would be right now or what area of the law I might be practicing.”
From live reporting to live court
Even though sports journalism wasn’t in the cards, the years Bajackson spent in front of a camera gave her an edge, both in law school and in her current practice.
In law school, one professor constantly threw curveballs during Socratic questioning—but Bajackson stayed calm.
“After class, the other students would come up to me and ask me how I knew what to say,” she said. “I would tell them I didn’t know what to say and that I was wrong every single time.”
Bajackson said her experience in journalism, particularly with live production, helped her be successful in law school.
“I learned in my television days to be ‘on’ when the camera’s red light is showing,” she said. “It’s a skill that serves me well.”
Finding fulfillment
The work that brings her the most joy, she said, is adoption.
“Adoptions are a small percentage of my caseload,” she said, “but they’re by far the most fulfilling part of what I do.”
One adoption in particular has stayed with her. It involved a 32-year-old woman and the man who had raised her as his own.
“He was her stepfather, but he wanted to make it official,” Bajackson said. “He told me, ‘I want to remove the asterisk from my estate planning. I don’t want her treated any differently than the other kids.’”
They found a way to make the moment special. They wrapped the petition like a Christmas gift. She opened it like a present.
“It wasn’t going to change her daily life — she was already an adult, but it meant the world to both of them,” Bajackson said. “That moment was about recognition, about permanence. To be even a small part of that is something I’ll never forget.”
Though victories in family law can be hard-earned and infrequent, Bajackson said moments like that help carry her through the tougher days.
“After a hearing, I’ll give myself time to just sit with it,” she said. “Maybe it’s just an hour in the car back to the office, but I let myself feel good about what just happened.”
She knows the work will be waiting, whether it’s emails, new filings or next steps, but she’s learned how important it is to pause and acknowledge the impact.
“Those small victories,” she said, “might be rare, but they’re powerful. And sometimes, they’re exactly what keeps you going.”
This article appears in the 2025 Fall issue of The National Jurist.
