Ms. Wickham combines her early training as an economist with her legal education to provide clients with a rigorous, analytical, and innovative approach to their legal problems. Her goal is to provide value for the client. She will counsel against any course of action that does not provide a solid gain for the client, regardless of its effect on her fees.

Ms. Wickham believes in having a soft heart, but a hard head. She understands the emotional stress that attends legal proceedings, but it is her responsibility to inform clients when an approach that has emotional appeal in the short run will have unintended—and potentially costly—consequences in the long run.

Ms. Wickham evaluates a range of legal approaches to ensure that her clients’ interests are protected. When traditional methods result in a patently unfair outcome, she is willing to challenge them. For example, she teamed with an economist colleague to develop a new, consistently more equitable approach to dividing marital property. This analysis, “Alternative Methods for Dividing Hybrid Property,” is described in the February 2007 issue of Virginia Lawyer, the leading publication of the Virginia Bar Association.