Attorney Profiles
Mr. Wood was born and raised in Merced, California. Merced is located between Modesto and Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley of California which is the poorest region of the State of California and the United States of America (look it up). Mr. Wood attended the University of California, Irvine and earned Bachelor of Arts in both Criminology Law & Society and Environmental Analysis and Design. Mr. Wood then attended Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa, California earning his Juris Doctor.
Mr. Wood has a diverse background and concentrates the practice of law in Bankruptcy Law, Creditor Rights, Judgment Enforcement and Business Law. Mr. Wood has one of the most diverse backgrounds and is the former staff attorney for David Burchard, the Chapter 13 Trustee for the San Francisco and Santa Rosa Divisions of the Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California. Prior to joining chapter 13 trustee’s office Mr. Wood was the managing attorney for the San Francisco and San Jose offices of what was one of the largest consumer bankruptcy law firms in the nation and an associate attorney with a boutique creditors’ rights law firm prior to that.
During high school and college Mr. Wood worked as a dishwasher, prep-cook, line cook, barista at Starbucks. This resulted in many toilets cleaned and floors vacuumed and mopped. During college Mr. Wood worked at Starbucks as a barista and later a shift manager, was an executive administrative assistance for the president of a company small not-for-profit company, package handler with UPS (Teamster), accounts payable and receivable assistant and a law clerk for a boutique creditor rights law firm during law school. At one point Mr. Wood worked for UPS, Starbucks and was an accounts payable and receivable clerk simultaneously while attending law school. Given his employment start time with UPS was around 4:30 a.m. this resulted in only 3 hours of sleep twice a week for one summer due to night classes in law school. It was a grind.
When not at work Mr. Wood enjoys spending time in the outdoors, taking it to youngsters on the basketball court, traveling to new places and countries, hiking, biking, snorkeling and every now and again helping Habitat for Humanity build housing for low income families. Mr. Wood has worked on projects in Merced, Long Beach, East Palo Alto and San Francisco/Daly City. Mr. Wood has also for over twenty-five years regularly donated the gift of blood to save lives of any and all humans in need.
For over ten years Ryan C. Wood has provided great service to many clients and the organic reviews you can find on various online resources proves it: Better Business Bureau; Google; Yelp, Avvo to list a few. These sites all contain real reviews from actual clients that were nice enough to take their time to say a few kind words. These online reviews, testimonials or endorsements do not constitute a guarantee, warranty, or prediction regarding the outcome of your legal matter though.
You will get personal service for a reasonable fee; not for free though. The business of practicing law is very challenging especially when clients do not have unlimited resources to seek justice for themselves. That is where honest real world explanations and expectations come in to obtain a positive result with what exists to work with. Justice sadly is far from free whether it is a criminal matter, civil matter or bankruptcy case. For most normal humans the result of their legal matter will have a profound effect on their life while the result for JP Morgan Chase, N.A., Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. or the government is absolutely nothing. The big banks just absorb the result their billions of dollar accounting so they can pay less taxes than most humans by percentage do each year while the government employees get paid no matter how they do their job; and the beat goes on. Government employees even get to rest their hat on qualified immunity; look it up. They have no personal skin in the game to speak of while you are seeking justice that will absolutely matter in your life. It is the sad reality of how expensive it is to have a voice today. This is true in many arenas not just the practice of law. How much does it take to be a state senator, state congress person, or president of the United States? Millions and millions of dollars to get your message out there not matter what the message is. You may have a great case or message but no money to put the message out. So we must do the best we can with what we have to work with to obtain a positive results and it is possible yet more challenging to have a successful practice while still helping people. There are a lot of blog articles from attorneys that have quit the practice of law. Most of them provide the number one complaint is dealing with other attorneys and/or they found out they could either help people or make money but not both. There is truth to all of that. A close second or third are attorneys finding it hard to justify taking thousands of dollars from clients with no real certainty as to result given how there are so many variables that can determine results. As I have said over and over again equal opportunity does not create equal results. Hopefully we can all enjoy equal opportunity someday then we can better understand the results.
