Decoupling is a service of Rao & Pierce, a four-attorney litigation firm in South Seattle with a focus on family law. We also do personal injury, real estate, and general civil litigation. The firm has three partners, Christopher Rao, Tom Bao Pierce, and Katy Banahan, one associate attorney, Liz Hoffman, and one paralegal, Katherine Naill.
Christopher Rama Rao
Christopher and his son, Raja
Decoupling is published by Rao & Pierce managing partner Christopher Rao.
Christopher Rama Rao grew up in suburban Texas, mid-town Manhattan, and rural India. He studied magazine journalism at the University of Texas at Austin and was released for good behavior in 1987. Christopher, then at a playing weight of 118 pounds, also played rugby for UT-Austin until the laws of physics caught up with him.
He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1992. Christopher’s final Third Year Project in law school was a board game, Survival: The Global Warming Game. While in law school, he was a Teaching Fellow for the Harvard Program on Negotiation.
After law school, Christopher taught business negotiation and web design at the University of Washington and ran a web design firm. After the gold rush, Christopher returned to the law, first working for a downtown firm, then starting his own firm on Beacon Hill in 1999.
Christopher is a member of the South Asian Bar Association and the Rules of Professional Conduct committee of the Washington State Bar Association. He is currently Secretary of the Family Law Section of the King County Bar Association and chair of its Local Rules sub-committee. Christopher teaches Continuing Legal Education classes on writing effective letters and on family law topics. He also has experience working at Catholic Community Services with victims of child abuse and child sexual abuse.
Christopher and his wife Josie dote shamelessly over their two toddler boys, Raja and Tristan. In his spare time, Christopher invents games such as Pink Godzilla Dev Kit and North Pole: A Penguin Adventure. Christopher also co-founded the software firm, Law Fortress LLC. Its first product, due for release in 2010, is CaseHawk – intuitive case management software for smaller law firms.
