Meet James Wade

Welcome to my website. My name is James Wade and I am a bankruptcy and tax attorney in Portland, Maine. I serve clients in Greater Portland area for the most part but I travel across most of Southern and Central Maine to meet with clients. Rather than tell you about what services I provide, let me tell you a bit about myself.

First thing to tell anybody, when you live in Maine, is where you grew up. Mainers as a whole tend to be very home-town proud. Fortunately for my Mainer credentials I was born and raised here in Maine and so I avoid the dreaded “flatlander” appellation. I was born in Westbrook, moved around a bit – South Portland, Topsham, East Corinth, Vassalboro – and then settled in Winslow. Most people have no idea where Winslow is so I just tell them I grew up in the Waterville area and most people know where that was. It’s that place you pass by on I-95 as you head North through Augusta on your way to Bangor.

Generally had a very good childhood. I am an identical twin, Bill, and a younger sister, Susan. Back in ’92, I graduated from Winslow High School and said “I’m done with school. Done with all that learning!” I joined the United States Marines, of all things, nine days after I graduated high school, right off to boot camp. I was doing it as a guaranteed infantry, and I think at the time I was 130 pounds soaking wet, so they added 20 pounds on me. I was like 150 when I got out of boot camp.

I had a fairly good four years in the Marine Infantry. I won’t say it was perfect. It was a lot of dirt and rain, but I got to see some interesting places of the world. I went to Iwo Jima. I think everyone’s familiar with the raising of the flag on Mt. Suribachi; I actually was on the top of that. I have some some of the sands of the beaches of Iwo Jima. I have some interesting stories of my time in the Marines. At the end of my four year commitment, I said you know what? I think I want to get out; go back to school. I think I’ve had enough of this. All the other fellow Marines were becoming policemen or firemen, and I had taken bookkeeping in high school. I said, yeah, I want to do something different; I want to go become an accountant. I think all my family ancestors are probably rolling over in their graves.

I got out of the Marines, went to school for accounting, first at Casco Bay College here in Maine. It’s gone now. I think it’s been swallowed up by what was first Andover, and I think now it’s Kaplan University. Got my two year Associates. I graduated as Valedictorian. I don’t know how I did it, but I did. Worked a full-time job at People’s Heritage, at the time, as a file clerk. Then, I went on to Thomas College in Waterville, where I got my Bachelor’s in Public Accounting, and graduated, went off to work as a tax accountant. That was back in May of 2000.

Three years later I practiced hard, studied hard, and passed my CPA exam. In May of 2003, I became a CPA. I continued doing work as a tax accountant. Three days after Christmas 2004 – I won’t forget it. I was in the National Guard at the time – they sent me off to Iraq. I went to Baghdad, Iraq as a security officer, and I was in charge of 50 people guarding a three-mile section of wall in Baghdad at Camp Liberty, of all places. I was hot, hot, hot. A year later, I got back and went back to work as an accountant. I’ll be honest, I’ve changed a little bit from my experiences. I was in charge of 50 people; I wanted to do more than just tax returns. I wanted to be an advisor, take charge. I found that when people came in for a return, you give some advice; they look at you, ignore your advice, and wander off. I said, you know what? I want to become an attorney because I can – people respect the brand of being an attorney; they trust the advice that you’re going to give them; something about being an attorney.

In 2010, I went off to law school. There, I met my beautiful wife Katrina, who I have a wonderful son Sam, who just turned a year a month ago. He is raising hell, but he gives me a great [inaudible] to come to work everyday; poor wife. I graduated law school in 2013, and decided that I was going to hang a shingle. I had done CPA; I’ve been an officer in the army; graduated from law school. I said, you know what? I’m going to hang a shingle and do this. I was already a CPA for a good number of years, so I had that going for me, and when I was in law school I developed a real attraction to bankruptcy law. I know people say, ugh, bankruptcy, but bankruptcy is an amazing area of the law. If you know how to use it, you can get amazing results for your client. I said I’m going to do two things and I’m going to do them well: tax and bankruptcy.

Now that I’ve told you a little bit about myself, you can see that I’m a hard working individual. I come from small town roots, and I’m here to help Mainers in good times and bad. Come on in; talk to me. I’ll tell you my life story in more detail if you want. I’m here to help you.