Chat Over Red Sox Hat Led Suffolk Grads to Start Law Practice in Garage
It all began with a conversation over a Red Sox baseball cap at an Arizona bar review course. Realizing they rooted for the same team, Christopher Corso and John Rhude started talking. Although both are graduates of Suffolk University Law School in Boston, they had never before met.
That was the start of an odyssey together in which the two—who later found out that they are distant cousins—not only won admission to the Arizona bar but both got jobs at the Maricopa County Attorney’s office to gain practice experience. Then they moved with their families to homes they purchased on the same block and gave up their salaries and benefits to establish their Corso & Rhude firm in 2007 in Rhude’s garage.
“July 1, I woke up, got dressed, walked out of my house with my briefcase and walked down four houses,” Corso, 36, tells the Peoria Times. The partners built their own furniture and installed their own phone lines, in addition to providing their own secretarial support.
Their criminal defense practice soon expanded to more traditional law offices in Peoria, and they now have five employees that, as Corso points out, they hired during a recession. Although their staff are a big support, they say their wives are critical to their success. Both work in addition to being the primary caretakers for the families’ young children—Corso and Rhude have a total of five between them, all age 5 and under, and they not infrequently are at the office until 7 or 8 p.m.
Rhude, who is 34, says their law firm follows principles instilled by their parents—hard work and treating others fairly.
“It’s not all about money,” he tells the Times. “If you can help people, they’ll call back some day.”
