The best way to describe Michael Avenatti would be to use the phrase “legal mercenary”. This California native is a lawyer who still seems embroiled in some of the hottest legal feuds of the last decade. The controversial attorney has served clients bringing lawsuits against heavyweights from Fortune 100 companies and A-list celebrities to the NFL and the top 1 percent of corporate executives. Avenatti has frequently appeared on international shows, magazines and newspapers, offering his expertise on various legal issues. The lawyer and entrepreneur who is also a professional runner may be best remembered for representing porn star Stormy Daniels in her lawsuit against President Donald Trump. Michael Avenatti Biography, Education The lawyer was born in Sacramento, California on February 16, 1971. Before Michael John Avenatti's high school education, his early life story recorded stops in Colorado and Utah. In the early 1980s, young Michael and his family eventually moved to St. Louis where he attended Parkway Central High School in Chesterfield, Missouri. The younger Avenatti went on to earn a degree in political science from the University of Pennsylvania. for a year before coming to Pennsylvania, after which he went to law school at George Washington University. In 2000, he obtained his Juris Doctor (JD) degree first in his class. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay For his exemplary contributions to George Washington, the institution established the Michael J. Avenatti Award for Excellence in Civil Defense pretrial and trial rights in 2003. Ten years after graduation, the attorney would receive a George Washington Alumni Recognition Award. Michael Avenatti had a long career as a lawyer and businessman. At the University of Pennsylvania and George Washington, he worked for Rahm Emanuel at a company dedicated to researching political opposition. By the time he had finished law school, the aspiring lawyer had put his knowledge to use in hundreds of political campaigns across party lines and states. After graduating, he moved to Los Angeles where he worked at O'Melveny & Myers representing Christina Aguilera and Frey and Henley of the Eagles. While employed at Green Broillet & Wheeler, a boutique law firm, he handled cases involving names like Paris Hilton, Donald Trump and professional services firm KPMG. After establishing his own law firm in 2007, Michael worked as lead counsel on a series of high-profile cases. These include huge $454 million verdicts against Kimberly-Clark and Hayward Health in early 2017. Five years after founding his law firm, Avenatti took the plunge into entrepreneurship with the creation of Global Baristas . His first assignment was to buy Tully's Coffee, a small chain. of cafes spread across Seattle. He teamed up with Grey's Anatomy's Patrick Dempsey to purchase Tully's, but the two fell out shortly after their purchase, leading Avenatti to settle Dempsey. The company has been involved in a legal shake-up since 2015, however, the bold lawyer won one of the biggest cases of his career with a jury decision against the NFL that same year. In 2017, Michael Avenatti's law firm filed for bankruptcy, largely thanks to a complaint filed against him by an ex-con named Gerald Tobin who claimed the status of a private investigator. This trend..