From a six-year-old boy who scooted over in his Catholic school desk to make room for his guardian angel to a seasoned trial lawyer facing catastrophic financial collapse, Making Room is a memoir about vocation, moral responsibility, and the quiet spiritual disciplines that sustain a life under pressure.
Attorney Michael Hackard traces his journey through formative childhood experiences shaped by Irish Catholic faith, generational hardship, and early encounters with death and fear, including the Cuban Missile Crisis and the unsettling proximity of the Charles Manson case early in his legal career. As his professional life unfolds, Hackard becomes a national pharmaceutical mass tort litigator, representing clients suffering from life-threatening drug injuries across the country.
But success gives way to profound trials. Brain surgery. Pharmaceutical poisoning. The 2008 financial collapse. The sudden death of a business partner. Twelve years of high-stakes litigation threatening personal and professional ruin. Through it all, Hackard wrestles not only with legal battles but with the moral complexity of contingency-fee practice, promises made to dying clients, and the limits of human control.
Interwoven throughout are deeply personal moments: driving grandchildren to school each morning, reliving lessons from his father and grandmother, reflecting on the dignity of a woman who once worked in his family's home. These anchors of love and continuity form a counterpoint to courtroom conflict and financial uncertainty.
Rooted in Catholic spirituality and Ignatian formation, Making Room is not a triumphalist story of victory but a meditation on endurance. It asks what it means to serve faithfully when outcomes are uncertain, to act with integrity in systems larger than oneself, and to "make room" for help beyond what can be seen.
For readers interested in faith in professional life, legal ethics, resilience, and memoirs of lived conviction, Making Room offers a candid and deeply reflective account of perseverance through breaking-and rebuilding.
About the Author :
Michael Hackard is a California trust and estate litigation attorney with fifty years of experience representing families in elder financial abuse, inheritance disputes, and trustee misconduct cases.He is the author of five books on elder vulnerability and family protection: The Wolf at the Door and Inheritance Heists on financial exploitation; Alzheimer's, Widowed Stepmothers & Estate Crimes; It's Never Just an Accident: Understanding Traumatic Brain Injury and Rebuilding Lives, to which older adults are especially vulnerable; and Making Room: A Memoir of Faith, Law and Endurance.He has produced over 1,000 educational videos for families navigating estate crises and has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives. He is AV Preeminent rated by Martindale-Hubbell and has received SuperLawyer recognition. He has been interviewed regularly by national media including the Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, MSN Money, C-SPAN, and Fox News.With five decades of excellence in client advocacy, Michael has become known as The Sage: "After thousands of cases, I see the pattern others miss."Elder Legacy Press is the publishing imprint of Michael Hackard. For legal representation, Hackard Law represents families on a contingency basis throughout California - Sacramento, the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Orange County.
