Chris began his professional career in the legal field working as a family law paralegal helping clients navigate the emotional and financial difficulties associated with the dissolution of marriages, legal separations, child custody, child support modifications, and determinations of parentage.  After 5 years as a family law paralegal, Chris transitioned his paralegal skills to a different area of the law: Estates and Trusts. 

During his preceding 15 years as an Estate and Trust Paralegal, Chris gained extensive experience handling complex gift and estate tax and fiduciary accounting issues and preparation of estate and gift tax returns.  Chris has come to appreciate the important relationship between estate and trust legal professionals and fiduciary accounting professionals and how to provide excellent client service as efficiently as possible.  His extensive experience gathering relevant date of death valuation information, preparing gift and estate tax returns, identifying relevant estate, trust, and gift tax issues, and helping clients navigate emotionally and financially difficult times following the death of a friend or family member make him uniquely qualified to assist clients.  

Chris originally joined Hellam Varon for a couple of years in 2016 but as often happens in life, a move back to his hometown of Selah, WA near Yakima, prevented Chris from continuing his venture into estate and trust tax accounting and consulting.  He resumed his career as an estate and trust paralegal for 6 years after moving back to Eastern Washington.  However, one of the benefits of the pandemic in 2020 was Hellam Varon’s commitment to remote and hybrid work solutions. And as such, we were able to welcome Chris back to Hellam Varon and our estate and trust practice, working remotely from Yakima. Now our clients benefit from Chris’ extensive background in both law and accounting. 

Chris professes to be an Eastern Washington kid at heart. In his down time, Chris and his wife, Gloria, breed, raise and train packgoats for hunting, fishing, and packing trips.  Chris can also be found in the mountains of Washington looking for deer and elk or occasionally trekking to Montana or other western states in search of deer, elk, or antelope during hunting season accompanied by a Labrador retriever or two…and of course a few packgoats! 

With his thoughtful, caring approach to working with clients and his commitment to a diverse professional background, we couldn’t be more thrilled Chris found his way back to Hellam Varon!