Donna Grunder
Donna was born and raised in Shelbyville, IL. Her sister, Debbie, is a grade school teacher and her mother became a court reporter and legal secretary when Donna was 4 years old. The attorneys in her mother’s firm were three generations of the same family and treated her family as extended family. As a result, Donna spent a lot of time in law offices and with attorneys growing up. She began working as a legal secretary at her mother's firm just before her 18th birthday (a fact her employers discovered when they tried to apply for a notary commission for her!) and remained there 5 years before deciding to take a few years off to be with her children while they were young. When she returned to work, she accepted a job with another Shelbyville law firm as secretary, paralegal and office manager.
Once both of her children entered college, Donna was more than ready to try somewhere new and began applying at law firms in Springfield, Bloomington and Champaign. She joined QJHPC in September of 1999 and was the first paralegal hired in the Springfield office. The attorneys in the office had to figure out what to do with her! For Donna, a change in mindset was in order; she had previously worked at only plaintiff's firms and had to readjust to the defense side.
Tim and Donna have been married four years. They love cooking, reading, yard work and collect DVD’s with over 650 in total. – they love old movies. All of their children are grown, so they have two very spoiled pets - a yellow lab and a Siamese cat – they are their "children" at home. Donna has two daughters – Jennifer and Sara, Tim has two daughters – Melissa and Jessica and a son - Bey. Jennifer and her husband, Jason, live in Chicago with their baby daughter, Iris , where Jennifer is a project manager at CCH. Sara lives in Shelbyville with her five-year-old son, William, and works as a laboratory chemist and project director. Tim's daughter, Melissa, lives in Washington, IL with her husband Jeff and two children - Ella and Keeton. Melissa is Assistant Principal at Pekin High School. Jessica lives in Dunlap with her husband Zach and a new baby on the way, due in August. She works in pharmaceutical sales. Bey lives in Bloomington and is a manager with Schnuck's.
In addition to reading, they are self proclaimed addicts to the History and Discovery Channel. They always have a project at their house and currently are in the process of finishing their basement to add a bath, family room, hobby room and storage. They are doing a lot of the work themselves.
If Donna had to choose a career again…..she would probably choose something very similar to what she does now. She likes working behind the scenes, seeing how all of the elements of a case come together and lead to either settlement or trial.
Her favorite part of working as a paralegal is watching a case come together and progress. She enjoys the variety in her job; she works on a lot of different types of cases, handles Springfield office management and HR in addition to paralegal duties, plus works with Mindy to resolve computer and software problems. Her least favorite things are repetitive tasks (a necessary evil); she gets bored easily.
