Tara A. Ohler
A native f the St. Louis region, Tara grew up in Jefferson County, where she attended Catholic grade school, followed by a daily commute to high school at Cor Jesu Academy in Affton. The hard work, sacrifice and support of her self-employed, single mother were instrumental to Tara’s matriculation there and graduation in 1993.
A desire to travel and explore led Tara to college out of state. She attended the University of Denver, in Colorado from 1993-1997 on a four-year honors scholarship, where she majored in Environmental Science and minored in Russian Language and International Studies. During summer and winter breaks, Tara did scientific field work in California’s Sacramento River Valley followed by lab work at the University of California at Berkeley for her Senior Honors Thesis, and field courses in Death Valley, California, and on the Baja California Peninsula of Mexico. In fall 1996, Tara spent the semester studying abroad in Moscow, Russia. She lived with a Russian family and attended Russian State University of the Humanities, where she studied Russian language and Russian Area Studies. Over the years, Tara has added German, Italian, and Bosnian to her list of languages studied, which began with Latin in high school and is most focused on her college minor in Russian.
She received her Bachelor of Science and double minor in 1997 and began her studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder School of Law that August. There she focused on environmental and international law through coursework, both at the law school and in other graduate school departments, and through field work. She did a summer externship in the E.P.A. Region VIII Office of Legal Enforcement, worked on a pro bono mining case through the Environmental Law Society, and was a research assistant at the Natural Resources Law Center in the School of Law. Tara was a student attorney in the civil section of the Legal Aid and Defender Clinic during her second year of law school leading her to a wider exploration of public interest law. She had family law cases involving domestic violence and social security disability cases. Later she worked on a pro bono child custody case involving drug addicted parents through the Lend-A-Law Student Program. Outside of class, she was a member of the Environmental Law Society, Women’s Law Caucus and Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity.
Tara graduated from CU Boulder School of Law in 2000 with a Juris Doctor Degree and a Graduate Interdisciplinary Certificate in Environmental Policy. She was a law clerk for a year in the Denver office of a San Francisco-based intellectual property law firm, during which time she received her Colorado license to practice law in early 2001. In January 2002, Tara began practicing law as a Contract Attorney at Colorado Legal Services in the Denver office, where she worked in the family unit representing victims of domestic violence in Order of Protection cases against their abusers, assisted on some dissolution cases, gave presentations and ran free legal clinic nights at a shelter for victims.
Tara moved home to St. Louis with her husband in February 2003 and took the Missouri Bar exam. She received her Missouri law license, then in July she began working as a Staff Attorney at Legal Services of Eastern Missouri In St. Louis. During her tenure there, she worked in the Lasting Solutions Program representing victims of domestic violence in all of their family legal needs including Orders of Protection, Dissolution of Marriage, Paternity, Custody, Modification, and Contempt cases in the state civil courts in St. Louis City and County, St. Charles County and Jefferson County. She left this position in late 2005 to begin the new job of mother.
Throughout 2006, Tara worked as a volunteer attorney at the St. Louis City Family Justice Center on pro bono cases for victims of domestic violence. She formed her solo law practice, Tara A. Ohler, LLC, in February 2007, practicing part-time on family, traffic and some other types of cases. After occasionally working as a substitute attorney in St. Louis City Circuit Court Family Drug Court beginning in late 2007, she added to her part-time practice a one-day-per-week contract position there as court-appointed attorney for mothers from August 2008 to August 2012. This voluntary treatment court program in civil court has the goal of family reunification for children who have been placed in the custody of Missouri Children’s Division due to one or both parents’ substance abuse problems. In November 2008, Tara met Suzanne in that court, and opposing counsel became friends and future law partners. Tara continued her part-time, private practice then returned to Drug Court from August 2014 through January 2015. She continued her part-time solo practice until the formation of Epstein-Lang & Ohler, LLC, on March 1, 2017. She lives with her husband and children in St. Louis where she is an active volunteer in her church, neighborhood association and school activities including Cub Scouts/Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.