It flies on weekends, and drags at work. It’s precious today and it’s wasted tomorrow. One minute it’s on our side and the next it’s passing us by. It’s a gift and can heal all wounds, and yet sometimes we kill it.

Time is a shapeshifter – infinite when you’re a kid, elusive when you’re an adult and precious when you’re near death.

And ultimately time comes for all of us. Nobody knows this better than Steve Arrington ’95, an elder law attorney in Greensboro who works with older adults and families impacted by the impact of time.

It’s not always easy.

In his almost 20 years helping clients in elder law and estate planning, Steve has made a name in Greensboro and the Triad not only for his knowledge, but his ability to deal tactfully with families at tender crossroads in their lives – when they are sick or aging – and looking for ways to protect themselves, their assets and their family’s interests. He handles the minutiae that helps people plan for disability and Medicaid, while keeping control of their assets. And he does it with heaping doses of compassion and care.

Estate planning isn’t something we think about in our youth – or even middle age. But everyone needs a plan, says Steve, who enjoys finding the right strategy for his clients. The conversations can be difficult but in the end they prove beneficial for everyone.

That includes Steve. Elder law is an extremely rewarding practice for me,” he says. “When I’m able to provide clients with gratification and peace of mind, there’s not a better feeling professionally.”

If it sounds like Steve has found his calling, that's because he has. “I can’t imagine doing anything else,” he says.

Growing up it seemed everyone had Steve’s life mapped out for him. He still remembers the words his high school band teacher told him after graduation. “Steve,” she told him, “you should be a lawyer.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d heard those words. It was the same advice he received from one of his middle school teachers, who was not the first to impart that wisdom on him. That would be his fourth-grade teacher.

Everyone, it seems, had Steve pegged for law. Well, everyone but Steve.

When it came time to enroll at Guilford, Steve took their counsel under advice and chose to major in … Religious Studies.

It made sense at the time. After high school Steve joined a church in Durham, N.C. Watts Street Baptist Church had a program in which many students from nearby Duke Divinity School worked at the church. “One of the divinity students told me to major in something that really piqued my interest, and Religious Studies and spirituality spoke to me,” he says.

Steve was somewhat convinced that he might want to be a pastor. Over time, however, he learned what many Guilfordians before him already knew: Guilford isn’t just a place where you can learn what it is you want to do. Students come to Guilford to learn who they want to be.

“I just didn’t feel the calling like I thought I would,” says Steve, who met his wife Jennifer Leigh (Propst) Arrington ’93 at Guilford. “The whole law school and being a lawyer thing was sitting there, still chipping at me in the back of my mind.”

Steve worked as a legal assistant after graduating from Guilford for Judith Behar, a Greensboro lawyer whose former husband, Rudy Behar, taught at Guilford. He remembers Judy juggling her practice with caring for her aging parents, one of whom was receiving care in an assisted living community. “So maybe that’s when the first seed was planted,” he says.

Steve later worked as an assistant at Booth Harrington Johns and Toman, LLP, one of the state’s first firms specializing in elder law.

He didn’t know it at the time, but that Religious Studies degree Steve earned at Guilford was about to pay off. “One of the big things my Guilford professors taught me was to pay attention to the particulars of life,” he says. “I don’t want to get too philosophical here, but I don't believe in accidents. It wasn’t an accident that I ended up in elder law. I was exposed to it and guided there.”

In many ways, Steve says elder law attorneys and pastors share a lot in common.

Most elder law attorneys “are wired a little different from litigators,” says Steve, who sees a crucial need in his profession to serve clients with more compassion and empathy. “You have to be empathetic, you have to be personable and feel for what they’re going through,” he says. “I’ve sat at the same table with families or spouses crying over what’s happening to their loved one and I’m fighting back tears myself.

“One of the biggest things that I learned at Guilford was learning how to treat others. “I’ve tried to apply that not only in my personal life, but my professional life.”