Elbaz Wedding Starts New Family & New Law Practice
Two attorneys decide to start a professional relationship in advance of a decision to marry.
Joshua Elbaz’s romance with Falon Stimpson began over what both thought would be light conversation with pizza on Valentine’s Day last year. Both were busy criminal trial lawyers in Gwinnett County where he was an Assistant District Attorney. She had a busy trial schedule helping clients, often with a history of drug abuse and mental health problems.
Although they approach the law from different sides of the courtroom, Elbaz, the prosecuting attorney, and Stimpson the defense lawyer, struck up a casual friendship around the Lawrenceville courthouse where they each spent much of their time.
So it wasn’t that unusual for Stimpson to invite her fellow attorney out for a relaxing evening, as many others that day were celebrating romance. Perhaps it was something in the air that evening last year, or perhaps, as Elbaz later admitted, it was bashert, or “meant to be.” But the conversation was long and deep. He touched on the tragedy of the sudden and unexpected death of two younger brothers and the loss of his father, who was born in Morocco. And burden of loss that he still experienced. The five hours they spent talking together that night transformed their relationship.
“I didn’t think I would just have such a connection with somebody about that,” the future bride remembers. “It felt very real as we talked about our sentiments and feelings and beliefs. It was certainly so much more than you’d hear over some pizza.”
But that fateful evening was the beginning of even more than a serious romantic relationship. It also led to a decision to form a professional partnership. In June of last year, against the advice of almost everyone they knew, including their parents, they started a law practice together. Elbaz’s boss in the DA’s office at first thought he was kidding when he told him he was quitting to practice law with the woman he had met just three months before.
“I can’t tell you how many people said, don’t start a law practice together before you get married. It’s a mistake,” Elbaz recalled. “People that I trusted, and people that have been very reliable mentors didn’t think it was a good idea. But it turned out to be that rare situation where you trust instinct more than you do logic, something that is even more rare for two attorneys to do.”
Despite the cautions of their friends, what started out as the firm of Elbaz and Stimpson a year and a half ago has become a thriving practice. But at the beginning, Falon Stimpson remembers, it took a considerable amount of self-confidence.
“We had to take a leap of faith,” she said. “We had talked so much about it, but I felt like, yes, we can do this. I really feel like this was going to work out and it’s going to be good. We just didn’t know it was going to be this good.”
Almost a year and a half later, on Oct. 5, after a wedding before 150 guests at TPC Sugarloaf Country Club in Gwinnett County, under a chuppah entwined with white roses, they officially became Elbaz and Elbaz. Cantor Harry Bloch officiated with Ron Schwartz and composed the wedding service.
But when the big day came, both had experiences they hadn’t expected. For the bride, there were thoughts that despite all the planning that had gone into the occasion something disastrous might occur. What if it became, in her words, “a disorganized gobbeldygook.”
“At the wedding, how is it all going to turn out? Am I going to mess this up somehow?,” she remembers. “Maybe every bride thinks it, but when I got ready to walk down the aisle, I was overwhelmed by emotion because I thought, wow, I actually made it here. I’m going to marry the love of my life, and I was thanking G-d for it.”
During the ceremony as he listened to words being said, Joshua Elbaz also found his thoughts wandering. This momentous occasion had somehow reawakened the unresolved emotions he had felt of the passing of his two younger brothers and his father.
“The day was gorgeous, perfect weather. And I remember looking up at the trees nearby. And in that moment, with the breeze blowing through the trees, I felt like my dad and my brothers had just whispered to my soul, and said, ‘You’re OK.’ I had struggled with this grief for years, but they were essentially saying in that moment, ‘we’re moving on.’ Since that day, I had never felt that sadness again And that’s part of what this wedding was to me. It’s me and Fallon, and we’re going to start a family. Those thoughts I had then meant a lot to me as a man. For that and for so much more, it meant a lot to me to get married.”
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