Law Office of Jerry Gonzalez

I was born in Santiago, Chile in 1962. My father was a Chilean Naval Officer who graduated from the Chilean Naval Academy. After a rewarding career in the Chilean Navy, my father retired (at age 36) and applied for acceptance to the engineering program at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. With limited English proficiency and laboring as a janitor, he obtained his mechanical engineering degree in three years, accepted a job with Ford Motor Company, applied for his “green card”, and summoned my mother and me and my brother and two sisters to the United States. I was barely five years old. None of us spoke any English and after a brief stint in Lexington, we moved to Louisville, Kentucky. I remember being dragged, kicking and screaming, into my first day of kindergarten class. I couldn’t understand a word anyone was speaking and all the kids were so mean. I eventually learned English, as all small children immersed in a new language environment do, but the teasing by my classmates about my country of origin never ceased until Ford moved us to Europe. First Germany, then Spain, where I attended a boarding school. It was in Europe, with such a diverse student population from all over the world, that I first realized that the teasing and hateful comments by other children was not the standard.

I returned to the United States to finish high school in Michigan, attended Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Michigan, where I earned a bachelor’s degree in Biological Science, and, like my father before me and many of my male progenitors going back to the 1700's, I accepted a commission as an officer in the navy, only I was the first to serve in the United States Navy.

I served as a Naval Flight Officer, flying aboard the S-3B Viking, a carrier based twin engine jet used primarily for anti-submarine warfare. After seven years of active duty and multiple deployments at sea, I applied for release from active duty and accepted a position as a Special Agent with the U.S. Secret Service. While with the Service, I was stationed in Miami, Florida but traveled all around the country protecting foreign heads of state as well as Presidents Bush (41), Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Dan Quayle along with a regular caseload of criminal investigations involving counterfeit, treasury check forgery, and credit card fraud. I disliked the law enforcement environment and witnessed what I thought was inappropriate actions by other law enforcement officers and even began noticing a change in myself while immersed in that us-vs-them environment.

I resigned from the Secret Service and attended law school at Wayne State University School of Law in Detroit, Michigan, while at the same time drilling in the Naval Reserves as an Intelligence Officer. I graduated from law school in 1996 and again left the Navy after obtaining my final rank of Lt. Commander.

Since coming to Tennessee in 1997, I have concentrated my practice in federal criminal defense and cases dealing with discrimination or Constitutional issues. While not working, I enjoy bass fishing and jumping my horses and spending time with my best friend and wife, Denise.