please review the attached "Earning Capacity Legal Memo" and address the question posed in the Earning Capacity memo

Earning Capacity:

2019 Performance Review Mark Garcia (2019 rating 1s \"Exceptional) 2,205 actual YTD hours through 11/31/2019. M. Garcia principally worked on a variety of matters for Nikola, including litigation, counseling, and transactional work. He also has helped with the company merger. He uniformly exceeds expectations. Strengths: He is a very talented lawyer with extremely good analytical abilities and is highly regarded by the clients with whom he works. He operates at the level of a junior partner and is fully capable of handling matters on his own. He personally handled the WABCO transaction, which involved the strategic investment and shift in the autonomous driving industry. He handled the majority of the interactions with the company, and led many of the FT'C meetings, Weaknesses: None Additional Training: None Partnership Potential: He unquestionably has the skills to be senior counsel. Review Message: He is commended for management skills, professional development,/mentoring, and teamwork, better than the antitrust group or firm average. He is great at sharing wisdom on how to succeed as a lawyer here at the firm. One of his strengths is ereating the sense of team and loyalty where the ups and downs are shared alike. Self-Assessment: He believes his skills have \"developed and improved\" and would like to \"continue to develop and improve his analytical, writing and communication skills.\" Over the next 2-3 years, he would \"like to expand the breadth of his experience and continue to deepen his knowledge of substantive law. He believes additional litigation experience and counseling opportunities would be valuable. 2020 Performance Review Mlakar (2020 rating 1s \"Exceptional) 2,640 actual YTD hours through 11/31/2020. Docket: Regulatory filings and several litigation related matters. Strengths: His performance on the Walbridge and GM matters were stellar and tireless. He simply marshaled the evidence, created exhibits, and helped prepare witnesses, wrote briefs and outlines of opening statements, etc. all done excellently and well above my expectations of a staff attorney. I have asked him to be my 'senior' associate on a new price fixing matter and potential transaction. Garcia is very efficient, mature, professional, confident, and competent. He is able to handle a great deal of responsibility and effectively manage a lot of sometime conflicting tasks, Weaknesses: He has a bit of a New York edge that may need to be moderated over time. Additional Training: He could benefit from additional training in the preparation of key litigation documents (e.g., discovery responses). Promotion Potential: Great potential Self-Assessment: Garcia believes the work he did on the Walbridge and GM matters was the \"most substantive and comprehensive\" he has done with Nikola. He would like more transactional experience from start to finish on matter with a second request. He perceives a \"glass ceiling\" where senior attorneys are reluctant to let staff attorneys take on key tasks when they have not done them previously (e.g., depositions); he believes this hinders skill development. 2021 Performance Review Mark Garcia (2021 rating 1s \"Exceptional) 2,205 actual YTD hours through 11/31/2021. M. Garcia principally worked on a variety of matters for Nikola, including litigation, counseling, and transactional work. He also has helped with the company merger. He uniformly exceeds expectations. Strengths: He is a very talented lawyer with extremely good analytical abilities and is highly regarded by the clients with whom he works. He operates at the level of a junior partner and is fully capable of handling matters on his own. He personally handled the WABCO transaction, which involved the strategic investment and shift in the autonomous driving industry. He handled the majority of the interactions with the company, and led many of the FTC meetings, Weaknesses: None Additional Training: None Partnership Potential: He unquestionably has the skills to be senior counsel. Review Message: He is commended for management skills, professional development,/mentoring, and teamwork, better than the antitrust group or firm average. He is great at sharing wisdom on how to succeed as a lawyer here at the firm. One of his strengths is creating the sense of team and loyalty where the ups and downs are shared alike. Self-Assessment: He believes his skills have \"developed and improved\" and would like to \"continue to develop and improve his analytical, writing and communication skills.\" Over the next 2-3 years, he would \"like to expand the breadth of his experience and continue to deepen his knowledge of substantive law. He believes additional litigation experience and counseling opportunities would be valuable., 2022 Performance Review Mark Garcia (2022 rating 1s \"Exceeds Expectations) 2,055 actual YTD hours through 11/31/2022. Docket: Major matters are document review and related litigation matters. Strengths: Mark Garcia has a great work ethic and is always willing to take more work. He has excellent good judgment and is a great team player. Weaknesses: None Additional Training: None Partnership Potential: Great potential Self-Assessment: Garcia says he spent a lot of time on document review, which he called less challenging and rewarding. He would like to do some brief writing and prepare for and defend depositions. 2023 Performance Review Garcia (2023 rating 1s \"Below Expectations) 1,296 actual Y TD hours through 10/31/2022. Strengths: Garcia has improved in responding to emails when he is out of the office. I would not call his response a strength, but his response time 1s improving. Weaknesses: | sometimes have trouble understanding Garcia's advice, meaning I am not quite able to always follow his train of thought when discussing a particular matter. Also, I am not always able to get a quick response from him, even on time sensitive matters. With regard to his work on a specific project, his oral and written comments are often incoherent. Also, sometimes he did not appear up to the time critical tasks at hand. [ found his enthusiasm lacking. He lacks proactivity, and 1 find that there is a need to constantly push him to be sure things are getting done. His energy and willingness to take on extra work and push through due to client needs also are far below expectations. Additional Training: No comments. Firm Affihation: No comments. Partnership Potential: No comments. Review Message: . Free Pilot Law Firm 1255 Stone Ave Tucson, AZ 85709 TO: Paralegal Clerk FROM: Supervising Attorney DATE: Feb. 15, 2024 CLIENT: Mark Garcia RE: Diminished Earning Capacity I just got off the phone with our former client, Mark Garcia. We represented him in his divorce from Sandy Jones in 2021. This memorandum summarizes the details of my conversation with Mr. Garcia and outlines the memorandum that I would like you to draft. Mr. Garcia has been offered a job as a staff attorney with Southern Arizona Legal Aid, Inc., a Tucson non-profit organization that provides services to persons in nine of Arizona's fifteen counties and in eleven of Arizona's Native American Communities. This job is the opportunity he has been hoping to land since starting law school. However, the job pays $51, 296 per year. Mr. Garcia is concerned that he may not be able to accept the position because, under Arizona law, he might be deemed to have voluntarily reduced his income for purposes of his child support obligations. Mr. Garcia currently works for Nikola Motor Company as a senior staff attorney. His salary history there has been: 2020 - $120,000; 2021- $130,000; 2022 - $140,000, 2023- $165,598.16, and in 2024 his salary is $175,000. Before law school, he was in the Peace Corps in Guatemala from 2012- 2014, working with Mayan women in southern Guatemala to establish women's cooperatives. His long-time and fervent hope has been to gain experience in a large law firm, but then to return to public service in the Spanish- and Mayan-speaking communities. Mr. Garcia met Sandy Jones in 2012 in Guatemala, while he was in the Peace Corps, and she was on vacation. They married in 2013 and their son, Michael, was born in 2016. Mr. Garcia and Ms. Jones separated in 2021 and were divorced relatively amicably in November 2022. According to Mr. Garcia, Ms. Jones knew that Mr. Garcia wanted to work in public interest law. In fact, Mr. Garcia believes one of the reasons for their divorce was because Ms. Jones believed Mr. Garcia had "sold his soul" when he went to work for corporate America. Mr. Garcia currently commutes to Phoenix. Ms. Jones live in the Tucson, and Michael is enrolled in the local, public elementary school. They have joint custody of Michael. Michael spends almost equal time with each parent, but he spends more of the school year with Ms. Jones and then more of summer and school vacations with Mr. Garcia. Mr. Garcia's job with Southern Arizona Legal Aid would not change Michael's school or custody arrangements. Two specialists have just confirmed that Michael has autism. Garcia and Jones both agree that treatment is likely to be very expensive and possibly for the rest of Michael's life. 2a Employee's social security number 22222 123-01-6789 OMB No. 1545-0008 b Employer identification number (EIN) 1 Wages, tips, other compensation 2 Federal income tax withheld 432001111 43.689 4,148.88 Employer's name, address, and ZIP code Social security wages 4 Social security tax withheld 43,689 1,225.89 The Gregory School 5 Medicare wages and tips 6 Medicare tax withheld 3231 N Craycroft Road 43689 485.84 Tucson, AZ 85712 Social security tips 8 Allocated tips d Control number 10 Dependent care benefits e Employee's first name and initial Last name Suff. 11 Nonqualified plans 12a 13 statutory employeeFisticement plan Third-party 12b Sandra Jones sick pay 12413 N. Brightridge DR 101 14 Other 12c Ora Valley, AZ 85755 12d f Employee's address and ZIP code 15 Employer's state ID number 123- 16 State wages, tips, etc. | 17 State income tax 18 Local wages, tips, etc. | 19 Local income tax 20 Locality State lame 45-6789 43,689 1.409 47 W-2 Wage and Tax Statement Department of the Treasury-Internal Revenue Service Form Copy 1-For State, City, or Local Tax Department 2023