Law firm Bush & Taylor recently welcomed two new lawyers to its practice.

Cynthia Ewing and Elizabeth Wood both started at the law firm on March 1 but have been in the area for many years.

Ewing has been practicing for 18 years. She does primarily family law, which involves divorces, custody, visitation, spousal and child support and name changes.

“I’m one who gets a fire in my belly, and I don’t let it go very well,” Ewing said.

She earned an undergraduate degree in business at Indiana University and was a certified public accountant. But through that work, she saw the financial effects of divorce and also the impact it had on children.

“I decided to go to law school and make an impact that way,” she said.

She got her law degree at the College of William and Mary. After a few years of family law, though, she got burned out and switched to real estate law.

“It’s hard not to take it home with you,” she said. “You have to manage it.”

She eventually came back to family law and has worked to change Virginia laws affecting family law. She worked on behalf of a law that now mandates parent education classes in contested custody cases, as well as another that mandates attempted mediation for custody and support cases.

“I’ve put a lot of hours in Richmond,” she said.

Ewing said the most rewarding part of her job is when she can get people to come together, but it’s also challenging to see some divorcing couples who put their children in the middle.

Wood graduated from Regent University law school in 2006 following undergraduate work at Christopher Newport University. She grew up in Smithfield and Suffolk and always wanted to be an attorney, although she has strayed somewhat from her original goal of being an environmental lawyer.

She ran her own law firm for seven years and also was a prosecutor in Norfolk and Portsmouth. She does a lot of criminal law.

She said it is rewarding to represent indigent clients who otherwise would be at a disadvantage in the system.

“You want to make sure justice is done the way it should be done,” she said.

She also has worked as a guardian ad litem in many cases, supporting the best interest of a child.

“I think it’s very rewarding when you have cases with children,” she said. “To make sure the children are safe is a nice feeling.”

Wood said she thinks Bush & Taylor is a good fit for both Ewing and herself.

“I do think it’s a good fit for both of us,” she said.

Ewing and Wood join other Bush & Taylor attorneys, Justin Bush, Fred Taylor and Brandon Matthews.