During the Christmas season in 1998, I learned that I was ­making partner at my law firm. I was also preparing for another trip to Central America, where I had been doing volunteer work every year during the holidays.

But this trip would be different. As I walked through the poorest barrios of Managua, Nicaragua, I met children who were trying to survive on the streets, addicted to drugs and dealing them, abused and abandoned — just as I had been. That trip changed my life.

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