Ms. Allende graduated from Rutgers University, New Brunswick in 1994 with a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance.  After college she traveled throughout Europe and Latin America as a Habitat for Humanity volunteer until she attended Rutgers Law School, Newark in 1997, as a night student while working full-time as a law clerk for an insurance defense firm in Livingston, New Jersey.

After earning her J.D. in 2001, Ms. Allende began her legal career as a judicial clerk for the Honorable Edward R. Schwartz at the Essex County Courthouse, Civil Division, focusing on commercial litigation, employment, construction, insurance coverage and land use cases.

Upon completion of her clerkship, Ms. Allende joined a boutique insurance coverage firm in New Jersey practicing insurance coverage and commercial litigation, until she aligned herself with a New York based international law firm practicing commercial litigation, complex construction and insurance coverage.

Ms. Allende joined the firm's Fort Lauderdale Coverage Department in 2008.  She is admitted to practice in New Jersey and New York, and will be sitting for the Florida Bar Exam in February 2008.