Inspiration & Encouragement

Here are the remarks I gave when I accepted the Woman’s Bar of DC Stars of the Bar award: “Thank you so much for this honor. You know, when I started my law firm, my goal was simple—to avoid a gap on my resume after being fired from my job at a firm. I never…

Lawyers Are Unhappy…But Not for the Reasons You Think One of the most common sources of lawyer unhappiness that’s also least discussed is the soul-crushing nature of the work that many of us do.  Whether it’s defending large companies with racist or sexist policies, or churning through cookie-cutter cases that are all the same, many…

When writer and memoirist Nina Riggs went through her first round of chemo for breast cancer, her husband shared how eager he was for the treatment to end so their life to return to normal.  To which Nina replied: “I have to love these days in the same way I love any other. There might…

Ordinarily, you’d expect a large law firm to celebrate one of its lawyers securing a major victory at the United States Supreme Court.  But that wasn’t Kirkland & Ellis reaction last June following then-partner Paul Clement’s win in a major gun rights case. Instead, the firm announced that it would no longer represent clients in…

Are you a lawyer of a certain generation who feels out of place in today’s supercharged, speedy world? It’s no wonder.   After all, we came of age at a time when we were taught that the wheels of justice grind slow. That we’d need to bill 2000 hours a year or more, year after painful…

This past weekend, I ran my seventh consecutive Race for Hope which raises funds for brain cancer research – a cause close to my heart.  The race is only five kilometers, a distance that I’ve ably tackled before but this year, I struggled for the first half before finding my stride.  So I was grateful…

So many lawyers, myself included, focus on what we do wrong rather than what we get right.  So we’ll hang our head in shame over our messy office, without acknowledging the extraordinary work product that we produced.  We’ll fret about our disorganization without giving ourselves credit for hitting deadlines and showing up.  We’ll spend hours…