My law career was one that almost wasn’t. After law school in Boston, I returned to Chicago, where I really did not have many legal connections. I knew I did not want big law, but I did not have much direction and was floundering. On the first day of my contract job, while I was waiting for my Illinois bar results, I put on my best suit, packed the fancy leather briefcase my parents had given me for graduation, and took the first big step of my legal career. I was so excited and full of hope. When I arrived at the employer, the HR consultant led me to what I thought would be my very own office. My own office! As we kept walking and walking and walking, no office. Instead, he led me to a giant metal, unairconditioned warehouse where I spent the day on the concrete floor, sitting on a milk crate, moving documents from one box to another for a huge production request and review. Suffice it to say that I was shattered. I remember thinking to myself…Really? This is it? This is the result of years of blood, sweat, tears, and sacrifice, not to mention the student loans that would be coming due in six months when I had all of $13.78 in my checking account? Luckily, the briefcase must also have contained some serious grit and resilience, and I made it from that position to clerking for a judge who later became the Chief Judge of the Cook County Criminal Courts, Judge Paul P. Biebel, Jr. Having Judge Biebel as my mentor was AMAZING and was just the boost that I needed. In fact, I can honestly say that I owe the rest of my career in legal ethics and professional responsibility to him. He guided me to the disciplinary body in Illinois, the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission, where I thrived and stayed for 14 years. I then pivoted to do similar work as an Associate Solicitor at the USPTO. As luck would have it, all my volunteering with the National Organization of Bar Counsel and the ABA Center for Professional Responsibility provided me with my next opportunity as the Director of the Center. All this until I pivoted once again to my current role, serving as the Director of Risk Control Consulting for the lawyers’ professional liability division of CNA Insurance. I guess you could say my whole career has been about being proactive. Working to preserve the integrity of the profession while at the same time protecting the public.
It may sound strange to say it, but the highlight of my career is actually my “side hustle” of being an Adjunct Professor of Legal Ethics, Professional Responsibility, and a U.S. Legal Ethics class devoted solely to global LLM students at Georgetown University Law Center and American University Washington College of Law in D.C., and at Loyola School of Law in Chicago. As a legal ethics professor, I have had the opportunity to influence and shape the vision of future lawyers. By instilling ethical principles, I think that I help students understand the profound responsibility they have to uphold justice, integrity, ethical standards, and fairness once they reach their practice setting. I feel that I can have an impact on the profession by ensuring that the next generation of lawyers is equipped to navigate ethical dilemmas and issue spot ethical situations, and handle them appropriately. Plus, the teaching does not end when the classroom door shuts for the semester. Nothing makes me feel more joy and pride than when a former student reaches out to say he/she/they passed the MRPE or had an ethical issue in their practice setting and knew the answer on how to handle it based on a hypothetical from my class. In teaching, I get to engage with my students, have deep discussions on issues, and also develop personally and professionally as they challenge my own thinking on issues. As a lifelong learner myself, teaching professional responsibility keeps me engaged with evolving ethical standards and dilemmas and helps me to continuously learn and grow in my own understanding of the law. And last but not least, I see it as a way to “pay it forward,” and perhaps guide some students into a career in legal ethics themselves.
I would have done two things differently. First, I would have spent more time cultivating my personal interests. What I mean to say is that the practice of law can be all-consuming if you let it. I know this from my own experience. Not only my law job, but all of the volunteer events and activities related to the law I participated in. This driving obsession left very little time for anything else - most of all my family, my health, my own identity. We talk about work-life balance or work-life integration. You need to have that counterbalance and find the things that provide you with meaning and value outside your work. They are a fabulous stress release and a way to combat the isolation that sometimes comes with the work. Second, and on a similar vein, I would have clamped down on my maladaptive perfectionist tendencies and practiced a bit more self-compassion. We all make mistakes, and I needed to treat myself with a bit more kindness, work more effectively to silence that nagging inner critic, focus on progress rather than perfection, and stop looking for praise and validation from external sources.
Three things:
The technological changes! Not to date myself, but when I started in law school we were still using “dial-up” AOL to access the Internet, social media was only a thing of the future, and we thought the fax machine had revolutionized legal practice. From email, to text, to e-filing, to the cloud, to AI, technological changes are occurring so rapidly. Making sure that we keep up-to-date up to date with the changes not only for our clients but also so that we can all comply with our competence obligations under the Rules of Professional Conduct is challenging.
I first became a member of the ABA in 1997 when I graduated from law school. For me, back then, it wasn’t really a decision. I think it was just the thing that you did. I’m a lawyer, so I joined a professional organization. I knew that membership would be a wonderful vehicle for not only networking with other members of my “lawyer” community but also for professional growth, i.e., learning about different practice areas and providing me with all the resources I would need.
There are a whole host of member benefits that the ABA provided to me that encouraged me to remain a member! First and foremost, the networking opportunities of not only meetings/conferences, but ABA Communities (formerly listservs) and participation on committees! What an amazing place to talk with like-minded professionals, ask questions, connect, learn, grow, travel, and maybe sprinkle in some mirth and merriment every once in a while. Second, access to resources! All of the books, articles, ethics opinions, checklists, guidelines, and practice tools that I use daily! The SLD gives me so much guidance on topics I am going to need as I come to my “encore” career - financial and retirement planning, healthcare directives, etc. And how about the FREE CLE – not only to be an attendee but to serve as a panelist!
Being involved with the Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs and other wellbeing committees in the IPL and SLD Groups. This work saved me. Not in a recovery sense, but in a mission and quest sense. It gave me a passion, filled my soul, and put me on a track to learn why lawyers are so reticent to seek help, suffer in silence, and to be able to do something about it. Throughout my career, I have seen lawyers come to sworn statements and depositions under the influence; had attorneys tell me that they had stacks of letters from the disciplinary agency piled up - even annual registration letters - and could not open them because of the stress and anxiety it produced; attorneys who started in the profession just wanting to help people and now were profoundly ambivalent about the profession and their career. Some would even tell me “I just really don’t want to do this anymore.” Or worst of all, attorneys who just didn’t show up – not because they were facing disbarment for conversion of millions of dollars, but simple neglect matters. All of this caused me to wonder why. What is it about us, about the profession, about the work that is causing these problems and what can I do about it? My participation in CoLAP and other groups led me to inquire as to the signs, symptoms and causes of these diseases; about what makes someone lose everything that is important to them and what makes someone hit bottom. But more importantly what makes them stop, and from where and how does resilience come. I got involved, spread the word, engaged, reached out, collaborated, and wanted to make sure that every lawyer knows there is a confidential and safe space to turn. That you are not alone. This work also challenged me to do more. To work to create a movement of change towards improving the health and well-being of the legal profession and change the culture, reduce the stigma, and get on a better, healthier, more sustaining path. Through my work with these groups, as well as the ABA Wellbeing Pledge Committee, and in partnership with other organizations such as the International Bar Association, Institute for Wellbeing in Law, and the Mindfulness in Law Society, we are building a better system of policy, process and prevention. We are changing the culture. We are building a more relevant and resilient future and proactive regulatory framework for our profession.
Right out of undergrad, I was one of the lucky ones with a full-time position selecting site-appropriate art for Chicagoland hospitals. I worked directly with sculptors and painters on specialized commissions, drafting & revising the terms of the contracts, serving as the conduit between the artists and the hospital boards commissioning the work, watching the work come to life, and then helping place all of the pieces on site. As a history and art history double major, this position provided me with meaning and value internally and externally. I was surrounded by what I loved, and I was able to actually use what I learned in college to help others. I think if I had stayed, I might have gone on to expand that business to other corporate settings and locations or perhaps found a new career with an auction house like Sotheby’s or Christie’s. That or be an astronaut!
