embodiedliving

Women Lawyers Thriving in Their Own Firms: Alisa Brodkowitz

Some stories stay with you. Let me start with the story of Alisa and Harry.

Now a brilliant aviation attorney with her own practice in Seattle, Alisa Brodkowitz grew up on a sheep farm in northern Vermont, near the Canadian border. Instead of dolls, Alisa had baby sheep in her wood-heated home, overflowing from baskets, covered with blankets, and nursing from eyedroppers and baby bottles. One was Harry, born a blind grey lamb who could not find his mother’s teat to nurse.

Alisa stepped in to nurture Harry, feeding him from a baby bottle and pushing him around in a baby carriage (she says she was always Little Bo Peep in the town parades). Although all the lambs on the farm, including Harry, were killed, and Alisa was never told about Harry’s death, my sense is that Harry touched her deeply and helped to shape her gentle presence and tenacity.

I asked Alisa about the lessons she learned from growing up on a farm. “I learned the importance of hard work and chores,” Alisa said, “but more importantly, I understood the cycle of life and death.” And when she could help, she stepped in and did everything she could, whether that meant mothering Harry or learning to fix a tractor engine (as a kid she loved all things mechanical). Laughing, she adds that she also learned to talk fast and articulately as she competed with her two brothers for air time.

Alisa brings her childhood qualities of gentle presence, tenacity and intelligence to her successful practice. Judge Faith Ireland has also observed this: “I am someone who keeps an eye out for great talent in the law business. As such I have observed Alisa to be fearless, hungry for the courtroom and highly respectful of the talent of opposing counsel. Those attributes lead her to work hard and prepare ferociously.”

Alisa’s story shows us the magical way that synchronicity can lead us on our journey. In her childhood, she had an unorthodox education in a tiny school held in the home of a local doctor. The students studied Latin, Greek and French in the second grade, and learned about biology when the dogs dragged in a deer head they could dissect. Sleep away summer camp in the Adirondacks for two months every year, beginning at a very young age strengthened Alisa’s independence, self-respect and confidence as she mastered sailing, canoeing and horseback riding.

Her high school years were spent at the White Mountain Boarding School, where in the winter months, the kids skied for a portion of each day. French was a favorite subject. Her senior project on impressionism (Van Gogh) in France led her through many adventures in Paris (including a mugging), and she fell deeply in love with the city and its treasures. She returned to France during a gap period in college to work with an artist. Never happy at the University of Vermont, she eventually landed at Concordia University in Montreal where she studied French.

Montreal became Alisa’s “favorite city on earth, more than Paris.” Why? It is “a tossed salad of people who love life, music, art, food, and festivals.” Alisa embodies this love of life. When you are with her, you feel more alive yourself.

When Alisa decided to return to the states from Montreal to go to law school, she enrolled at Seattle University, when it was still in Tacoma, only to be overwhelmed by the contrast with her cherished Montreal. Determined to return to Montreal, she focused on international law. On her way to graduating cum laude, she took a transnational litigation course that so inspired her that she “ran to class, read ahead and did international research.” Her adjunct professor had worked on the TWA Flight 800 case—the plane that crashed off of Long Island in 1996 as it was bound for France.

    Her professor used the crash as an example in teaching the class about international treaties and conflicts of law. Along the way Alisa got her first taste of aviation law and was transfixed. This was a practice area that combined her love for international law, all things mechanical, an intellectual challenge and an opportunity to make the world a safer place. It was then that Alisa decided to become an aviation law attorney.

    So she sought out an opportunity to learn more aviation law.  There are only two places in the world where you can get an LLM in Air and Space Law, Montreal Quebec and Leiden, The Netherlands.  After sending 100 letters to firms and NGOs overseas (that tenacity once again), Alisa was offered an internship at the Hague in her senior year (2000–01) to work on the Hague Conference on Private International Law. For one semester, she attended the Leiden School of Law in the Netherlands where she studied aviation law.  Leiden's aviation law program is taught by preeminent aviation scholars. The experience was invaluable. While studying and working in The Netherlands Alisa wrote a 60 page law review article, and also helped write a book on the Hague Convention—the Practical Handbook on the Operation of the Hague Service Convention, the practitioners' guide on international service of process.

Because her European credits did not transfer equivalently, when Alisa returned to the States, she was asked to do an internship with a local aviation attorney, Bob Hedrick. Her internship introduced her to the King County Aviation Bar Seminar, where she met lawyers from Krutch, Lindell, Bingham, Jones & Petrie, which became her first employer out of law school. For three years, she honed her skills and knowledge while working on plane crash and other personal injury cases.

In 2006, Alisa joined Paul Whelan at Stritmatter, Kessler, Whelan &  Coluccio. Together they worked on the Magana v. Hyundai case, involving a seat-back failure and a paralyzed client. When Alisa moved for production of other seat back failure cases, Hyundai withheld evidence on most (more than 40), resulting in a default judgment for $8 million. (Although Division II reversed the ruling, the Supreme Court recently heard oral argument, in the winter of 2008.) As Alisa talked about her client, she spoke and gestured with sadness and compassion about his loss. From my past experience in representing injured plaintiffs in product’s cases, I understood the depth of her feelings.

Alisa, with husband Matt Geise, gave birth in 2007 to a daughter, Ana Rose. Wanting to practice part-time, she started her own office just three months later. Her husband and her father, both owners of their own businesses, said to her, “It is your time, so do it!”

When Alisa sent a letter to all her clients, offering them a choice between following her or staying with her old law firm, every one chose to follow. Within a few months she went to trial, earning a $400,000.00 verdict in a back injury case. After her daughter's first birthday she extended her work schedule considerably to accommodate her caseload.

Alisa leases a Fremont building with friend and colleague Beth Terrell. Her office sparkles with sleek, custom-designed maple desk and shelves designed by award-winning architect Carolyn Geise.  For the first time in her career she is able to concentrate nearly all of her time on her passion, aviation law. She is clearly not only happy but deeply fulfilled by her work, which is “flourishing.”

Ninety percent of Alisa’s cases now are aviation, her first love. If she can discover why a plane went down or malfunctioned and provide some peace of mind to surviving family members, while making it safer for others to travel, that’s satisfaction. She is currently counsel to the plaintiff in a case against Boeing for toxic fumes released in the cabin on commercial aircraft. According to Alisa, the problem is that the air drawn in to pressurize the airline cabin sometimes becomes contaminated with jet engine oil. An additive to this oil is Tricresyl Phosphate, a known neurotoxin. This air is unfiltered and undetected as it circulates around the cabin throughout a flight, injuring an untold number of travelers and crew members every year.

Alisa is driven by her belief that we must leave the world a better place than we found it, and that it is important to follow our passions and take risks, even through our fear.

Though she has come a long way since her days with Harry, her understanding of matters of life and death, and empowering of those who have suffered loss of life or health have been threads of truth that have prevailed for Alisa and her clients.

Women Lawyers Thriving in Their Own Firms: Carol Bailey

 “Everyone wants to be like Carol.”

A young associate in Carol Bailey's all-woman family law firm describes Carol as tough (“no BS”), caring and feminine. With her warm and down-to-earth Texas presence, Carol says, “I teach other lawyers to really care about their clients and the impact that we, as lawyers, are having on society.”

Like her associate, I was immediately inspired by Carol. In her own words, her life purpose is to experience joy. And her story, in all of its magic, reflects that purpose. She has lived a life “directed from the inside, not the outside.”

The founder and owner of Carol Bailey & Associates, PLLC, Integrative Family Law, Carol has created a firm that is integrative in its internal processes as well as in its approach to cases. Carol understands the effect of conflict on families and the importance of resolving it in a way that honors the needs of her clients and the larger family system. Sometimes mediation and a collaborative approach are appropriate and other times not. Carol’s sophistication in this arena, enhanced by her many years of representing children’s interests in divorces, led to an invitation to teach a course on communication skills and conflict resolution at the Seattle University School of Law in fall 2009.

To Be Authentic …

Picture a young, wiry girl in a pair of cutoffs grabbing her horse by its mane, swinging herself up and taking off, bareback, through the Texas woods, with her dog running alongside. Carol spent many years of her life doing just that every day after school. She recalls camping out with her horses and being moved deeply by the night sky and the profound sense of wonder it awoke in her about the universe.

Her curiosity about the world and love of beauty was furthered by her mother, who was involved with a program teaching English to Spanish-speaking women immigrants.  Many of these women stayed with Carol’s family for extended periods of time.  This exposure helped seed Carol’s love of and interest in people from other cultures (which later included a relationship with a prince from Saudi Arabia), her fluency in Spanish and several other languages, and her passion for adventure travel.  Carol's mother also instilled in her a love of art, music and family meals.
Carol faced her dark night of the soul in high school and college, during her emerging adulthood. She says she lost touch with the authentic, free parts of herself in an effort "to live to please others". She faced her self doubts and demons, inside and out, by paying attention through her own existential journey. She had two life changing experiences: her first solo journey to Paris at the age of 19, and an extended trip alone around the world.

The second of these experiences occurred after Carol completed law school at Southern Methodist University in 1978. Carol traveled alone on a world tour which included the then Soviet Union, areas of the Middle East (including Pakistan and Afghanistan), Africa, India, Kashmir, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. The stories from her travels will someday fill a book.

For example, she was kidnapped in Turkey by Russian and Afghani arms smugglers who were riding on the train in the same compartment as her. Her pre-arranged ride from the rural Turkish train station failed to appear.  Alone, she felt her only choice was to ride with the men to a hotel in town.  They locked her inside a room with a drunk man.  Carol kicked the door down and ran through the streets—unable to read any of the Turkish signs, being chased by the men who had kidnapped her—until by a stroke of fortune, she saw the word "HOTEL" and found safety inside. There, in the lobby, she found the man who was supposed to have met her at the train station. (Ready to buy the book? I sure am!)

She also spent an entire day in Russia with a Jewish man, exchanging stories, but with no shared language. Carol says this experience profoundly shifted her view about connection and communication with others.

Carol’s wild and free nature was eventually organically contained by the teachings of her father, who for her embodied passion and principle. From him, Carol learned how to connect with her values and beliefs. Over time she grew to live in alignment with principles as the source of her direction in life, even when this meant choosing to follow a course disfavored by her family and friends.  As an example, when Carol was 29 years old she married an attorney 27 years older than her, over the objection of almost everyone around her. It turned out to be one of the most important decisions of her life, and confirmed for her that her life had to be shaped by following her own guidance.  This experience set the tone for her adult life: “In order to be authentic, I had to know and follow what was true for me inside, without being swayed by convention or worrying about what other people might think.”

Follow What Is True Inside …

I can see that Carol lights up when there is a problem to be solved and facts and law to synthesize, in service of real-life issues and with potential to avert harm. Law school and family law practice were clearly a fit.
Carol’s early career included a federal clerkship (Fifth Circuit, District Court) and general litigation at a small litigation firm in Houston. She then married the lawyer 27 years her senior (that unconventional streak again), and they parented two children, Bridget and John. The family eventually moved to Whidbey Island due to Carol’s husband’s health issues.

Carol says what followed was one of the hardest times in her life. She was restless and realized that the world was calling her beyond Whidbey. She and her husband reached an agreement that she would move to Seattle with the children (4 and 6 years old), take the bar, and practice law in Seattle, while he remained on Whidbey. They agreed at that point that if either of them met a new mate, they would divorce, but not until then. Carol remembers crying every day that she studied for the Washington State bar. She still loved her husband, and at the same time she knew that to truly care for herself and her children, she had to move to a city and begin working.

Wanting to become a family law mediator, Carol was advised to first become an expert in family law.  She practiced law with Mabry Debuys at Preston Gates and Ellis for seven years. Then, Carol decided to marry a Seattle surgeon.  She gained two stepchildren, Jake and Sarah, a busy home life and the work of blending a family. She decided to continue only her Guardian ad Litem practice and to work from home.  She maintained that practice for the next 10 years.

As a GAL, Carol saw and felt, firsthand, the often-detrimental effect that lawyers have on clients. She says it dawned on her then, hearing over and over parents' varying points of view, that all of our realities are different, based on perceptions and interpretations unique to each of us.  Carol realized that often people are not "lying" as they are accused of by lawyers, but rather have differing perceptions and interpretations of events. With this realization, Carol began to retrain her own mind to approach conflict from a place of curiosity rather than a place of certainty. She stepped into a “beginner’s mind" in understanding conflict.

Without Being Swayed by Convention …

Carol’s GAL experience formed the foundation for her own firm. As her youngest child left for college, Carol launched Carol Bailey & Associates, PLLC. A primary goal was to enhance awareness about the role that lawyers play in people’s lives—especially people going through divorce or family issues-and to make that role a positive one by sincerely caring about each client's life. This also requires new skills lawyers don't learn in law school.  Through her many years of training and on-the-ground experience, Carol knew she could develop a concrete set of skills lawyers could use to diffuse conflict rather than add to it.  These skills, plus the ability to clearly assess each client’s individual needs, gave her the basis for a new approach to family law focused on the client’s long term well-being, not just using the same litigation process over and over meanwhile creating conflict and advancing the lawyer’s financial interests.

When Carol Bailey & Associates, PLLC, Integrative Family Law was born in 2006, Carol was careful to negotiate a graduated lease payment for the first year, to hedge against unexpected costs and uncertain revenues.  The firm made money from the start. Carol Bailey & Associates has now been in business three years. The seven lawyers support each other by brainstorming strategies to deal with opposing counsel who try to drive costs up by acting inappropriately or are otherwise unconscious of their impact on the family unit. The lawyers at Carol Bailey & Associates make it a policy not to engage in lawyer and opposing client "bashing" as this does not promote resolution and creates negativity for everyone. Often in collaborative cases Carol does not sign four-way agreements (which limit the client's options) because she believes at times the agreement does not serve the client's interests.  Another example of Carol's independence and ability to stay focused on her purpose: taking care of each client.

Carol’s firm offers flexible work hours (and remote access) for everyone, lawyers and staff. Required billable hours are considerably less than other firms so that firm members have time for their families. At weekly meetings, Carol invites input on how things are working inside the office. The office is paperless except for court orders and required originals. Everyone feels a sense of team camaraderie and empowerment since each person's input is solicited and considered valuable. As Hallie Eads, the newest firm associate said, “The whole firm has a sincere interest in supporting me to develop in my practice and in my goal to become a great attorney.”

Carol inspires others and is making a critical difference in the lives of everyone she touches. Think back to that young girl, riding free and wild, in touch with her passion and purpose. That girl, now a woman, is alive and well in the world. I feel grateful for the ways in which she has shared her authenticity and values with the legal profession, the men and women who are her clients, and the world.

Carol is walking in the center with the women in her firm.

Women Lawyers Thriving in Their Own Firms: Joleen Hughes

Joleen Hughes greeted me with a big smile at the door of the Celtic Swell, a charming Irish pub in West Seattle. When I sat down with her for a lunch of Irish stew and cornbread, I discovered a woman who makes things happen. She loves music. She loves travel. And she loves to make things happen against the odds, in a big way.

Though her father is a lawyer, Joleen started out determined to make her way in the world without going to graduate school. How did she end up co-owner, with her husband, of the Celtic Swell, and owner of the Hughes Media Law Group as well?

Remember, Joleen loves music. A loyal and fervent Beatle’s fan, she began putting on rock concerts from her dorm at the UW, where she was an RA. While there, she met some of the movers and shakers in the Seattle music industry and after graduating from UW with an advertising degree she jumped in with both feet, soon working in the management office of bands like Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam (before and after they got big record deals). Soon she was also the booking manager at the premier rock club in Seattle during the "grunge years", RKCNDY, all while representing up to eight bands, for whom she negotiated various music contracts. By age 24, she’d left RKCNDY to teach Concert Production, History of Rock and Roll, and Artist Management at the Art Institute of Seattle.

At the Art Institute, her friend Kevin Davis of Garvey, Shubert and Barer (and Sir Mix-A-Lot’s lawyer), was a guest speaker in her Artist Management Class, and he suggested she become an entertainment lawyer.  While studying for the LSAT, she took a break from music and  worked in the Dean's office at Bastyr University, where she prepared for, applied and was admitted to Seattle University School of Law with a scholarship, before she told her family or friends. (Her dad beamed with pride when he found out.)

Joleen’s love of travel was boosted by a summer studying law in Florence, Italy (why didn’t I think of that?) and then travelling throughout Italy, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic and England. More about travel later. Back in Seattle, she was offered a legal internship at the start-up company RealNetworks (the company that invented audio/video streaming technology). Her boss and mentor was Kelly Jo MacArthur, who had come from international business law firm Sidley Austin in Chicago (where the Obamas met each other).

As one of the first employees at RealNetworks, after graduating Cum Laude from law school, Joleen's internship turned into an in-house position where she moved up the ranks to Senior Counsel.  While at Real, she had a full client base, often responsible for 60 to 100 deals at a time. She supported Real's consumer products teams in the music, sports, games and media fields as well as marketing and events.

And she loved her work, using her “street smarts” from her music days in negotiating some of Real's most prolific deals  with music companies (major labels, publishers, manufacturers, artists) sports leagues (like NFL, NASCAR, PGA Tour, NBA), media companies (like AOL, BBC, CNN, ABC, NBC/Universal) and technology providers.  She was part of the team that put together the first legal music initiative (MusicNet) and put together the first VOD subscription model in the movie industry, after spending two years helping major movie studios get comfortable with the model.

While at Real, Joleen says her boss “Kelly Jo was an unconditionally supportive mentor who empowered us all, based on her belief that by surrounding yourself with the best, you become the best.” And she found her co-workers at RealNetworks to be, without question, among the best lawyers she has ever worked with.  "My colleagues at Real have the highest integrity, but are also extraordinarily intelligent, talented, funny and supportive."

In 2000 and 2001, Joleen went traveling again, this time repeated visits to Ireland, Scotland and England for several weeks with her best friend, touring the country and falling in love with the people and the creative energy. Two years later in Seattle, on St. Patrick’s Day, Joleen met Gareth Hughes, who had arrived from Armagh in Northern Ireland many years before.  A late night of talking led to their first date at Mt. Rainier, and they have not been apart since!  After marrying a year later at sunset on the beach in Wailea, Maui, they decided to build an Irish Pub. Why? Remember: music, travel, and making things happen against the odds.  "It was Gareth's lifelong dream to own his own pub, and I fully support him in this effort." 

They found their spot close to their home on Alki Beach while walking their Siberian Huskies, Finnegan and Foley, and they proudly opened the Celtic Swell in July 2004. 
With Gareth fully in charge of running the day to day operation of the pub, Joleen left RealNetworks to take a break and to help Gareth with the pub as needed. But, within a few weeks she was not only being recruited at a couple of large law firms in Seattle but for several in-house positions at other Seattle companies.  Additionally, she was also asked to do a legal project for a former executive at Real.  Faced with a dilemma, she decided to take the project, test the odds and open her own solo practice.  A year later, she was introduced to another attorney who had just started a new practice and they merged their firms together.  When they parted ways, Joleen and the associates of the firm became Hughes Media Law Group or "HMLG" (www.hughesmedialawgroup.com). 

Coming from Real, Joleen's most important objective in setting up a private practice was to put together a team of talented lawyers with in-house experience and an extra helping of integrity.  "While at Real, I worked with amazing attorneys and it taught me a lot about how to conduct yourself.  We didn't "fight" over work or take credit for other people's work - it was a real collaborative team effort to just concentrate on doing great work for our clients.  It was an amazing place to develop my legal chops.  When I left, I was shocked to learn that colleagues outside of Real had different experiences at law firms."

So, for Joleen the challenge was to create a firm that provided the same level of attention to clients that in-house lawyers provide while helping them manage their legal budgets and keep costs reasonable and predictable.  "I am absolutely inspired by my clients, it doesn't matter if they are just starting out or have established businesses - I am in awe of entrepreneurs and feel a kinship with them.  Lawyers are service providers - and I think it is important to always remember that.  It is what drives me every day."  Unlike many lawyers, Joleen knows what it is like to take her life savings and invest it in her own business and how scary yet exhilarating that can be. 

In other words, Joleen doesn't take the fact that a client is choosing to spend their hard-earned money on legal services lightly.  She insists that both she and her associates think of themselves as "executives" on her clients’ teams. First, it is imperative that they meet with a client (at no charge) to get an understanding about everything in that clients’ business, from “the toilet paper they buy to their biggest deals".  Next, she and her team work closely with their clients to develop an overall legal strategy for the business.  This could be initially helping negotiate a deal, developing a template, setting up a company, conducting an audit of their intellectual property - or for many - becoming their de-facto  "virtual in-house counsel" team.  This approach allows Joleen and her team to form deep and lasting relationships with their clients and help set legal budgets to facilitate their business goals. Her clients at HMLG are located in Seattle, Los Angeles, and the Bay area and include content production studios, music technology , web, and content, and game developers, advertising agencies and platforms, children's product developers, artists, health care platforms, product distributors, and social networking sites.

It is important to note, that starting and running new businesses is not easy, and Joleen has certainly learned a lot over the past few years.  "In starting a restaurant and law practice (both within the same year!), I have certainly encountered a few speed bumps along the way, as anyone must expect when they decide to open their own business.  But it is absolutely worth it.  I have learned an incredible amount, not just from the good experiences, but mostly from the experiences that have tested my character."  Philosophically and practically, Joleen believes that every one of her experiences in life and in running her businesses has made her a better person, and a more compassionate attorney. 

Looking back to her own roots, Joleen recalls that when she was 12 years old, she went camping with her friend's family on May 18, 1980  on the Toutle River near Mount Saint Helens when the mountain blew.  She will never forget the ash, the grey covered “death” floating in the river after the eruption, and the feeling of coming so close to losing her own life.   “I think that experience was a defining moment for me, because it imprinted in the very fiber of my being that that you can never let anything or anybody stop you from achieving your goals with honesty and integrity. You are the creator of your own universe and each day is a gift.”

Joleen’s story not only inspires me to do what I love--it reminds me that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Women Lawyers Thriving in Their Own Firms: Pam Cowan

Pam’s office feels like another world—one infused with the serene and beautiful Asian art she loves. Warm and full of life, Pam walked me down the hall introducing me to various paintings and photographs. Each came with a story about the artist—former clients, friends or people who have taken a stand for their beliefs through their art. Pam is like that—filled with stories about her family, her travels, and her choice of “right livelihood” through her immigration practice, Buddhism, and art. When I left, I felt as though she had woven a fascinating tapestry from the strands of her life and work.

I met with Pam to discover how she had come to start her own immigration law practice 25 years ago. Known today as Cowan, Miller & Lederman, her firm is considered one of the premier immigration law firms in the Pacific Northwest. Her partners are Steve Miller (her husband) and Kevin Lederman.

Why does Pam love immigration law? The strong relationships she forms with her clients, the international contact, and the “right livelihood” aspect. Pam helps people come to the United States—people who have a deep desire to change their own lives, reconnect families, and contribute to the U.S. economy.

How did Pam land here? After graduating from college at Stanford, Pam and Steve went to Asia as volunteers. They taught English in Taiwan and Indonesia then meandered around Asia, finally ending up in  Katmandu, Nepal, where Pam found her love—Tibetan Buddhism. She considered becoming a Buddhist nun, yet a Tibetan lama told her that she would go back to the United States and that she would have three children. (Yes, both true.)

While in Katmandu, Pam, in a wave of emotion, wrote to Harvard and UW law schools where she had been accepted for admission and withdrew her applications, convinced the legal profession was not for her. Returning to Seattle (where she had grown up), she considered getting a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies but was daunted by the language requirements. A Master's in psychology? That required a year of statistics. The default? Law school, of course. The week before law school was to start she met with Dean Hunt, who remembered her missive from Asia vividly. He told her that if she paid the $50 admission fee, he would take a gamble and admit her as an “interesting” addition to the class.
Pam never looked back. Graduating at the top of her class in 1977, she went from a federal clerkship back to Asia (with a two month old son), where she and Steve were the first couple allowed to “split” a Fulbright fellowship - they taught criminal law at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta. They then stayed for a second year, while Pam worked for a private law firm  in Indonesia, before she returned to Seattle as Perkins Coie’s fifth woman associate.

When Pam had her second son, she knew she wanted to spend more time with her children. She designed a part-time policy which Perkins Coie agreed to try out. When she returned after a nine-month leave however, she worked on an immigration matter that she enjoyed more than her large corporate law cases. It felt exhilarating, she said, to meet with individual people and get them a benefit that was truly meaningful - a chance in many cases for them to raise their families in a true democracy and a chance for the United States to benefit from their significant skills.

That was the moment she took the plunge. She knew that immigration law stimulated and satisfied her as a lawyer and a person. She felt it was a practice that she could excel at on her own "terms" - a boutique area of law where she could be the "best" in the city without the traditional backing of a large law firm.  She started her practice above "Magic Mouse Toys" at First and Yesler, with a partner, a typewriter and a telephone. From the beginning, she decided that she would work three days a week, and she has kept that commitment to this day. Her initial partner left shortly after they started, and Pam was officially the owner of her own practice.

Several months after opening her doors, she had her third child, a daughter, and because of her commitment to a three-day workweek, she was able to balance care for her children and for her new practice.

Because most of the large firms did not have immigration lawyers, they were glad to send Pam business in these early days. She hired another lawyer to be there the two days she was not, and finally she hired a second paralegal. And Pam’s firm kept growing, first moving to the Seafirst Building on Fourth Avenue and eventually to her current space at 1000 Second Avenue.  Pam now has 17 people at the firm, including five lawyers. She honors others’ work choices the same way that she honors her own, and many of her employees work on a part time basis as they raise their families.  Few employees leave - her first paralegal has now been with the firm almost twenty years!  Her mother, now 85, still does some of Pam’s bookkeeping.

Clear about her priorities and what was important to her, Pam took five trips of around three-months each with her family, taking the children out of school in their younger days to travel to Fiji, New Zealand and Australia; Turkey, Egypt and Israel; Tanzania and Kenya; France and Italy; and to the national parks in the western United States. Pam continues to make travel a very HIGH priority and takes significant time off (sometimes with grown children) to explore Asia and South America.  Still engaged in her Buddhist practice, she recently took a month-long pilgrimage back to the Tibetan Buddhist Center she had visited in 1973.  Since she continues to work three days a week, she now watches her granddaughter one day a week which balances work with the very best aspects of family life!

Pam is humble about how well her livelihood suits her personality. She enjoys the complexity of immigration law, the people, the high stakes for the immigrants and their families, and the management side of running a small business. She works with large companies to help them fashion immigration strategy and meets interesting people from all over the world. Pam’s smile and easy presence reflects a livelihood that integrate her mind, heart and spirit.

Start by Assuming the Best--- Jones Day Associate Teaches Us

The ABA recently reported about a Jones Day associate assigned to work with a demanding, "ornery" senior partner.  Without knowing it, she applied one of the NLP (neurolinguistc programning) presuppositions that I have found to be most helpful in relationships. Here it is--Assume that everyone is doing the best they can with the resources they believe they have available to them at the time.

In her words, she decided to look at his motivation, realizing that he was nearing retirement and facing pressure to train young lawyers. "Once I understood his motivation, I decided to take responsibility for changing the dynamic," she said. "I demonstrated interest and enthusiasm whenever we'd interact, and eventually he became my mentor." 

When we take things personally, it almost always leads us into a no-win situation.  This associate did the following things that turned the situation around:
1. She did not take the senior partner's behavior personally;
2. She became curious about his motivation and assumed the best;
3. She took responsibility for what she wanted in the relationship and modeled that, with success.

Just who was mentoring whom??

First Lady Knows What is First

Michelle Obama

The ABA picked up an Associated press story about an interview with the First Lady.
Michelle Obama talked about her decision to leave a large law firm when she was an associate.
She said that just before leaving, both  her father and a young friend died and she asked herself, If she were suddenly to die, what did she want to be remembered for?  She knew then that practicing corporate law in a large firm was not her legacy.  For a full report of her interview, see the Chicago Sun Times.

Her remarks are wonderful reminders that the "path" that is our legacy is not linear, not rational and not predictable.  It is connected to our feelings, values, what we care about and what makes our heart sing.

As Michelle so eloquently describes her own process:  So I left my job at the firm and started to then think about what I wanted my life to become. And when I thought about the things that I cared about, the things that I was passionate about, service was always somewhere in there. I thought about the things that I did for enjoyment. They were always mentoring, working with other young people, trying to help them get to where I had -- I was to help them think about their lives differently. So I knew that service was always going to be a part of that passion. So my goal was to figure out how I could not do that in my spare time, but how I could make my work service.

So I started doing a bunch of crazy things: working in city government, and that's when -- after city government I left to start this wonderful organization in Chicago, Public Allies, which many of you know of, because it's one of the first model AmeriCorps national service programs.

I struggle with this choice everyday.   It takes courage and commitment to choose my passion and what I care about deeply over what I perceive as "security"--money and possessions.  Especially in this time of media driven fear about our financial and economic security.  Stories like Michelle Obama's help me remember what is important.  What do you want to be remembered for?

Women Lawyers Thriving in Their Own Firms: Christi Muoneke

If you've ever met Christi Muoneke, you will remember her.  Christi serves her clients with humor, practical savvy and insight into their business needs and challenges, and as a result her practice has been expanding despite the economic downturn.  As she says, “I strive to be the kind of renaissance lawyer that I would want to represent me in business, [as opposed to one that I'd want to write a law review article with].”

The founder and owner of Zephyr Law Group Group, Christi is a joy to know and work with. Her background is unusual and her brilliance is undeniable.  Yet, it is her dynamic presence and down-to-earth nature that magnetize friends and clients to her.

Born to a lawyer father who was a diplomat for Nigeria and a mother who is an educator, Christi spent the first decade of her life living in different countries such as England, France, Sao Tomé, Gabon and Ireland.  In 1967, her father was exiled from Nigeria because of the civil war with Biafra, and Christi and her six siblings were hidden in shipping containers [otherwise packed with dried fish and other marvelous-smelling relief aid food], until they were safely inside a cargo plane arranged by a Roman Catholic aid agency.  After a long and harrowing flight, they arrived in Cork, Ireland and lived with a wonderful Irish family, the O'Neils, for several years until the war ended and amnesty was granted to all former Biafran operatives.  Her parents returned to Nigeria and the family reunited.

Back in Nigeria for high school, and a good student, athlete and tomboy, Christi was training for her blue belt in karate, when a friend told her about a beauty pageant with a trip to the US as first prize.  As most of the rest of the world, she'd always been intrigued by her image of the US, a country she'd yet to visit.  And so, although she didn't consider herself to be a great beauty, Christi spent months preparing and transforming herself from "dojo geek" to "beauty queen." 

To her surprise (and that of her family and friends), she won the pageant over more suitable contestants!  And that experience made her realize that we can achieve the near-impossible, with enough desire, grit and determination.  The prize trip to New York changed her life and drew her back to the US to attend UCLA.  Although the 5th of 7 very close-knit children, she was the first to move to the States.  Over the following years, her siblings did so one at a time, and today they’re all reunited again, albeit in different parts of the country.

After graduate school, she spent six years designing high-rise office buildings in LA, but ultimately felt ready for new challenges. Encouraged by her father and brother, both lawyers, she decided to go to law school, and subsequently graduated from Stanford Law School, where she served as Associate Editor of the Stanford Law Review.   She moved to Seattle, starting her practice at Perkins Coie and then Graham & Dunn, where she practiced corporate securities, M&A and technology law.  She also spent over 7 years at Microsoft, where she worked with several of the company's major business and product development groups, Including  Windows Client,  MSN, Int'l Strategic Alliances, and UPG/Emerging Markets.

Christi's "aha moment" came in 2006, while 5 months pregnant with her second child.  During a routine visit with her husband for an ultrasound, Christi collapsed in her doctor’s office with major hemorrhaging.  As she was being wheeled into the operating room, in danger of losing her child and her own life, she was later told that she came to for a moment, and asked the doctor if the doctor could please hurry as she had to make it back to work for an important 3 p.m. meeting!  Needless to say, she never made it back to that job (that day or any other), and remained hospitalized until her son was born several weeks later.

The weeks of bed-rest and forced non-activity resulted in some reluctant soul-searching, and Christi had to rediscover her intrepid self again.  She also realized what mattered most to her, the gift of time with her family, and what her proudest accomplishments were.  She decided to start the kind of practice she'd dreamed of when she first decided to study law.  It was an easy decision.

Initially, she found work through colleagues and friends who knew her during her time in practice.  Zephyr Law was born in 2007 as Christi moved from her home office to a space in the Georgetown/SODO area, and the firm has continued to grow and add lawyers and other professionals.
The name Zephyr was inspired by Christi's family car (a Zephyr 6), her first introduction to "technology."

Her firm is thriving and so is Christi.  What does she bring to her clients?  A nimble practice that meets each client’s unique needs over time, personalized legal service of the highest quality, a keen business sense and can-do practical approach, and reasonable pricing.  She makes it her job to understand the culture and sensitivities of her business clients. Because she is a “business advisor” in the truest sense, her clients are satisfied and her practice is growing.

Christi's goal is to take a couple of months off with her kids, to spend the summer in a different African country each year.  She enjoys the very small firm feel where everyone finds the schedule that works for them, and is supported in their own intentions.

Would Christi change anything?  Probably not.  "Obviously, I wouldn't be where I am right now without each and every experience that I’ve had along the way. Going home to Africa every year helps keeps me grounded, and reminds me of what a great life I have – whatever the challenges. With the slightest twist of fate, my life could easily have gone in a completely different trajectory, like that of the other billions of people in the developing world.  As we say back home, ‘after you’ve had the experience of pulling a lion by the tail, you’ll never again be afraid of a mere kick from a donkey.’” 

She is ready to slow down the building of her practice and put some processes in place to streamline procedures.  Other than that, she feels blessed and fulfilled in her life.

Susan Boyle-Giving Voice to Our Dreams

Photo of Susan Boyle

Susan Boyle is now a cultural phenomenon in the trend of online sharing of inspiration and humor. I recommend that you watch her performance on You Tube (Britain's Got Talent show) at least several times as a personal growth tool.  When I first viewed the clip, I felt deeply moved by Susan's clear passion, her childlike openness,  and her deep gratitude at creating such an impact on the audience and the judges.

What can we learn from Susan about giving a voice to our own dreams?  She tells us that at age 47 she is pursuing a dream of becoming a professional singer that she had since age 12. She does not let her dream die.  Her passion is fiery ("cheeky") and true. If you watch Susan through the clip, you can see that although she is nervous, all parts of her are aligned and committed.  She does not hold back. Her courage simply shines.  The song flows through her as if she is a clear vessel.

What was your passion at age 12?  How often do we create goals without the fuel of passion, wondering why it is so hard to achieve them? We forget that the "how" and "when" are not up to us.  If we trust the intelligence of the field, the timing will be perfect.

Her vulnerability is powerful.  She shares her nervousness before the performance, and at the same time claims her intention, "I'm gonna make that audience rock!"  When she forgets her words on stage, she is not flustered--she just nods and moves on.  When the audience laughs at her age, she wiggles her hips as her way of joining the joke.  She does not take the scorn of the audience personally and when they cheer her, she smiles at them and blows kisses at the end of her song.  She is  present with the judges, never racing ahead but simply greeting each Yes with excited gestures and a glowing smile.  As she wins, she thrusts her fist in the air and blows another kiss, giving us the gestures that we are all feeling inside.  Backstage, she is moved to deep emotion and gratitude.  To the point of tears, as we cry with her.

Her humor and childlike qualities of openness capture our hearts and take the wind out of any criticism or defense.  As Amanda Holden, one of the judges told her, "We were all being very cynical.  I think that's the biggest wake-up call ever. I just want to tell say it was a complete privilege listening to you." That says it all.  When someone finds their passion-fueled voice and expresses it with grace and courage, it is a privilege to witness.