It begins here

We are early adopters in the market and enjoy a strong market position. It's also a very tight-knit professional market, and we have very close relationships that we continue to foster. Also, no two days are alike, given that we are touching almost every practice, sector and geography, so I'm learning something new constantly. 

Absolutely. Aside from teaching me the importance of being meticulous in practice, attentive to detail and always responsive to clients, their vision, guidance and support encouraged me to take calculated risks, which fostered a whole new practice.

I've been with the firm for 13+ years. Climbing the associate ranks and then coming into the partnership, I spent six years in Washington, DC, and now have been involved with clients in Israel for 7-1/2 years. I started out as a Corporate associate, became involved in the firm's Hospitality practice in my earlier years, then had the opportunity to create an Israel practice when I began spending time in Tel Aviv.

Incredibly entrepreneurial. The firm provides great encouragement for attorneys to chart their own course. They can certainly grow and thrive within the existing structure, but there is also great opportunity to be creative and run with one's own passions, in line with firm strategy.

I enjoy working with my colleagues, both in the Atlanta office and other offices. I am fortunate to work with smart, experienced lawyers who excel at their profession, are readily available to address my questions and provide me work opportunities that can improve and build my skills.

I wish I had known the importance of putting together a system for organizing and managing working files and emails. I worked on about 50 different matters for clients in two years at DLA Piper. When a client emails you two years after a transaction about a specific correspondence, it is important that you have organized and managed all of your emails and communications in an effective manner so that you can respond. While it is never too late to get organized, it makes the process much easier if you start creating folders by client and subfolders by specific transactions on day one.

Monitoring and entering my time has always been a challenge. Tracking your life in six-minute intervals can be difficult, especially when you are managing several different transactions simultaneously. Our new policies and tools make it easier to manage my time and remind me to enter my time on a regular basis.

I enjoy working on exciting, complex and high-profile projects, all of which differ from each other in unique ways, that produce tangible outcomes – whether I'm working with a client to buy a property or securing entitlements to break ground on a new global headquarters. I also enjoy the people I get to work with, both internally in the firm's Real Estate group and externally with players in the real estate industry.

I have found a number of mentors at the firm – through both formal and informal channels. Right off the bat, my  associate Jump Start Connection mentor and partner career advisor were invaluable in helping me to find my bearings and hit the ground running. Since then, I've identified additional mentors through my day-to-day work, involvement in firm committees and other opportunities. These mentors have had a huge impact on my practice and experience at DLA Piper in that they push me to be a better lawyer and associate and teach me new and different ways to approach problems.

For better or worse, I don't really have a typical day. It depends on client needs and where projects on which I am working are in their lifecycles. There are some days that I spend in back-to-back meetings or public hearings. On other days, I may be working in the office most of the day on a number of different projects. I often find myself attending community meetings in neighborhoods throughout the city, which gives me the opportunity to get to know the various stakeholders for any given project.

The opportunity I get each day to work with great clients and colleagues. Helping our clients solve their most urgent problems is incredibly rewarding, but so is the teamwork required of my colleagues and me to achieve those results.

I've been extraordinarily privileged to have great mentors at the firm over the years. For example, Don McPherson was the chair of the Baltimore office's real estate department when I joined the firm. He taught me the substantive law I needed to know, provided me with the client and firm contacts I needed to develop and extend my business network and entrusted me to learn and work without micromanagement. To this day, I rely on Don (now a retired partner) as a mentor and often turn to him for advice.

A typical day involves a mix of client and colleague phone calls and meetings, reviewing and drafting legal documents, consulting and interacting with the other members of my team and doing something each day to attract new business – whether having lunch with a client prospect or passing along a useful tidbit of industry information to a longtime client for whom I might not have a current matter pending. There are also any number of administrative functions I deal with each day. Equally important, I start each morning in the gym and end each evening in my music room mixing records from my 55,000-strong LP collection.

The bulk of my work consist of corporate investigations. Through this, I get to collaborate very closely with the client and in-house counsel. I love learning the ins and outs of the business and seeing our recommendations take effect in real time.

I have found wonderful mentors, at various stages in their careers, at DLA Piper. I have always been impressed by how readily my mentors make time to offer guidance.

Two of DLA Piper's platforms that drew me to the firm were our international scope and our commitment to pro bono. Through my years of working at the firm, I have found that these are not mere marketing claims, but an accurate representation of DLA Piper's capabilities and commitments. I have had the pleasure of working on New Perimeter projects globally and working with various offices around the world. I have found both to be enlightening and energizing experiences.

I became a litigator because I like the challenge of finding creative solutions to complex and difficult problems. I also enjoy successfully navigating clients through high-stakes litigation and government investigations, which can give clients bad headaches. It's rewarding when I can provide clients with peace of mind. I chose to center my practice around antitrust law because it keeps me on my toes intellectually, and antitrust provides me with opportunities to work with clients on non-litigation matters, such as compliance procedures and antitrust clearance for potential deals.

The importance of building relationships, both within and outside of the firm. It is never too early to start developing your network. It takes time to build a strong network, but having one is a necessity for nearly every career path.

I was fortunate to have incredibly supportive and wonderful mentors from the outset. My mentors have given me invaluable advice over the years, with my best interests as their top priority. They have helped me grow professionally and personally, and I still regularly seek their guidance today. A piece of advice that one of my mentors gave me when I was a very junior associate was to show everyone the same respect and professionalism that would be shown to a client. That advice continues to shape my career.

After wrapping up an arbitration at the end of 2015 − one that engulfed all of my availability for three years − my plate was almost completely empty. When a big matter finishes, building back up can be more difficult than anticipated. Being "slow" was not something I knew how to handle. Yet 2016 turned out to be one of the most professionally rewarding years I've had at DLA Piper. I brought in clients for the firm, handled a few small matters on my own for other offices that resolved favorably, and was staffed on another arbitration right before the hearing and was able to assist with its victory. It is important to take advantage of the downtime when you have it, because it rarely lasts long.

So often in big law we describe the associate track with terminology straight out of a video game, such as "level up" and "getting over the wall." Without a great mentor, navigating associate life would be like winning a Mortal Kombat round and simply bowing when "Finish Him" appears on the screen. Mentors already knows the best moves because they have either been there, simply bowed and learned a different finishing move, or they had someone else teach them and can now pass on their knowledge. My mentor is now a senior associate at the firm and was my assigned Jump Start Connection when I started as a first year. (Apparently, your Jump Start Connection is supposed to mentor for your first year only, but we did not get that memo.) As I move through my fifth year, I continue to rely on her for career advice, life advice and case-specific advice daily. Without a mentor, I would have fewer connections, career experiences (such as solo hearing experience as a first year) and practice pointers.

The common answer to this is: "there is no typical day." That's mostly true. However, as I have gone up the associate ladder, my typical-atypical day has greatly changed. As a young associate, your schedule is more unpredictable because you are frequently given last-minute projects, from multiple people, on cases that you do not manage. As a mid-level, that really changes. More of your day is spent on the phone and in meetings and you have a better idea of what the future holds. Sure, there are still surprises, but they are far fewer as you progress.

DLA Piper's Finance group is a well-integrated team, spanning numerous national and international offices and sub-specialties. This structure has allowed me to work with a wide range of clients and partners over the years and to build a strong internal and external network. I have also gained experience with a variety of finance transactions, from small venture loans to large bank, private equity and public market financings.

Like most new associates, I quickly realized there is a steep learning curve involved in the transition from law school to becoming a practicing lawyer. I was fortunate to join a group of lawyers who took care to mentor me and teach me not only the substantive legal aspects of their practice but also the just-as-important intangibles, such as managing teams and dealing with clients and opposing counsel. This guidance, as well as plentiful opportunities to observe my mentors in action, allowed me to quickly progress from assisting routine tasks to managing increasingly complex transactions and teams.

On a typical day, I will be working with clients, opposing counsel and DLA Piper attorneys on various stages of multiple deals at the same time. This may involve setting up deal teams and checklists and negotiating preliminary term sheets for a deal just getting started; lengthier negotiations of and revisions to key financing documents for a deal in full swing; and/or coordinating closing documents and deliverables for a deal that is ready to close. Juggling all of these matters has taught me the importance of time management, prioritization and organizational skills, as well as the importance of working with a good team.

One of the things I enjoy most is the variety. I practice securities law and corporate law, handling matters for both public and private companies of varying sizes, which has helped me develop as a more well-rounded attorney.

I have found wonderful mentors here, both through the formal career advisor program and organically through conversations with other colleagues. I have learned so much from these mentors, who have helped me find my own style in practicing law through the examples they set of how to provide high-quality legal work and excellent service to our clients, create strong relationships with current and prospective clients, work effectively with colleagues and opposing counsel, and mentor others.

As I often tell law students, the thing that took the most getting used to when I started practicing was how atypical my days are! I was someone who always wrote out to-do lists and worked my way through them, checking each item off as I went. While I still have my to-do lists, I know now that the most typical things about my days are: (1) there will be calls and e-mails from clients and/or colleagues that will cause me to add to and re-prioritize my to-do list; and (2) in spite of that uncertainty, somehow everything that needs to be done always gets done.

I enjoy getting to work with different private equity funds and banks on many types of transactions that arise from the breadth and quality of work that we get. While I focus on the technology, financial services, manufacturing and consumer goods industry sectors, I've had the opportunity to work with many other types of companies, which gives me a solid base of experience to handle any finance matter.

I've been with DLA Piper my entire career as an attorney. When I began, my practice was more of a mix between general corporate/M&A work and finance work, which was very beneficial to the development of my practice. As a result, I am very familiar with and understand the many different issues that can arise in an acquisition or divestiture and how they relate to the finance side of the deal. Having the opportunity to get my feet wet in a couple of different practice areas helped me figure out what I was best suited for long term.

I love the pace and spontaneity. Bankruptcy cases and distressed deals move quickly. Someone once described corporate restructuring to me as the emergency room of practice groups. Every case and every day is different.

There was so much I didn't know when I first started practicing, so the list is long. Most of all, I wish I knew how quickly time would fly.

The Corporate Restructuring group here at DLA is small and associates truly get a lot of responsibility and substantive experience. When I started practicing, I was very timid and reserved. Practicing at DLA Piper has not only made me a stronger lawyer, it has made me a more confident lawyer.

The primary reason why I am so passionate about restructuring is its sweeping reach into all areas of the law: in addition to the overarching Bankruptcy Code, restructuring lawyers deal with all aspects that a business does – employment, employee benefits, tax, environmental law, finance, corporate, litigation. For example, because debtors often sell assets in their bankruptcy case, we are deal lawyers; because bankruptcy financing is very frequent, we are also finance lawyers; because most of the dealings need to be approved by the court through a motion practice (and because other constituencies may not agree with the requested relief), we are also litigators, arguing motions, defending or conducting depositions, engaging in discovery and drafting appellate briefs. This is the beauty of bankruptcy practice – its multifaceted dimensions. To add to this, because DLA Piper is a global firm that knows no borders, many of our clients have operations all over the globe, so the aspect of international law is added to the complexity and richness of the bankruptcy practice. One chapter 11 debtor case may bring together more than 50 lawyers across groups and jurisdictions.

There are two things I wish I would have known on day one in the office. First, business development starts early, in college actually. As we, lawyers, are moving up in our careers, so are our peers in business. Although it will take time for our business counterparts to reach levels of authority to be able to give us their business, we need to develop relationships early, so our future business relationships are strong. My rule now is to meet for lunch or breakfast with one of my peers or a new acquaintance at least once a week. I wish I had started this practice much earlier in my career. Second, I wish I had started on day one to keep a notebook of cases and their key issues, even if I did not work on them directly, so I can refer to them in my subsequent cases. It is essential to know where to turn for a precedent.

Because I think that life is too short and too beautiful to spend one-third of it sleeping, I wake up at 4 am I get to the office early, so I can have a head start before e-mails and calls start to flow. I start working on the train, primarily sorting through all of my e-mails from the prior day. Overall, days are unpredictable, requiring reprioritizing tasks at hand. On any one day, I usually work on about three cases. A larger portion of my day is spent on conference calls, both internal (with partners, associates or paralegals) and external (with clients, financial advisors or opposing counsel). Most of my substantive work is done early in the morning or after 5 pm when things become less hectic. On the train ride back home, I enter my time for the day. I try to get home by dinner time (which is late in my household), so I can have an evening with my two beautiful kids, but I log back in to tidy up loose ends after my kids go to sleep; my day ends around midnight.

DLA Piper's employment group is very diverse. Our attorneys may be litigators, advisors and counselors working with startup clients or on big M&A transactions. They may also be executive compensation professionals figuring out the latest 409A issues or nuances on how tax reform impacts executive compensation. They may be union lawyers addressing labor issues, or attorneys, like me, with a focus on a global employment and transactional practice. 

What I enjoy most about my practice is that it is truly global. By 10 AM, I probably will have received emails from more than a dozen jurisdictions around the world and might have been on calls with clients and colleagues in just as many. While many issues are recurring, others are fresh and unique, and I get a thrill out of dealing with the less common jurisdictions.

Most companies go global much earlier than they did just a few years ago, while scrutiny by regulators has been rising.  So we have more and more clients coming to us for global employment advice. We also need to keep up on trends in employment laws as they develop across the globe: how to tackle gender pay issues with a workforce that crosses borders, how to address the employment and privacy challenges of modern technology (like biometrics or wearable devices) and how to address employment issues in an increasingly mobile world. All of this keeps us on our toes. More often than not, certain issues will come up in multiple jurisdictions across the globe, and we really enjoy working with clients on finding strategies to tackle these challenges in a manner that is not only local law compliant but also makes sense with the client's culture and values.

It is long but rewarding. I start my day around 5AM at my kitchen table; this lets me catch my European colleagues early enough to still get some work done, my APAC colleagues just before their bedtime for any late-night emergencies, and my LatAm colleagues before they jump into their day. My regular workday in the office starts after my kids are off to school. I usually handle around 10-20 phone calls a day – client emergencies, scheduled diligence calls on transactions, whatever comes my way. The rest is about working with my team on everything else, like employment contracts, global policies, transaction agreements and email advice. I usually don't know when I start my day what issues will end up on my desk by the end. And if I find some "free" time between all of this, I love getting involved in DLA Piper's very active pro bono community – we work on global employment matters with some wonderful global nonprofits and help with immigration clinics. We also take part in some of New Perimeter's global initiatives.

Like many young lawyers, when I first started practicing law, I sometimes experienced what's been described as the imposter syndrome: the nagging, unproductive fear that one day, I'd be exposed as a fraud. What I've learned is that making mistakes and asking for help doesn't make me an imposter or a fraud. The practice of law is just that − a practice. This is a liberating way of approaching my work because it helps me embrace the mindset that there is always something else to learn. It's also a reminder that mistakes are not personal shortcomings. I'm practicing.

I'm reminded of a quote by Les Brown, "Practice makes improvement. You can always better your best." 

DLA Piper's labor and employment group handles a variety of substantive matters across myriad industries. We advise our transactional colleagues on the employment implications of mergers and acquisitions, draft agreements pertaining to almost every aspect of the employment relationship, counsel clients on how to comply with federal and state employment laws (in a constantly evolving legislative, political and cultural climate) and advocate on behalf of our clients in court and other dispute resolution fora. It's truly a diverse, multi-dimensional practice.

Early on, a mentor told me: "take ownership of your matters." It took some time for me to understand what this means and how to put this advice into practice as a new lawyer. Now that some time has passed, I view taking ownership as the ability to anticipate what a partner or client will need before they request it; it means treating every draft as if you were the last person to review the document before it gets filed. Taking ownership means going the extra mile to make someone else's day a little less overwhelming (even if that task is administrative in nature). It means caring about the work in front of you, and that includes the seemingly unimportant details.

As I've taken on more responsibility within my team, I've transitioned to a role where I often assign work to other associates, and where I am expected to both manage that work and provide feedback to my colleagues. Learning to take on that role − from providing clear instructions at the beginning of an assignment (which requires knowing what you want) to providing effective feedback (which I'm still working on) to seeking feedback about my own leadership − has been a challenge. But it is important to me to learn to be a more effective leader in order to cultivate a strong, cohesive team that can better serve our clients.

I am fortunate because I both like the people I work with and the work that I do. I am part of a great team of partners and associates who are supportive of one another in our professional and personal lives and who get to work on interesting projects every day. Because I am a nerd, I enjoy analyzing complex fact patterns and providing economic sanctions guidance to our clients − especially (as a Cuban American) when projects involve Cuba sanctions. I also love being able to work on client matters that impact or are impacted by the major issues being discussed in Congress in areas like infrastructure.

Yes. I've been incredibly lucky to work with partners and of counsel who have taken a real interest in my career and in providing me guidance. Not only have these relationships taught me more about the firm and about being a better lawyer, but knowing that good lawyers have my back and believe in the work that I do makes me more confident in my abilities.

This is a people profession. And it's absolutely not just who you know that can help you get ahead… but who you know who can help you better serve your clients, help another colleague or teach you something about your practice area that you otherwise would not have known. I tell most young lawyers I meet these days (and who are interested) to get out in the legal community and meet people, go to bar association events, join young lawyer social groups, stay connected with co-counsel or even opposing counsel (if they warrant your respect) when a matter is over, learn the clerks' and other staff members' names at the courts you practice in, get to know the governmental regulators you work with and stay connected to all of them. Also, be open to helping others without expecting anything in return – because, the less you make your network about quid pro quo, the more you will actually get back from these relationships down the line. For instance, you may ask your network for a recommendation or tip on a job opening once or twice (if that) during your career, but you’ll be asking them for advice on how to better serve your client's needs, better understand a new or different facet of law, better advance your arguments before a particular judge, better convince a regulatory body that your client's request should be granted, better connect you with an attorney that can handle a referral and dozens of other questions for years to come. So start creating your network now. These types of relationships take time.

As a recent lateral, I have not found a mentor per se, but I've certainly found individual leaders within the firm who have stepped up to help shape my experience and ultimate success. I've been at the firm for less than three months and can say with conviction that I've been met with open arms and that the people and firm culture have exceeded my expectations. Two individuals have played a key role in this experience – one a practice sub-group leader and the other a regional group leader. True to the culture of the firm, they have expended time and energy to explain and advance the firm's goals to me, emphasized and connected me to the firm's global reach, ensured that the firm's resources are matched with my practice needs, connected me with compatible attorneys and practice groups within the firm and highlighted how my practice, skills and experience fit with the firm's goals and people. This entrepreneurial and team work environment is exactly what I was looking for when moving my practice to DLA Piper and, thus far, these two individuals have helped shape my experience in a very positive way.

In addition to the relevant nature of our practice in relation to current events, I very much enjoy practicing in the Government Affairs group because of the people. I have been privileged to work with wonderful partners, of counsels and associates since I started at the firm, and they have made the job enjoyable – even on my most challenging days.

I have kept an open mind about the type of work I want to do since I started with DLA Piper, and that has led to many interesting opportunities in different areas of law that I had not previously considered. Even after 3.5 years with the firm, I'm still learning new types of work within my group, and I've been able to take on additional responsibilities and leadership roles within cases.

DLA Piper's global reach is an integral part of its culture. Even though each office location and each group within an office may maintain a slightly different culture, they tend to collaborate well together when such opportunities arise. That global and collaborative nature is one of the firm's greatest assets.

On any given day, I will work on trademark or copyright matters for 15 to 20 different clients. We work with clients in a variety of industries, from wine and online consumer products to B2B software enterprise solutions and platforms for programmers. Many of our clients are creating cutting-edge technology or breaking new ground, and it is fascinating to have a front-row seat to exciting developments and changes in so many different industries. I also really enjoy helping our clients build valuable assets through development and protection of their brands.

I have gained an enormous amount of substantive knowledge and experience during my time at DLA Piper. However, one thing I did not expect when I started was the deep appreciation I have developed for teamwork. My practice is very team oriented − partners, associates, paralegals, file clerks and secretaries all play a daily role in helping to provide clients with the very best service. We also work on teams across practices to make sure every legal need of our clients is met quickly and efficiently.

On an average day, I will have a call with a startup client to explain the trademark clearance and prosecution process. I will likely receive several emails from clients asking whether a third-party trademark is infringing on their rights or whether the marketing department can post something on social media. I may spend an hour drafting a cease-and-desist letter and then several hours investigating and drafting a comprehensive clearance search report for a client's new brand. It is also likely that I will have a call with opposing counsel to negotiate a settlement agreement or discuss an opposition pending before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.

In the last two years, there has been a tremendous change in the global tax environment. This has meaningfully impacted how clients structure transactions and do business. While it's been a challenge, it has also been part of the excitement of working at a global firm. I have been fortunate to navigate these changes with the bright, creative and responsive professionals in our global group.

Over the years, I've had increased responsibility over managing projects. As a result, I am able to focus beyond the minutia of regulatory changes and see the big picture of the business issues affecting my clients. In keeping up with market trends, I've been able to bring clients creative solutions and stay ahead of the issues.

I start every morning with a walk through Rockefeller Center, across the street from our office. I'm alongside commuters, tourists and street vendors filling Sixth Avenue before I slip into the office. My work spans the global firm platform and different time zones; I might have a call with our Paris office in the morning to structure a fund's United States investments and one with our Silicon Valley office in the afternoon with a software startup. I'll usually walk down the hall to bounce ideas off a colleague or collaborate on a pitch for a New York-based multinational company. My typical day is typical New York: fast-paced, diverse and exciting.