Nicole Sprinzen, Cozen O’Connor

Office: Washington, D.C.

Practice area: White-collar criminal defense and investigations practice group.

Law school and year of graduation: The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, 1999.

How long have you been at the firm? 3.5 years.

Were you an associate at another firm before joining your present firm? I joined Cozen O’Connor from Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, where I was an associate, counsel and then senior counsel after I returned to Akin Gump after serving as a federal prosecutor with the U.S. department of justice, criminal fraud section.

What year did you make partner at your current firm? I joined the firm as member in 2016, and then became shareholder in 2018.

What’s the biggest surprise you experienced in becoming partner? The percentage of my day that is focused on thinking about, working on and helping administer the business of law. I have been lucky to work at firms and with people who showed me at an early point in my career what the business of law looks like and to involve me in that aspect of the practice. Now, actually taking on more responsibility for those tasks along with all the substantive work and nurturing client relationships has given me a new 360-degree view of the practice of law.

What do you think was the deciding point for the firm in making you partner? I think being a well-rounded firm citizen and lawyer with maybe some good business tendencies led to Cozen making me partner. These days, I don’t think you can be successful as a one-trick pony. You have to be a motivator, generous with your time and knowledge, willing to help your colleagues and firm, and skilled at identifying how you can help potential clients, all while being a really good lawyer in your field and giving clients the service they demand and deserve. I remember the chairman of my prior firm talked about the “business of law,” and I didn’t fully understand it then, but it makes so much more sense now!

Describe how you feel about your career now that you’ve made partner. I love what I do. I practice in a subject area where I can really help people when the biggest stakes are on the line for them, I work with great people who genuinely like each other, and I work at a firm that gives me tremendous support and has an entrepreneurial spirit that is infectious. I really enjoy now helping teach other newer lawyers about criminal defense work and encouraging other people in their careers. I mentor people as much as I can when I see talent and interest, try to help them identify opportunities that are right for them, and try to be a resource for them in their own career goals. Whether it is helping an associate who loves data privacy get firm approval to get her GDPR data privacy certification, or being a sounding board for a young woman I met at a social event who wants to change career paths, paying it forward to the next generation of lawyers and professionals is important to me.

What’s the key to successful business development in your opinion? Meeting people, being creative and open-minded, being thoughtful about how you can help people, and being generous with your time. Once you get the work, you have to do it efficiently and you have to do it very well. But to get the work, you have to focus on the people component because clients are, first and foremost, people.

What’s been the biggest change, day-to-day, in your routine since becoming partner? I have to make a conscious effort to find the quiet time to really dive deep on tough legal questions. It’s a blessing that I’m busy with client work and so involved with many aspects of Cozen’s white-collar defense and investigations practice as the vice-chairman of the group, but it means my office is a busy place. I cherish the quiet time late in the day and in the evenings to be able to focus on case strategy, difficult client questions and writing. By necessity, I think I’ve become more efficient!

Who had the greatest influence in your career that helped propel you to partner? There are lots of people who come to mind as being particularly significant in my career because they helped me in different ways. John Dowd, then a partner with Akin Gump, taught me the dogged pursuit of a client’s plight and told me to “trust my instincts”—he was right. Mark MacDougall, also an Akin partner, gave me more responsibility at a young age than I probably deserved and convinced me that serving the country as a prosecutor was an invaluable experience, and it was. Paul Pelletier, then principal deputy chief of the DOJ fraud section, threw me into trial the day after I arrived and taught me by example how to be a really great trial lawyer and prosecutor. And I had the good fortune that Barry Boss, the Cozen O’Connor white-collar practice group head, thought that bringing me in as a brand new junior partner would be a good idea. Cozen has been exactly the platform I needed to build my practice and I have been able to be involved in firm matters and practice management at a level that has been very rewarding for me. And now I get to practice with Barry, and prominent lawyers in the white-collar bar like Barbara “Biz” Van Gelder and Bruce Maffeo in New York every day and have tremendous fun doing it.

What’s the best piece of advice you could give an associate who wants to make partner?  Say “yes!” Every case you work on, project you are asked to help with, client alert you write, lawyers event you go to, and person you meet will teach you something today that might help you tomorrow. Clients, partners, colleagues look to a person who is a value add, and you never know in what way your past experiences and your skills might be the value add that is needed in any situation. So be generous and make time even when you don’t have it in order to say “yes” to every opportunity you can because you just might learn something.

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