How did a hard-hitting New York City prosecutor end up doing transactional work for the fourth-largest software company in the world? Why, naturally, of course.
While it might appear a seemingly difficult transition, the same things that attracted me about working in the Manhattan district attorney’s office also drew me to working for Symantec Corp. And the skills I gained as a prosecutor have served me well throughout my legal career beyond the district attorney’s office. It’s one of the misconceptions in the legal profession: If you start out in the district attorney’s office or the public defender’s office, you’re destined to remain in public service. As a result, many are deterred from pursuing advocacy early in their career for fear they will loose marketability in the private sector. But as my career path shows, that is definitely not the case.I have always liked to fight for something or someone. That old clich� “if you don’t stand for anything, you’ll fall for everything” always appealed to me. In my eyes, the legal profession was all about advocacy and fighting for what is right. So, after law school, not surprisingly, I became a prosecutor — a job that many would view as a traditional route for an idealistic young attorney. It was a job I loved. As a prosecutor, I fought as long and as hard for my convictions as I did to see that someone got a second chance — if that was the fair result. Whether I was helping a victim of domestic violence or giving a second chance to a young man who went joyriding, I felt rewarded.At times, though, working as a prosecutor right out of law school and having responsibility for my own cases, and — by extension — other people’s lives was downright scary. I can still remember the fear I felt the first time I had to make an argument in court or work with police officers to coordinate investigations.
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