Former Law School Roommates Take Charge in Chicago
Rebecca Eisner and Lydia Kelley used to share mac and cheese dinners and cram for exams together. Now they oversee nearly 600 lawyers as managing partners of the Chicago offices of Mayer Brown and McDermott Will & Emery, respectively.
June 29, 2015 at 12:58 PM
3 minute read
Over the course of a nearly 30-year friendship, Rebecca Eisner and Lydia Kelley have shared plenty of milestones. The pair were law school roommates and graduated together from the University of Michigan Law School in 1989. They've celebrated each other's weddings and the births of four sons between them. And they cheered one another through a string of career advancements, including making partner at their respective Am Law 100 firms.
On July 1, the two will be celebrating again as Eisner formally takes the reins as partner-in-charge of the 327-lawyer Chicago office of Mayer Brown. The move comes just over a year after Kelley assumed leadership of McDermott Will & Emery's Chicago office, which is right around the corner in the Loop.
“The odds of coming out of a class that didn't have many women, ending up in Chicago and managing to take a leadership role in each of our respective offices … it's almost unfathomable,” says Kelley.
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