For every litigator who makes partner at a law firm, there's an individual story of hard work, relationship-building and perseverance. My Law.com colleague Tasha Norman has been cataloging a bunch of those personal stories as part of her "How I Made It" Q&A series which road-maps what it takes to forge a successful career in the law.

Last year around this time we tapped the collective wisdom of about a year's worth of her Q&As for a column about what it takes to make partner as a litigator. It turns out Tasha has been so busy tracking down new partners this year — there were more than 40 litigators alone by our count — that we can slice things a bit thinner. Today we're going to focus on just the nine lawyers featured in the series over the past year who made partner at Am Law 100 firms, eight of whom are women, and six of whom are people of color. In future columns, we'll aim to dig into the responses of litigators at Second Hundred firms, litigation boutiques and midsize shops.

Business Development Is at Its Heart Relationship-Building 

Even though many Am Law 100 litigation assignments traditionally have been driven by long-standing, institutional relationships between large firms and their clients, the latest batch of partners stressed the importance of connections between individuals on either side of the client relationship.