Employer: Crowell & Moring
Title and Practice Area: Partner, International Trade

What was the most valuable lesson you learned in your first year of practice? The value in taking ownership over a project. Well before you are ready to lead the legal analysis, you can take ownership over the facts and the procedure, freeing up others to focus on higher-level strategy while making yourself indispensable to the partners and client.

Describe your biggest win or accomplishment in practice. Securing the first public exemption granted to an NGO by the U.N. Security Council from its North Korea sanctions to enable an expansion of a program to treat multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in North Korea.

Who do you consider to be your greatest lawyer mentor? Jeff Snyder, the former head of our group, who taught me the reassuring value of basic responsiveness. Internally or externally, even a simple note to say, "I have seen and am working on this" can be invaluable, freeing the recipient to move on to the next to do, trusting that you are managing this one.

Please share a key to your success. In this practice, I work with most of my clients on an almost daily basis. You have to invest the time to not only know their business, but also to understand their role. Not only does it materially improve the guidance, but the resulting friendships make the job infinitely more enjoyable.