Two days after litigator Marcy Rothman joined Brown McCarroll’s Houston office in December 2006, she found out she had breast cancer.

Over the course of 2007, she had a lumpectomy, underwent chemotherapy, and had a double mastectomy and surgery to remove her ovaries. During that time, when it became clear she would not be able to maintain her caseload, Rothman says she met with firm leaders and offered to “go my separate way” because she was a brand-new lateral partner.