Katrina Lee - The Legal Career: Knowing the Business, Thriving in Practice

West Academic Publishings Law School Advisory Board

Jesse H. Choper

Professor of Law and Dean Emeritus
University of California, Berkeley

Joshua Dressler

Distinguished University Professor Emeritus
Michael E. Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University

RENE M c DONALD HUTCHINS

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University of California, Hastings College of the Law

Larry D. Kramer

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Jonathan R. Macey

Professor of Law, Yale Law School

DEBORAH JONES MERRITT

Distinguished University Professor, John Deaver Drinko/Baker &
Hostetler Chair in Law
Michael E. Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University

Arthur R. Miller

University Professor, New York University
Formerly Bruce Bromley Professor of Law, Harvard University

Grant S. Nelson

Professor of Law Emeritus, Pepperdine University
Professor of Law Emeritus, University of California, Los Angeles

A. Benjamin Spencer

Justice Thurgood Marshall Distinguished Professor of Law
University of Virginia School of Law

James J. White

Robert A. Sullivan Professor of Law Emeritus
University of Michigan

The Legal Career

Knowing the Business, Thriving in Practice

Second Edition

Katrina Lee

Clinical Professor of Law
The Ohio State University
Michael E. Moritz College of Law

The publisher is not engaged in rendering legal or other professional advice, and this publication is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. If you require legal or other expert advice, you should seek the services of a competent attorney or other professional.

2017 LEG, Inc. d/b/a West Academic

2020 LEG, Inc. d/b/a West Academic

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ISBN: 978-1-68467-149-6

Dedicated to my parents, and to

Phoebe, Sabrina, and Dennis

Acknowledgments

I care deeply about the legal profession and its future. I am passionate about the potential of law students and legal professionals to do even more good in the world. To the many people in my life who feel the same way, you are an inspiration. I thank everyone who has nourished me with their ideas, insights, and experiences. I thank every law student, lawyer, law professor, legal professional, and law firm and law school colleague I have ever worked with; each of you influenced the first and second editions of this book in some way.

I am grateful to my research assistants Yawen Chen, Shuqing Li, and Emily Myrin for their help on the second edition, and to my research assistants Katherine Hunter, Kelsey Mullen, and Robert Ballinger for their help on the first edition. I thank Deborah Jones Merritt for forging the path that led to this book and for her help through the years. In 2011, she created and taught the first business of law seminar course at our law school. I thank Louis Higgins and Mac Soto at West Academic for their patience and support, beginning with their support of the idea for this book. I thank Christine Nero Coughlin (Wake Forest University School of Law), Caitlin Moon (Vanderbilt University School of Law), and my colleagues at The Ohio State University Michael E. Moritz College of Law for their support, encouragement, and comments. I am grateful to the College for summer research funding support. I thank the American Bar Association for permission for West Academic to include excerpts from various ABA materials in this book.

I thank the many generous souls who allowed me to interview them and shared their materials, expertise, and insights with me.

Most of all, I thank my daughters Phoebe and Sabrina and my spouse Dennis for their constant love and support.

Introduction

I was born in that jewel of a city, San Francisco. I grew up in the avenues on the west side of the city. Single family homes and backyards. I walked up a hill to middle school and took public transit, the MUNI bus, to high school. The financial district, where the businesses and law firms were, seemed very far away when I was a child. I had the impression that the financial district was always sunny, and I knew the avenues were nearly always foggy and cool. My parents did not work at business jobs. My dad was a public school teacher, and my mom was a stay-at-home parent and then an elementary school paraprofessional.

When I was in high school and had summer clerical temp jobs that required me to go to the financial district, I felt inspired. The tall buildings. The clear blue skies. The people in suits. The cable car running down California Street. The scene energized me.

Business and law were never far from my mind as I finished up high school and started college. In 1990, I graduated from Lowell High School, one of the nations most academically rigorous public high schools. I attended the University of California at Berkeley, triple majoring in English, Political Science, and Mass Communications. Throughout much of college, I thought that I might be a teacher, a lawyer, or a news broadcaster. But, I was not sure. Everything was interesting to me. I even took upper-level mathematics and physics courses.

I worked as a reporter and editor for the campus newspaper; there, I had my first significant real-life lessons in business. The Daily Californian newspaper was owned by a non-profit, and we students were proud that the paper was independent of the university and not run by or owned by the university. Eventually, I served as Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Californian. As a news editor and then editor-in-chief, I was schooled on the dynamics of the interaction among editorial staff, management, and the union employees who worked for the paper, and the issues raised by technology and the need for advertising. I experienced essentially a mini-course on business. (After college, I served for many years on The Daily Californian Foundations board of directors.)

At some point, I narrowed my career choices down to teaching and law. Many of my relatives were educators or former educators, so it made sense to me that I would pursue a career in education. I was accepted to the Stanford Teacher Education Program (STEP) at Stanford University in Palo Alto, not far from San Francisco. I could attain a Masters degree and begin teaching in the field almost immediately.

But, while teaching was the family trade, I was not done exploring. Law would be a bigger adventure for me.

As a journalist in college, I covered politicians and local lawmaking bodies like the city council and the school board. Many people I interviewed were attorneys or former attorneys and had some role in making the law. I wanted the opportunity to work with the law. At that point, I was not sure in what capacity, but I knew I was fascinated by the law and wanted to learn more.

I was fortunate to be admitted to many top tier law schools. I chose to be a Golden Bear for life and enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law. My parents were happy to have me near home. Also, UC Berkeley was already my home turf, my academic playground. I elected to stay near home and at UC Berkeley for another 3 years. I have not had a single moment of regret.