legal career Archives | The Glasshammer

When she was first starting out, Katten’s Julie Gottshall would not have predicted she would spend nearly her entire legal career working for a single large law firm. In a profession with many options, and an era that often rewards job changes, Gottshall believed she would join different employers and maybe even take some time off the career fast track. Instead, Gottshall found a position that enabled her to grow and balance, and decided to stick with it.

Sometimes, says Gottshall, the best opportunity is the one you already have.

Finding Her Niche

Gottshall’s career has been a steady climb. After graduating from George Washington University Law School, she decided that moving to Chicago would be her “great life adventure,” despite the fact that she had no obvious connection to the city. She initially eschewed the largest law firms, choosing to start her legal career at a midsize firm that she hoped would provide a more appealing lifestyle. But when she was a fourth-year associate, two partners with whom she worked closely joined Katten. She moved with them to continue her career focus on employment counseling and litigation, a practice she has solidly established and now leads.

Gottshall felt drawn to employment law for the human element of the practice, and the opportunity to keep her corporate clients out of trouble but defend them if they nonetheless found themselves facing a lawsuit. At Katten, Gottshall handles a broad spectrum of employment issues, including worker mobility (e.g., non-compete implementation and enforcement); employee separations and reductions in force; worker classification and wage/ hour compliance; handbook and policy implementation; workplace investigations; and discrimination and harassment prevention. She has litigated in numerous state and federal courts at both the trial and appellate level, and before all manner of government agencies. She also acts as an impartial third-party arbitrator on the Employment Panel of the American Arbitration Association, where she has decided cases involving breach of contract; discrimination, retaliation and harassment issues; and other workplace matters.

Gottshall likes to quip that one of her most impressive professional achievements is to fly deftly under the radar, since she works hard to keep her clients on track and out of the spotlight. Always one to look for practical solutions, she describes herself as a counselor first, an attorney second, and a litigator last. Still, she knows her way around a courtroom. She is particularly proud of a whistleblower case she argued and won before the Illinois Supreme Court – a victory that was the culmination of 11 years of work. After she prevailed in the lower court only to see the decision overturned on appeal, she sought certiorari, becoming one of seven out of 237 petitions the Illinois Supreme Court agreed to hear that session. The high court ruled unanimously in her client’s favor, marking a noteworthy victory for her client and a favorable precedent for other employers.

Gottshall finds employment law is a particularly exciting space right now, given the current remote work environment during the pandemic that has prompted employers to reimagine the workplace and what it will look like in both the near and distant future, as well as presented challenges regarding workplace safety, sick leave and furloughs and layoffs.

Mastering the Balancing Act

While the legal field continues to evolve in its support for personal life choices, Gottshall finds that women still face a constant challenge in finding the right balance. “We are called upon to take on so many roles— some that we need to do and some that we want to do,” says Gottshall. “It’s up to each person to decide how to allocate her time and navigate how much is spent on family and other pursuits, versus how much is poured into a career.”

Still, Gottshall has found Katten conducive to personal as well as professional growth. As she notes, a long tenure at a single firm allows you to build credibility and good will. Your colleagues know your work ethic and contributions, which better positions you to set boundaries and request flexibility. She encourages the use of maternity and paternity leave and other options such as Katten’s sabbatical program, designed to help promote work-life balance. “I applaud women who lean in, but also take advantage of the programs offered, especially today as companies realize they have to adapt to keep their top performers,” Gottshall said. Like most women, Gottshall tries to multi-task when she can. In fact, she once leveraged her maternity leave to take a mediation course to further her career. “Women should determine the best course for them, their families and careers.”

Gottshall appreciates opportunities like the Katten Women’s Leadership Forum that can support women attorneys’ desire to create bonds with other women and fulfill the responsibility to be a mentor.

Part of her balance also comes from using her skills in her community. For example, she has been a school board member for eight years, which she sees as an important commitment. “It’s a gratifying way to leverage my professional knowledge while giving back,” she says.

With one daughter in college and another in her senior year of high school, Gottshall and her husband are looking forward to determining what it means to be “empty nesters.” For now, they enjoy paddle sports and indulge in their passion for travel, especially visiting national parks.

“You have to be mindful of your priorities,” she said, “and look for the joy in everyday pursuits so you don’t lose sight of perspective in all the things life offers you.”

By Aimee Hansen

Women lawyers are underrepresented in M&A primarily because they are less likely to enter and stay in the field. But some M&A women partner lawyers wonder if young lawyers know what they are missing.

The gender gap in M&A

A study of more than 17,500 lawyers at 25 law firms nationwide found that women held 48 percent of first and second year associate positions (corporate: 43 percent, M&A: 40 percent) but only 18 percent of senior equity partner positions (corporate: 16 percent, M&A: 15 percent).

While a glaring gap in women between the associate level and equity partner level exists across law, the distinguishing M&A gap is at entry level. Female enrollment in M&A courses (37%) was also noticeably below enrollment overall (45%), showing that law students are disinclined to enter, and/or discouraged from entering, the lucrative practice of M&A.

The survey’s authors speculate that perceptions about M&A keep women out, such as being testosterone-fueled, more demanding, and not family-friendly.

Being a woman in M&A

Clare O’Brien, Partner at Shearman & Sterling, entered M&A as a third year associate only because the firm had a mandatory rotation policy back then.

“I actually didn’t really want to go to M&A because it had a reputation of being very ‘male’ …” says O’Brien. “That’s a cautionary tale, in the sense that if I’d had my druthers, I wouldn’t have chosen to rotate to the M&A team, but I was really glad that I did.”

M&A law is skewed male, and investment banks (with which M&A lawyers regularly interact) more so, but O’Brien says being a woman has not impeded her advancement.

“Nobody made me feel less competent or less able than any of my male colleagues. I got opportunities to do the same sort of work, the same level of responsibilities and the same exposure to clients as my male colleagues,” O’Brien shares. “From my point of view, my preconceptions were not, as a general matter, actually born out in practice. Maybe I was lucky to work with the people I did, or maybe the preconceptions are a little bit unfair.”

Here are some of the rewarding aspects of M&A that you may not know about:

Being central to people and process

“I think it’s one of the more interesting practice groups to be in, because in a transactional practice, M&A tends to be the hub, and so people who work on the M&A team are generally responsible for the transaction documents,” says O’Brien, “which means we get to solicit and receive input from other practice groups and then incorporate that input into the transaction documents.”

According to O’Brien, more exposure to the processes of client decision-making and multiple practices positions an M&A lawyer well if she or he decides to transition to an in-house or business position.

“You are more of a generalist than any other practice area,” says O’Brien, ”which, I think, makes you a better lawyer. And you generally have closer contact with the business people than people working in other practice areas.”

Learning on an on-going basis

“We have a very cross-border practice, so, at least in my work, you get confronted with different legal regimes and questions that you don’t know the answer to and have to find out, so you’re constantly learning,” says O’Brien. “That may be true of other practice areas, but my sense is that they are more jurisdiction-based than M&A.”

This growth opportunity includes the latitude to learn about M&A as you enter the field. Among a recent panel of six senior M&A women lawyers at BC Law, few had either interest or experience in finance during underground or law school.

Having satisfying work flow

M&A lawyers report that it’s gratifying to move through the finite deal-making process from beginning to end, and that a transaction-based practice offers a sense of completion.

“The work has a flow to it, which is satisfying in the sense that you get to work on a transaction, you get to understand at least some of what your client does, as well as the business that is the subject of the deal, you get to draft and negotiate the transaction documents, and get to a signing, and then a closing,” says O’Brien. “Each signing and closing represents a milestone, and therefore an accomplishment.”

In the panel, M&A lawyers also expressed that the hands-on immediacy of the work (as opposed to litigation on past damages) and tangibility make it rewarding.

Leveraging strategic and relationship-building skills

While M&A is more associated with masculinity, much of the skills required – collaboration, listening and consensus building – are more “stereotypically” feminine.

“I think you get to be a better listener, and to exercise diplomatic skills…What you’re trying to do is to find solutions instead of erecting roadblocks,” says O’Brien, “so you have to be creative and prepared to think outside of the box. You have to be able to listen to the other side’s concerns, why they don’t want to do what you want them to do, and then, where possible, find a compromise.”

“You can’t just pound the table and say ‘it’s my way or the highway’ because that often won’t work,” says O’Brien, “and your client won’t thank you for it because your client wants to get a deal done and wants somebody who can help it do that, rather than hinder that.”

When it comes to the broader benefit of women in deal-making, a recent study of S&P 1500 companies found that organizations with a higher proportion of women on the board pay less for both acquisitions (15.4 percent less for each female director) and takeovers (7.6 percent less for each female director).

What about the schedule?

Flexibility is increasing in firms and much can be done remotely during the valleys of work, but peaks are both exciting and intense. When signing or closing a deal, being in the same room for extended hours with the client and the other side is often still necessary.

“What can be hard is the unpredictability of your schedule,“ says O’Brien. “If your client wants to do a deal and it happens they want to do it over the weekend, you have to do it over the weekend.”

O’Brien emphasizes the importance of building up a support network you can rely on, and notes that M&A lawyers usually have the means to pay for that support. Also, finding flexibility, one senior M&A lawyer reports arranging her summers off with her kids.

“I think what you have to do is say OK, when I’m ready to have a family, I’m going to have a family,” says O’Brien. “If you’re waiting for the right time, there’s never going to be the right time, so you have to go ahead and do it when it’s right for you.” O’Brien’s own daughters are eleven and seventeen years old.

Is M&A for you?

Like any area of practice, M&A will not be for every women lawyer, but if you can get beyond the dissuading preconceptions, you may find yourself surprised.

“In my view, M&A is one of the most interesting, if not the most interesting practice area in corporate law, and the perceptions that women are less welcome, and are less successful, are overblown.” says Shearman & Sterling’s O’Brien. “If you decide that you want to pursue a corporate practice that is transactional, and if you’re interested in being intellectually challenged and interacting with people on a constant basis, you should seriously consider becoming an M&A lawyer.”

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Julie Gottshall: Partner and Chair, Employment Litigation and Counseling Practice, Katten