She found her niche in law – and she’s loving it
I always suspected—but did not know for sure—that I wanted to be an attorney. As a child and teenager, I enjoyed courtroom drama books and TV shows and in college I became immersed in parliamentary debate. While my younger sister likes to say that I became an attorney because I enjoyed arguing, it was always more than that, including acute interests in reading, writing and fact investigation.
But what kind of law? In college, I developed a love of economics and, while studying industrial organization, was first exposed to antitrust law. I read about famous antitrust merger cases like the Time/Warner merger and the government’s historic breakup of AT&T and became hooked. After college I attended George Mason University School of Law outside of Washington, DC where I took numerous antitrust law classes and interned at the FTC. My summer at the FTC confirmed my interest in antitrust merger work and I joined Latham and Watkins, where I was able to continue growing my career in antitrust law.
My favorite part of merger work is the factual investigation: learning about new industries and how a company’s business really works and who else they compete with and why. From garbage dumps to purses to satellite internet—it is always fun to learn something new or dive into the minutiae of an already familiar industry. Another unique and appealing aspect of merger work is providing advocacy submissions and presentations to the US Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to try to convince agency staff that they should not have concerns about a particular transaction. This differs from civil investigation and I enjoy working across from the DOJ and FTC staff.
Antitrust merger work also exercises my natural “litigation” interests, when transactions are litigated in federal court, but this typically occurs on an accelerated timeline of a few months to maybe a year. In contrast, non-merger antitrust litigation can extend for much longer. Antitrust merger work, even when it involves litigation, sees outcomes—hopefully productive ones with a deal closing successfully—much sooner, and it is rewarding to have a tangible result always in reach, even if we have to fight the DOJ or FTC in court for it.
