Sade Christie

Honestly, my family. Coming from humble beginnings, I know what it is to work hard. I know what it is to want something. I believe that the expectations of my family, while sometimes it felt weighted as a child growing up, I do believe that their expectations were a belief in me and a belief in my ability. I feel that helped to mold me into who I am by pushing me to be the best version of myself that I can possibly be.

The best career advice I have received is just always keep learning. This is the practice of law. You're never going to know everything. What you don't know, admit that you don't know it, but don't stay ignorant. Seek out the information that you don't have, commit it to memory, and apply it, because an application is where we get better.

I would just say be knowledgeable. Be non-confrontational. I feel like you catch a lot more bees with honey than you do with vinegar. I would say always be open to listen and learn. Don't go into it thinking that you are right 100%, always be open to listening to somebody else's point of view, because their point of view may have merit. And that merit helps you become a better analyst, because when you're applying the advice, the information you learn from one case, you apply those same skill set and critical thinking to other cases, it helps you to evaluate your cases better. So I would just say be approachable, be analytical, and be very, very open-minded.

In terms of challenges, I would say just coming in and not knowing everything you feel like you should know, just standing there and getting things wrong sometimes, and then having to recover, because as I said, you know, it's a practice of law. You're never going to know everything. You're shown that you don't know anything in, like, a very embarrassing way, like, maybe in front of a judge. Like, one time that did happen to me. I gave the wrong sentencing guidelines one time. That was very embarrassing. But the judge had grace. She gave me grace, because she knew that was literally my first time in court, and so she gave me grace to go and learn and come back and correct my mistake. When I was a prosecutor, I was always cognizant of the fact that the decisions that I made, the analysis that I gave to my supervisors, people's lives were going to be severely affected by the outcomes, and so I took pride in learning all the facts and making good decisions. So, when I got that wrong, that was very emotionally nerve-wracking. As for opportunities, at the company I'm at, there's always ways to grow. For now, I'm working to specialize in bodily injury and property damage, homeowners law and animal laws as it regards to insurance. There's leadership development, where you can become supervisors within your departments, and you can also go more into the corporate side of the company and help to shape policy, whether that is in Illinois or in Tallahassee, because there's also legislative roles that we can graduate to. Definitely a lot of growth is on the horizon.

For me, honesty. Showing up for people. I believe that people shouldn't always have to tell you, hey, come. You should know if you hear there's a problem and you can help. I believe in showing up for people, and even if it's just lending your moral support, I believe that goes a very, very long way. I believe in being knowledgeable. I believe that if you're dealing with whatever situation it is, I believe you should gather all the information first before you make a judgment. We should be analytical in how we deal with problems. We should try to be proactive and not reactive. And we should always try to place ourselves in the shoes of others, because it helps us resolve problems much faster.