Her Story
About Sarah
I grew up in a very small, rural Colorado town and went to a small high school, so becoming an attorney, particularly someone who went to one of the top law schools in the country, wasn't something I could never even have imagined. I went from a small-town high school in Colorado to the University of Colorado, our state school, where I studied both political science and neuroscience and developed a real passion for science and innovation, as well as policy. That's what spurred me to go to law school. While at CU Boulder, I worked in a neuroscience lab and graduated with honors. I studied really hard for the LSAT and ultimately scored really well, getting into the top law schools in the country. I decided to go to the University of Pennsylvania with a full tuition scholarship, where I studied with some of the best professors in the country and incredibly smart people. After graduating with my JD in 2020, I started my legal career at Jones Day, where I represented large Fortune 500 companies in various commercial litigation matters. I then moved to Morrison Forrester, where I did primarily IP litigation and commercial litigation, working with tech companies and pharmaceutical companies in very high-stakes litigation cases that went all the way to trial. Last year, I won an arbitration case on behalf of a large technology company as the lead attorney, which was probably the highlight of my career - it was my first time being the lead attorney and getting a decisive win for the client. About a month ago, I joined TopTow as senior counsel, where I manage outside litigation counsel, work with internal business stakeholders on dispute resolution, do IP enforcement to protect the company's intellectual property rights, and work with the business to identify and mitigate legal risks when developing products. My main area of expertise is intellectual property rights - I've done extensive IP litigation and IP rights enforcement, helping companies protect and defend their intellectual property.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Sarah
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think hardworking. I've worked very hard all throughout high school, college, law school, and then now, and so I think just having that work ethic is huge. And then just the curiosity to want to learn more, constantly be better.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
I think the best career advice I've ever received is just to continue being curious, and take... do things that you enjoy. Just be... continue being curious and trying to learn new things, and doing that throughout my career has been really fulfilling personally, because I love learning new things every day. And then I also think it makes you a better attorney and a better person, because you're constantly learning new things, and learning is never done, and you get better as a person and better in your career.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I think, especially women, just have more confidence. That's something that I had to learn throughout my earlier career is just to be more confident, because you're there for a reason when you get a job or get invited to a particular situation, like maybe you're a speaker or whatever. Someone has chosen you for a reason, and just to have more confidence in your abilities is something that I feel like almost all women can benefit from.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think the biggest one, which I'm sure people say this all the time, is AI, and I think that's both a challenge and an opportunity. With the advent of AI, I'm not aware of someone who has deployed it in the legal world in a very efficient and effective manner, and so I think there's a lot of opportunity there to leverage AI to make legal work more efficient and better. I also think it's a challenge because legal work requires a lot of detail and precision, and so when things go wrong with AI, that can cause a lot of challenges. And then also, it's a challenge to figure out how do we as humans fit, how do we leverage our humanity to not become obsolete with AI? So I think it's all a challenge and an opportunity right now, definitely for the legal field.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I think one would be taking ownership over things. So really investing in my work, or whatever I choose to do in my personal life, so that I can be the best that I can be, and that goes hand-in-hand with taking responsibility for things. If things don't go right, taking ownership and responsibility for those kinds of things, and I think that's really necessary to become better at the things that I've done in work and personal life. And then I think just treating everyone with kindness, and I think that that is a good thing to live by both in my personal life and work life. I think sometimes, especially attorneys, can get a little bit hostile or aggressive, and I've always found that people are much more receptive, even if it's in a little bit of an adversarial position. People are all more receptive if you just come with some kindness and compassion for what people might be experiencing in life.
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