Her Story
About Teresa
My career has been what I call a checkerboard, zigzag, self-made journey. The goal was always to become an attorney, but I had a writing background and interest early on as a kid. After graduating from Michigan State, I headed east and worked for the federal government in public relations, working on projects for the Department of Labor and Health and Human Services, including the brochure for the Medigap program. I worked as a legislative analyst, translating what was happening on Capitol Hill into policy white papers and public information materials. I then moved into healthcare financing journalism, working for specialized trade publications and eventually Business Week, where I was the only African-American female doing writing for them at that time. I went to law school at Michigan State, worked as a stringer for Business Week and Crain's Detroit Business, then practiced with a labor-focused firm in Michigan. I threw my hat in the ring at Georgetown for an international relations master's degree in law, which I completed as a Ford Foundation Fellow in comparative law. I continued working as a stringer, started having children, and added yoga instructor training to my portfolio, teaching yoga for about three years. I worked with a tech firm on an interactive radio license project that became a template for interactive TV, and we eventually sold that license to Comcast. I then worked as a staff attorney for Sidley Austin, one of the blue-chip big law firms in the country, where I did a lot of writing and produced their first document on sustainable energy projects for Fortune 500 companies. I've also done extensive adjunct teaching work and embarked on a 40-week mediator training course at the Center for Conflict Resolution, where I got my certification and took a train-the-trainer course that allowed me to coach and train people to become mediators. Now I'm doing my own mediation work, and I find it more satisfying because it's less adversarial. I'm migrating out of the law piece into more mediation, moving away from being more public-facing with respect to mediation. I still have a smattering of business clients and real estate clients, probate work, but I'm moving more into facilitative and transformational mediation, blending in my yoga and meditation experience to help people recognize the nature of their conflict and what the true sources are. I want to make people transformed and empowered by the process, not needy of the service. What I love about what I'm doing now is that I can bring in all aspects of what I've done so far and integrate that into a brand that's personal to me. I have my feet and hands in both worlds, the analog world as well as the digital, but I'm not willing to throw out the baby with the bathwater. The humanistic approach to solving a problem either as a lawyer or a mediator is not going to be replaced by robots or chatbots.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Teresa
01What do you attribute your success to?
I would attribute my success largely to my mother. I remember her walking across the playground behind our home, carrying her books after she decided to go back to school. She would share whatever she learned with us at evening dinners and would talk about her biology class or her sociology courses as she became a social worker. It was the determination to have an education, the determination to stick to something and finish it, the understanding that you could change your course and you don't have to be stuck with a thing. You can move, think a different thought. The first yoga book and meditation I was introduced to was by her, and this was back in the 60s and 70s. It's just to have a varied, interesting life, not to feel that there are any big I's or little U's, that everybody has something to contribute. Everybody can have something that you can learn from. And that life is short, so you should have a good time and try to do some good in the world. I got that all from home. I attribute that to my mother, my parents particularly, but my mother especially, because she was more vocal and had a lot more personality and more verve. She was the tip of the spear, no doubt.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say that it is so much an internal journey. Schools and libraries and websites and friends can help, and you do pull from that because they have been influential sources of information about our society. But I think the journey for who you are and what you want to do is an internal one. You have to kind of find a still place, a quiet place, and find out what you really want to do. People make a big deal out of passion. I mean, it's nice, it's a nice word, but I think you learn by doing more. And I'd say those things that you think you want to try, go try it. And if you change your mind, go do something else. And in those quiet moments, you'll know what those things are because you know yourself. You know yourself. And in time, you will continue to do that, because that is the biggest mystery of all, who you are, why you're here. That's part of why we're here. We leave here with unfinished business, and that's the goal.
03What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Character is important. That includes honesty and truthfulness. Compassion and kindness are values I think are important. And just not only self-respect, but respect for others. I think those are some key ones that move around like a chess piece in terms of hierarchy, and they never leave the board.
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