Toni Tulloch, LLM

I attribute my success to the fact that I just can't move backwards in my life. The first step is to pass the first class, and if we pass the first class, it doesn't make any sense to not pass the second class. You have to keep moving forward, regardless of what happens, and sometimes terrible things will happen. Sometimes you won't really achieve what you want. But you have to keep moving forward, regardless. That's what I attribute my success to - just moving forward, regardless of what obstacles come my way.

The best career advice I've ever received is that you're not going to escape hard work. There's no shortcut, no running around and kissing up to people. Fundamentally, your work product is going to be what matters, especially as a lawyer. I know people can be funny in the business area and do a bunch of nonsense and get away with it, but at the end of the day, as a lawyer, you have to be able to draft pleadings, draft memos, go to court, argue in front of a judge, take a deposition, and go to a mediation. That's hard work, and that's training. You're going to have to do it in order to be taken seriously and be respected. Don't run from the work. There are no shortcuts.

Hold on to your morals. You'd be surprised at how much respect men will give you if you don't act like an idiot. Just do your work. I would go into places as a new associate, and they would just give me the million-dollar case after a couple months because I would do my work. While other women were running around, kissing butt, fighting, women feel like they have to do all of this extra stuff. But no, you can just be a lawyer. You don't have to even smile at people. You can be an unpleasant person and be an amazing lawyer that people respect, because you just do your work and people can rely on you to do your work. That's it.

The biggest challenge in my field right now is the good old boys club when it comes to getting referrals. Everything's owned by men, so it's going to be harder for me building my firm as a woman, as a woman of color too, but as a woman, to walk into places like Firestone Tires and get them to take me seriously. If I were a man in Texas, I could wear some cowboy boots, talk shop, and walk out with a referral, but I can't play those games, so I have to do other things to get work. The good old boy network still basically runs everything, and you have to be in their organization to get those big clients that are passed down. The guy who has that client has to choose you as his heir to take over the files, and women aren't going to get that. It's going to be hard for him to choose you as his heir - they're going to choose another man. I think it's because there's a lack of respect for women. A lot of women are very good lawyers, they're better, but they're not getting promoted to Equity Partner because of that dynamic. They can even get promoted to partner and be a servicing attorney, but an equity partner in charge of major clients, that's going to go to the men, and you're going to do all the work on the file.

Honesty in work is most important to me. I have to be able to trust my colleagues and who I'm dealing with, so I like to deal with honest people. After that, transparency, because transparency comes with honesty. Also, just dealing with pleasant, decent, kind human beings who are down to earth. Nice people. Genuine people. That's what I like - genuine human beings. I'll do business with genuine human beings over super rich human beings any day.