My career has taken many twists and turns, mostly not of my choosing.​ My law school had close ties with all the big law firms, so the path was well-greased. We would turn in our resumes and a list of the firms we were interested in, and the school would coordinate with the firms to decide who would interview whom.
 
On Interview Day we would all put on our suits and nervously head over to the Courtyard Inn and go from room to room meeting with lawyers from each of the firms. ​Although meeting prospective employers in hotel rooms was a little odd, the efficiency and seeming inevitability of the process does help to explain how an existential-humanist backpacking musician kid from SoCal ended up practicing business litigation in a law firm in San Francisco. I was pretty excited.
 
​With offers from six firms, I chose what seemed like the ideal situation to grow and learn: Jackson, Tufts, Cole & Black. It was a collegial San Francisco firm full of Ivy League lawyers who were by and large really nice people and effective mentors and teachers. Thinly-staffed cases meant lots of hands-on learning and early responsibility. Often it was just me and a partner on a case. Unfortunately, that "thinly-staffed" model turned out not be good business, and the place folded when a couple of the rainmakers left for bigger, more highly leveraged firms where they could make a bajillion dollars.​​​
 
Luckily, I found another little firm in San Francisco with nice lawyers and thinly staffed cases: Landels, Ripley & Diamond, a collaborative firm so open and democratic that associates like me could attend partnership meetings and learn the business. Unluckily, having "thinly-staffed" cases was still not a good business model, and the place went out of business. Inconveniently, I was newly pregnant.​​
 
A friend at the time had a tech start-up (E-color) and needed a lawyer. He persuaded me that switching from litigation to software licensing would be a smart move and bring more stability to my career. I decided to interview and make the jump. When my friend called to offer me the job, I said "yes, thank you," and started asking about their maternity leave policy. He said this was going to be a fast-paced job and if I was planning on having kids in the next couple of years it might not be a good fit. I took the job, had the kid, took two weeks off, and headed back to work. (And had another kid the next year, just for good measure.)​​​
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Perhaps at this point it will not surprise you to learn that I joined my friend's tech start-up in . . . March 2000! Yes, that's right, the month the tech bubble burst. I was laid off from that job when my second child was four days old. ​​​

The next tech company (Ebrary) was the golden ticket: I joined on the day the company made its first sale and did all its in-house work for the next decade while we grew to global dominance in the university digital books market—a market that we helped to create. We were digital books before there were digital books. I negotiated all our contracts, from licenses to leases; managed our very complicated copyrights and our patent portfolio; papered multiple rounds of investment; did the Board stuff; snarled at would-be suit-bringers; and eventually managed the sale of the company.​​
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I worked at the acquiring company for a couple years, and then snagged what I thought would be my dream job, in the office of the General Counsel at the Sierra Club, the world's largest grassroots environmental organization. I had some good times there and learned some good things, but after six years as Assistant General Counsel, Associate General Counsel, and Acting General Counsel, I was done. I wasn't interested in retooling to a different area of law.​​  So, I left!

I went back to my roots, back past 25 years of lawyering to my early loves: Buber and Jung and the Existential Humanists, dark chocolate and raspberries and the contemplation of the human condition.
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And here I am!  At your service.