Features Region: Midwest

Whether she’s planning a dinner party, making a quilt or mapping out legal initiatives, Catherine Jopling says there’s a predictable path that unfolds as she strives to make each project successful. She says there will always be a planning phase to coordinate multiple elements, including the overall impact and effect each project has on its […]

Mike Sauer has never strayed far from home, yet a small move has made a huge difference in his professional life. “I have one client, and instead of being just a lawyer, I play a role in the execution of the business of the company,” he says about serving as executive vice president and chief […]

More than once, he went into the startup’s office at 2 or 3 a.m. to check on gas lines. He helped set up and maintain electrical systems; washed desks and did other janitorial work; accompanied salespeople out in the field as they pitched products. “The thing about startups is you wear a lot of hats,” […]

When his alarm goes off in the early hours of the morning, Jason Goldman has to remember what time zone he’s in. Then he spends the rest of the day sweeping through the meridians to keep pace with the business needs of the day. It’s been an exciting—and long-awaited—job opportunity for the entrepreneurial-minded lawyer from […]

Kyle Stone remembers his world changing on a Friday in November 2014. Working as a young litigator in Illinois, he was preparing to take a deposition that afternoon when the phone rang. His trusted mentor told him that the new governor-elect was looking to fill high-ranking legal positions in the new administration, and that Stone’s […]

At 9 a.m. on Tuesday, a paralegal in Enlivant’s legal department opens the contract email box to find a newly submitted contract. After perusing it, the team member emails the sender to let him know which attorney will review and negotiate the contract. Later that day, Enlivant’s general counsel, Nancy Ardell, hops on the legal […]

Amanda Matchett says her career trajectory may differ from that of others coming right out of law school, but the path she has taken into the technology field is one that is open to diversity. “The tech world has great opportunities for women of color as a career option,” she says. Infor is a New […]

Christa Johnson vividly remembers her first human resources class at Cornell University. Taught by her passionate professor Florence Berger, it completely drew her in. Five years after graduation and inspired by an internship at the University of Denver Career Center as part of her masters program, Johnson found herself working in human resources at a […]

A string of calls with company vendors in the morning; a Skype session with outside counsel in the afternoon about handling patent trolls looking to extort money from the company; preparation for the next day’s big board meeting. It’s on days like these that Fred Dawe stops to make sure his sneakers are tied extra […]

There was the fired employee who stole intellectual property, and then used the threat of litigation to try to blackmail the company (spoiler alert: it didn’t work). A few years later, there was the battlefield promotion when the boss up and quit, leaving behind an incomplete budget and a quarter to close. Or that time […]