Rachel Humphrey: Defense Attorney to Association Exec to Champion for Women in Hospitality

I wonder, so you work for three different law firms over a 20 year period.

At what point did you feel that you've arrived as an attorney.

Like you described the early days of working for this first law firm, and I'm sure that you were a sponge.

You learned a lot.

You had to defend, you know, like working as a defense attorney, got a ton of experience.

At what point did you sort of, when I say arrive, like where you felt that you've overcome that insecurity?

I still struggle with a lot of it today.

Don't struggle with it.

I still work through a lot of it today.

You know, it's interesting because that three and a half years that I spent at that firm, he was an incredible leader and attorney in the area.

He had an incredible reputation.

He provided really remarkable opportunities for young attorneys to be in the courtroom every day working on very important cases.

We had a lot of high-profile work.

the relationship with the judges, with the other lawyers in town, with legal leadership.

And so I knew that I had landed in something special.

I didn't know that when I started there.

I didn't know his reputation versus anyone else's.

So I definitely knew during that three and a half years that not only was I good at it, but that it was what I really loved and really what I wanted to be doing.

Over the next 16 and a half, I don't really know.

I moved to Atlanta, which is the only reason.

I'd probably still be sitting at that desk today, I hope.

But I moved to Atlanta about three and a half years later in a very difficult move down here and started looking and starting over here.

The legal market was very different.

I spent a short amount of time with one firm and then went to a civil practice firm.

Again, really learning a new subject matter completely, a new substantive law, new judges, new legal communities.