As a fourth-generation lawyer, I started my career on Wall Street doing transactional work and then moved to trial work, handling complex business litigation. After almost a decade in the city, I moved back to my hometown of Syracuse, New York, to join Barclay Damon (f/k/a Hiscock & Barclay), where I have worked since 1993. In the late 1990s, I was elected to the firm’s management team and served as the firm’s managing partner for 20 years until I stepped down in 2021 as part of a partner-approved succession plan.During my time as managing partner, the firm grew from 60 to nearly 300 attorneys, with some of the firm’s most strategic practice areas reaching national prominence. My work with lateral partner recruitment and integration involved overseeing 11 separate firm-to-firm combinations ranging in size from 15 to 70 attorneys, along with recruiting and integrating more than a dozen large group deals involving attorneys deciding to leave regional competitors and national firms to join our firm. In 2019, I led a team that recruited a 20-attorney group from LeClairRyan, which enhanced the firm’s major market offices in New York City and Boston and established a new 12-lawyer office in New Haven, Connecticut. Our success in lateral recruiting came from a focused onboarding system and personal commitment by senior leadership to attorney practice, client, and cultural integration, which I helped develop and oversee. This program created a unique track record of laterals joining, staying, ascending into leadership positions, and expanding practices at the firm, as opposed to the industry standard of deal failure and high lateral attrition rates seen in many firms. All together, the transformative impact of the 20-year growth strategy created a seamless and stable platform of high-performing offices in midsize and major-market cities across the Northeastern United States and Toronto.I now serve in the newly created position of chair, reporting to the managing partner and focusing on continued growth of the firm’s major market offices, managing some of the firm’s largest client relationships, and driving select, strategic initiatives appointed by the firm’s management committee.In my legal practice, I capitalize on my training in New York and experience growing and leading an organization of 475 people. I serve a large roster of corporate and individual clients in disputes involving white-collar and corporate fraud and complex commercial litigation matters in both state and federal court.