Description of your practice:
As a part of Goldberg Kohn’s Intellectual Property practice group, I primarily handle trademark and copyright matters. This includes clearing proposed trademarks for clients, helping clients to register their trademarks and copyrights, and enforcing and defending clients’ intellectual property rights through negotiations, UDRP actions, proceedings before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, and federal litigation. I also handle counseling related to advertising, social media, and trade secrets, and work on general litigation matters.
Why are you a member of the WBAI?
I attended the Naveen’s Cuisine WBAI event for the first time a few years ago, because a friend invited me and it sounded fun. I had a great time and met some amazing women, and that is consistently the case whenever I attend WBAI events. It’s been a very welcoming group of women, and a good way for me to get to know others with different types of practices from my own.
What do you think is the best way to empower women in law?
Having more women in leadership positions is one of the best ways to empower women in law. I keep that in mind as I look ahead in my career. My goals are to be an excellent attorney while ensuring that I’m taking care of myself so that I avoid burning out. I want to be able to stick around in this profession and become a leader so that I can implement meaningful changes to support women and diverse attorneys coming up after me. I use the influence I have now to voice my opinions to trusted leaders at my firm and to speak out in support of other women and diverse attorneys in the profession whenever I can.
What are you most looking forward to in the following year, personally/professionally ?
Goldberg Kohn launched a new diversity program this fall called GK Advocates, which is aimed at recruiting, retaining, and promoting diverse attorneys. As a queer woman, I am very excited to be participating in the program. Each participating diverse associate is paired with a partner sponsor and a team of advocates to help them achieve their identified career and business development goals. We kicked off the program in November, and so far, it’s been a great way to identify goals and stay on track. I look forward to seeing the progress we all make, and am grateful that the leadership at GK is happy and willing to put time and resources into increasing diversity.
Tell us something interesting about you.
I studied creative writing in undergrad, and I’m writing a memoir currently. It’s a labor of love that I will probably be working on for a very long time, but it’s great to exercise a different kind of writing muscle and to have a creative outlet. I regularly attend writing workshops and formed a writing group with three other women called Bearing Witness to Chicago—as the name suggests, we write about all that is good and beautiful and complicated and weird about life in Chicago, our beloved city!