Barbara Bagnasacco.

• Author: Sweeten, Liz
• Position: People - Lawyer at Ballard, Spahr, Andrews and Ingersoll - Brief Article - Interview

Bridging the cultural divide

It's a love story, really. A young Italian woman falls in love with an American. She bids her family goodbye and travels to the United States to begin a new life, speaking no English and knowing no one but her new husband.

This might sound like a historic romance set during WWII. But it's not. Rather, it's a classic romance with a modern twist. And the Italian woman, although petite and beautiful like our imagined movie heroine, is a brainy, ambitious lawyer with a no-nonsense approach.

Thirty-one-year-old Barbara Bagnasacco practices for Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll. "My practice has been general corporate law with an emphasis on international transactions," she explains. As a result, the bulk of her clients are based in Europe and South America. This buttoned-down lawyer is all business. Her English, though recently acquired, is crisp and methodical, If her tongue trips over a word, she repeats it, this time slowly and precisely. Her handshake is friendly but firm. You get the feeling she never screws up.

Bagnasecco met her American husband, James, when she was finishing law school in Italy. She joined him in Utah in 1996 after a one-year long-distance relationship. "Talk about an international transaction," she jokes. Despite her Italian law degree, Bagnasacco discovered that she couldn't sit for the Utah State Bar Exam without a juris doctorate from an accredited American university. Before she could apply to law school, however, she had to learn English. Bagnasacco dove right in with a crash course at the University of Utah's English Language Institute and immediately thereafter applied to law school.

After graduating in 1998. Bagnasacco knew she didn't want to litigate. "I wanted to use my cultural background. I searched for a firm in town that would offer me the possibility of doing international transactions." She found David Rudd, a mentor who recruited Bagnasacco to Holland & Hart. The two moved to Ballard Spahr a year ago. They handle...