Life lessons

• Pages: 64-65

64 || ABA JOURNAL JULY 2018

Your ABA

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF MICHELE COLEMAN MAYES; ANDRÉS GALLEGOS

LIFE

LESSONS

ANDRÉS GALLEGOS

Partner with Robbins, Salomon & Patt in Chicago

Life lesson: Set your own expectations, rather than letting others

decide for you.

“My best clients ... want me for my mind and for my advice, and that’s what

I give them.”

“When I became a double-hyphened attorney—that is, a Hispanic,

disabled attorney—I knew I had to work even more harder. Again, to show

individuals—and myself—that I could do what I’ve always dreamed

of doing, and that was becoming a lawyer.”

“The only limiting factor to someone with a disability achieving their

dreams are the environmental barriers that exist. But if you’re determined to

pursue your dreams and live your life to the fullest, the way that you define it,

you can achieve that.”

What do you know now that you wish you’d known at

the start of your career?

It’s a question that ABA Journal podcast host Stephanie

Francis Ward loves to ask, one that can prompt incredible

stories. It’s the question that inspired her to create a

special series of her Asked and Answered podcast, titled

Asked and Answered: Lived and Learned. Ward spoke

with six experienced lawyers from around the country

to find out what lessons they’ve learned while practicing

law, and what those lessons have meant for them both

personally and professionally.

Mia Yamamoto, who was born in a Japanese-American

internment camp in Arizona during World War II, says

her life lesson was the importance of living as her true

self—a lesson she put into practice after 20 years as a trial

lawyer by transitioning genders. Andrés Gallegos, whose

spinal cord was injured after a car accident, learned that

he was the only one with the power to decide what

expectations he should have for his life and career, and

he went on to become a disability rights advocate with a

full-time law practice. Former Justice Cruz Reynoso

spent his early years working alongside Dolores Huerta

and Cesar Chavez to protect the rights of migrant laborers

and the rural poor, and became the first Latino to sit on

the California Supreme Court. His lesson came from his

father, a farmworker, who insisted that every job is worth

doing to the fullest of your abilities. All of the guests on

Asked and Answered: Lived and Learned have wisdom

to share with attorneys at any age or stage of their career.

Below you’ll find excerpts from each interview. To

listen to full episodes of Asked and Answered: Lived

and Learned, go to abajournal.com/livedandlearned or

look for Asked and Answered via your favorite podcast

listening service.

MICHELE COLEMAN MAYES

Vice president and general counsel for the New York Public Library

Life lesson: Dicult conversations can save relationships.

“You need to go in, again, with this mindset of ‘This is something

that I’m doing because I want to improve a situation.’ And likewise,

be open-minded. Don’t go in assuming you know the answer or what

the person is going to say to you.”

“You have to work harder to listen to someone you’d rather

not hear talk.”

“Simply keeping your head down and accepting your fate is

not what we’re advocating. ... Indeed, you owe it to yourself—and

potentially your career—to figure out what’s really going on here.”

Lawyers share their experience

on the Asked and Answered:

Lived and Learned podcast

BY LEE RAWLES