Brent Rice '25
Staff Editor
This past Tuesday, Law Innovation Security and Technology (LIST) hosted a panel of attorneys from the law firm Goodwin Procter to discuss their careers in technology transactions. Although geared towards 1Ls wanting to get a better idea of the paths available at the intersection of big law and technology, the event was also attended by several upperclassmen. Sticks Kebob Shop was served for dinner.
Goodwin sent a variety of attorneys from various practice groups and experience levels to share their expertise, including Dennis O’Reilly (a Partner in the Private Equity group in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office), Connor McMillan (a 4th year Associate in the Life Sciences group in the Boston office), and Sammy Tang (an Associate in the Financial Industry group in New York City). To help further clarify things, McMillan described his role as working with Biotech companies on pharmaceuticals and medical devices, while Tang explained her work as FinTech, often working on partnership agreements between banks and FinTech companies, who provide the user interface, apps, and advertising that help banks provide their services to their customers.
The panel kicked off with a description of each attorney’s background that led them to their practice group and to Goodwin Procter. Some notable takeaways included the importance of finding a practice area where you are genuinely interested in the material and curious to learn more each day by keeping up with industry updates and worldwide news. Also, you do not need to have a STEM background to pursue work in this field as an attorney.
Later in the evening, the Goodwin guests helped paint the picture for how the role of a tech transactions lawyer adapts as you progress in your career. While junior associates generally work on diligence and drafting ancillary documents, more senior members of the firm spend more time on the phone with clients lending big picture advice based on their experience in the field. Mr. McMillan noted that each practice group has its unique features—for example, Biotech often has fewer precedent documents and involves more free form drafting than other transactional roles.
The event concluded with some general advice for law school and skills to work on before starting in BigLaw. While the consensus of the panel was that there are no required courses to prepare you for a career in tech transactions and that it is generally more important to take those classes that interest you, the panel shared that they regularly employ material from their law school classes in Contracts, Securities Regulation, Intellectual Property Law, and Copyright Law. They also stressed the importance of developing strong skills in legal research using platforms like Westlaw. In their closing remarks, the attorneys noted it is important to be persistent, to avoid taking constructive feedback personally, to be able to distill complex knowledge and language into that which clients can understand, and to be excited about your role. Particularly, in the tech space, those clients are looking for attorneys who can match their speed and enthusiasm for the work they are doing.
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