Women's Leadership InitiativeQ&A with Amanda Keller

I have always known I wanted to be a lawyer. However, growing up, I was pushed towards the medical field by my family. When I graduated from Florida State University with a biology degree, I accepted a position as the project manager for a Tallahassee-based biomechanical engineering firm. As project manager, I worked closely with attorneys and assisted the principal engineer with trial preparation and even went to my first trial with him in Tampa. The engineering firm ended up hiring a more seasoned project manager and let me go a year into working there. I was 22 and devastated but I knew in my heart that I had to go to law school. Within 8 months of leaving that position, I was attending my first classes in law school and I never looked back.

The best advice I received about how to be a successful attorney came from a professor at UF Law for a course called Interviewing, Counseling & Negotiation. I was struggling with how to approach negotiations—everyone else had adopted an aggressive, forceful approach. I tried to adopt that approach myself but it felt inauthentic and I felt like a fraud. When I spoke to my professor, he told me to be myself, which was neither aggressive nor forceful. He told me that I needed to approach negotiations, and the practice of law, using my own unique skillset, which was likely to be far more effective than if I tried to be someone I was not. I ended up receiving the highest grade in the class because I started being myself and not someone I thought I needed to be.

I would tell myself not to fear the unknown. I have always been a type-A personality. I have always found comfort in finding the answer to an issue. When I was younger, I looked at life in black and white, right or wrong. In the law, the facts are almost never that clear and the cases never that easy. I wish that someone had told me earlier in my career that there isn’t always an answer to legal issues. I spent a lot of sleepless nights as a younger associate because I couldn’t find that one case, with the exact fact pattern and legal issues in my case. The reality is that the law is not always that cut and dry. I would tell younger Amanda to focus on the law that supports your case, distinguish the bad law, and do your best because that is all you can do.

On my dad’s side of my family, I have 42 cousins and I am the youngest female out of all of them. On my mom’s side, I am the oldest cousin out of 8. I learned a great deal about leading as a kid, from my older cousins on my dad’s side, and learned to lead as the eldest on my mom’s side. I quickly learned that leading by example was far more effective than attempting to lead any other way. In high school, I was the section leader for the clarinet section in my high school band. I learned that people look up to you when you are there for them and when you show an interest in them and their lives. I learned the importance of valuing other people’s time and commitments because their time is just as valuable as yours. These experiences taught me the importance of being approachable and truly caring about others.

Don’t burn bridges. It can be difficult but that is one huge mistake that a professional can make. You never know where someone else will end up. They might end up the hiring manager for a firm or chair of a professional organization that you want to be a part of or on a board selecting award recipients. The legal community, especially, is small and people talk. You never want to ruin your future chances or opportunities by carelessly burning a bridge.

A related don’t is don’t step on the backs of others to make your way up the corporate or professional ladder. While you might see immediate results from throwing people under the bus, it is truly detrimental to you and how people perceive you in the long run. You will be so much more successful climbing the corporate ladder by positively showing your capabilities and having others rise with you rather than tearing others down.

Stand-up comedian. I love telling jokes and making people laugh.