Hello, Rachel speaking.
Tell Us About Yourself.
Okay. I'm a law student in my second year at Columbia Law, pursuing Merger and Acquisitions. Merger and Acquisitions lawyers handle company takeovers, for example: Facebook buying Instagram. Or American Airlines buying U.S. Air. That's the level at which I'm planning to work and, appropriately, I'm interning at Simpson and Thatcher, which if you didn't know (though I don't expect you to), was rated "Law Firm of the Year in Mergers and Acquisitions" by Forbes in 2015. (It was also listed as one of People's "Hottest Places To Be a Lawyer" in 2014). Getting that job was the crowning achievement of my freshman year of law school and though it's a daunting amount of work, I am proud to have earned this opportunity.
What About Your Personal Life?
My girlfriend's name is Jessica, she's been my rock through everything--graduating from Rutgers, taking the LSATs, getting into Law School, moving into Manhattan, helping Mum. She's a computer analyst for a financial app startup in the FiDi, and works almost as many hours as I do.
...But she's a much better cook.
The essential family history: Mum's British and Anglican (in that order) and Dad's Jewish and American. I grew up primarily at my dad's place in New Jersey but I've spent a lot of time in London with Mum, and I take my dual-citizenship seriously.
Both Mum and Dad are lawyers, so the courtroom is in my blood. Dad works for local nonprofits (generally environmental law) and Mum handles the kind of law I'm planning on tackling, though on a much smaller scale. They met in a courtroom opposite each other, actually. She was the young, sexy prosecutor's assistant for the corporation polluting some lake, and he the goofy and earnest defendant arguing for the community. The prosecutors won.
Mum went back to England when Hazel (my younger sister) and I were 8 and 10 respectively. I visit her annually at her flat in London. I love that city. If I don't get the job in New York I'm looking for, I'm going to move to London after graduation.
Hazel and I are finally getting along for the first time in our lives--she's always been more emotional and artsy than I have: she's younger--I'm protective, she's protected.
Where Do You See Yourself in Five Years?
In five years I will have finished law school, and be working full time at Simpson and Thatcher. Jessica will have proposed, we'll have married on the Cliffs of Dover in August, and adopted our first - a girl, Elizabeth.
I will take Jess's last name--Rachel Leigh Sterling.
I'll still be making a low starting salary, somewhere around $65K, but between my job and Jess's, we'll make it work.
In Ten Years?
In ten years I will have my own firm. The plan is to start from scratch and ride the wave of startup app companies bickering over the limited market space and buying each other out. My firm will be the go-to merger firm in New York for modern technology companies.
Jessica is planning on founding her own startup (still in the financial sector), and her connections in that industry (and mine in mine) will make us corporately symbiotic as our companies grow.
We'll have a house in Connecticut, just outside Stanford.
We'll have a son (artificial insemination, her pregnancy) Charles, and another daughter (mine) Diana (after Mum).
Describe Yourself in Three Words.
Ambitious, Realistic, and Organized.
What's Your Favorite Quote?
I saw this on Pinterest once and it struck me: "A diamond is a lump of coal that stuck with it."