EP 1002- Lifting While You Climb: Part One with Imani Maatuka

Episode Notes

Transcript

Announcer:

Welcome to Heels in the Courtroom where the trial lawyers of the Simon Law Firm break down what it takes to win in the courtroom and in life.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Heals in the Courtroom. I’m Liz Lenivy and I’m joined today by Elizabeth McNulty and a very special guest, Imani Maatouka. Hi, Imani. Thank you for joining us.

Imani Maatuka:

Hi, thanks for having me.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

So just a little bit of background on Imani. She is a 2021 graduate of Washington University School of Law, so wonderful St. Louis connection there. After graduation, Imani moved to Texas where she started her legal career in big law at Sidley. While at Sidley, she handled a wide variety of high stakes, commercial matters, including alleged consumer fraud, product liability, and mass tort litigation, securities fraud, financial reporting and disclosure issues, market manipulation, auditor independence, and false claims act allegations. During her tenure at Sidley, she was also selected as a member of the National Black Lawyers Top 40 Under 40. Recently, Imani has had a career shift and is opening up the Dallas office of a boutique law firm, Alhidi Emis LLC. And as you’re going to learn about her, Imani is extremely passionate about helping pave the way for students going to law school and for young lawyers breaking into the practice.

Imani, thank you again so much for joining us. Obviously, covered quite a bit of your very impressive background so far. And it’s my understanding though that you come from some, I guess, a long line of legal pedigree. So could you tell us about your road to law school and becoming an attorney?

Imani Maatuka:

Yeah. So first, thank you so much for having me and you kind of hinted at it. I come from a family of attorneys. So my mother is an attorney and she is the senior managing partner of the firm that I just joined that we mentioned before. And I have an aunt who went through the big law route. She went to Michigan and started her career at Caton. Now she just elevated to general counsel at a company called OGX. I have an uncle who went the insurance defense route. I have another uncle who got his JD MBA. I have a little brother who is practicing in Chicago at McAndrews doing IP litigation. So I come from a family of lawyers. It wasn’t a question of, are you going to law school, but more so when are you going? And many of them are litigators, so I think I naturally lean towards litigation.

But fortunately, I got to kind of try out a few things before I completely hunkered down in the litigation.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

And I feel we glossed over this kind of quickly, but the Dallas office that you’re opening up, this is in affiliation or as part of your mom’s practice.

Imani Maatuka:

Correct. Correct. So Matuca Al-hadi Empus LLC is a full service law firm. And it’s been around since 1974 and they have practice areas kind of across the gambit. They have a small M&A practice. They do a lot of immigration law. They have a huge agricultural law practice. And then they have kind of general litigation. They’ve done some commercial work. They have dozens of corporate clients. They’ve also done some plaintiff side work. And so opening the Dallas office is not only expanding all of those practice areas, but the Dallas office, with me leading it, will kind of operate as a litigation boutique. And we’re really excited for all the matters we’re going to be able to take on in this new office.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

Yeah. I feel like so often we hear about all the father-son teams out there. So I am just giddy about hearing a mother-daughter team. I think that’s so awesome. And congratulations on the new role and all of the things that are going to come with it.

Imani Maatuka:

Thank you so much.

Elizabeth McNulty:

I echo what Liz said. That’s so exciting. And unfortunately it seems kind of rare, at least from our practice areas here and locally in St. Louis. Can you walk us a little bit through your path to big law and what surprised you most once you started there?

Imani Maatuka:

Yeah. So we’re going to go back to 2018. I am a 1L at Wash U and St. Louis, you guys’ homegrown. And at the time, Texas and a lot of the other secondary markets, and when I refer to a secondary market for our listeners, I’m referring to markets that are not kind of like the top markets that most law students are pursuing. So I’m thinking like primary markets being New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, DC. These are kind of the hot beds from a legal standpoint where a lot of the law students are trying to get summer associates and trying to start their careers there. At the time, so this is 2018 and a few years prior to that, Texas was a new hot secondary market. A lot of firms were announcing that they were opening their Dallas offices. Sidley had opened their Dallas office in 2013.

And so Wash U was doing a great job telling its first year students, “Hey, take a look at these secondary markets. You’re at a top school. They’re going to be hiring more 1Ls than those more primary markets.” And so that kind of conversation from the career center and some of my mentors led me to look and expand my search into the Dallas and Texas market generally. And by doing that, I found Sidley, who at the time was just kind of unparalleled from a diversity and representation standpoint. At the time, Sidley had so many female partners. And it wasn’t just female partners per capita, but it was also female partners in leadership, managing the entire office, heads or global heads of certain practice groups, primarily being litigation, what I was interested in. And so that really got me kind of like, I sat on not only at Dallas market, but Sidley Dallas in particular.

And I did both of my summers there, loved it, and then started there full-time after I graduated from Lashu.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

And you are now entering into your fifth year of practice, correct? 2021 grad, we’re recording this at the beginning of 26. I feel like five years is always kind of an interesting turning point in someone’s career. I felt like it was about five years out when I started taking on cases more on my own and maybe feeling a little bit more comfortable in the practice. And I felt very different at five years than certainly I did it at the first year. And so being in this big law environment, and it sounds like you were in a very positive one, especially with, correct me if I’m wrong, but great female mentorship. But as you went through your career, can you tell our listeners about how your definition of success has changed, if at all, from when you first started to where you are now in your career?

Imani Maatuka:

Yeah. I mean, I think for starters, my definition of success does change. And I think it changes every single year based on the goals that I set for myself for that year. So for example, as we’re talking about as a budding first year junior associate who knows absolutely nothing, just graduating from Wash U, my definition of success looked like I want to be able to take ownership of my career. I want to get substantive experience. I want to feel like a lawyer day one. I know we all hear kind of the horror stories and the large critiques about big Law is that you’re basically going to be pushing paper for the entirety of your career. You’re not going to be able to do anything substantive until potentially you’re very senior seven to eight years into your career. And that just was not my experience at all.

And I tell people, it’s been really, really bittersweet leaving Sidley for me because I mean, they gave me the world and more. It was really a situation where I was able to charter my own course. I got substantive experience and responsibility very early in my career. I recall interviewing the heads of biopharmaceutical companies as a first year, presenting legal research and other important findings to clients as a first year, doing the first draft of every single thing. And in large parts, really managing and overseeing all the components of the case, starting us up in discovery. I was thankful for being on teams where we had generally a leaner team model where there’s not a million associates to take on all the work. There’s me and potentially someone more senior than me to kind of like look over everything and give general guidance. But then on a lot of my matters, it would be me and some partners.

And in those instances, everything’s getting pushed down to me. I’m getting first reps on literally every single thing you can think of over the course of litigation. And it was just amazing experience such that a year or two after doing things like that, I’m building the trust of partners, but not only partners, clients, and taking or defending depositions very early on in my career, presenting oral arguments on behalf of our clients in federal court very early on in my career. These are experiences that people typically don’t get in big law until, like I said, year seven or eight.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

And that’s what I’ve always heard. And I’ve never worked in big law. I had a brief career on the defense side. I was at a mid-size defense firm for about as long as a cup of coffee, and then I came back to the plaintiff’s side. And that’s certainly something that we talk about and we talk about it with law students. We talk about with other attorneys is one of the perks of being on the plaintiff’s side is you get thrown in there quickly. I mean, I think I worked eight months at that mid-size defense firm and I never got to take a deposition. My first week when I came back to Simon, I was in a deposition. And there could have been various factors that went into that, but that’s obviously a very different experience than what you have just talked about where you got to do real lawyer feeling things.

You got to be front facing with the client and you got to make the arguments and go to court and do the substantive work that I think all of us want to go to law school for, at least those of us who want to be litigators. And so is that something that you feel that your firm set you up for? Or is that something that you pushed and you advocated for? I would love for our listeners who want to take a similar career path as you and want to follow in those types of footsteps. When you’re interviewing a firm as a candidate, is that something you need to get on the front end or is that something you can do once you’ve accepted the job and you can make that happen?

Imani Maatuka:

Yeah. So I think it’s a little bit of both. So part of it is, of course, you need to take ownership of your career. I mean, no one’s going to really hand you these opportunities or create and mold the career that you see for yourself. We’re all adults, we kind of appreciate that. But then at the same time, I do think there’s a cultural aspect of this, and I’m going to give a disclaimer that I hate the term culture because I feel like it really doesn’t exist. If you’re going to talk about, “Oh, what’s the firm culture from a very macro perspective?” That’s a bit illusory. I can’t tell you what the firm culture is because it differs by office, it differs by practice group. But when we’re talking about these secondary markets, I think there’s a big experiential difference with a junior associate going into a smaller office at a big law firm versus a junior associate probably going into one of the larger offices at one of the bigger law firms.

And the difference is this, if you’re in that smaller office, it’s the same caliber of work, same caliber of clients, but there are just substantially less associates to do the work and to kind of like staff the matters, especially if you’re working at a firm like I did who is kind of like Texas first or more office specific. When they’re staffing a new matter that comes through the door, they’re going to staff it with the associates who are looking at them every single day in the face rather than going to our other offices to do so. When you find yourself in a situation like that, that’s going to astronomically benefit your career. So instead of fighting out, and I’m putting up air quotes, no one can see me, but fighting out a thousand other junior associates who all started at the firm around the same time, you’re fighting out maybe a few dozen.

And then you’re on these matters and there’s literally no one else who can do that work because you’re in a smaller office and things need to still get done. And so I think what I’m kind of describing is a bit of a perfect storm, the perfect storm being that I was put in an environment that allowed me to succeed. I was put in an environment where they wanted to staff locally, where they were staffing very lean teams and where they were rewarding hard work and excellence with greater opportunities. And that for me is exactly what I needed to succeed. And I would tell any budding law student or current law student to be looking for that same dynamic. And you can do so in the interviews by asking questions. Some of the best questions I’ve heard while in interviews is, “Imani, can you tell me about some of the experiences that you’ve had as a junior associate that have kept you at the firm or that showed you that the firm was really investing in you?

” I think those create opportunities for an attorney to kind of not only dont on the firm, but really tell you about, “Yes, this is truly why I’ve stayed here for five years and I did two summers here. These are the experiences that kept me in my seat and kept me happy for all these years.” And then you can learn firsthand these are the types of experiences you’ll get, first, second, third, fourth, et cetera, years. And then you can make your own determination, “Is this the right fit for me? “

Elizabeth McNulty:

You said something that really struck me that you need to take ownership of your career. And I think that’s excellent advice and something that feels kind of foreign in the law school or as a first year, just that feels like a lot. Trying to become a lawyer and also take ownership of your career. What does that look like? How do I plan this out? I’d imagine that takes a lot of advocating for yourself, especially in a big law environment. Can you tell us, maybe give some tips or share an experience where you had to do that, whether advocating for feedback or more work or getting placed on a matter? I

Imani Maatuka:

Had really good mentors who kind of shared generally. I’m a fan of checklists and they had these ideas of like, “Okay, on your first year, you need to do these 10 things. In your second year, you need to do these 10 things.” And so I would kind of have a general understanding of, “Hey, I’m a first year, I need to check all these things off my list. If I see opportunities coming down the pipe, I’m going to say something.” For example, one of the things on the list is you should draft a motion to dismiss, start to finish, research it, do all the primary drafting. You need to get that really good experience and those reps under your belt as quickly as possible. Now, when you are generally managing a case and you’re just like an associate who’s kind of like immersed in the fact pattern, you know where everything’s going, you know all the upcoming deadlines, you are positioned in a really great place where you can kind of anticipate the needs of the case, large projects that are coming down the pipe before someone even assigns it to you, right?

So you get a complaint, you know you have to answer or otherwise respond by X state. You should probably be outlining our arguments, maybe doing some preliminary research to figure out what defenses we have, how we want to posture. And so by doing that, taking that initiative, you’re now positioning yourself so that when they’re like, “Oh, we got to start on this motion to dismiss,” you’re like, “Oh, I already got it. I would love to take the first draft. Here’s my outline and here’s some arguments I’ve kind of been throwing around in my head.” And now the partner, whoever’s senior to you is like, “Oh my gosh, Imani has her arms wrapped all over this. Why wouldn’t she do the first draft?” It’s a part of advocacy, but also strategically positioning yourself where it’s like, I can’t say no because this is like the MVP and the person who knows everything about whatever we’re about to venture on.

But I will say, to answer your point, I’ve also had instances where I’ve had to be very explicit, right? Where I’ve had to pull the partner or whoever I work closely with on the matter and be like, “Hey, I really want the opportunity to defend.” For example, I’m thinking about the first time I defended a deposition. We had probably like a dozen or so in the case, right? A lot of them were really sticky, important depositions, like the ones that are nail biters and you’re like, “I don’t know what they’re going to say.” The ones that you’re doing a ton of prep, which typically, the more junior associate is doing everything on that. You’re in the docs, you’re doing the outlines, your hands all over it. So even if you’re not the person objecting during the deposition, that is great substantive experience for you. So I don’t want to diminish that.

But after doing that, for not only that case multiple times and then all my other matters, I was honest with the partner who I saw as a mentor and I was like, “Hey, I know that we have some depositions coming up that there are witnesses who should not be deposed. They’re asking for their deposition, but these are like nothing burger witnesses. They don’t know anything. They weren’t really involved in any of the crucial stuff, right? I want to defend.” And I was able to, because one, I had partners who had seen my work product, seen how I was taking ownership of the case and they’re like, “We want to reward this associate.” But more than that, I had clients who valued giving opportunities to more junior associates, who recognized how hard I was working on this matter and who also wanted to give me this opportunity, but that’s something that comes to mind immediately of like, “Hey, I had to explicitly ask for something, but what I typically do is more of the strategic, I already set this up, you don’t have to worry about it, I’m happy to take this off your plate.” And then I kind of finagle the opportunity that way.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

That’s a great answer. And I think the big takeaway that I have from that, both anticipating and doing that strategic work that comes in with litigation. I feel like litigation’s a chess match, right? We’re always just thinking about what’s the next move, not only what’s our next move, but then predicting what our opposing side is going to be doing. And that’s the advice I always give to new law clerks whenever they tell me like, “How can I be the best intern ever?” And I go, “Well, watch what we do and then when you start coming to me, if you can come to me and say, Hey, I know you need this done, but then after that you’re going to need, we’re going to draft the petition. After I get done drafting the petition, can I start on discovery? Can I start going through these records?

And I’m like, okay, they’re thinking like a lawyer. They’re not there yet, but the wheels are turning. And not only that, but when you talk about the moments where you’ve had to be more explicit, you referred back to the fact that you had already shown your worth. And the phrase that you used that I wrote down, excellence is rewarded. And I think that that is baseline, regardless of whether you are doing it in a more subtle way or a more explicit way, really it comes down to the fact that you have shown the general foundation of trust, that these people can trust you because you have shown that you are competent and more than able to handle this kind of work. So I think that that’s like the big takeaway is just showing that you can be trusted with the work. Now, I want to keep the conversation very positive, but something that comes up often in many of our episodes is the fact that there is a difference in how women can be treated in the office, are treated in the office, and in particular women of color.

So there’s obviously a great gender factor, but then race can also play a role in that. And so obviously I certainly have had, I’m Asian American. I have had young women come up to me and ask me how race has affected either how I’m treated by opposing counsel or judges or clients, and it’s come up in various ways, but I want to hear from you, Imani, about whether there are any unique challenges that you have seen or you have experienced in big law as a woman of color, whether it’s been openly discussed or not. And I know that’s kind of a big, big, hairy question, but I do think it’s an important thing for us to just keep that conversation.

Imani Maatuka:

Yeah. And I love to have the important conversations because like you said, I think this gets glossed over and I think people are sometimes afraid to admit some of the additional factors that come with your experienced identity. So for me, I was the only black woman in the commercial litigation group. And for a while, I was the only black person in the commercial litigation group in our Dallas office. And what did that look like pragmatically? Well, for me, I put almost like this extra weight or burden on myself where it’s like I felt representative of potential future hiring decisions. I felt representative of black women attorneys generally. And so I felt this very heavy cross to bear, if you will, where it was like, I’m not only being judged for Imani Matuka, but I’m being judged and they’re going to judge me for so many other people.

And so I felt like I heavily scrutinized my own work product more than other people would. I was like, I need to be kind of like Johnny on the spot. I need to be available at any point. I need to be this star associate because I need to set such an amazing example that they will not stop at me, right? I will not be the last black woman that you hire. And it’s kind of disappointing, and this is not limited to my old firm, but when I look at big law firms generally, and really I could say all law firms, but it’s so disparate, it’s easier to just limit it to big law. When I look at big law firms and I look at their black, Hispanic, Asian populations, I see that those people of color typically come from like the top of the top, right?

These are students who are coming from the T-14 law schools, graduated with Latin Honors, like they are just like. And then I look at some of our counterparts and I see that the standards sometimes are not the same where just thinking locally, I’ll see attorneys of color coming from T-14s in our Dallas office, and then I’ll see a lot of the majority coming from SMU, which is there’s a huge drop in rankings between a T-14 school and an SMU, and that’s no shade or anything to SMU. I know a ton of great attorneys that have come from that, but I think when your hiring practices are not the same across the board, it can lead to certain discrepancies that we see from a racial identity standpoint. And so with all of that, I think there’s like a lot of pressure that I think a lot of black or attorneys of color put on themselves with that same kind of mindset, thinking that I am representative of the larger group, which I think is inherently unfair and it almost makes the job tend to a hundred times more difficult because now it’s not only the understandable and inherent pressures with just starting a legal career and just figuring things out, but now you’re also dealing with things that are completely out of your control, people’s preconceptions about you, their own prejudices.

I felt like I always had to change someone’s mind about me, which I think is a bit of an unfair position to be in. Naturally, you should come in and you have no, nothing in your mind about an associate, their work product, what they might or might not be able to do. I also think, and this is important to know because I navigated that space from a place of privilege, right? And I think that’s why I personally go so hard with my scholarship, Bridging the Gap Scholarship, because I can understand some of the advantages I had coming from a family of attorneys, having an aunt who navigated big law and who could tell me kind of what to look for, what to expect, having a mom who I could call and be like, “Hey, what do you think about this? How would you handle this situation?” I was extremely fortunate to be in that situation.

And I completely recognize that people are navigating these systems that have been in place long before they got to this earth without any help or assistance. And that’s really unfortunate.

Elizabeth Lenivy:

I appreciate you sharing that answer. Imani, thank you so much for this. We are actually going to pause the conversation here, pick it up on the next episode, tune in next Wednesday for part two of our discussion with Imani Maatouka and remember new episodes drop every other Wednesday. And if you want to join the conversation, you can reach us at heelsinthecourtroom.law. Thanks so much, guys.

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