Fordham Law alumna Vanessa Adriana Nadal ’10 was interviewed by National Engineering Forum where she discusses her twin career as engineer and litigator.
Q: AS YOU’VE BEEN BOTH A RESEARCHER AND A LITIGATOR, WHAT CAN ENGINEERS AND ATTORNEYS LEARN FROM ONE ANOTHER?
When I went to law school, I started explaining my jump from engineering to law by saying that “Laws are like an equation you apply to a particular story.” I stand by that characterization. Although in law the rules can be bent, and should be. Judges are given the discretion to be more forgiving than mother nature, so there are tiers of consequences for, say, throwing eggs at your teacher every Monday (whereas the consequence for the egg is always the same). Ultimately, engineers and lawyers are probably a lot more similar than they expect. Both require superior critical thinking skills, and both benefit from compassionate story-telling.
…
Q: WE SEE YOUNG PEOPLE ON SOCIAL MEDIA SEEKING YOUR ADVICE AS THEY CONSIDER A CAREER IN ENGINEERING AND/OR LAW. WHERE DO YOU GO FOR CAREER ADVICE?
Well, I talk to everyone. And I have been lucky to have great bosses and colleagues along the way.
I find that people want to help you learn from their mistakes—and successes—if you’re willing to listen. For example, when I had a baby, partners I’d never worked for offered to talk to me about navigating big law as a new mom. I took them all up on it, even though it felt awkward to go into someone’s office cold, and we always found things to talk about. Sometimes their advice was just normalizing what was to come, so that when I cried at my desk one day, overwhelmed by being a new mother and full-time employee, I already knew I was probably not crazy, stupid, terrible at my job, etc., and I felt comfortable enough to go back to those partners. I was this close to quitting because I was overwhelmed. But they helped me figure out how to prioritize my work. If not for those conversations and actions, I might have stopped being a lawyer altogether. That’s one small example of how the advice of others changed (or continued) the course of my career.
Of course, many of my friends and family are hugely inspirational to me. My husband, Lin-Manuel, is one of the best examples. Always knowing his passions allowed him to get those 10,000 hours in early. I envy that certainty, because I still don’t know what I want to be. But what’s most inspirational about Lin-Manuel is that he continues to clock those thousands of hours in new areas every chance he gets. He works so hard, all the time, constantly eating up and digesting music, TV, film, theater, books, comedy, magazine, news, etc. And, somehow, in his genius, he remembers it all.