Partners by Law: Building a Life and Career in Law

Katya Valasek:

We're joined today by Lana and Nick Kuchinski. Nick is a senior associate at a large firm, and Lana is a partner at a boutique firm. You met when you were juniors in college in the chemical engineering program at the University of Kansas.

You graduated college together in 2011, started in the industry together, got married to each other, and then enrolled in law school together in 2015. Even before you get to law school in this timeline, that's a lot of shared interest and quality time together. Even though your day-to-day responsibilities were quite similar, where you found value can differ. So, Nick, what did you enjoy most about your engineering job?

Nick Kuchinski:

I like the challenge of it. It was really working with your hands more than it was your mind because you're an engineering design firm. So, I was out doing the nitty-gritty kind of blue-collar work, putting up equipment in the field, doing a startup and checkout, things kind of like that, which hits a lot on what I like to do from kind of like a mechanical aspect. But it was also just great to use your brain and engineering capacity all the time.

Katya Valasek:

Lana, what about you?

Lana Kuchinski:

I like the math side of it, a lot of calculations, a lot of computational matters. Yeah, the engineering side, kind of why I wanted to do the degree in the first place.

Katya Valasek:

So, one of the themes we'll see come up over and over is how competitive you two are, including with each other. Was this apparent before law school? Kind of.

Lana Kuchinski:

Nick kicked my butt in engineering.

Nick Kuchinski:

And then you kicked my butt in law school. Yes, we were competitive, but I think it just grew and grew over the years.

Lana Kuchinski:

I want to buffer that and say it was nice competitive. For example, we run together, we've done a marathon, plenty of half marathons, and we used to actually like yell at each other during our runs together. Nick would run too fast in the flats and I would run too fast uphill.

Katya Valasek:

You both, without having to think very long, mentioned things that you really enjoyed about your engineering jobs. What made you look to law school?

Nick Kuchinski:

I think the writing was on the wall with where engineering was headed, because we were both practicing in an area that was oil and gas related. And if you think back to about the 2014 timeline, oil and gas started to take a huge downturn. So, there was a lot of talk about furlough, about layoff at our firm at that time. So, what we did is started running a cost-benefit analysis of if we need to pivot, where do we go?

Lana Kuchinski:

And he said, let's make a spreadsheet.

Nick Kuchinski:

Yeah, I think I pushed back so hard on going back to school so many times and it was like water off a duck for her.

Lana Kuchinski:

I said, I'm going, you can stay.

Katya Valasek:

I mean, it's common for people to take their partners into consideration before thinking about going to graduate school, right? It can impact where someone gets a job, potential relocation, potential changes to schedules. And law school and practice can be really stressful and challenging on top of all of that. During law school, since you were in it together, how did you support each other?

Lana Kuchinski:

We just kind of maintained schedule together because we were in the separate groups, which means we had different classes one L year, but we kind of just maintained the same schedule of like, hey, we're going to go read from this time frame to this time frame. Let's go take a walk and let's come back. And just kind of that was supportive enough to keep each other on track on the days that I didn't want to keep studying, but he did and vice versa.

Nick Kuchinski:

And then on the flip side of that, as soon as you get 2L and 3L year, obviously you kind of go after the track as an attorney you're going to go for post-graduation, and we basically mimicked each other with most classes. I think maybe we had one or two separate classes. I think that was a good thing. It was always having a dedicated study buddy.

Katya Valasek:

What was the impact of this competition that you experienced in law school on your relationship?

Lana Kuchinski:

It got hard towards the end because obviously we both were buying essentially for the same jobs in the market. We both wanted to stay in Denver. There's not a ton of firms and even fewer that take more than one graduating law student. And so yeah, it got stressful towards the end.

Nick Kuchinski:

Yeah. I mean, there's a different stress between school stress with wanting to do better than one another and job stress because we're obviously married, so we both need employment, right? You can't sit here and have one person…I mean, you can, there's plenty of people that do it, but it was not our ideal to have one person being employed and whatnot. So fighting for that job became a real kicker toward the end. So that was probably the most stressed out our relationship got in relationship to law.

Katya Valasek:

Going back to the school stress, 1L year can be one of the most stressful experiences for a law student. How did that play out between the two of you?

Lana Kuchinski:

I would say actually I thought 1L was the most fun year of law school. We were older when we went back, so we had a different perspective. We worked in industry for five years, so we took law school very seriously, but then also really appreciate that we didn't have the nine to five.

Nick Kuchinski:

I think we just had a different perspective of, “this is demanding, but it's still less than what we had.” We had plenty of friends that were stressed out all the time, and I specifically remember telling them, it's like, dude, this is not what it's like to be in the real world. So just take a breath. It's okay. I can remember one of our friends specifically who was just always stressed out, still is, but just harping on him, it's going to be all right.

Lana Kuchinski:

Yeah. Taking the bigger picture of like, well, what are you stressed out right now? You're just stressed out because you might be called out by a professor in class. Okay. Is that really going to impact three years from now when you're trying to get a job? Most likely not. Okay. So take a step back, take a breath. It's very manageable. Your teacher isn't a client that's going to fire you, isn't your boss that's going to fire you. Your teacher has to endure you, unfortunately, for the entire semester.

Nick Kuchinski:

I do remember one thing specifically that we say, it's like, you are paying to go to school.

Lana Kuchinski:

We would tell that to people. Remember, you are paying them. I guess that was a big perspective we came in that I did differently than undergrad was that perspective of going in the office hours, be like, I'm using you as a resource because I'm paying you to learn things. So 1L was a lot of fun.

Katya Valasek:

At what point did that switch for you?

Nick Kuchinski:

Oh, I know exactly when it switched. OCI or on-campus interviewing, which occurs at the very beginning of your 2L year. So you stand on your 1L year grades. And that is the kicker for when the job stress hit.

Lana Kuchinski:

So you interview the fall of your 2L year for the following summer associateship, which then usually leads to a job offer afterwards.

Katya Valasek:

And what happened when that started?

Nick Kuchinski:

Well, I mean, as we said before, I might have been the better engineer, but Lana was definitely the better law student, like very much at the top, top, top of our class. And I wasn't a slouch, but I wasn't great. So every interview possibility went to her first, rightly so.

But that starts to wear on you after a little bit. And obviously, in other circumstances, you wouldn't know the candidate that actually gets selected. So I know that I failed the interview. So that's really what ended up happening with OCI that I think triggered me particularly.

Lana Kuchinski:

And it created this weird dichotomy at home because I come home, I'm excited. I got the interview, whatever, it went well. I don't really want to talk to him about it because I know that's going to stress him out and bum him out.

But, you know, it just, yeah, it was a very strange place to be in. I was going to say, I'm sure on his side, he was bummed out and frustrated about not getting the interview, but he can't really talk to me about it because I'm the person who got the interview.

Nick Kuchinski:

So, couldn't have said it better.

Katya Valasek:

Yeah. And, you know, the struggle is common in law school. You're competing for the same jobs with the people you're going to school with. And definitely it's a bit of a different situation when it's your partner or spouse that's going after the same job as you. But many students find themselves in the position of wanting a job that their classmates got. And typically it's your roommate or your partner or your friends that you go to vent that frustration.

Did you figure out a way that you could be supportive of each other's successes and struggles in that time it took for you to find a job, Nick?

Nick Kuchinski:

I mean, eventually, yes, because at the end of the day, I mean, we would have conversation about this, like one job is better than zero jobs. So Lana having a job is better for Nick. So eventually, because I'm a very logical person, I kind of came to that conclusion and became slightly more supportive.

But I'm not going to lie, like it really stung up until the point that I also found a position. So it was an ongoing struggle, I would say, from the beginning of 2L year all the way through essentially graduation.

Lana Kuchinski:

We would have discussions that we're a team. Remember that paycheck is going to the same bank account. So regardless if it comes from him or from me, it's great.

But that being said, it sounds great in statement, but when it comes to reality, there's a lot of emotions. So I remember the summer relationship between my 2L and my 3L year, I was so stressed out. I was gone all day long.

And I would come home and want to like decompress or relax or vent about how frustrated and how stressful but I couldn't because I didn't want to like rub it in his face. So again, that's kind of where the stress peaked.

Katya Valasek:

And again, that same sort of scenario can play out with a roommate, with a good friend. If you're in that same sort of position where someone has a job and the other doesn't yet.

Nick Kuchinski:

No, absolutely. Anybody that you are very much involved with on a personal basis, like this is equally as transferable. There's not a whole lot different between us being married versus you having a very, very good friend that you got in the mood with. And we had people that actually had that happen the same way.

Lana Kuchinski:

Yeah. And my mind goes to you're getting your first job out of law school isn't the end of the road. You'd be so surprised how these people that you're competing for jobs with end up working at your firm down the road, or you need a job and you reach out to them and you go to their firm. It's just, it's such a woven industry that.

Nick Kuchinski:

Yeah. We always say, be careful, don't burn a bridge. You don't want to do that because you never know when you need it.

Katya Valasek:

Nick, you said you specifically knew when the career related stress and competitiveness kicked in between you and Lana. Was there a particular experience that made that transition?

Nick Kuchinski:

So there was one experience for the eventual job that Lana ended up getting, probably was the spearhead to all of this. So OCI kicks off with big firm job where we all go in, we do the normal form question partner that really doesn't want to be their interview style thing at OCI. And then you get what is called the callback interview.

The callback interview is the big interview. They don't give you a callback interview unless you are a front runner for a job. So it was myself, Lana and one of our classmates that was also called back.

And for this particular job, they flew to San Francisco, put you in a five-star hotel and performed what I can only describe as the hunger games of interviews. We literally landed one morning and started doing the craziest things I've ever thought of and the most stressful at the same time, like going and golfing with little kids, having to create a commercial advertising a product, writing a memo under intense, timeframe pressure, going back out and having to interact with a whole bunch of different partners at a dinner that many of them didn't want to be at, but also under an abbreviation status.

It was just...

Lana Kuchinski:

You're forgetting about the massive scavenger hunt.

Nick Kuchinski:

Oh, yeah, scavenger hunt.

Lana Kuchinski:

That they put us in teams and it was all throughout the whole building. And it was just like, you were running through the building that people are working at and...

Nick Kuchinski:

Oh, by the way, somebody from the firm watching you the whole time, like standing there with their arms crossed watching you and taking notes. So you're being graded the whole single time. You had no off time. And that lasted two days.

Katya Valasek:

Was it just to seed chaos or was it a karate kid situation where the skills would manifest later on?

Nick Kuchinski:

No, I know what the purpose of the teams were because at the end of this entire interview process, we had a good friend who is a mentor to the both of us who was actually a senior associate at this firm. Let us know that the only reason that I was invited to the interview in the first place was not because of the job. It was to put us in competition at the interview.

Katya Valasek:

If we fast forward to today, you're both patent lawyers. Nick, you're at a large firm after starting at a small IP boutique. And Lana, you're at a small IP boutique after starting at a large firm. The same firm you worked at your two all summer. How did you know it was time to move to a new firm?

Lana Kuchinski:

There was a combination of items both in my personal life and at my work that kind of nudged me along with Nick to make the transition. Our firm was becoming very top heavy and there wasn't a lot of upward movement. Among the associates, there was a lot of fuss about people not being promoted and pay ceilings.

I was okay with that. I kind of was really happy with what I was doing. I love my partners. I love my clients. But it was also my work was impacting my home life. I had recently given birth to a little dude and he had a lot of health problems.

I was in and out of the hospital a lot and juggling a lot of doctor's appointments. I just needed a lot more flexibility than I was able to get there. And then remarkably, I kind of ran into the managing partner of this boutique firm at a local conference and he offered me a partnership role.

What we have heard from many partners in the industry is that currently you typically don't make partner at these big law firms because they're so top heavy. It's a better route to go to these small boutiques, get your clientele, get the partnership title, and then if you want, move back into the bigger firm as a partner.

Katya Valasek:

Nick, what was it like watching Lana weigh different factors and move forward with this decision?

Nick Kuchinski:

I mean, I was cheerleading for her to jump the whole time. With the health issues, it was tough for her to maintain billable hours for a large-scale firm.

Lana Kuchinski:

Can I jump in with just an example story? One Friday night at 11 o'clock, we ended up in the ER with a little dude. He was inconsolable. I held him. I was awake up until we were discharged Sunday afternoon at 3. I went to bed and went back to work on Monday. And it was just that type of stuff where it was not- It just wasn't workable with us anymore.

Nick Kuchinski:

And that had been months at that point. I mean, he was almost a year old when that happened. So when she had the opportunity to not only go to a firm that was much more flexible and lifestyle-oriented but also make partner, I mean, you couldn't have heard me yell louder like, “go! go now!” The truth is, she was very nervous about doing it. I just said, do it. And if it falls apart, just go back to your old firm if you need to, a.k.a. don't burn the bridge.

Katya Valasek:

What was the conversation like when you into that partner at the conference? Did you begin the conversation knowing that you were going to talk about career opportunities with him, or did it just come up naturally?

Lana Kuchinski:

It just came up naturally. It was just a coffee catch-up. I hadn't seen him since before COVID. And by the end, he threw out like, hey, if you came to our firm, I'd make you partner. And I called him the following day. I was like, was that a real offer? And he said, yeah, I'll send over the information.

Katya Valasek:

Nick, how does this compare to the process you experienced when you joined Fagery, a large firm?

Nick Kuchinski:

I would say night and different because Lana was almost recruited and I had to fight to nail to get where I'm at. So my trajectory goes, fight for my first job, which was at that small boutique firm, fight for a, I would call it a large-scale firm, but not as prestigious of a firm, intermediary, and then get to where I'm at now. And I did that all through, essentially, probably three years of networking and communication.

None of it was sought through recruiters. None of it was sought through OCI. This was all just me pounding the pavement, more or less.

There was a very, very, very nice partner that took me under his wing at firm that I'm at now and just pushed and pushed and pushed because my firm actually went under restructuring literally when I was given the offer to join and they put a hiring freeze on it. So there was a position that I was in that I had technically a job offer. They revoked the job offer, which I've never heard of before, and said that it was pending the final merger.

And then I started to just kind of get ghosted after that. So I had somebody literally stand there and push and push and push. I pushed just as hard, but he pushed too, and eventually ended up where I'm at.

Katya Valasek:

It's fascinating to me how different the experiences can be from individual to individual as they navigate their law school and attorney careers. And many people end up in a long-term relationship at some point in their career. And having a relationship with a lawyer presents some interesting twists for building a life with someone who has a busy career.

Generally speaking, lawyers have ethical obligations, demanding jobs in times of high stress. And for the lawyer's partner, they are sharing a life with someone who cannot always tell them every detail of what's going on at work. Not to mention, the partner also needs to juggle their own responsibilities and stresses. So for you two, you are both at the same time. You're married to a lawyer and you're a lawyer who's married.

Nick Kuchinski:

I think one of the best parts about the way that our relationship functions is because we're both attorneys, we both understand the stressors that require you to work late, that require you to jump on early, that require just a lot of dedication and focus. The other person's always there to kind of backfill.

Lana Kuchinski:

I would say that's a huge lesson that we learned. Obviously, this is a skill or an approach that's been developed over the years of being together through these different fields is, you know, Nick might be making dinner and somebody's like, I got to jump on a call. And I'm like, what do you need to do? Like, I'll pick up where you left off or like just allowing the space for that person to get done what is stressing them out so that they can return with that task done and be fully present for the relationship.

Katya Valasek:

Are there situations where, especially in working from home, you have to navigate that confidentiality side of your career in ways that two other working professionals working from home may not need to worry about?

Nick Kuchinski:

I would say, well, for sure. Yes, we work with intellectual property, right? Like, we fundamentally work with confidential new technology. First and foremost, we work in completely different sectors of this. I mean, it could not be more different between what Lana practices and I do. So we don't really have a lot of, like, direct conflict with what her clients are or what my clients are.

That's great. But at the same time, not that difficult to maintain separation. And if Lana has a disclosure call and I don't, I can put on noise canceling headphones, leave the room. Like, there's not a whole lot that actually, like, confidentiality-wise, I think is an issue just because we have such a different practice.

Lana Kuchinski:

That and when we do talk about things, it's really high level. I mean, that is a benefit of practicing in the same area and being together with, like, coworkers. Like, I can say, hey, I got this from the U.S. Patent Office. Have you ever gotten this type of notice before? Or, like, how do you reach the ombudsman at the office? Like, just little things like that.

Nick Kuchinski:

And that's, like, the predominant amount of how we bounce things back and forth because that's probably one of the best parts about our relationship is that I have a co-counsel sitting right next to me that I can be like, did you just see, like, anything even close to this ever in your practice? And high level, she'd be like, yeah, look at this part of the NPEB, which is a giant 1,200-page book that tells you how to do something in patent law. So it's not necessarily the confidential information we're talking about. It's, like, it's all process, more or less.

Katya Valasek:

So if we look back to thinking about making the move to law school, Lana, you had already made that decision. Are you where you thought you would be in practice?

Nick Kuchinski:

We're ahead. I think we're significantly ahead. So we, like I said, we forecasted this. We looked out with return on investment and deferred income and all those type of things before we started this process. And I would say we are probably not just from a financial standpoint, but probably twice as far as I thought we would. That just might be by the grace of us having worked before.

So treating this very differently than, say, like, a brand new person walking from undergrad into law school into a first job. I mean, we both hit the ground and we know what to do. But it could also just be because I think Lana is that good at what she does. I mean, you made partner in six years, which is amazing.

Lana Kuchinski:

Don’t discount yourself. You're fantastic at your job as well.

Nick Kuchinski:

But no, we are solidly performing better than I thought we would.

Lana Kuchinski:

And on a holistic viewpoint, I tell Nick almost every day, like, wow, like we got everything we were hoping to get. Like, I cannot believe this is our lives. We have amazing work-life balance. We have a support network. We love what we do. Like, I love, I used to get the like the someday scaries going into engineering. I look forward to Mondaya. And that might be because we have child care, but I genuinely love what I do.