by Megyn Kelly
This year they were presenting a Best Individual Advocate Award—the top advocate in the competition as decided by all of the judges throughout the year. She talked about the amount of work the contestants had put into this competition: the number of mock arguments, and the scores we had accumulated over many months before dozens of judges who tested our mettle.
Hillman and I sat there, half dying to just go home, half hoping we might still turn the night around and hear one of our names. I was too afraid of the terrible losing feeling hitting me in a one-two punch again to get my hopes up.
Trish, holding the award in her hands—a wooden gavel engraved with the winner’s name—said, “I remember when I first began planning this year’s competition, I asked the person who has now won Best Individual Advocate what date I should have the finals on. And she said to me: ‘Have it on my birthday, November eighteenth.’”
You could hear my mother’s loud, joyful sob from the audience. You would have thought this was an Academy Award. My mom gives me a hard time sometimes, but she’s also my biggest fan. She may not believe in false praise, but when praise is due—as in this moment, when I was rewarded for what she knew to be months of insanely hard work—she has always been quick to offer it. She’s not the kind of parent for whom nothing is ever good enough; some things are good enough. And this award was one of them. Peter later told me it was magnificent.
Trish concluded: “And when Megyn Kelly thinks back on her twenty-third birthday, it will be a day she never forgets.” And she was right.
It was an incredible moment, and yet, despite my growing confidence in my ability as a lawyer, I never got too drunk on my own wine. Then, and now, I was Linda’s daughter. I knew who I was, and what mattered. I could fill this book with things on which I need to improve and at which I am simply no good. But I also know what my strengths are—and this self-awareness has served me well. This approach was later encapsulated by Professor Melilli in what I now call my Albany Law School Theory of Life.
One day Melilli said to our first-year class, “Look, for those of you sitting here feeling bad about yourself because you’re in danger of failing out, don’t beat yourself up too badly. Just remember, you’re still in law school—something thousands of others wanted but were denied. And for those of you at the top of your class, feeling great about yourselves and thinking, ‘I’ve got it made,’ just remember: you’re still at Albany.”
That’s pretty profound if you think about it. However low you are, there is always something to feel proud of, and however high you are, there is always something to humble you. I hold on to that to this day. My mother is only too happy to help.
6
Legally Blond
When I started at ALS, I didn’t have a master plan for what kind of lawyer I would be. I just knew I was there to get great at preparing cases and making arguments. I also had begun to suspect that if I played my cards right I might end up making real money at this job. I was thrilled by the notion that I’d found something I was genuinely good at that could actually lead to some financial security. By my last year of law school, though, I couldn’t afford to spend too much time daydreaming about what might be—I needed to find a job, any job.
In fact, I was already supposed to have one. My second summer of law school, I’d worked at a firm in Syracuse doing real estate, contract, and employment law. It was a nice firm with pretty offices right in the heart of Syracuse, and I had a great summer there. One of the unwritten rules of law school was that it was “expected” we would get offers from our second-summer law jobs—this was the basic understanding among firms and interns, barring a catastrophic development.
In spite of this pressure, I worked hard, but also managed to have some fun. My friends Joan and Isabel were there with me, and we loved going to a dive called Roman’s Tavern, where the owner played his trumpet on the bar and insisted you do a shot if you were a “Roman’s virgin,” meaning new to the establishment. The Dinosaur was another great place, its walls covered with biker paraphernalia and its booths filled with actual bikers, with whom we’d drink and play Quarters until the wee hours before getting up for work and acting like grown-ups.
In many ways, that summer was a preview of sorts of what I expected my post–law school life would be. At that point in my life—twenty-three years old and not long out of Syracuse University—I thought making a home and a life in Syracuse was what I wanted, a peaceful suburban existence with a job that would allow me to pay my bills, have a house, and raise a family. Just as my parents had done. As a result, I desperately wanted an offer at this firm, understanding the mad dash I would be in if I returned to school in the fall without one.
I’ll never forget the day one of the partners came to see me in my tiny office, in which you could barely even turn around. It was the end of the summer, and he sat down across from my desk and told me, flat-out, that I wouldn’t be getting an offer. They claimed they didn’t have the money in the budget, even though they loved me, yadda yadda yadda.
I was speechless. I didn’t want to hear what I was hearing. I muddled through the awkward conversation, then went to my car in the parking lot and sat there, alone, for a very long time. I remember John Mellencamp was playing on the radio. I took the news as a rejection of my work that summer, of me, of my potential as a lawyer. It was particularly upsetting because this wasn’t some big New York law firm where the competition was cutthroat and the practice top-notch. It was a fine law firm, don’t get me wrong. But it was in Syracuse, and I was the only intern. Everyone back home would be expecting me to return with an offer. Had I spent too much time at Roman’s and the Dinosaur? Could I only succeed as a lawyer if I cut out all the fun in my life?
I would do it. I didn’t care. I wanted a better life. I fell asleep that night feeling humiliated and like a failure. I resolved to do whatever it took to succeed, even if it meant sacrificing my social life on the altar of law.
Luckily, I’d built up a reservoir of confidence and a tough shell, so I was spurred instead of crushed by this failure. Back at the office, where I still had a few days to work before the summer was over, I put on a brave face. Really, I wanted to never return, to show them I didn’t need them. But I realized that would have been self-defeating, so I donned a smile and tried to finish off the summer graciously. Not only did I not want them to know how upset I was, but I also didn’t want to burn any bridges, just in case the no-money-in-the-budget story was true and they might be in a position to hire me down the road. This experience of showing up at work with a positive attitude despite feeling like hell inside was quite valuable. I would come to draw on it many times in my career.
When I got back to Albany to start my third year, I was too humiliated to tell people the truth. I told everyone I got an offer but didn’t want to stay in Syracuse after all. It was easier than confessing that I had failed. I couldn’t let the Janes of the world see me as weak.
In order to achieve, I believed I had to be perfect. My success thus far felt like a house of cards that might collapse with the tiniest wrong move. I didn’t yet have the confidence to admit my failures. When I did well, it would build up some reserves. But when I failed, I convinced myself that the failures were evidence of the “real” me, and the successes were the “fake” me fooling people. What I didn’t realize then was that my real friends wouldn’t have celebrated my sadness—they would have helped me through it. I had plenty of friends who would have been happy to provide a sounding board. I was just too focused on seeming strong to let them in. And so I was all alone in my anxiety and disappointment.
By the time I returned to Albany that fall, I was committed to turning things around. I marched into the career-planning office and began researching the firms at which I might still have a shot. Most did their main recruiting from the second-year, not the third-year, class, so I was late to the party, and I knew it. One firm, however, did stand out: Bickel & Brewer. They were based in Dallas, with smaller satellite offices in W
ashington, DC, New York, and Chicago. They liked to hire third-year law students, and at New York salaries.
William Brewer bears a decent resemblance to a young Robert Redford. He walks with a strong gait and wears a tan Burberry trench coat over perfectly tailored navy or gray suits. He was also legendary in the halls of Albany Law School, where he had studied law. I researched him and his firm with vigor and soon found that Brewer’s looks weren’t the only thing attractive about this firm. The term “Rambo litigation” was coined there. They took no prisoners. You hired them when you wanted a fight.
At twenty-three years old, I loved that. Kill or be killed! We’re not here to make friends, we’re here to win! You sue my client? F— you and your request for an extension! You want a settlement conference? Pound sand! Our offer is screw you!
Looking back, this feels a little silly, but as a young gun it sounded very sexy to me. I could enter a frat or a brotherhood of sorts. The bravado naturally appealed to me, given the protective armor I’d built up since being bullied, not to mention the fact that I’d probably always had a bit more testosterone than most girls. Going on the offensive was thrilling, and the more I acted tough, the tougher I felt. Being a litigator was the perfect job; it not only let me hide my insecurities, it felt like a tool for conquering them.
I was determined to learn everything I could about the partnership. I studied up on Bill Brewer, John Bickel, the firm’s reputation, everything I could about their identity and how they saw themselves. I researched who at the law school was still connected to them that might be able to put in a good word for me. As luck would have it, one of Brewer’s good friends, Shelley Stevenson, was still teaching at the school and was a beloved professor of mine. She had given me two straight A’s. I liked her so much I had earlier recommended her classes to many of my friends, including a guy I’ll call Bob. I asked Professor Stevenson if she would put a good word in for me. To my astonishment, she refused: she had a policy of only recommending one student a year, and she had already put forward Bob.
I was a bit worried, since Bickel & Brewer notoriously only accepted one or at most two associates from ALS a year, and there were many top students in the hunt this year. They agreed to grant me an on-campus interview, which was a good start. I wore a cream pantsuit from Casual Corner. It had flare bottoms, and the jacket was cream and yellow plaid. I accessorized with a fake strand of pearls and white—yes, white—pumps. Finishing the picture were my big glasses with blue tortoiseshell rims (gone today in favor of contacts, which I couldn’t afford back then) and a big polyester hair bow that I used to tie back my long hair at the base of my neck. I thought I looked great. One of my classmates who had family dough and always looked very put-together saw me after and said, “Is that what you wore?”
I left feeling hopeful about a callback. Sure enough, I got one, which meant a trip to Dallas along with all the other recruits. I was nervous about going up against so many other aspirants at once. These were guys from Harvard and Yale and the University of Chicago, and I was the girl from Albany who had to write onto Law Review.
Still, I knew it was death to worry about them. Jim had told me long ago that you can always tell which team is going to win before the game even begins.
“How?” I asked.
“Because one team is running drills and practicing plays and focusing on their game,” he said, “and the other team is looking at that team.”
Before I knew it, I was in a first-class seat to Dallas. While there, I stayed at the Mansion, a tony hotel with thousand-thread-count sheets and great-smelling body lotion. They put on a weekend of parties and extravagant dinners for us. I could see that this place spared no expense.
I was mesmerized by how luxurious this world looked up close. I’d never had a lot of money. I was used to struggling to get anything. For seven years of college and law school, I had lived on a shoestring budget. I survived on student loans and the money I made teaching aerobics and doing odd jobs, which was barely enough to cover my tuition, never mind room and board. My apartment for many of those years had a tiny freezer so iced up that I could fit only one Lean Cuisine in there. Later I learned to defrost my freezer with a hair dryer.
I had terrible credit and was constantly dodging calls from bill collectors, doing my best to either ignore or stave off the next demand. I went into collection on more than one account. I tried to borrow money, but there was no one in my life with enough to lend. From time to time my mom and Peter would slip me $25, and you would have thought they were delivering a private plane. My brother Pete, who is a successful businessman in Atlanta, helped when he could. But he drove a tough bargain. He used to joke that the motto of his “Bank of Kelly” was: “You don’t pay, you go away.”
By my third year in law school, my phone was shut off, I had over $100,000 in school loan debt, and my kitchen had been hijacked by a particularly diligent ant colony. A few months later, I moved in with my mom and Peter to help minimize some of my expenses. I used to have stomach acid burn when I went to the mailbox. When things got particularly tight, I’d try to pick up extra aerobics classes—so I was not only very poor but also very thin.
The most powerful people I’d dealt with up to that point were the bosses at my Holiday Inn “front desk girl” job during college. Looking at this world of Big Law, with its crisp suits and expensive wines, I realized for the first time: I could get rich doing this. I hated that sickening feeling when the bills came. This job felt like a golden ticket. This was my shot. It was like getting plucked from obscurity. I would do whatever it took.
On Saturday we were individually shepherded from office to office, meeting with lawyers. Rumor had it that if things went really well, you’d be brought in to meet John Bickel or Bill Brewer, but we were told not to expect it and not to panic if it didn’t happen.
I’ll never forget sitting in one senior associate’s office. He was telling me this place was like being in a foxhole; everyone there would take a bullet for the others. This is not the way most law firms recruit. Typically, they want to know why you wrote your Law Review note on “The Dangerous Instrumentality Exception to the Negligent Supervision Doctrine.” This guy wanted to know if I was a fighter.
I knew in my heart that I was. Of course I did worry that all I had to offer by way of proof was that I’d led my high school cheerleading squad to victory in the regionals. Meanwhile, my ALS pal Brian Farrell was down the hall, telling them about the Bronze Star for Valor he’d received in the first Gulf War.
But somehow I must have impressed him, because moments later the associate picked up the phone and called Bickel’s assistant, saying, “John needs to meet this candidate. Today.”
In I went to John Bickel’s office. We hit it off instantly. I did something all job applicants should do—I asked for the job. I told him that if they extended an offer, I would accept it on the spot, that I had done the research and investigation, and this was where I wanted to be. Don’t underestimate the power this message can have on a potential employer. Everyone likes to be flattered. Of course it works better if it’s true. I left the office cautiously optimistic. That night, between my ridiculously soft sheets, with that feeling of a new city around me and a new beginning on the horizon, I stared at the ceiling and felt elated at the possibilities. Things were happening that could alter the course of my life. One step at a time, I was starting to run. I hadn’t grown up with high hopes for my future, but in that moment I had a sense of opportunity knocking, of imagining that I might actually be able to make something out of my life.
The next morning, I had breakfast in the hotel restaurant. There was Bob. I ordered eggs, and he ordered the tallest stack of buttermilk pancakes I had ever seen. As his food arrived, he regaled me with stories of how he’d killed the interview.
“Don’t worry,” he told me, patronizingly. “You may not have Stevenson’s rec or gotten to meet with everyone I did, but you’ll probably be fine. And I hear that stuff about them bringing people
in to meet with John or Bill was bullshit.”
“Actually,” I said, “I met with John. It went great.”
He looked at me as if I’d run over his dog. He didn’t eat a bite of those pancakes.
From that day forward, I thought of him simply as “Buttermilk.” A few days later, I got the job, and so did Brian of the Bronze Star. Buttermilk? Take a guess.
When I was hired, Bickel & Brewer told me I could go to any office they had, but they were hoping I would join their guys in Chicago. They flew me out one weekend and put me up at the InterContinental. I looked out the window at the twinkling lights on Michigan Avenue, also known as Magnificent Mile, with all of the cosmopolitan women carrying briefcases or hailing taxis, looking like they had someplace important to go, and thought, That could be me.
Walking down the sidewalk that weekend, I saw a woman talking on an early cell phone. What could she possibly have to discuss that is so urgent it cannot wait until she arrives at her destination? I thought. So obnoxious!
The sum they offered me seemed ludicrous: $85,000 a year. I would be able to pay my bills, every month! Little old me. A girl from Albany, or, as we called it, “Smallbany.” I wasn’t yet twenty-five. It was more money than either of my parents had ever made in a year. I had no idea what it was like not to dread getting the mail, or to simply pay a bill when it arrived, stress-free—but now, for the first time in my adult life, that would be in my future.
And that firm I had interned for in Syracuse that didn’t make me an offer? Well, guess what—they came through. Called me up and offered me the job, and the life I had thought I wanted in Syracuse. But it was too late. I had already found a new dream, and a new me: Megyn Kelly, Esquire. Attorney and counselor at Bickel & Brewer. Big-city high flyer.
