Not just a favorite pen. There are preferred point sizes. 0.5 is good. 0.38 has its place. And gel ink is, apparently, “correct.”

She keeps identical pen and pencil kits in different bags, uses color-coded sticky notes, still has a legit Rolodex, and maintains a home reference binder of trusted service providers (which we have already taken advantage of!). Give Chelsea enough information and she will organize it, map it, and figure out how it all connects.

Before Chelsea was a lawyer, she was an artist. A senior thesis sent her deep into the SMU law library, where an advisor suggested she consider becoming an art lawyer. Chelsea went to law school planning to do exactly that. Then, just as she became eligible for the art law classes, the professor went on a two-year sabbatical.

What followed was a career Chelsea describes as extraordinarily circuitous, eventually leading her to financial litigation and what she calls “litigation mitigation,” work she loves but never imagined when she started law school.

The path may have changed, but Chelsea never stopped looking at the world like an artist: noticing details, seeing patterns, and figuring out how seemingly unrelated pieces fit together.

So when she started hearing origin stories about different groups of women lawyers in Dallas and realized many were unfolding along the same timeline, her brain did what her brain does.

Hmm. Let’s deep dive.

Chelsea started researching and mapping the connections, trying to understand not only who these women were, but how their stories intersected. That curiosity eventually collided with Kandace Walter.

The two began talking about how to preserve these stories and make sure younger lawyers knew the women who had come before them. Then Kandace said, “It should be a documentary.”

Chelsea spent about five minutes trying to come up with a reason they shouldn’t do it. Then, as she puts it, “all the other tabs were closed.”

“Okay, well, let’s do a documentary.”

Nine months later, Chelsea and Kandace, working with filmmaker Alex Garcia Topete and associate producer Mackenzie Freeman, had researched, written, shot, edited, and finalized A Law Unto Themselves, preserving 70 years of stories about women lawyers in Dallas and the community they built together.

And maybe that’s what makes the whole thing feel so very Chelsea. The artist is still there. You can see it in the way she visualizes information, maps timelines, spots patterns, and builds a story from seemingly unrelated pieces.

Maybe that’s the finer point of Chelsea’s story: the path changed, but the way she sees the world never really did.

***Bonus: Chelsea curated her own Amazon supply list that you, too can own the “correct” pen: https://a.co/d/06V7LaRS

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Find Chelsea at linkedin.com/in/chelsea-hilliard-5954815

Coming soon to a browser near you: A Law Unto Themselves – check https://dallaswomenlawyers.org/ for updates.

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Explicit Rating is for the occasional use of colorful language.

Kandace Walter did not grow up dreaming of becoming a lawyer. She was a painfully shy child who loved math and science, went to college to study chemical engineering, then switched to chemistry and pre-med to become a forensic pathologist. When she realized how long medical school was going to take, she reconsidered. Law school was three years, she liked Law & Order, and she quickly pivoted in a completely different direction.

It wasn’t the last time Kandace changed her mind. Her first jobs as a prosecutor quickly taught her that practicing criminal law was decidedly not how it was portrayed on TV. Eventually, after enough courtroom experiences left her questioning her life choices, Kandace decided prosecution was, in her words, “not my ministry.” She took her science background, passed the patent bar, reinvented herself as an intellectual property lawyer, and found work she loved helping entrepreneurs and creatives protect what they were building. Today, she owns her own firm, teaches at SMU Dedman School of Law's Small Business and Trademark Clinic, and reminds her students of something her own career demonstrates pretty well: you don't have to have it all figured out, and you can change your mind.

That willingness to follow an unexpected path may also explain how Kandace found herself doing something else she never planned on: making a documentary.

The idea for A Law Unto Themselves began with a simple observation between friends about the importance of preserving the history of women attorneys who helped shape the Dallas legal community and hear their stories. But the more women they identified and the more history they uncovered, the more obvious it became that a luncheon wasn't going to cut it. These women had broken barriers, fought for opportunities that didn't exist, and paved the way for generations behind them. Their stories deserved more than five minutes at a microphone.

So Kandace suggested they make a documentary.

“Do you know how?”
“No.”
“Do you?”
“No.”

And off they went.

In a matter of months, Kandace and Chelsea, working with filmmaker Alex Garcia Topete and associate producer Mackenzie Freeman, brought those stories to the screen. What emerged was an award-winning documentary preserving 70 years of history and raising a question that reaches well beyond the film: Who paved the way for us, and what battles are ours to fight for the people coming next? Kandace shares what it meant to hear these women's stories firsthand, why preserving them matters, and how the experience sparked a new interest in documenting history. As one of the women featured in the film reminded her, “no battle stays won.”

Of course, this is still Counsel Brew, so we also cover Kandace's coffee-protein-shake concoction (delish!), several years of saying yes followed by her attempted slow fade into saying no, backseat driving commentary from her six-year-old, and a $3 pink glitter blazer. Somewhere in between, Kandace gives us a funny, candid, and inspiring look at what can happen when you're willing to pivot, keep showing up, help the people coming behind you, and occasionally say yes to something you have absolutely no idea how to do.

Listen now:

Find Kandace at https://www.linkedin.com/in/kandacewalter/

Coming soon to a browser near you: A Law Unto Themselves – check https://dallaswomenlawyers.org/ for updates.

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Explicit Rating is for the occasional use of colorful language.

Most swag when you attend a conference is okay - nothing new that you don’t expect. A new coffee mug, a tote bag, maybe a charger you’ll toss in your desk drawer and forget about. Useful? Sure. Unforgettable? Not usually. But when Mark Shoffner handed out The Companion at the Texas General Counsel Forum Annual Conference on behalf of his firm, he broke the mold. The gift was a hit, the laughs kept coming, and months later people were still talking about it and, frankly, hoping it makes a comeback at the next annual conference. So naturally, when Mark joined us on Counsel Brew, The Companion came with him. As Mark joked, he might never have made it onto the podcast without it.

The Companion isn't the only unforgettable part of Mark’s story, though. Long before he became an employment lawyer, he thought law school would be a stop on the way to a career in government. A knee injury during high school unexpectedly traded sports for the debate team, where Mark learned to argue both sides of an issue, think on his feet, and make a case when he didn't know what was coming next. It turns out that was pretty useful preparation for a career he never really planned to have. There was even a side bet among the first-year associates at his first firm that Mark would be the first to quit. Fast forward several years, and we feel comfortable saying somebody lost that bet.

Today, Mark has built a career around employment law, litigation, and solving problems that rarely arrive with simple answers. He talks about the competitive streak hiding beneath his calm exterior, why a new client or unusual set of facts can still give him a dopamine hit, and what he loves about finding an argument no one else has made.

And because some victories deserve their own place in the record, Mark spills the beans on representing his mother-in-law over a speeding ticket in University Park. When Mark requested a jury trial, things got interesting. Needless to say, the parties found their way to a resolution in chambers before a jury ever had to hear the case. For a lawyer who has handled multimillion-dollar disputes, Mark still considers it some of his finest work. Add in law school memories, raising three kids, recruiting lawyers, the changing legal profession, and one truly unforgettable conference giveaway, and we had plenty to catch up on with Mark.

In This Episode

• Why Mark originally saw a law degree as a path to government rather than private practice
• How an injury and an unexpected turn on the debate team helped prepare him for a career in law
• Why employment law gives Mark the mix of strategy, competition, counseling, and problem-solving he still enjoys
• Where Mark sees real value for lawyers as AI changes the profession, and why you should still read the case
• How a speeding ticket turned into one of Mark's most memorable legal victories
• The story of The Companion, the best conference gift ever!!

About Mark Shoffner

Mark Shoffner is a partner at Bell Nunnally, where his practice focuses on employment counseling and litigation and commercial litigation. He advises businesses and executives on employment disputes, restrictive covenants, trade secrets, wage-and-hour matters, discrimination claims, employment and severance agreements, and other workplace issues. Mark earned his J.D. from SMU Dedman School of Law in 2002 after graduating from Louisiana Tech University. He also served as a judicial law clerk to U.S. District Judge Robert G. James in the Western District of Louisiana.

Listen now:

Find Mark at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-shoffner-a1442b6/

Message us at hello@counselbrew.com

Visit us at http://www.counselbrew.com

And Follow us

@counselbrew

https://www.linkedin.com/company/counsel-brew/

Send us Fan Mail

Explicit Rating is for the occasional use of colorful language.