How a Reed Smith Partner Learned Wealth, Power Were the Wrong Priorities
A. Scott Bolden, a partner at Reed Smith in Washington, D.C., didn’t listen to his lawyers’ advice after an ex-girlfriend called him about his long-rumored daughter.
The ex told Bolden shortly before Thanksgiving in 2001 that his daughter, Shayla, was turning 18 and needed him, Bolden recalls in a lengthy first-person Washington Post article.
Bolden had never believed the child was his. He had previously offered financial help, just the same, but the girl’s mother declined. After the phone call, Bolden decided to take a paternity test. Shayla was his daughter.
Lawyers advised Bolden to agree to pay his daughter’s college tuition while asking her to keep his identity a secret by signing a confidentiality agreement. But Bolden didn’t see the need for secrecy. Instead, he decided it was time to change his priorities and begin a relationship with Shayla.
“I had become a partner in a prestigious law firm—one of the first African-Americans in Reed Smith’s history—in record time; had been head of the D.C. Chamber of Commerce; and had the trappings of wealth—luxury cars, an expensive home in Georgetown and a seat at the best tables for some of the most important functions in Washington,” he wrote.
“But hindsight would reveal just how unbalanced my priorities had become. Money, power and political ambition were my holy trinity, my amen and hallelujah chorus. … And before it was all over, Shayla’s arrival would shine an even brighter spotlight on the mess I had made of my life.”
