Lawyer Learns the Secret to a Successful Career: Well-Managed Coincidences
The president of Trinity Washington University says becoming a college president was the last thing on her mind when she began her career after law school.
Writing in the Washington Post for an “On Success” column, Patricia McGuire told of her initial inclinations. “I was going to be a famous lawyer, a female Perry Mason giving brilliant closing arguments, stunning the jury with my clever evidentiary maneuvers,” she says.
“Or perhaps I would be a judge, rising to become a Supreme Court justice in a time before such an idea was remotely realistic for a woman. Or maybe I was going to take my law degree and run for Congress, then on to the Senate, devoting my career to making the law, not simply arguing about existing law.”
McGuire found law school tedious, but she loved participating in its Street Law program teaching law to high school students. After law school, she took a job working full-time with the program, despite warnings from friends that she was ruining her career.
A colleague, however, had another view. “A good career is a series of well-managed coincidences,” he said.
The colleague was right, McGuire says. She went on to be a guest commentator on a weekly news program for children and on a local talk show, then got a position as chief development officer for Georgetown University Law Center, where she learned administrative skills. When Trinity Washington University approached McGuire to be president, she indicated an interest in the job.
“I have learned that the best preparation for career success lies in seizing opportunities to learn new things every day,” McGuire writes. “What’s most important for success is not what I learned in college or law school, but rather, how I keep learning to meet the challenges I could not have imagined even five years ago.”
