I’m speaking with Meghan E. O’Kane, a partner at the Los Angeles firm Swerdlow Florence Sanchez Swerdlow & Wimmer that specializes in employer-side labor and employment law. In our brief interview, she offers valuable insights into how she approaches her practice and some good advice for new attorneys coming into the field.
O’Kane’s path to the legal profession is absolutely fascinating, because it’s so unusual. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and followed that up with a prestigious fellowship at the National Institutes of Health. I had the opportunity to discuss her practice and how her earlier experiences in the upper echelons of scientific research continue to inform her approach to practicing employment law in Los Angeles.
I’d be out of my depth if I tried to fake my way through a discussion of protein pathways, but your journey from Bio and Biochemistry at MIT to George Washington University Law School is intriguing. You traded the research lab for the courtroom – the white lab coat for the power suit. Can you tell us about making that transition from science into practicing law?
I get asked this question quite often. On paper, it may appear to be a circuitous path, but for me, the transition was really a natural evolution. At MIT, I developed this love for analytical problem-solving and research-based thinking. After graduation, I did a fellowship at the National Institutes of...
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