52 How – if at all - has your identity shaped or influenced your career choices? Roy: Whether from being a member of the LGBTQ+ community or being an only child or some intersection of both, I’ve always been willing to take risks. This world imposes unnecessary limits on us based on identity, and when faced with that, I always feel some peculiar urge to prove everyone wrong. I had an executive coach once who laughingly said I seemed willing to put myself in harm’s way (career-wise) just to see what might happen. Lol. I had spent the better part of a decade in healthcare and found myself getting bored with it, so I just threw my résumé out there and was hired by my first firm in 2011. The managing partner at the time was running for Congress and wanted someone to step in and pick up the marketing responsibilities he had so ably carried. I didn’t realize I was taking a risk making such a dramatic career pivot, but I’m incredibly glad that I did. This has been such a rewarding industry to support, and being part of the Legal Marketing Association community and being embraced by it so fully gave me a sense of self and confidence that I don’t know that I had had previously. Lee: Context is key here. My family is orthodox Jewish. I saw gay issues explored for the first time at university, watching - the [superior] British and original - Queer as Folk. I thought the macho City culture was one where you would keep quiet about sexuality. I remember the moment that chimera came crashing down. Within the first month of my first seat as a trainee at A&O, I went into an NQ’s room and saw a picture of that associate with his boyfriend taking pride of place on his desk. That was such an important life moment. It really showed that you could bring your whole LGBT self to work. A&O has always been a very welcoming place for the LGBT community. Indeed, I attended my first London Pride with the firm. Big Law either in London or in Tel Aviv, where I now live and work, is very welcoming to the LGBT community today, though there is always more to do. Jeremy: Being a member of the LGBTQ+ community did not influence my decision to become a lawyer in my ‘day job’, however I have spent most of the last decade working on LGBTQ+ diversity and inclusion in the workplace in my ‘gay job’ as a director of non-profit organization LGBTech.
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