ANGELA MASON:
... You've got to be passionate about your case and your clients.
SONYA PALMER:
Passion and curiosity fuel the sense of duty and commitment necessary to get back up and keep fighting.
ANGELA MASON:
And part of that passion is being deeply committed. Even when things look bad, you've got to be prepared to go to war for those people.
SONYA PALMER:
In 2021, women made up over half of all summer associates for the fourth year in a row. Yet equity partners and multi-tier law firms continue to be disproportionately white men. Only 22% of equity partners are women. We would like to see that change. Hello and welcome to LawHer, the show where we celebrate the trailblazing attorneys and entrepreneurs changing the game for women in the legal field. Be inspired by their stories, learn from their mistakes, build community, and look forward to the future they're helping build for the next generation of women in law. I am Sonya Palmer, your host and VP of Operations at Rankings, the SEO agency of choice for personal injury lawyers. This is LawHer. Angela Mason has been with the Cochran Firm since infancy when it only served Alabama and sections of the southeast. Today the firm has over 42 office locations and has recovered over 30 billion for its clients. One of the first female hires, Angela now sits as managing partner of the Cochran Firm Dothan office, as well as the managing director of the Cochran Firm National. Early on, Angela made herself indispensable to her firm and the cases she worked on. She credits hard work for getting her recognized and commitment for allowing her to persevere. With over 25 years of experience in the legal field, she shares what makes a great trial attorney, the importance of seeking guidance while building networks, finding your own voice and why curiosity is one of your greatest assets. Angela knew she wanted to be a lawyer from the third grade. Let's dive in.
ANGELA MASON:
Well, I think I was about in the third grade, and my mother had bought me this book that said, "You can be anything." And it had all these careers listed for women, so this was in the seventies, and all the different job occupations that were available and FBI agent and lawyer were my top two choices.
SONYA PALMER:
That's not ambitious at all.
ANGELA MASON:
Well, it said you can be anything. And I think it listed the president of the United States as one of the jobs, and they would tell you the annual income and what kind of school was required and all of that.
SONYA PALMER:
I saw that you were in both the Equal Justice Foundation and the Women's Law Student Association. What impact did those organizations have on your career and what you thought about the law?
ANGELA MASON:
I was president of the Equal Justice Foundation at one point, I think of my last year. What we did was raise money throughout the school year to then provide fellowships to law students who were going to go work in the public interest, because they would be going to jobs that paid little to nothing and we wanted to be able to fund that. So I thought it was a very worthwhile cause and I was very committed to it. I wasn't committed to necessarily going and working in public interest myself, but I've always been a strong supporter of it and that was a way that we could make sure, because it's a huge sacrifice, and the people who are willing to do it, we could fund them. Two things happened. One was, I started to say another attorney, he is an attorney now, but Neil Bessey was his name, he and I worked to get charity status 501(c)-
SONYA PALMER:
501(c).
ANGELA MASON:
... Status for the organization, because it had kind of been rolling along and people weren't getting the deductions for, like R. E.M. was one of the entities that donated money [inaudible 00:04:08]
SONYA PALMER:
Oh wow.
ANGELA MASON:
... So everyone could get the tax benefit, and we also had the most fellowships awarded up until that point. I think now it's an even bigger thing, they give more fellowships for more money. So it's just continued to grow.
SONYA PALMER:
Yeah, I really like that attitude because as you said, it is a huge commitment and requires a lot of hard work. So to reward people that are willing to take that on, I think can help support [inaudible 00:04:35].
ANGELA MASON:
Absolutely. They did things like Project Innocence in Montgomery and Atlanta, we had people do that, at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Things that are definitely worthwhile and that our society needs and it enabled people who otherwise might not be able to do it, to go do that.
SONYA PALMER:
When you graduated law school in the mid-nineties, according to a study from Hofstra, women made up 44% of all enrolled students. That was the national average, the actual percentage may have varied and everyone has a unique experience. Can you take us to your time at the University of Georgia School of Law and how did it feel to be a woman in law school at that time?
ANGELA MASON:
I think there were more women than men in my class, so it felt normal. It felt just like a coed, just like college was.
SONYA PALMER:
Nice.
ANGELA MASON:
In terms of experience, we could do the same things as the guys. It wasn't even an issue as far as I was concerned. Now, I knew that it was an issue because I took things like employment discrimination. I had been in the world before I went to law school, so I knew that as well. The Women's Law Student Association, we had people come in, speakers come in and talk with us and talk about their experiences once they got into the workforce. So from that perspective, we knew that we were going into a workplace that may have some barriers, but it didn't feel like we had any barriers while we were actually in law school.
SONYA PALMER:
You talked about some support networks. Did you have other support networks? Any mentors that stand out to you?
ANGELA MASON:
Yeah, I had two mentors in law school. Well, I had way more than that. Again, some of them were men, and some of them were women. I had two law professors, both men, who insisted that I apply for a federal clerkship, which was not on my radar. I wasn't going to do it, and they insisted that I do it. So again, I think that I was in an environment where they encouraged you based on everything being an equal opportunity, so to speak. I mean, I'm sure it wasn't that simple, but it seemed like that because they reached out to me and wanted me to apply to these things. And another professor wanted me to be the tutor. In fact, I beat out the number one guy in our class. We were both up for that, and I got selected, even though I wasn't number one for tutoring. And I would say then I had, actually, my employment law, employment discrimination professor; she was the scariest professor we had. Very scary. She influenced me a lot just because I saw that you could be a very... My friend called her Snow White; she looked like Snow White, a very small, petite woman who scared the bejesus out of me. And I thought, "Okay, women can do this too. This is not a problem."
SONYA PALMER:
It's interesting how even though they may strike fear, they still manage to be an inspiration.
ANGELA MASON:
Oh, absolutely. I mean, I would say she was a role model. Definitely.
SONYA PALMER:
Yeah. Someday I may be able to strike fear, so I like that.
ANGELA MASON:
From time to time.
SONYA PALMER:
Probably. Was there pressure to outperform your peers? Did you feel like you were in a competition?
ANGELA MASON:
Oh yes.
SONYA PALMER:
Yeah. In a good way?
ANGELA MASON:
And I'm not sure how that happened because I was just there to see if I wanted to attend law school. I wasn't even sure I wanted to be a lawyer at that point. So I was just doing this thing, but somehow I got caught up in this competition and this pressure, which now I say to people going to law school, "Hey, it's just school." When I think about how urgent and anxious and how hard I thought I needed to work, I'm glad I worked hard, but it was all that emotional energy was so unnecessary.
SONYA PALMER:
Is there anything else looking back that maybe you would do differently?
ANGELA MASON:
I would've spent less emotional energy worrying about stuff, and I would've skipped class a little bit more often.
SONYA PALMER:
Sound advice.
ANGELA MASON:
I only did that once, and it so stressed me out. I skipped, and somebody said, "Let's go have coffee instead." So we did. It was the most stressful coffee I'd ever had.
SONYA PALMER:
You have spent nearly your entire career at the Cochran Firm. I'd love to dig into the evolution of the firm and you as an attorney. When you started, what was the firm like, and what was your position?
ANGELA MASON:
When I started, it was a local Alabama firm that did some work in other states but was generally confined to the Southeast and Alabama in particular. I forget, maybe there were seven men and me. I was the first woman that they had hired. I had worked at a law firm; I was trying to decide between getting my Ph. D. in English composition and going to law school. I couldn't really decide. And I had a friend who was working on his Ph. D. in psychology, and in particular, he was specializing in vocational counseling. He said, "Look, you need to work in a law office and see if that's what you want to do, and then you can make your decision." So I took a year off and worked in a law firm, and the most frustrating thing was I needed to know more to be able to do more to help more people. And that law firm was the beginning of what is the law firm I work at now. And when I went to law school, I didn't know I was necessarily coming back to the law firm I'd started out at, but that was the case. And so, I turned out to be the first woman that they hired. They had to assure me they were very excited to hire a woman and would not hold it against me. And really, I needed [inaudible 00:11:10] to consider working with them. Because, the area of the law we have and then the particular region that we're in, I mean, it's mostly white men are the attorneys for plaintiffs' law firms, which is what we do.
SONYA PALMER:
Sure. I really like what you said just there to know more and to be able to do more and to be able to help more people.
ANGELA MASON:
Well, I remember saying to my boss, who is now my partner, "Is there some kind of book with the rules in it that I can look at?" And he handed me the Rules of Civil Procedure, and I thought, "Oh my God, it's the treasure. It's got all the rules in it."
SONYA PALMER:
This is true. It's a good book with all the rules.
ANGELA MASON:
Yes. I could read them and figure out and help write some briefs even before I went to law school.
SONYA PALMER:
That's amazing. And then, as the firm grew, what strategic moves did you make to get where you are today a managing partner?
ANGELA MASON:
I worked hard, and I tried to make myself indispensable. I was willing to live without a regular paycheck because it was eating what you kill, so you only got a portion of the fees you brought in. So on these bigger cases that I had to work on, I would say there would be 10 months at a time where I didn't get any paychecks.
SONYA PALMER:
Wow.
ANGELA MASON:
Which is very scary.
SONYA PALMER:
Very scary.
ANGELA MASON:
I was in a position where I could do that. It helped me move along and, in turn, get to know the powers that be, including Johnny Cochran so that they would turn to me again when they needed help. Newer hires don't necessarily understand that they need to make themselves indispensable to a case, and then they've locked in their place in the firm, their position. And this may sound sexist, but it seems like women know that better than men. When you go in, and you make yourself indispensable, you aren't necessarily told, "Do A, B, and C." You go in and say, we're working on a case and then you say to the person you're helping, "I'm going to do A, B, C, and by the way, D, E, F." Then you're in a situation where the person comes to rely on you, and you get to go along on everything, and then you learn yourself how to do what they've been doing and eventually, the mentee becomes the mentor. So that's, what I'm talking about, but I haven't noticed as much with young male associates the recognition that they need to be in the middle of everything in order to secure a spot and be relied upon.
SONYA PALMER:
Okay. I think you're right. I think there's a level of EQ, like what you said to recognize here the things that are unique to this situation and unique to this case and to these clients that I can do to make myself indispensable to them. And it's probably something that women and minorities, in general, have had to harness just because advancement is not automatically granted to them. They have to figure out lots of different ways, I think is one of them.
ANGELA MASON:
When I started out 20 years ago, I was the only woman; when I would go to a deposition, they assumed I was the court reporter, especially when I was dragging my rolling brief bag with me; they thought that was my court recording equipment.
SONYA PALMER:
Nope.
ANGELA MASON:
And I tried to use it to my advantage. I sat quietly and listened to them talk, them thinking that I wasn't the other attorney.
SONYA PALMER:
Yeah, take them by surprise. So what about this firm that has kept you here year after year?
ANGELA MASON:
Well, I think it is the fact that I've been afforded opportunities unique to this particular law firm, but then also opportunities to do a variety of things. I wasn't just pigeonholed into, "Oh, Angie, you're a good writer. Write this brief." I had to write briefs, but they also let me go to trial, and they let me develop my trial skills. I mean, now I'm a managing partner, so at some point, they helped me develop my administrative skills. There has never been a ceiling for me at this firm.
SONYA PALMER:
Look to other women in your field to learn how to improve your craft. Don't be afraid to connect with women at other firms and create a trusted network.
ANGELA MASON:
Part of how our firm is built is we've been allowed to work with other law firms. In 2007, we had a huge class action in West Virginia. And basically, I lived in West Virginia for three months, but we worked with a law firm with very few women lawyers. And they had the one-woman lawyer whose style was completely different from mine and so effective. And so, for a while, I thought, "Oh, I can just emulate her. I need to be like her. In her cross-examination skills and that sort of thing."But it was great to find somebody in a similar position as me, have a different style than I did but essentially had done the same thing that I had done and come up the same way I had come up. Only she lived in Pensacola. And so, I would say those times when I've met other women who are the sole woman, which is rare and rarer now, have helped me along. I knew that they were resources that I could turn to, and there was a special bond there because we knew what each other was going through. And by the way, I only would last maybe 90 seconds before I abandoned her style and returned to my own.
SONYA PALMER:
It just wasn't for you.
ANGELA MASON:
Didn't work for me.
SONYA PALMER:
Yes. That's another really good piece of advice that I've heard from other lawyers be yourself.
ANGELA MASON:
And it's taken a long time for me to be comfortable with that.
SONYA PALMER:
Sure. As a managing partner, what are some of the initiatives you're excited about?
ANGELA MASON:
When I started working, I was interested in employment discrimination cases, employment law, and employment discrimination. And the more I practiced, the further and further I got away from that, just because the demands of my practice didn't allow me to do that. But now that I'm a managing partner, I am very interested in it. We have a young woman here who is going to law school right now, and she doesn't know it, but I'm planning to turn her into an employment discrimination lawyer. We get a lot of those calls, and I think there's a natural synergy with the idea of Johnny Cochran and discrimination and all that. So we get many of those calls, and we wind up referring them out, or our New York office does it all the time. But I would like to develop that practice here as well. Go back to my roots, so to speak. And then we have the Cinderella project, I don't know if Jessica mentioned that or not, but our office, Casey, our marketing person in particular, and Jessica [inaudible 00:18:50] to a large degree, they head up a project where we get people to donate used prom dresses or stores that didn't sell their prom dresses. And the girls come and look for dresses that wouldn't otherwise be able to afford to go to the prom.
SONYA PALMER:
That's such a great idea.
ANGELA MASON:
And so, we have an event annually with that, although COVID interrupted it.
SONYA PALMER:
Sure.
ANGELA MASON:
We do that as well. Try to have a little party and get girls out here to see if they can find something.
SONYA PALMER:
That's a great idea. I love that. So how do you stay sane? Do you have any rituals when you're prepping for trial?
ANGELA MASON:
I never have that kind of time. I'm still working on whatever it is trying to get ready for trial. So no, I don't have that kind of ritual. But what I have tried to do, is be prepared, of course, but try to take everything as it comes and not sweat it because that's what I did in law school, freaked out in law school, tried to live my life without freaking out and just rising to those challenges. And that's something that I think I've helped convey to the other partners in my office as well, the other associates of, "It's just a hearing; it's going to be okay."
SONYA PALMER:
Managing your expectations and then controlling what you can control. And you are a total powerhouse at trial. You worked on a DuPont case that resulted in 390 million, the highest consumer verdict in the US in 2007. And you have been involved in multiple cases with major and far-reaching impacts. Of all the trials that you have worked on, which are you most proud of?
ANGELA MASON:
I think probably the one you mentioned against DuPont, that's the West Virginia Case, I mean, it was far-reaching, and I liked it because I got to know a lot of the clients, even though it was a class action with 3000 people. I did get to know a lot of people involved in that. And in fact, I continued to talk with them well after the case was over. And so that's good, but I have to say that's a big case with dozens of lawyers, but I also really like the cases where it's just one or two clients, one plaintiff and me. And we go in because a small case isn't small to the person who has the case.
SONYA PALMER:
Very true.
ANGELA MASON:
And that, to me, is just as rewarding as a work comp case. These people need help just as much as the class did. And so, they all bring their own rewards. And it's not even necessarily in the trial; if you can get a good settlement for somebody that improves their life, that's really what it's all about.
SONYA PALMER:
Sure. So for each case that you take on, what is the goal?
ANGELA MASON:
To improve their situation, whatever their situation is, when they come to me, I want to make it better. And even if I can't make it better, I don't want to be in a situation where we try, and I haven't improved in some way. I mean, you don't win every case. You can't win every case, but even in that situation, you still want to leave the client better than you found them.
SONYA PALMER:
Yeah, I love that.
ANGELA MASON:
And that's the goal.
SONYA PALMER:
I love that. Regardless of the outcome, to still have made a positive impact. What motivates you to keep going?
ANGELA MASON:
We have all these clients counting on us. We have the commitment to help our people, and that's what we do. If I don't come to work, I'm not helping them after I promise to do so. And so that's what we do.
SONYA PALMER:
Commitment keeps Angela showing up to work day in and day out, year after year. This value also makes her a better trial attorney.
ANGELA MASON:
You've got to be passionate about your case and your clients, and part of that passion is being deeply committed. Even when things look bad, you've got to be prepared to go to war for those people. And in terms of just actual career development or professional development, you want to keep learning. You want to keep going and see other people's trials, you want to go to seminars, you want to go to trial practice camps so that you see the way other people are doing it, and you can get new ideas. I mean, I was reading a deposition that my partner took this morning. I mean, I was reading it this morning in preparation for another deposition I'm taking. And he has a different style than I did. And I called him up, and I asked him, "Hey, why'd you do this? Why'd you do that?" So even somebody I work with daily, I could see he was doing it differently and that I needed to try that. So I mean, think that's important too.
SONYA PALMER:
I would say that passion is certainly a common denominator that I have seen in all of the powerhouse attorneys that I have had the chance to meet, it's a common denominator.
ANGELA MASON:
Well, as time goes on, sometimes you lose that passion, or it fades a little bit. And I just recently came back from a conference out in Las Vegas, and I was struck; it was on Friday, the last class seminar. There weren't a whole lot of people there. I happened to be there, and I was just so inspired by the topic, and I stayed after, and I said, "What can I do to help you on this cause?" And it was just great to feel that passion again. And then Leo Dell, she clerked for a judge that I clerked for after her. She was his first law clerk, and I was two behind her. But she gave a presentation about the case of uterine and ovarian cancer because Johnson & Johnson's in bankruptcy. But her presentation was so inspiring as well because even though, I mean, I think it's seven or eight years now that's been going on, and now J & J is in bankruptcy, and they don't know if people are going to be able to be compensated. They just got word that the baby powder is being taken off the market throughout the world; they took it off the market in the US and Canada but continued everywhere else. And she said, "So regardless of what happened, we know we saved lives."
SONYA PALMER:
Yes, absolutely.
ANGELA MASON:
And so that was very inspiring to me to hear that as well.
SONYA PALMER:
That's an excellent point, particularly in situations with J & J where there is bankruptcy; there's no more money, but there is still this other side of it that there was the prevention of anyone ever being injured. So I think it's good to keep that perspective as well. If you weren't a lawyer, what would you do instead?
ANGELA MASON:
I would be an elementary or high school English teacher. If I had gone on with my Ph. D., I wanted to get a job at a community college like Jill Biden. I'd do what Jill Biden does because I was very committed to junior colleges or community colleges that would make themselves available to the most people at an affordable price, and you can help. Before I went to the law firm to see what a law firm was like, I taught technical writing, business writing, freshman composition. And so, I probably would have done that. And at a certain point, I got interested in public high schools because I felt like they were getting the short end of the stick.
SONYA PALMER:
But what are some of your favorite books, then? Do you follow young adult or children's books still?
ANGELA MASON:
All.
SONYA PALMER:
Okay, good. What are your favorites?
ANGELA MASON:
So when Harry Potter first came out, I read all of them, but the first one was not as sophisticated; it was for a younger group, I think. But I loved it. And then The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants or whatever that's called. I read all of those on a weekend. So I like all of that. I bought all these children's books, particularly when Ruth Ginsburg passed away. I gave all the young children in my life a Ruth Ginsburg book.
SONYA PALMER:
I love that.
ANGELA MASON:
So children's book. So I like it all.
SONYA PALMER:
Yeah. I find myself reading kid's fiction all the time. It's just wholesome, inspiring, a break from the world. And then you're very busy. The court can be very stressful. Running a business can be very stressful. What do you do when you need to decompress or take time for yourself?
ANGELA MASON:
I love to travel. I always look forward to traveling and being incommunicado for a few days. I'll go just about anywhere. But the other thing is to sit down with a book because it's the same sort of, I don't want to say escape, that isn't the right word, but put you in a place where you're not thinking about anything but what you're reading or you're not thinking about anything but the place you're visiting and trying to figure out how to say an Italian, "Where's the bathroom?" I mean, that's the kind of thing.
SONYA PALMER:
Yes. Where are some of your favorite places that you've been?
ANGELA MASON:
The best trip I ever went on was a very unexpected trip to Northern Ireland. That was a very last-minute thing where we decided to go. We were in Dublin and decided to go to Northern Ireland, and I knew little about it. I asked, "Do they use the same kind of money?"
SONYA PALMER:
Valid questions.
ANGELA MASON:
"Didn't they used to have bombings?" So I was very uninformed. And we were only there for two and a half days, and I kept trying to arrange to go back, but it was the most educational thing. And not in a dry, boring way, but we learned about the troubles. We met a lot of people. It was just a very unexpected, wonderful experience; I guess in part because I had no expectations and just met them as they came. And it was a lot of fun.
SONYA PALMER:
That's important, I think, sometimes, especially when traveling, because there are a lot of expectations around it to let the day unfold as it does.
ANGELA MASON:
In Dublin, we had a checklist. We need to go to the Trinity Library; we need to go see The Book of Kells. We need to go to the Guinness Factory. That kind of stuff. But we had no expectations. We just went and got there and said, "Okay, now what?" And it was great.
SONYA PALMER:
Yes, I have taken to scheduling days like that, just in my normal life. A see where the day takes you the day you know where there's nothing on the checklist.
ANGELA MASON:
I think that's... Yes, in 50 years, to learn to do that.
SONYA PALMER:
Is there anywhere you haven't been that you want to go?
ANGELA MASON:
Well, I have some friends in Iceland right now, and they keep sending me some great pictures.
SONYA PALMER:
Gorgeous.
ANGELA MASON:
I would like to go to Iceland. I saw about a cruise to Antarctica. I would like to do that. I'm assuming that's in the summertime.
SONYA PALMER:
I think it would have to be.
ANGELA MASON:
But anywhere. I mean, I would be happy to go just about anywhere.
SONYA PALMER:
For minorities in the legal space, advancement is not a guarantee to get to where you aim to be; make yourself indispensable. Suppose you are working on a case, state how you intend to meet expectations and what you will do to exceed them. Remember that you cannot build a career in isolation. Create your network. Look to other women you admire for guidance and new ways of trying cases. Remain true to who you are in the process. Authenticity is key. If you want to practice for the long run, tap into your passion often, stay curious, learn from your colleagues, attend seminars and observe trials. A huge thank you to Angela for sharing her story and unbelievable insights with us today. You have been listening to LawHer with me, Sonya Palmer. If you found this content insightful, inspiring, or just made you smile, please share this episode with the trailblazer in your life. For more about Angela Mason, check out our show notes. And while you're there, please leave us a reviewer or a five-star rating. It is a long way for others to discover the show. And I will see you next week on LawHer, where we'll shed light on how another of the brightest and boldest women in the legal industry climbed to the top of her field.
