Rita Sheffey’s path to becoming a trial lawyer took an usual arc.
Sheffey, who grew up in Virginia, started out wanting to be a physician, but ended up earning her doctorate in chemistry, hoping to be a college professor. Although she loved teaching, Sheffey said she quickly discovered she wasn’t suited to a life in the lab.
As an attorney, her education in the sciences is key to her practice of environmental, product liability and patent law.
In May, Sheffey, a partner with Hunton & Williams in Atlanta, was elected president of the Atlanta Bar Association. She’s just the sixth female president in the association’s more than 120-year history.
Three of the top four officers of the Atlanta Bar are women, and Sheffey said the association needs to reflect the diverse backgrounds of the metro area’s legal community.
“I believe — as do others in our leadership — that a more diverse association is more vibrant, successful, interesting and fun,” she said. “We need to be more reflective and representative of our membership and potential membership.”
Sheffey talked recently with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution about her career choice, giving back to the community and her brush with stardom.
Q. Did you always plan to use your education in science in the practice of law?
A. I didn't want to give up and I invested a lot of years in chemistry and science. It wasn't that I wanted to walk away from that. Those were the days in the mid-1980s when environmental law was becoming a big deal. I was very interested in environmental law and I felt like [with my education] that was a good way to pursue it.
Q. How is being a scientist and a lawyer the same or similar?
A. It's the same in the sense that it's analytical and detail-oriented. The skill sets are a little different. But [both] appeal to me. I'm extremely detail-oriented and organized and I think that at least the litigation work I've done has been heavily technical and expert focused. Even though I don't have the expertise in their particular field, I've been where they are.
Q. Half of your legal work is pro-bono. You lead your firm's pro-bono efforts in Atlanta. Why is it so important?
A. It touches another part of who I am. ... I think we have an obligation to give back and it is personally rewarding. How I got into doing half time was just sort of an evolution. It's sort of how I got involved in the Bar. I was doing pro-bono work before I came to Atlanta [in 1989] and then, when I came here, I started looking for opportunities for my colleagues to do pro-bono work. We had a small office then, but as the office grew I was still [arranging] that. Then it just evolved into [pro-bono legal work] being a core value of the firm.
Q. Is there something specific you'd like to see in terms of pro-bono work with your Atlanta Bar members?
A. The general goal would be for people to be more engaged in all levels. ... In terms of specific goals ... the one that I noted was in pro-bono participation, we've asked all [21 Atlanta Bar] sections to get involved in the local legal organizations and encourage members to take projects or help them try to find projects on their own.
Q. You were recently in a musical?
A. The Atlanta Bar puts on a musical every 18 months. We just had one in May and this one was "A Courthouse Line IX," it was the ninth one and it's all lawyers and judges. It's a different theme every year. There's a custom the Atlanta Bar president is involved in the musical and the theme was "A Law School Musical," so it was a cross between "Glee" and "High School Musical."
Q. Tell me about being in the movie "Love Field" [which is set during the time around President John F. Kennedy's assassination].
A. I was living in Richmond at the time and a mechanic I had found out they were looking for old cars for the movie, which was set, of course, in the early '60s. [Sheffey owns a 1960 Oldsmobile Super 88.] You could loan your car or actually drive the car. We were involved in several days of filming. I'm not sure we've been able to see ourselves in the film. I'm not certain if we didn't end up on the cutting room floor. I have the movie on a laser disc and we have the movie poster on a wall.
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