Hon. Anne-Christine Massullo (Ret.)

When you pictured life after the bench, what were you hoping to find that you had not experienced in your roles as a federal prosecutor or judge?

The ability to really get to know the people. As a prosecutor, you maintain distance -- the role requires it. As a judge, even more so. The neutrality the bench demands means you never fully know the attorneys you work with, and certainly not the clients. What drew me to this work was the opportunity to genuinely engage -- to understand what matters to the parties, to drill down into a situation in a way that simply isn't possible when you are the one rendering judgment. That has turned out to be one of the genuine rewards of this chapter. And something that might sound small but means a great deal to me: I can ask people's permission to call them by their first name. You could not do that as a judge. That shift in relationship is something I find meaningful.

What did those early months actually feel like working with Signature -- building a practice and establishing yourself in a new role?
You have to believe it is going to happen, and you have to do the work of making it known that you have transitioned. I signed hundreds of letters when I first came on at Signature. I was somewhat shy at first -- I have spent my entire career in public service, and stepping into a space where you are, in some sense, building a business is a different posture entirely. But once you move past that, and you realize that what you are doing is genuinely adding value to the legal community -- helping people resolve things that would otherwise take years and cost a great deal -- it becomes something you want to share. I feel much more comfortable now reaching out, proposing new ideas, developing new approaches. The foundation has been built. Now it is about building on it.

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