Sisters in law: Sibling attorneys share their secrets to law school success

Meet the Bell sisters. Despite a five-year age gap, the two share a remarkably similar path, from growing up in Baltimore to attending law school and then working in Los Angeles, first as federal public defenders and now in private practice.

A formative high school experience participating in a Nuremberg trials simulation and a passion for animal rights was all it took to make Koren Bell realize she wanted to practice law. After attending Swarthmore College, she attended Yale Law School.

After law school, she clerked for 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Reinhardt (known as the "liberal lion") who shaped her view of law as a tool for social justice. She then received a Skadden Fellowship to work at the Education Law Center in New Jersey, focusing on education rights and inequalities.

She went on to gain valuable experience at the Paul Weiss law firm, but her true interest remained in public interest work. The opportunity to join the Federal Public Defender's Office brought her to Los Angeles, which she describes as "the privilege of a lifetime." She served there for 8 1/2 years before transitioning to private practice and currently works as a partner in Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP's Litigation Department.

Koren's younger sister, Alyssa D. Bell, is currently a partner at Cohen Williams LLP, representing clients in high-stakes criminal and civil proceedings, appeals and investigations.

Alyssa told Cal Lawyer that after exploring potential careers in sociology and academia, she found they weren't hands-on enough to create the direct impact she wanted. On Koren's suggestion, she attended NYU Law School as a public service scholar.

While initially interested in civil rights law, her experience with impact litigation at the New York Civil Liberties Union made her realize she wanted to help individuals directly rather than focus on model cases. She clerked for 9th Circuit Judge Richard A. Paez and Judge Margaret M. Morrow of the Central District. Following her sister's advice, she joined the Federal Public Defender's Office where they briefly worked together. She later transitioned from trial work to appeals, which she says she found fascinating and more suited to family life.

The Bell sisters sat down with Cal Lawyer for a Q&A session, covering everything from their inspiration to tips they have for aspiring attorneys. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Cal Lawyer: Given your shared high achievements, was there a key figure who instilled such drive in you both?

Alyssa Bell: I would say our mother, hands down. Our mother was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and came to this country when she was 14 and graduated college in three years, from age 16 to 19, and she didn't speak a lick of English when she came here at age 14. She's brilliant, incredibly driven. She taught herself English by reading the dictionary, a true intellectual renaissance person.

Growing up, we had a black-and-white TV with a turn dial. We didn't have a lot of distraction around our house. And I think there was a lot of focus on academics as the way to succeed. But not success in the traditional sense that I think a lot of Americans think of it in terms of success measured by how much money you make or how much prestige you have. My mom loves learning for its own sake, and that's what she wanted for us, too. And so she was always endlessly supportive of our pursuing what was the most academically rigorous option in any given setting.

Cal Lawyer: As law students, did you encounter moments of doubt, and what support systems proved most valuable?

Alyssa Bell: I found law school to be very competitive, and this was not an environment that I was used to. We're not competitive in our family among us, and my high school was not a particularly competitive place, or at least, I didn't find it to be.

I didn't know you weren't supposed to speak in class if you wanted to be perceived as part of the herd. I came in and I treated it like my undergrad. I had something to say? I raised my hand and I said it, and I very quickly had a target on my back. NYU is a wonderful place full of wonderful people. But I had a very challenging time there during my first year.

And I think, personally, as I always do in life, I leaned into my friendships. I found like-minded people, and those people will always be there, and that would be my only piece of advice for anyone finding themselves in that situation. Things do really calm down after that first year; that first year, I think everyone is sort of struggling to establish themselves somehow. And then after a while, they realize that they've been stuck in this rarefied environment and that real life doesn't look like that. And building and maintaining relationships is going to be one of the most important things that you do in your career, and you should start then, rather than trying to cut down the people beside you.

Koren Bell: I think it's healthy to reevaluate. It's not a good feeling to feel lost or insecure, unsettled, anxious - those are feelings that are part of life, and I think natural anytime you start something that's new and stressful. But I think it is healthy to be kind of reevaluating, like, why am I here? What do I want to do with my law degree? What do I want to learn about and what do I want this experience to be? Because you've got to do so many different things in your career.

And looking back at my young self, you kind of feel like there's a rush to decide, OK, like I'm going to do this forever, or I'm going to become an expert in this. And the truth is, your career is long. You can do many different things with your law degree, in and out of even the field of law, and certainly within the field of law. And so kind of reevaluating and looking at it like, look at this point in my life, why am I here but not as a negative thing? There's nothing negative about not being sure at any point in your life, really, but especially when you're so young and thinking, what's meaningful to me now, and how do I want to take advantage of this opportunity and shape it?

I think the other thing about relationships is, there's this tendency to think, 'Oh, there's so much to do. I'm going to just study and be attached to my computer and my books.' And you miss out a lot, I think, on the law school experience, and what's ultimately, as my sister said, going to be the most valuable thing, or among the most valuable things in your practice, whatever you do with your law degree going down the road - and that's your human relationships, and the relationships you form then.

My two very best friends are identical twins that I went to law school with, and they're just phenomenal people. I adore them, and they are two of my clients now as well. But, most importantly, they're my very dear friends. And I have other good friends from law school, and I think the same is true for my sister.

Cal Lawyer: What strategies did you employ to achieve your career goals and find your specific path in law?

Alyssa Bell: I think using the clinic opportunities that you have in law school can be a great way to see whether you're interested in the actual practice of what it is you think you might be interested in intellectually, because you might find a certain area of the law to be fascinating, but the actual practice of it can be quite different.

Some of the things that will shape your work life tremendously are: Do you work with people or not? Are you in court or not? Are you working on big projects that might be staffed with a large number of people where you have a small role, or are you instead on a small project where you have a large role?

In terms of your day-to-day happiness, I think asking yourself some of those questions about what kind of work experience do I want to have, and then figuring out practically through clinics and through mentors: Is this particular field, no matter how interesting the area of law might be, one that gives me that day-to-day experience that I'll ultimately find satisfying?

Cal Lawyer: What formative experiences or missteps from your early career shaped your professional development?

Alyssa Bell: I certainly have one that comes to mind. When I was clerking on the 9th Circuit for Judge Paez, who's one of the most kind human beings you'll ever meet, and also a brilliant lawyer, wonderful mentor - I can't say enough wonderful things. I was working on a bench memo.

The way that it worked for our chambers is that we would be assigned a case where we would take the lead on the bench memo, and then we would divide them among the clerks. I was interested already in criminal law issues, so I had taken one, and there was an issue addressed in a footnote in the opening brief. I looked at it and I gave it short shrift. I think I had already written the bench memo. I had written about all of these different issues. I had decided how I thought this should come out, and I had confirmation bias - we should affirm and here is why.

There was this one footnote about whether you could take judicial notice of whether a person is a member of a federally recognized tribe. Now, as a practitioner, if you were to ask me that question, it would be obvious to me that this is a factual question. It's not something that could be a legal determination without a presentation of competent evidence. But at the time, coming straight out of law school and the district court clerkship, it didn't strike me that way, and it was buried.

I guess I just learned about my own confirmation bias, because then during oral argument, one of the other judges had apparently - that clerk had recognized that this was actually burying the lead in a footnote of how this case should really come out. All of the questioning from this other judge turned on this one issue that I had barely briefed for my judge at all, and he looked so disoriented up there. I felt so guilty and responsible, because you have so much in your hands as a clerk, and I felt like I had really failed him.

But for me, it was this: Don't jump to conclusions. Always question if you think you've gotten the answer, always be open to being wrong, and do that extra bit of digging, even if you think you've gotten there, to find out if there's a reason to change my mind. I think often about that experience as I'm writing briefs today and making sure that when I'm trying to make an argument in a certain way, I shouldn't close my eyes to the authority going the other way - quite the opposite. I need to understand it, embrace it, be adverse in that as the authority. That's helpful to me.

Cal Lawyer: How has your relationship as sisters evolved while practicing law together?

Alyssa Bell: I would say Koren is my North Star. I wouldn't be the professional that I am without her, and she's guided me into this career path and helped me navigate it every step of the way.

I would say our relationship - it's impossible to compete with somebody who's at such a different phase than you, which I think is a different sibling dynamic than many of the others I see where the kids are one year apart, two years apart, and they're doing different versions of the same thing. And I think for me, at least, that's been a great source of strength in our relationship, because I can lean on her for advice for anything and everything, and she was always there.

Koren Bell: Well, I would say the same things right back at her. She is - there's no one else like her. I don't know a single other lawyer, and I tease her about this, but she is, hands down, the most efficient and effective person. She accomplishes superlative work in a quarter of the time or less that it takes any other person of the same stature, and she's doing such cutting-edge legal thinking, has gotten some of the most interesting, high-profile appellate representations.

What's been really fun in recent years is that now, I think, despite the age gap, we very much are total peers in terms of where we are in our careers. I've focused more on trial work, and she's focused more on appellate work, although we both do some of each. It's a lot of fun, as we both had some of these first-impression issues come up in some of our recent high-profile matters. It's been a lot of fun to brainstorm about some of the synergies and the legal issues, because they're questions of law that we have been lucky enough to have presented to us in our cases that don't have a definitive answer yet from the courts and the highest court. We'll be talking about some of the legal issues in our cases, and oftentimes it's not the same statute or the exact same issue, but we'll realize, "OK, that what you're saying there has an application here."

Having someone who's a true appellate expert and practicing at such a high level with such creativity on the cutting edge of all of these unanswered questions across the law has been a huge benefit to me as I've confronted issues that have touched on the same issues that she may be confronting in one way or another. It's helped us to be more creative in thinking about how to approach some of the thorny questions on our plate. It's been a lot of fun.

Cal Lawyer: Young attorneys often enter law with idealistic goals of changing the world, how has your original passion for social justice evolved throughout your careers?

Koren Bell: I think when you pivot to private practice, there's this worry. I think we're both lucky to be at places where pro bono work is very much treasured and prioritized, and there are great opportunities to continue to be involved. But one of the things you worry about is, I had this mission at the Federal Public Defender's Office - that's what animated my original desire to go to law school - and am I going to feel that that's a loss?
I was unsure exactly how that would play out, moving from the public sector to the private sector, but a lot of the same passion and emotions of why you go into the law, the human element of it, does carry forward very well in the private sector.

Particularly when liberty is at stake, whether your client qualifies for a public defender or not, there's that imperative that is a constant throughout and that is an incredibly motivating thing. It's a privilege when you have clients with such life-changing matters - again, whether it's a civil matter or criminal matter. It's such a privilege when they select you, because particularly in the private sphere, unlike at the public defender's office, there are many people they could select from. When they select you, you feel like this is really an incredible privilege and gift that you've been given, and I feel honored to represent this client.

At the public defender's office, likewise, I think I've always felt so honored to have been appointed to represent clients, and in that setting, you realize that particularly because they don't choose you, you have to sometimes work all the harder to give them confidence that this was the job you really wanted. You didn't just end up at the public defender's office because there was no other job for you. You fought for that job, and you will fight for them, and you feel incredibly honored to represent them. That's a feeling that, for me, has carried through from the public sector to the private sector.