Kirkland & Ellis partner Kasdin Mitchell is a second-generation lawyer following in the footsteps of her mother, who juggled attending Jones School of Law in Montgomery, Alabama, while raising young children.
“She was the first in her family to go to college,” said Mitchell, who was in grade school when her mother graduated from law school. “She went at night, and it took four years instead of the traditional three, but [I] was really proud when she was able to accomplish that.”
Mitchell didn’t go straight to law school after graduating from Yale University in 2007 with a degree in political science. Instead, she worked in the George W. Bush Administration, first in the Department of Energy and later served as First Lady Laura Bush’s assistant press secretary in Washington, D.C.
“It was a really unique opportunity for someone at my age,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell graduated from Yale Law School in 2012, where she was co-editor-in-chief of the Yale Law & Policy Review. She also clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and recently returned to the court after being appointed to argue a case.
“It was a really special opportunity, even more so than I think I imagined,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell recently sat down with The Texas Lawbook to discuss her career and more.
The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Texas Lawbook: Why did you decide to follow a career in law?
Mitchell: I always wanted to go to law school when I was young. My mom went to law school at night [from when Mitchell was 8 years old and to 12 years old], and I would go and sit in the area outside the classroom, where they have vending machines and tables, and do homework. But some professors, if we would be quiet, would let us go into class with her, and so I would sit in the back of the class and listen. I remember when she had to memorize a rule of civil procedure; I memorized it too. I remember calling out the exceptions to the rule against hearsay when she was studying for exams, and just kind of really seeing that experience firsthand. I knew I always wanted to go to law school based on that example.
The work [I did] in DC was really because I knew I wanted to spend my career as a lawyer and wanted to do something different before that. I had done mock trial in high school and in college, and I did moot court eventually in law school. I always knew that’s what I wanted to do and thought it would be really fun to spend a couple of years, while I was young, working in D.C., because I know the rest of my life, I really want to be a lawyer and pursue that career path.
Texas Lawbook: I saw prior to law school, you worked as the Assistant Press Secretary to the First Lady at the White House, as an on-the-record spokesperson for Mrs. Laura Bush. What was that experience like?
Mitchell: I worked in the Bush Administration for two years between college and law school. The first year was at the Department of Energy, and I worked in the Office of Fossil Energy, so with oil, gas, and coal. [N]ow, [living] in Texas, and doing a lot of work in the energy field, it’s translatable in a way I wouldn’t have anticipated at the time.
I spent the last year of the administration at the First Lady’s office working with Mrs. Bush. She was a wonderful boss, and it was a great opportunity to learn how to translate the kind of things that are going on in the White House to the media. And the way the office was divided, the Press Secretary handled most of the international events. The Deputy Press Secretary was the principal lead on all of the domestic travel. I was the assistant press secretary, and I was the principal lead on all of the events at the White House. I got to be on the front lines of a lot of really interesting events, Black History Month; the visits of foreign heads of state; we did the tasting for the Christmas party. I got to do a lot of events with President Bush, which was neat, because a lot of times when they traveled, they traveled separately, but if something was at the house, they were both there. That was really fun, and I just learned a lot about how the White House works. I was there in the last year, and so I remember all of the transition planning for when the Obama family was coming, that the movers were coming to pack everything up during the inauguration to make that transition. Getting to see that all firsthand was really neat.
Another thing that I really learned that’s translated into law practice, especially as a junior lawyer, is kind of how to act in those formal circumstances … how to act with discretion and conduct yourself in a professional meeting. I was in my early 20s. I hadn’t had experiences with how you discreetly enter a room, and that you want to have your papers in a folder so no one can see what the contents of them are if they’re in a meeting. They seem minor, but some things that I learned, how to be discreet, how to conduct myself professionally, are skills that I now bring into a courtroom. That was also great preparation for law, but a lot of it was a really fun thing to do in between college and law school.
Texas Lawbook: You handle complex litigation at trial and on appeal. What is a trend you have seen in your practice area?
Mitchell: One trend I’m seeing is the involvement of appellate lawyers earlier and earlier in a case. I do try cases in addition to appellate work, and when I’m trying cases, I myself, personally want an appellate lawyer there to help me, because I’m focused on at trial — what the witness is going to say, preparing the closing — and it’s really helpful to have someone who’s thinking ahead to the appeal, catching issues that might be relevant on appeal. I know when I’m wearing my trial hat, I try to bring in an appellate lawyer as early as possible into my own cases.
I’ve also found that as an appellate person, I’m being brought in earlier and earlier. This might surprise some people, but appellate lawyers can have value even at the discovery stage, reviewing deposition outlines to make sure that the right questions are being asked to set up motions. Having an appellate lawyer review your answer to make sure you’re preserving affirmative defense pleading … can be really valuable. That’s a trend I’ve seen in the last five years: where clients are understanding the value and being more and more willing to pay to bring in an appellate person to take a look at the stages of the case that precede the actual appeal.
Texas Lawbook: What has been a memorable experience or case in your career?
Mitchell: On the trial front, last year I was able to first chair two trials. One was in federal court in front of a jury, and the other was in Delaware Chancery Court, which is a bench trial. Having those leadership opportunities and the ability to mentor younger lawyers and really direct the strategy of the trial was a really memorable experience. They were two totally different cases.
On the appellate front, and I think we’ll probably talk about this later, but I recently argued at the U.S. Supreme Court, which was very special, but my first time being in the courtroom for arguments was a day when Kirkland was arguing both cases at the court that day. The Supreme Court typically hears two cases a day, and — this was a few years ago — on this particular day, both cases, Kirkland was counsel, and I had worked on both cases and second-chaired one of them. One of the lawyers I had supported, it was his very first argument at the court. The other case that I had worked on, it was that lawyer’s 100th case to argue at the court. It was a really neat day to be a part of both cases back-to-back, supporting one lawyer who was making his first argument, and the second one, where the lawyer was making his 100th, which is a really neat opportunity.
Texas Lawbook: Do you have a pre-trial ritual, or a post-trial celebration?
Mitchell: Pre-trial, I try to get dinner that is not about the case. For example, in my Supreme Court case, my family was all in town, along with two of my parents’ friends, and we all went to dinner and talked about the case, but had a dinner that wasn’t prep, and I do that pretty much without fail. Before arguments, try to have a dinner that is not solely focused on prep, just to take a little bit of a break.
Afterwards, it’s really just business as usual. We’re going to return to reality. I flew back in that night, and the next day, I did school drop off and school pickup, and then took my daughter to Cavender’s, and we picked out cowboy boots and a cowboy hat for her Texas State Fair day at school, and it’s just right back to business as usual. Nothing special, just go back to real life.
Texas Lawbook: What is a hobby of yours when you get a chance to step away from your desk or the courtroom?
Mitchell: My hobby right now is my family. Spending time with my kids as much as I can, because I work full time, and that means that I’m necessarily away from them during the workday and have [to] travel, and so when I’m not working, I want to be with them. It’s been like that for me my whole life, even when I was in college, if I wasn’t doing my work or extracurriculars, I wanted to spend time with my friends, and now the most important people to me right now are my family, and that’s who I want to spend time with when I’m not working.
Texas Lawbook: Do you have a favorite fictional lawyer?
Mitchell: Probably Atticus Finch. I grew up in Alabama and in the South, and he was the exemplar lawyer for all of us growing up. I think in the book To Kill a Mockingbird, he really represented the best of the profession, but also had some flaws that everyone has that make him human. He was probably the most formative lawyer in a fictional sense growing up. I do like to watch law TV shows. I like all of the TV lawyers and find that to be entertaining. My husband jokes that I’m a lawyer, I married a lawyer, and I watch TV shows about lawyers, definitely living my dream job, but all the TV lawyers are fun to watch, too.
Texas Lawbook: You clerked for Justice Thomas. What are some of the things you learned from his work?
Mitchell: Both personally and professionally, it was one of the most amazing opportunities to walk into the court every day and know that your obligation is to help the Justice get a question right that is not just an ordinary question, but one that’s going to control legal doctrine for the entire country. It was very much a priority of our chambers to make sure that we were getting the right answer and reading every historical source, if that’s what it took, every case going all the way back, not just taking the immediate prior precedent for granted and really trying to get the right answer, and we very much felt that was our constitutional obligation to help Justice Thomas make the right decision that followed from the requirements of the Constitution.
Professionally, working at that level and having the stakes so high, you had to rise to the occasion. That was a big period of growth for me, professionally and personally. Justice Thomas is an amazing person, and he invested in each of us. He truly led by example. I really enjoyed the opportunity, and I’m so grateful for the opportunity to have learned from him for a year. The great thing about being a Justice Thomas clerk is that you continue that relationship beyond just the clerkship there. We have reunions every three years where everyone, all the former clerks, join together. They bring their families. There are tons of kids running around, and they are all there to support each other. Just in this argument that I recently had before the court, members of the Thomas clerk family rallied to help me and be not just with encouragement, support, but I interrupted a member of the [clerk] family’s family vacation to ask questions about the case, and just really felt like there was a supportive community behind me because of that experience. My co-clerks, I’m super close with. For my court of appeals clerkship, we were all women, and we’re all very close. All my co-clerks for Justice Thomas were men, and they were like brothers to me. We’re all close to this day, and they’re doing amazing things, and I love cheering them on, and it just was a really wonderful bond that we formed as clerks to Justice Thomas, and he and his wife Ginni really cultivate that family feeling. We’re all here for each other, supporting each other through ups and downs.
Texas Lawbook: You recently argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. What was it like being back there, and this time before the justices?
Mitchell: The courtroom is really small and intimate, and the advocates are very close to the justices, which in some ways helps with your nerves, because your peripheral vision, you can’t even see the entire bench, and you certainly can’t see the people in the courtroom, but the proximity to the justices makes the argument very conversational. You can’t just rehearse, you can’t just repeat sayings that you rehearsed. You’re really in dialogue with the court, which was a lot of fun, and just the whole experience of being at the Supreme Court with my family there in this kind of special opportunity that for me was my first opportunity to get to present argument there felt like a very special and memorable opportunity.
When I clerked at the court, I saw a lot of oral arguments, but you’re off in the wings, and it just felt so much different being there in person, in the moment, totally absorbed in the issue, and it took a lot of preparation on behalf of my team, and I really enjoyed having some of my co-workers there with me. It was just a really fun opportunity, and I’m very grateful to Justice Thomas for reaching out to me about the case to appoint me to it. But I had a really memorable opportunity there.
Texas Lawbook: How do you prepare for such big cases?
Mitchell: There’s no substitute for preparation, and that was as true in law school as it is in practice. Anytime I really wanted to master the class, I had to do my process from start to finish, and if I took shortcuts, I would pay for it. Similar to preparing for a law school exam, the first order of business is learning the material, so reading the cases, understanding the facts, and putting that all largely in an outline, like I would do for a law school exam, and making sure that I really have a mastery of the facts and the law, and then it’s thinking through it analytically, figuring out, what are the pressure points, what are the pivot points? What is the other side really arguing so that you can come up with the most salient response?
Preparing for my argument was a lot like law school. In law school, one of the most productive ways for me to learn was by talking through the material with my study group and taking practice exams. Those were my keys to success in law school. I loved getting into the issues with my classmates, and we would spend hours talking about the material and really digging in, and I felt like I had such a stronger grasp of the concepts after talking them through. Then we do practice exams where you actually put pen to paper and practice your answers. There’s a version of that for argument prep that’s not exactly the same, but it’s very similar.
On the day before the argument, the two associates and another partner who were helping me prepare, we sat around the table almost the entire day talking through the issues and the answer, and I would explain it to them, and that’s how I learned and workshopped the best answer to particular questions. Then, just like taking practice exams, I did practice arguments, and so set up moot courts with my colleagues and others who would ask me questions, and I would practice giving answers. It’s very similar to the way I would have prepared for a law school exam: learn the material, talk it through, and then practice.
Texas Lawbook: If you weren’t a lawyer, what career do you see yourself having?
Mitchell: I would either be doing something law adjacent — something in policy, or something related to communications. I really did enjoy my work for Mrs. Bush at the White House and the press office. I liked translating events and developments that were going on there at the White House for the members of the press, and similarly, in law, you’re translating the facts as you know them, as they relate to your client for the court, and it requires a similar skill set. I thought the communication space was one that was fast-paced and interesting, and helps the public understand things they don’t otherwise have access to. In some respects, that’s a lot like law, where you’re helping the court or a jury understand facts that they don’t otherwise have access to. They’re trying to understand the truth and get to the right answer. In the communication space, the public is trying to understand and get to the right answer, and it’s just a different context.
Texas Lawbook: Anything else you would like to add?
Mitchell: I really love the practice of law, and have always wanted to be a lawyer, and [I’m] excited every day to come to work and solve problems for my clients. When I’m not practicing law, the only other thing I want to do is really be with my kids, who are ages three, five and seven. They just had birthdays, and they’re a lot of fun and bring a lot of joy and purpose to life. [I] love, being able to both be a mom and have a really rewarding professional career, and that comes with a lot of support, especially from my husband, but it’s something that I feel very grateful every day to get to have this job and also have a family that I love spending time with, and they’re awesome.
If you or someone you know would like to be profiled in a future edition of Asked & Answered, please let us know at tlblitigation@texaslawbook.net. Check out our other Asked & Answered interviews below:
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