© 2015 The Texas Lawbook.
By Patricia Baldwin
This lawyer leads two lives. As Amy Howell, she is General Counsel of Zimbra Inc., an email software company near Dallas. As Natasha Osteen, she is the blogger behind “Smells Like Butterscotch,” a sometimes irreverent, often hilarious and always relevant look at life, faith, fear, humor… well, you name it.
So, Amy Natasha Osteen Howell, what gives? Of course, that’s the first query of this repartee.
She laughs.
“I wanted to be judged for my writing, not as a lawyer,” Howell says of her blogging nom de plume that consists of her middle and maiden names.
She is quick to note, however, that she doesn’t write the blog for herself.
It is a gift.
She intends the collection as a legacy for her children, Micah, 4, and Maddox, 2. Howell describes the blog as the “conversations I’d love to have with them.”
She says she has friends who have jewelry or photographs as family keepsakes. But those tangible objects, she adds, can lose the essence of the ancestor.
She hopes that leaving a legacy of writing is a way for her children to eventually understand their mother.
And what the blog doesn’t reveal about Howell, her friends and colleagues are enthusiastic about chipping in.
Elizabeth Daane was General Counsel at ORIX during Howell’s 10-year tenure with the financial firm. Daane says Howell was her “Swiss Army knife.”
That means Howell attended to many challenges, including litigation, intellectual property issues and “any unique or weird questions or problems that arose.”
Most memorable for Daane was a presentation Howell prepared for a corporate training session about how not to use email, complete with funny examples from her own in-box.
Nicola Nobeiche gives credit to Howell for her position as Assistant General Counsel at ORIX. They met at a legal function when Nobeiche was looking for a new job. Some seven years after she joined ORIX, Nobeiche takes credit for “literally shoving” Howell out the door for the opportunity to become a GC in her 30s.
“She has been writing the entire time I have known her,” Nobeiche says. “I think like any great lawyer, Amy has been blessed to find an outlet for her creative side.”
Ryan Farha, also Assistant General Counsel at ORIX, calls Howell “tough and technical.”
The descriptors might be the consequence of Howell’s undergraduate science training when she entertained aspirations to be a forensic biologist. Then an internship in the Denton County District Attorney’s office switched her focus to the law.
Heather Perttula Randall, Vice President of Legal Affairs and Government Relations at Trinity Industries Inc., claims Howell “fully admits that she’s a horrible crafter, doesn’t watch TV and can’t cook anything that doesn’t fit in a toaster.”
In her defense, Howell says that she grew up as a voracious reader, an interest that expanded into writing for the preacher’s kid.
And, she contends she doesn’t sit around thinking about what she is going to write.
In fact, she says she dreamed the “Raising Arizona” blog post.
“I woke up and wrote it,” she remembers.
In the post, she refers to her husband, Barrett Howell, as H.I. Barrett. (Outside the blogosphere, he is a partner at K&L Gates’ Dallas and Houston offices.)
She also shares that “Raising Arizona” is one of his favorite movies and “during our first five years of marriage, he made me watch it all the time.”
In the movie, stars Holly Hunter and Nicolas Cage—a childless couple—decide to steal one of another family’s quintuplets.
In the “Smells Like Butterscotch” post, blogger Natasha Osteen recalls, after five years of marriage, her near obsession to have a child as well as the conviction that parenting will be a “piece of cake” for her.
She then confesses, “For the first three weeks, neither the baby nor I slept, ate or stopped crying. We also didn’t bond.”
Fortunately, the blog post not only has a happy ending but also elicited many comments from new parents who related to the postpartum blues.
Howell says she is gratified when she can touch someone’s life. Most days, the blog has about 600 readers—many finding the site via Facebook shares.
Only once, so far, has Howell referenced the fact she is a lawyer.
Prior to the start of the regular Monday meeting, two legal colleagues are reminding her that it’s her birthday—a day typically marked by crazy pranks by two equally crazy girlfriends.
The blogger notes that the subject changed when “a particularly unpleasant but powerful partner” sat across from her. The birthday talk stopped—until a knock on the door came halfway through the meeting.
To summarize, a “small, pudgy” man in a polka dot vest, yellow pants and a life preserver around his hips entered the conference room and asked for the “birthday girl.” He then commenced singing an original version of “Happy Birthday,” with one stanza promising “a free colonic.”
The rest of the meeting, the blogger reports, became a blur. She did, however, push away her coffee with the comment, “Guess I won’t be needing this today.”
Howell family friend Jon Leatherberry, a partner at Bracewell & Giuliani in Dallas, heard about “Smells Like Butterscotch” from his wife (also a lawyer and new mother).
“I read the blog post and then I read another and another,” he says. “I found myself laughing out loud at some of the antics and being touched to the core by the sentiment. We all need an outlet. For the best among us, like Amy, it is something creative.”
Howell obviously enjoys both her lives.
She says that being Zimbra GC is a “perfect fit.” The tech collaboration company’s specialization in email platforms meshes well with her early legal experience as a patent and intellectual property litigator.
As for her blogging avocation: “I give myself the freedom to re-invent myself.”
To enjoy complete blog postings—and to discover the origins of the blog’s name—click on the following.
smellslikebutterscotch.com/why-smells-like-butterscotch
smellslikebutterscotch.com/2014/12/19/colonic-clowns
smellslikebutterscotch.com/2015/01/08/raising-arizona
Do you have a special avocation, hobby or other lifestyle interest to share? Please email patricia.baldwin@texaslawbook.net.
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