Amanda Rutenberg

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Written By Third Boxcar LLC

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Show Notes

Amanda Rutenberg, Deputy General Counsel at space company Rocket Lab USA, joins host M.C. Sungaila to discuss her path from journalism to law school, government contracting and BigLaw, and how her secondment to a client led to an in-house career at both a traditional space company and a NewSpace company. Listen in, as Amanda drops some great insight into the role of in-house counsel and the role of outside counsel, and the importance of recognizing and taking opportunities in your career and life.

 
 

About  Amanda Rutenberg

Amanda Rutenberg is the Deputy General Counsel for Rocket Lab USA, responsible for supporting program teams and executive management on a full range of government and commercial contracting matters.

Ms. Rutenberg is a graduate of the George Washington University Law School, with more than 20 years of experience advising businesses on a full range of litigation and government contracts matters. Prior to joining Rocket Lab, Ms. Rutenberg spent over 7 years at Aerojet Rocketdyne, serving as the General Counsel of its Space business unit and managing the company’s significant litigation.

Ms. Rutenberg began her career in the government contracts and litigation practice groups at the law firms Seyfarth Shaw and Kirkland & Ellis. She is licensed to practice in California and the District of Columbia.

 

Transcript

Welcome to the show, where we chronicle women's journeys to the bench, bar, and beyond and seek to inspire the next generation of women lawyers and women law students. I'm very pleased to have join us on the show, Amanda Rutenberg. She is the Deputy General Counsel for Rocket Lab USA. Welcome, Amanda.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for being here. I put this in the category because we have several different series within the show. We have the in-house series, the space law series, and you're at the intersection of both of those. You also have law firm experience prior to that, so you can talk about all of these different aspects of your career and maybe give us insights on an array of things.

I'll try my best.

Journey To Law School And Career Vision

I wanted to start out as I usually do with, what brought you to law? How did you decide to go to law school? What did you plan on doing with your law degree? Is what you're doing now at all what you envisioned when you first went to law school?

I'll touch on the last part of that question first because I will say I am a prime example of where you start out is not where you can wind up. I never in a million years growing up even thought about the law or being a lawyer. It was never on my radar at all. Unlike probably some of your other participants, but I never ever thought about that. I was always very creative, writing stories, and making up characters.

“Where you start is not where you can wind up.”

I wanted to be a journalist or documentary filmmaker. That was my dream. I grew up in the ‘80s, so it's not like we had a phone in our pocket that we could edit and shoot video on. I had to go to school for that and that's what I did. I was a Broadcasting and Film major in college. I started out working in television and did some short films and documentaries. It wasn't until about four years out of school, I was working for an entertainment news show called Access Hollywood. I worked a lot with the lawyer for the show because I was a researcher for the show. For a lot of the stories that I was doing, we had to make sure we didn't get sued.

I worked with her a lot to throw in a reportedly or whatever. One day she said to me, “You're a good writer. Have you ever thought about going to law school?” That was the first time in my entire life that the notion of that even was presented to me. I spent about six months thinking about it. I looked into it and I decided to go fully thinking that I would come out on the other side and go back to either work for her or do something in entertainment.

The tech boom was happening at the time but instead, I got into government contracts. I did a Moot Court competition in law school. My law school is known for government contracting and wound up getting a job in a government contract litigation practice at a firm. That's how I became a government contracts lawyer. Many years later, I'm still doing it. I'm in-house now. It was just very random. It's certainly not anything I would have anticipated when I was young.

I gathered so many things in there. The first thing is having someone see latent talents in you that you don't even know about as you were saying, “You're a very good writer. Have you thought about law school?” Either just wasn't something on your radar because you never had been exposed to it, or you don't recognize those things in yourself. It's neat to have people nudge you along in that way saying, “Have you considered this?” You investigate it. That's pretty cool.

The other one is the serendipity in law school. You end up taking a class or doing a Moot Court. I had no idea until you mentioned that. I had no idea there was a government contracts Moot Court. I suppose it shouldn't surprise me because I'm coaching the space law Moot Court team. I never knew there was a space law moot either when I was in law school, so I guess there are all varieties. Trying something like that, that's different and you’re like, “I like this.”

It was such a twist of fate. My friend and I just decided, “Let's do a competition.” I liked that I was on Moot Court. I loved the pellet advocacy and so we thought, “Let's try it.” This was one that was offered and I remember going to the library. I used the library back in the day and checked out the Federal Acquisition Regulation Apart, which is a big book for those who don't do government contracting.

It's the regulations how the government contracts. I remember looking at it like, “This is crazy.” Not knowing at that time that that would be my career path. I have a FAR that sits on my desk still. I always say, “If you have a government contract lawyer who doesn't have a FAR on their desk, then they're not a good government contract lawyer.” It’s a weird twist of fate and then it changed my whole life. That's how it's always gone, too.

That's funny what you were saying about the FAR. Usually, I have the appellate rules on my desk. It's the corollary. “Let's check the rules,” I remember going to the actual physical library and looking at the books and pulling all those things, too. Those were the days. That's one of the things I miss, is seeing an interesting book adjacent to the one that you see on the shelf that you're like, “That is valuable information I never would have thought of looking up.”

It's an art that's lost. Now you talk about AI taking the lead on that thing. I just find that you'd miss out on a lot because it's that investigation if you're going down one path and maybe it takes you in another direction and that might be the better way to go. It's harder to do that with the electronic at-a-touch-of-the-button thing. I love the research part. That was one of my favorite parts of being at the law firm and writing briefs. It was the investigatory part. It goes probably back to the journalism part in me that loved that piece of it.

I hadn't thought about it prior to the episode, but as a result of taking to people in many different positions, whether it's leading a legal nonprofit or serving in-house. A lot of folks have some journalism experience or background prior to law. It hadn't occurred to me that it was like, “There is a commonality. You're communicating.” You have to be a good communicator, whether it's in writing or otherwise. That's a good skill to have that's useful and being curious. As you were saying, following the trail. “I'm curious. I'm going to follow this and see where it goes. I will follow my intuition.”

I love doing that. It was fun. I missed that as I said a little bit.

Exploring Government Contracts And Law Career Path

You did the Moot Court and you're like, “Government contracts sound interesting. Where do I go to do that?” “There are some law firms that do that.” That's a good first step in that direction.

It’s because I didn't know anything about the law, I figured when I made the decision to go to law school, I thought, “I better go to DC because at least, the laws are made there.” I didn't know what a statute was. I went to law school with a zero basis of knowledge, but I thought, “Let's just go to DC.” That was the right move for me because a lot of the government contracts practices are based there. I was lucky enough to get into a practice group and had some wonderful partners and associates to work with and learn from.

It's very complicated. My old boss who retired, but I remember him saying, “I've been doing this for 45 years and I still learn something new every day.” The government buys everything. I've represented food distributors and broadcasting companies and a lot of high-technology companies as well. It's the whole breadth across industries that you can deal with when you do that law. That was super interesting. It's both the litigation piece because when you bring suit against the government, there are certain requirements and hoops you have to jump through since it's the sovereign.

The litigation piece is super interesting. The advice and counsel on all the various regulations, the impacts of those regulations, and the changes. I always found it fascinating. It kept me busy. I was in a firm for about ten years and then went in-house. It was to a client. It was Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, but Aerojet bought it. I had done some work for Rocketdyne and they had asked me if I'd be interested in coming in-house. It worked out for me to go into a client.

That is one of the transitions, especially from a larger firm that's possible and that people don't think about.

I was also lucky while I was at the firm. We had a big case for a client and I was spending a lot of time at their facility. One day, I found out one of the lawyers was going on maternity leave and I asked, “Would they be interested if they need some help while she's out to fill in as in-house counsel?” Luckily, they gave me that opportunity. I was a 4th-year attorney and I was supporting an almost $2 million business unit. I had no business doing that, but it was an amazing opportunity.

As an outside council to get to be in-house for a series of months to see how an in-house council operates was a great learning experience for me at the time. It made me feel a lot more comfortable making the decision to go in-house down the road from that time. It was amazing. I say to people, “Sometimes, it feels like if you're outside council like its voodoo. What do they do in-house?” If you ever get an opportunity, spend time with your clients because it helps you be a better outside counsel to understand the needs of the in-house counsel that you're serving as well.

That's so true. There's nothing like that scenario you described. I think of it as my equivalent of clerking for a judge and then being an appellate lawyer like, “I get to understand how the process works.” I can be more helpful to the court as a result of that. It's the same interplay that you're talking about in going to the client for a little bit. You asking as a 4th-year is amazing.

I don't know what possessed me to do it, but I'm glad I did. You take a chance and ask, and sometimes good things happen if you ask. It was a great experience for sure.

It also seemed like you were honestly being helpful like, “I'm here. I see this challenge that you have, and maybe I can help with that. It also would be helpful to me to grow by doing that.” That's such an important lesson that I hope law students reading thinking about. You have to put yourself out there. You have to make ask for things, even if it seems above where your level is or whatever. You don't know.

Maybe you rise to that. You want to grow. You want to do things that seem like a challenge. That's how you grow and become a better lawyer. If you do it in the right way, people don't feel weird about that. They're glad that you took the initiative and they may say, “That's a great idea and you should do that.”

It's scary and you're going to be thrown into things that maybe you've never seen before, but that's where you learn. Having the confidence in yourself to make the ask, but then also having the confidence to say, “I don't know. Let me think about it or let me go back.” I was calling my partners a lot the first time around because there were things I didn't know but it was just such a great opportunity.

I always say to people, “Don't ever hesitate to ask. Ask questions. Certainly, ask for help if you need it.” I have found that a lot of times people have a hard time asking for help. Somehow, it takes something away from them to ask or to say, “I don't know something,” or ask for help. I've always never had a problem with that because I would rather admit that I don't know something than spout off on something or go off in a direction that ends up not being the right way to go.

I also find that most times if you ask people to help you, they want to help you. They're more than willing to help you. It makes them feel good that they're imparting knowledge. They're also feeling good that they're preventing you from maybe making a mistake. It's a win-win for me. I've never quite understood why people would hesitate ever to ask for help or reach out or ask for an opportunity.

In some ways people, especially going through law school. I think people get a sense that they're supposed to know everything and we cannot be wrong about things. That's our thing as lawyers. Somehow, asking questions or asking for things is like, “No, that doesn't show my all-knowingness as a lawyer.” What we know for sure is that we have a certain analysis and critical thinking that we get from law school. We know where to look for things and then how to find answers or ask the right people. That's what you're learning from law school. It's not like you're expected to know every answer to every question.

I hated it when I was a law student because everyone wants to give you advice and there's this weird herd mentality, “You're supposed to do this. You're supposed to do that.” You're bombarded with advice and what you should be doing. I don't want to add to that, but if there are law students reading who started a law firm, my advice to you is this, be nice and make friends with the paralegals, the legal secretaries or admins, and the mailroom people. They are the most knowledgeable people in the firm and can help you out on the day to day. That's my advice for sure.

“Be nice and make friends with the paralegals, the legal secretaries, the admins, and the mailroom people - the most knowledgeable people in the firm.”

You're so right about that. Especially paralegals and the legal assistants. They have way more experience than you do, especially when you're starting. Why not ask them questions and say, “How do you do things?”

They can save your life, honestly.

Plus, it's more pleasant to have a nice working relationship with everyone in the firm.

The doers, I'd say.

In-House Legal Experience And Unexpected Career Paths

The people who are going to be part of getting stuff out for you and being part of that. It's always good to have a good relationship there and treat them well. The other thing that's struck me from your story is the secondment situation to going in-house. That can go places where you never imagined you could end up staying at the place that you were seconded to. Sandra Phillips who's now the Chief Legal Officer of Toyota was seconded to Toyota from her law firm. Now, here she is. She ended up staying there.

You never know. It's always a good experience wherever you go. As you said, you have this experience as an understanding of how that particular client works, but also a client perspective, which is valuable if you go back to a firm and you're working with clients. It also tells you, “I might like doing this, but I don't know what it means to do it.” Having that experience, you can tell yourself, “That was a crazy idea. That's not a good match for me. No, I enjoy that. I'd like to look for another opportunity to do that.” It's a win-win in so many different ways.

When I interview people if I'm hiring for an in-house position and they're coming from a law firm, I always tell people that an in-house job is not for everybody. To get to do a secondment while you're still outside counsel to see if it's for you. When I say it's not for everybody, how I think of it is this. When your outside counsel, a client hires you, and you're invited to a meeting. It's because they now have an issue they cannot handle themselves. Whether it's a piece of litigation, a government investigation, or an M&A.

You're invited to meet with the client under those circumstances outside counsel because they need your help. In those meetings, you're the most important person in the meeting as the lawyer that they're hiring to come in. When you're a in-house counsel, I always say, “I'm often the least important person in the room.” It means that mostly in-house, you are part of the team but you are not the decision-maker. Your voice is just one of many voices. Other than a situation where someone says, “I'm going to go break the law.” In most cases as an in-house counsel, the ultimate decisions that are being made are being made from a business standpoint, not a legal standpoint.

Again, there are lots of meetings where I don't say anything and people would be happier if I said nothing. It's a matter of, “Do you like being a part of the team and being one voice? Do you provide your advice and counsel, but you are not the decision-maker? Do you like more coming in, handle a discrete issue, and then being very important, being very key, and then moving on?” It's a philosophical point that each person has to decide for themselves.

There are pros and cons to both, but having that secondment allowed me to see the team environment and how my legal skills would be brought to bear in that environment in a very different way than when I was at the law firm. For me, I enjoyed it. There were some people who wouldn't enjoy it, and that's a decision for each person to make.

As you said, if you like going in to be the hired gun or whatever, as the trial lawyer on something, you're probably not going to enjoy the role of in-house. You’re knowing yourself but it's important to do what you did to go and get the feel of it about what it feels like to do that work, too. People can tell you, “In-houses like this and working in a firm is like that.” Until you are in an environment, see, and feel for yourself, “What does that feel like to me? Do I like that? Does that make me feel weird that no one's asking for my opinion on this? Is it okay? Am I okay with supporting the business?”

I have noticed over the years. I don't know if this is training that's being provided by law firms or law schools, but I do feel at least now outside counsel does seem to be much more interested in recognizing the business aspects of the legal advice they're providing. Back in the day when I started, you'd write a legal memo and it's purely very legal. There's a question, “Here's the legal answer.”

It's changed now because I see even with the outside counsel that we hire. They're much more attuned to understand like, “There's the pure legal answer that we could provide you, but there's also a recognition of your industry, your issue, or whatever the other factors.” I have found that law firms have gotten much better at tailoring the legal work that they provide to a more in-house environment or to their in-house clients. Again, I don't know where that's coming from, but it's certainly appreciated by me. It's great for the folks doing outside council work to, however, they're getting that insight. It's great. It's helpful to their clients. I can tell you from my perspective.

That's good to hear. That's good. People are evolving and recognizing the context in which you're making decisions. It seems like you should think about that. There are extra-legal factors that are involved in making decisions that maybe outside counsel knows or doesn't know about, but at least acknowledges them. It's somewhat similar as an appellate lawyer. When I'm working with a team, the in-house team, and the trial team and all of that. There may be times like nobody wants to.

I may say, “Here's the perfect way to do this,” but the perfect way interferes with other concerns. Whether it's trial lawyer tactics or strategy or some other aspect for the client. Here's another avenue that we can accomplish this that will still work, get the job done, preserve an issue, or whatever we need to do, but taking into account those other things. That's part of recognizing your part of a larger team.

What you described is very much like being in-house counsel. It is. I'll sit in a meeting and sometimes lost my opinion, but it is one voice. You described it perfectly as my role. I bring to bear my judgment and my experience from other issues that I've seen. I provide that then it's up to them based upon the senior management's decisions based upon all the factors that I may not have insight into about whether they accept that advice or not. It sounds like an appellate lawyer is very similar.

We try. It’s a similar role in the whole overarching team, especially depending on what level you're at. If you're still in the trial court, you're like, “Who's in the driver's seat?” It’s the client and the trial counsel at this point. We’re hedging our bets and getting everything ready in case we have to go to a higher court. We're always making decisions across the whole landscape, but recognizing we'd all rather be a respondent or appellee than an appellant.

Advice For Aspiring In-House Lawyers

We have to take that into account. Whatever we can do to maximize that, that's what we want to do. It's fun. I like doing that thing too, getting the whole team moving in the right direction. I think that's some good advice, for people who are considering potentially might want to be an in-house lawyer. If you have a secondment opportunity or you see one, ask for one or see what it's like and whether you would enjoy that work. What other advice would you give to someone who's maybe thinking about going in-house?

Depending on your field. I would say get experience in the financial aspects of business. I wish when I was in law school because I thought I would come out and be some entertainment lawyer that I focused on IP classes. I wish I had taken more finance business-type classes. I took one secure transactions class, which was interesting, but that was the extent. When you're in-house, it's all about the financials.

They're the most important people. The lawyer is probably the least important person. The engineers are very important and the finance people in-house are the most important and so much of a business is around the financials. If you can get experience, understanding things. Whether it's accounting or SEC rules. That would be helpful. It's an area that I've been trying to get up to speed on.

If you have that opportunity, that's important. That would be one thing I would say going in-house, then find something that interests you, an industry that interests me. For me, getting into space, I always say I have one of the coolest legal jobs out there. I represent a company that does amazing things. My previous employer also. If there's an area that you have an interest in, seek out a position there. At least get to know the people doing it, and then maybe the position will present itself. That would be my advice for sure.

“Find something that interests you. If there's an area that you really have an interest in, seek out a position there. Get to know the people and the field. The opportunity may present itself.”

Exploring Rocket Lab: A Unique Player In The Space Industry

Rocket Lab is not like SpaceX origin or things like that where we hear about that outside the industry. Maybe you can talk about Rocket Lab a little bit and what you all do.

We build ourselves properly as an end-to-end space company. That means that we build satellites and satellite components for our own programs but as well as for the government and other commercial customers. That's on our space system side of the business. We have a launch vehicle. It's funny how everyone knows SpaceX, but our Electron rocket is the second most launched rocket in the Western Hemisphere behind the Falcon 9. We just launched it. It's a pretty small launch vehicle. It only launches small missions, but we're in final development of a larger launch vehicle to be that rival to the Falcon 9 called Neutron.

That's supposed to launch in 2025. We're excited about that. We offer the full range of both satellites and launch. We deal with issues on both sides of the business. It's very interesting stuff. There’s cool programs that we support. We built two satellites for NASA that were supposed to go to Mars and study the poles there. It was supposed to launch on Blue Origin's rocket. Our satellites were ready, but they were not, so we're looking at another launch sometime in 2025 or 2026.

The launch windows for Mars are a little bit interesting. What we're doing, we have one of our satellites in space. It's doing manufacturing in space. Our client’s payload is going to develop pharmaceuticals in space. It's the second one of the satellites up there. It launches and stays up there for a little while and does its thing, then it helps get it back to earth. That's a program that's going on.

It's interesting stuff, and because we deal with both the commercial and the government, that's why my background in government contracting is helpful because we deal with all the issues associated with that. We're a publicly traded company, so we deal with all the issues related to that as well. As I said, I work with amazing people who do incredible things. I get to be a little small part of that.

That's wide-ranging. When I think of Rocket Lab, I think of the point you mentioned, which is, “We're the second most frequent launcher behind SpaceX.” Not a lot of people know that. All of the other things are really interesting. Those touch on a lot of the growth areas in space. Including the scientific aspect of it and scientific use because there are only certain kinds of experiments or testing that can be done in the space environment, but not on Earth. That's an exciting part of it in terms of what might come out of that work.

That's the future. I don't know if I'll be around to see it, but even the building blocks of a future in space with manufacturing and people living up there. My last company, Aerojet, they were part of the team that's helping to build the gateway. It will be a new space station that will orbit the moon. I would say the next 20 or 30 years is going to be pretty amazing and how space will change. There's also the other side of it, the military and the defense side of it.

Our largest contract, the government is helping to build a satellite for the space development agency and helping deal with the national security aspects of that. That's the other side of the coin in space. Certainly, there's a lot happening and I think the next couple of decades are going to be foundational to a future that I don't know that I can imagine as I sit here.

It's exciting to be part of a business that's engaging in that, pushing towards the future, and playing the role that you can as a lawyer to support that and to help make that happen.

My last company did the engines for the space launch system, the Artemis, the moon rocket. When it flew, I cried because it's a lot of people who spent a lot of time. You can get into a discussion of old space versus new space and how much money. I know SpaceX thinks they can do everything. For those industry nerds, there's always that discussion about what role the government versus what commercial industry should bring to the table. I sit between both of those because I worked at an old space company.

I'm at a new space company but I do think there is a role for government still in space, both from an exploration standpoint and certainly as a funder of it. It's incredibly capital-intensive. It's very difficult. It's why you see a lot of the companies that started out around the same time as my company has gone bankrupts because unless you achieve success pretty quickly, you're going to run out of money.

That's something specific to the space industry in terms of you need to work towards as early success as you can. It takes so much time to do it right and it's hard.

It's very hard, even the smallest thing. When I worked at Aerojet, they made the main engine for the space shuttle. I remember there were some old graveyards there who'd been there for 40 years who were there for the challenger. It was one little O-ring on, not their engine on the solid, but they remember being on the call with NASA, the go-no-go call, and the devastation they felt afterward when it blew up. It's very scary. Luckily, we don't do human-rated stuff at Rocket Lab. I don't know when that would be on the horizon. We're dealing with property and not people, but it's hard. My hat's off to the folks that I work with who understand a lot of this stuff.

As you said, the engineering side is important, especially in the space realm. That's so exciting. We were talking about this before we started the show, in terms of the variety, having a variety of things to do keeps it interesting. I feel the same way. If I were doing this same law and similar issues over and over, I would have found something else to do. There's always something different. At your company, it touches all of these different aspects of what a space company could do. There are a lot of interesting issues in each of those that keeps it interesting.

In-House Legal Challenges: Balancing Ethics And Expertise

That's another thing about when people think about if you want to go in-house. You are going to be asked a lot of questions that you have no idea. For me, I've tried to stay away from employment-related stuff, but I've constantly asked for employment. I was asked an export question, “There are materials in China. What would be the requirements on exporting and importing from China?” You're asked constantly a whole bunch of stuff that you don't know. Your job is to figure out. A lot of it is, who can I call to ask to get the help?

“You're going to be asked a lot of questions that you have absolutely no idea about. Your job is to figure out who to call for help.”

You have to have the fortitude to go, what am I going to see? It's going to be something that you weren't expecting for sure. How am I going to disposition that? Either by providing advice, or my best guesstimate. That's why I say the hardest thing is being on the spot. When I'm called to a meeting in-house, either they don't want to hear from me, as I've said, or it's a meeting where a program or a team has gotten to the point where they don't know what to do.

They call me and I'm supposed to help figure out what to do. The people who are closer to it all have reached an impasse in their ability to figure something out and now I'm supposed to come in. It's scary, but it's also exciting. What was surprising to me, even as a fourth year, when I had my secondment for the first time. I was surprised in those moments how much remembering other issues faced by other clients helps you figure out. You can bring to bear on the issue at hand by reference to things that you had done in the past.

It is amazing how some other client's issue can translate into information and experience that will help you with issues years later. It's amazing. That's the part where it made me feel the most proud of. My judgment, at least, through my experience over all these years, that's probably my best asset in-house because that judgment allows me to know when I can help in the immediate instance.

When I know I need to go get some other help and at least help them acknowledge their issue and let them know that I'm going to take care of it, but figure out then what I need to do. That's your job as an in-house. It’s that a juggling aspect. You've got the personalities. You get to the senior levels and you're dealing with the board and you're dealing with the CEO. Those pieces of it as well that you got to also have to learn over time how to handle.

I think your point of saying, things come to mind when a question is raised at your job or your company, things come to you. You're not starting from zero. Sometimes, we think like, “I've never done this.” You have all these other experiences that say, “This is similar to something I've seen before. Let's see how that might help us in this scenario.”

Having a litigation background is helpful because, again, the parties and the facts may be different, but you have a sense of how things will go. You're a storyteller when you're a litigator. When an issue comes up in-house, maybe a supplier, or you're getting into a dispute with a supplier or a customer. As a litigator or a storyteller, you think about the steps you need to take. If you think about, “What would a jury think about this five-years from now?”

You can lay out the story early on and your advice when it's maybe as a dispute is arising. You can think back to, “I remember X dispute and what happened down the road. Let's not do that. Let's go do this.” That's why I say if you tap into it and allow yourself in the moment to stop and say, “I think that maybe this.” You tap back into your experience bank.

I have found it to be helpful even in a situation that you would think just on its face is nothing like what you've done before. There are lessons to be learned or advice or practical steps you can take based upon how decisions you made in the past or work that you've done in the past or the experience of your clients in the past.

What you said there about, “What action we take now could have impacts on, should this go to litigation far down the line? This is a better action to take than the other given what I saw happen in another case.” That reminds me in the litigation and appellate context you want to be consistent. You want to be consistent throughout. That is so helpful, as you said, in telling the story because when you get to litigation, you're in storytelling. Whether you're at the trial level or appellate level. What will reinforce the advocacy that you need to make? What will not reinforce that? Thinking about that far ahead is always helpful.

Consistency is right. Also, don't overstate things. Sometimes, you'll have an executive come in and be like, “I want to send a letter. I want to pound them. They're breaching the contract.” Sometimes it's better to be more measured. I always tell my teams, “Let's be the good guy.” That doesn't mean you don't reserve your rights, don’t assert your rights, or don't hold them accountable to the contract and its requirements or whatever.

There are ways of behaving. There are some companies are super aggressive and they just pound. Again, because of my litigation background, I don't find that that's helpful. I like to be very measured and take things very systematically and not overstate things because I find that that gives you a better credibility with juries down the road.

If they cannot pull out a paper from three years before where you made some crazy statement to your supplier who's now sued you that you know is factually untrue. Your credibility is shot. That's the advice that I always give is, “Let's reserve our rights and do everything we need to do to protect ourselves, but let's not overdo it.” I found that to be helpful over the years, especially in the litigation context.

That's a good point. You're talking about credibility throughout and how did people behave when the dispute began as it were. That's a very good point in terms of, as you said, who's the person you feel either is the good guy that seemed reasonable.

I always think it's always better to be the reasonable party. If anyone ever reads to this who has ever worked with me, they're going to be like, “Yes.”

That's Amanda. It's good to have self-recognition. You'd hate for somebody to listen to it and say, “She's not like that at all. What is she talking about?”

Some lawyers want to be total tigers and just attack. That's a choice. There's one particular defense contractor. I won't say its name. I always say that the lawyers must go through special training to be real jerks. That's their approach. It’s to be super. To me, whenever I would meet with anyone from that particular client, they would say ridiculous things. They would pound the table and I would look at them and say like, “Is that working for you? I don't see how it could.” I never accepted the position they were making no matter if they raised their voice at me or not. If that's what they want to do, okay. That's just not been my style. I don't find it very effective personally.

Everybody has their own style. You want to be true to your style, too. That's important to know what that is and what's genuine for you, too. That's important and how that furthers the client's needs and interests also.

Maybe if you're at that company, they're going to want you to be that tiger. That would not be the environment for me. Going back to your question about, if you want to go in-house. It’s understanding the culture of the company that you're going to join because some cultures are not going to be the right fit for you. That's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. There's no right or wrong. It's where you will be most effective and feel like you're helping and contributing.

That's a good point in general. Wherever you're selecting to work to the extent you can to know not only how can I substantively add to the company, but also, how is the culture fit with me? Are there certain approaches or behaviors that are like, “That's not me. I cannot be genuine doing that.”

Maybe there's a better culture fit somewhere else. That's an important consideration. Especially as law students, you're not thinking about that. When you're looking for it, you’re like, “It's just one opportunity. It doesn’t it do the thing I want to do.” That's fine. Everybody makes decisions at different points. In the longer term, I think these kinds of questions are important to your happiness as a lawyer.

Also, another piece of advice that I was given that I thought was great was in my last job. My boss there brought in his former boss, who's the general counsel of a very large company. He’s a distinguished gentleman. It struck me when he came in to talk to us and said, “You have to be prepared as general counsel every day to hand in your badge.” In the sense that if a decision is made by a company that you don't agree with morally or ethically, that is what you have to be prepared to do. That it's not the right place for you.”

I thought that was super interesting for a guy who made a lot of money and has a lot of success, but he acknowledged that there's more to the job as a general counsel. It might be in removing yourself. If you provide advice and you feel strongly that whatever decision that's made goes against your moral and ethical foundation, then it's time for you to go. I thought that was a super interesting aspect to it as well.

There's the cultural piece and the job satisfaction piece in terms of what you're doing day to day. There's this moral and ethical component, at least, to me, and how I think about my career and how I would follow my own path. That piece would be important as well. The fact that it came from him I thought was pretty interesting.

I was going to say when you said that, I was like, “That's not something you would expect someone in that position to be saying.” Isn't that good that he did say that and that's still his North Star?

It struck me. That's why I shared it. I don't know how if it’s a one-off, especially older men distinguish how many of them would give up the power and the prestige that would go with it but he did. It always stood by me. It stuck with me that there's this other aspect to his job and that's his own moral and ethical code that governs how he lived his life.

Space Law And Government Contracting Insights

Which is a good reminder when you're making decisions to think about that, too. You have to have your own inner compass about what you're willing to do or to be a part of. Never mind our ethical obligations as lawyers, but all of the moral part, that's yours. That's great. I would think maintaining your integrity through all of that long career is great. You have great advice. I always think that people, especially the space law students who read are like, “I want to be a space lawyer. What does that look like?” Maybe you can talk a little bit about how your work at a space company ends up interacting with your government contracting experience.

The government contracting piece is helpful to have that knowledge because the government still does fund so much of the space opportunities. It's more getting commercial, but I think having a foundational background in government contracting is helpful for anyone who wants to get into the space law arena. I don't touch on the policy aspects of international law as much. I would love to learn more about that. To the extent that you have international policy experience, that would be helpful, too.

As an in-house lawyer for a space company, I touch on all aspects of things. Export control requirements are super important to understand because our technology is controlled, both under the ITAR and under the EAR, so understanding those regulations. My company was founded in New Zealand. We have a huge facility still in New Zealand and we rely upon our New Zealand colleagues for a lot of our development efforts. Export control is a huge part of the business.

I was going to say that would be important because I was thinking of the New Zealand part of the business for sure.

Unlike any other, I've represented a lot of defense contractors. You don't usually have this foreign participation in the run of the mill. You'll have suppliers that you deal with and maybe you have a subsidiary, but we have a huge reliance on our foreign. Two of our three launch pads are in New Zealand. That's a huge aspect being an end-to-end space company. I never had to deal with the regulatory piece and launching a rocket. There's FCC requirements and FAA requirements.

That's been interesting to delve into and understand more than I did. In my last job, I worked at a company that made propulsion systems. It was a component supplier which had its own issues, by the way. I love being a prime. It's way easier to be a prime than it is to be a major sub because then, you're dealing with the pressures from your customer above and the suppliers below. My last job was hard because you're caught in the middle.

We're a little more vertically integrated. We still do have suppliers. There are supplier issues that come up but being a prime contractor dealing directly with the customer, whether it's a government customer or a commercial customer is easier. That's part of SpaceX's success, is how vertically integrated they are. It's why my company bought a whole bunch of satellite component companies over the past couple of years to be much more vertically integrated as a satellite maker.

That certainly helps a lot with the legal issues. It's across the board. We're building a new rocket, so there's all sorts of challenges associated with that. It's even to the point of building a whole new launch facility. Our new rocket will be launched at NASA Wallops facility in Virginia. Even just setting up a launch pad and figuring out how you're going to get the vehicle to the pad. We're going to have to dredge out a certain channel in the wetlands, so environmental issues.

It's across the board. Every day is so different. For people interested in space, I would say have that government contracts background, and then be prepared to learn every day about stuff that you never would have dreamed. You sit in meetings with engineers and they throw up equations and they talk about all sorts of acronyms and say science stuff. You sit there and try not to look dumb.

It is amazing how you slowly start to understand some of it. I always joke with engineers that they could do my job, probably not as good as me, but I could never do their job. Be prepared to sit in a lot of meetings where you're understanding about 20% or 30% of what you're hearing. That's okay. That's about all you need to know for our job. It's super interesting and very varied.

I know about the engineering part. My dad was an aerospace engineer, so there are things that I'm like, “I couldn't do that either.” It's fascinating.

It is. It's amazing.

That's a good overview. I was hoping you would mention that because I think sometimes people think so much, especially when they're training in space law. It's very narrow in the policy aspects or international law. You're a company operating in the world. There are a lot of different things that come up, everything from employment to, as you said, the environmental things to, now we need to set up a new launch pad, and what do we do for that. It's quite varied. Working for a space company doesn't always mean doing space law.

That's right. It's very little of that. If you are truly just interested in the policy part, that's great. Go work at a think tank. If you want to be a part of the team doing space missions, whether science or commercial missions, then a company like mine. You don't get as much policy. You do get a lot of regulations, though.

I was going to say there are regulatory. You're describing all the different things you're involved in. I can think of so many different agencies that are involved in all of those different questions, many of which you mentioned.

FAA provides a license for launch. FCC provides a spectrum for the rockets and the satellites to communicate. There are a lot of regulatory pieces that are certainly in place. There’s a lot is going on in that area. I think this is an interesting time. We're going to see what happens based on the orbital debris. We talked about the number of items in space now.

One of our rockets that launched was delayed two days because they do some analysis of the debris and how it can’t get through the atmosphere in a safe manner. It had to be delayed for a day or two because whatever the assessment was done to say, “No, it cannot launch.” It's going to become more of a problem, too. The smart minds are working on those issues. There are certainly a lot of avenues if you're interested in space that you can explore for sure.

Orbital debris, space traffic management, and all that stuff are becoming more important as there’s more people are launching. There are more people out there. Not to mention everything that's already out there. Very cool. Thank you so much for sharing your experience, your background, and your insight into what it means to be an in-house counsel, and what that role looks like in a variety of settings.

Lightning Round Questions To Wrap Up

I appreciate you doing that. It's a great window into that for both people who are practicing in a law firm and thinking about it and also law students. I appreciate your being so open about all of that experience. It's great. Typically, I conclude with a little lightning round of questions, so I'm going to start off with the lightning round. Which talent would you most like to have but don't?

I wish I could sing. I have a horrible voice and I wish I could be musical, but I am not. That would be my answer.

You need artists and you need art appreciators just like you need musicians and those who appreciate music. We need both sides of the coin. That's good. Who are some of your favorite writers?

I'm a huge reader because I was always a writer and to be a good writer, you have to be a reader. I love everything from highbrow to lowbrow. I love historical fiction, Jeff Shaara, and Edward Rutherford. There's a series I've been reading, an author C.S. Harris. It’s set in Regency. That's amazing. I love fantasy as well. I read The Lord of the Rings several times. There's an author, Brandon Sanderson, who's a prolific fantasy writer and amazing.

I love a good storyteller. A good story from Dickens to probably my first love, Stephen King. My mom brought home the book It when I was like ten. She read it aloud to my brother and I. Probably inappropriate when you think about the story, but how he tells a story is just incredible to me. If you can tell me a good story, I'm interested in. I read all the time. Everything.

We have some of the books that other people have on their episodes, so you can check that out. It's very wide-ranging. It sounds like something you would appreciate. Also, I think about good writing. There was a professor at Stanford called Nancy Packer. She taught creative writing, but she wrote a few books. She's an excellent short story writer, which I think is a total other genre of storytelling and it requires very specific skills. She only published a couple of books. She's such a beautiful architect of short story writing.

As I said, any good story. You can have super high-brow or low brow, but if you can tell me a good story, that's what I want to spend my time. We think so much in our daily lives and we're stressed about things and worried. When you can escape into a book or into a story, and I find that even better than TV or movies. For me, I love escaping into a book. It relaxes me and takes me somewhere else. I'm in awe of writers who can do that.

Stephen King is well-known for his story crafting and his writing. He has a great book about the craft of writing as well.

I've read that.

That's a good one. I want to say there's another one that Anne Lamott has about writing called Bird by Bird, which is excellent. It’s excellent about how the creative process and how you put things together. She's a great writer, too. Who is your hero in real life?

That's easy. My hero was my grandmother. I called her Bubbe, and that's the Yiddish word for grandmother. She had probably the hardest life of anybody. She was the only member of her family to survive the Holocaust. She came to America in 1947 with my mom as a ten-month-old with one suitcase. She worked in a factory at a sewing machine for 35 years. She was the most loving, compassionate, kind, and grateful human.

She would hum while she worked and baked. What she survived and to have the attitude that she did, to me, she's a hero. I try to live my life to have her be proud of me. She's no longer with us, but I don't always succeed. To live that life with gratitude, love, and kindness, considering what she went through is just amazing to me. She's the best person I've ever known. I miss her every day.

She sounds amazing. What a life. As you said, to have that attitude, you think, “How do you do that?” It makes me think I had a rough day. It's not like I had all those challenges. I should be able to go through this with a good attitude.

She's that model because I have nothing to complain about compared.

You're like, “What? What's my problem?” That's great. For what in life do you feel most grateful?

Everything. It goes back to what I just said because I think when you grow up and you know people in your family who've suffered, you realize that nothing is guaranteed. None of us are owed anything. We need to be grateful for everything we have because you just never know what's going to come down the road. I don't succeed every day, but I try to be grateful for everything. My family, husband, and that I'm healthy sitting here and never expect that I'm owed anything. Everything I have, I'm very grateful for.

“We need to be grateful for everything we have because we just never know what's going to come down the road.”

That's a great approach to life. It helps keep you a little more centered as things might go on around you too, which helps you be a good support for the people you love, too.

We cannot control much. It's almost a cliché, but you can only control yourself. We need to grow your own minds and starting with the recognition that, “I have a lot to be grateful for.” For the things that you want that you don't have, then it gives you something to work for. Starting with that foundation of gratitude for where I am, not only helps you feel better but gives you the motivation to go and make changes or seek something else out that you want.

There's still that striving and growing. It's not like you're static, but still trying to be present, which is really hard. We’re always like looking forward and always want the next thing. That's a good attitude to cultivate. Given the choice of anyone in the world, and they could be with us or not, who would you invite to a dinner party? It could also be more than one person.

This is funny that you asked this question because this is a standing bit between my mom and I that goes back. I swear to God. A news event happens and someone interesting presents themselves, we'll go back and say, “Should they be invited to the party?” Maybe because we're big history buffs. I'll say the dinner party invites could change, but there are a few standing invitations. The first would be Elizabeth I because a badass female leader would always be invited to my table. I would say Ben Franklin would be there. Sitting next to him would be Mark Twain because I just think Ben Franklin and Mark Twain together would be hilarious.

I was going to say sometimes the combinations would be fun.

Even though they lived 100-plus years apart, I think they would be amazing. Also, Abraham Lincoln. I'm sure everybody says that because as a lawyer, an American, and a human, hearing what he had to say. I'd say those are the four standing invites then it would just be supplemented.

You supplement or rotate. You and your mom decide who's meriting an additional invitation. That's so cool that you do that. That's awesome.

We have forever. It's just so funny that you asked that question.

I'm glad I asked that one, then. That's good. Last question, what is your motto if you have one?

I read this. I didn't point it, but it represents my philosophy in life. That is, better in oops than a what if. I say that to say, better to take the chance. Even if you fail, you've learned something from that failure. Even if in the short term it looks like you fail, but maybe that chance took you off on a path that you wouldn't have ever otherwise gone down. That may turn out to be the right path for you. I would say any day of the week try.

I would rather try than then look back and say, “I wonder what would have happened if I had taken that chance. I have done that many times in my life.” It's also being open to seeing the chances when they present themselves, so try. I think you learn way more than failures than if you stay in your little box because you're too afraid to step out of it, and you live your life. Regret would be the worst thing, in my opinion. Better an oops than a what if would be my motto.

That reminds me a lot of Sara Blakely from Spanx. That's her attitude to phrased a little differently. I think that's great. She's a very accomplished businessperson. That's great to share that perspective with her. Also, I thought, that goes full circle to the beginning of the episode where you talked about as a fourth-year saying, “You saw the opportunity for this accumbent. You asked for it.”

You said, “Let's see where this takes me,” and then leveled up for that opportunity. You exemplify what your motto is or at least, on occasion, you implement it from that story. It's a great way to end with that. It’s so important especially for people starting out in their careers or early in their careers because there is so much that sense of you don't want to have an oops, but that's a learning experience.

It might take you somewhere you never imagined. Also, the point of being open to opportunities that weren't already on your radar. There’s so many people are like, “I'm going for this and only this.” Along the way, maybe there are some other shops to look at along the street that might look interesting. Check out those windows as well. We can so get focused on one particular path that we don't see the opportunities, so seeing them, being open, and taking them.

Even in your personal life, too. I think it goes across both at the professional and the personal because then you're just left to wonder what could have been. Go try it then you'll know.

Thank you so much, Amanda. I knew this was going to be a great discussion. I have not been disappointed. I hope our readers get a lot from our discussion and your insights. Amanda Rutenberg, thank you so much for joining.

Thank you for having me.

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