Kiersten Fortson

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The Portia Project™ | Kiersten Fortson | Space Law
 

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Show Notes

We continue our Space series with Kiersten Fortson, Senior Counsel for Launch Operations at Relativity Space and former FAA counsel. Kiersten shares how an unexpected moot court competition on international space law sparked her passion for the field, setting her on a path from the Pentagon to the FAA, where she worked on the landmark Part 450 launch licensing framework. She reflects on translating complex engineering concepts into clear regulatory language, the similarities between government and in-house counsel roles, and the satisfaction of partnering with clients to advance spaceflight. Along the way, Kiersten highlights the evolving nature of space law, the value of community in this close-knit industry, and the sense of “hope” that drives her work in commercial launch operations.

 
 

About Kiersten Fortson:

Kiersten Fortson is Senior Counsel for Launch Operations at Relativity Space: an aerospace manufacturer focused on launching the future of humanity in space. Kiersten is a subject matter expert in commercial space regulation, having served as regulatory counsel for the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation for 5 years, where she helped develop and implement rules governing launch, reentry, and spaceport operation. At Relativity, she’s found her niche handling licensing, regulatory compliance, and government partnerships.

 

Kiersten began her legal career as Assistant District Counsel for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New England, where she managed a diverse portfolio of administrative, environmental, ethics, and employment law issues. She is a Nebraska native, a graduate of the University of Nebraska College of Law, and a lifelong space nerd who cherishes the opportunity to play even a small role in making launches happen.

 

Transcript

I’m so happy to have on the show someone who has experience and the cross section of so many different areas that we’ve had with our guests before, which is in-house experience, government experience, and also working in the space industry. Welcome, Kiersten Fortson. She is the Head of Launch Operations for Relativity Space.

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Welcome, Kiersten.

Thank you so much.

I am so excited to have you here. I was so glad to meet you at Space Beach Law Lab and chat with you there. I knew that I wanted you to share your experience on the show, so I’m glad this finally worked out scheduling-wise.

Honestly, the more I dug into the show and read more episodes, the more humbled I became that you would ever consider me among this slate of accomplished women. Honestly, this means a great deal to me. Thank you very much.

I’m so glad. I’m excited to hear about your journey and the advice you might have for others who might want a similar journey or, in general, in life. We’ll go back to the beginning of what drew you to become a lawyer and to go to law school in the first place.

From Orthodontics To Outer Space: Kiersten's Law School Leap

Probably a tale as old as time, I first started looking at law school because I didn’t want to become an orthodontist. My dad was very adamant that somebody among his three girls should take over the side of the business, but I’m like, “I have a pressing fear of blood. I don’t want anything to do in the healthcare world. Let me pick something that is going to meet equal esteem so that they will get off my back.” That’s how I started looking into law school. I kid you not, that’s it. It was to dodge orthodontia.

At the same time, I was looking for something that was going to be a good match for my skillset. I love to read. I love to write. That’s where it started. In college, I worked at a small firm in my hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska. I got to observe what it looks like to represent a client and take on their stories as your stories. The more I got to be around lawyers, the more convinced I became that this is precisely where I want to be.

I can’t stand the sight of blood, too. That’s a few people’s initial stories for law school, or they’re like, “I don’t want to go to business school. This is it.”

I feel like I fit into a few different cliches with it, too. I was awful at science and math. The fact that I am STEM adjacent is like, “Got them.”

Here you are, dealing with a client who’s deeply involved in that kind of stuff.

Never say never is what it comes down to.

You can evolve in skills and all of that, and then other reasons where you’re like, “This is a good idea. It’s a good fit with my skills and what I’m interested in.” Nebraska has space law in its law school. Is that how you first became exposed to it?

Unexpected Trajectories: How Moot Court Shaped A Space Lawyer

Yes and no. At the time when I started law school, I didn’t choose Nebraska, thinking that I would do space law. When I was in college, I wasn’t looking to apply. I was not aware that space law was a thing or was anything plausible. When I got to Nebraska, though, I had an awesome opportunity to go spend a whole semester working at the Pentagon for an externship.

While there, I got nervous that I wasn’t going to have any extracurriculars for the semester. I found out about a moot court competition, the Manfred Lachs International Space Law Moot Court. I’m like, “I can participate in something for Nebraska while I’m still in DC. I can learn space law. How hard can it be?” The more I entrenched myself in the core space treaties and tried to think about these problems that are not just collective action struggles, but international cooperation, where you hope that things are turning out for the best, you throw in the physical dynamics of space.

How does one try to assess fault-based liability in space? It’s extraordinarily complicated. I kept thinking to myself, “What a cool world to be thinking about often.” I met so many judges at the Manfred Lachs Competition that I’m like, “You are all such a fun bunch of nerds. What a dream to get to live like this one day. It probably won’t happen. Space law jobs are one in a million.” I tucked that in the back of my brain and went back to school.

I went back to complete the rest of my semesters. I started taking on more coursework and ended up adding a certification to my degree. I was like, “If ever the opportunity arises, I would happily jump.” I started to try and steer my career as best I could to try and land in at least something space-related. I had no idea that that would one day be down to me helping make space law, which is a terrifying thing.

That’s one of those things where you decided to do the competition, but it wasn’t because you were like, “I want to do space law.” It was for another reason. Sometimes, you do things, and they have unknown and unintended consequences that you end up loving them for different reasons. There’s something there about being very proactive, as you were.

You were finding something to do while you happened to be in DC because you didn’t have enough to do already, I’m sure. It’s about being open, looking for those, and thinking outside the box of what those could be. Some people get too tunnel-visioned and are like, “I want to do this. I’m only going to do that,” instead of opening their eyes and looking to each side of the road. Maybe there’s something else that you might enjoy.

I still feel like, to some extent, law students never ask for advice. Maybe I know I’m jumping ahead, but I feel like my advice to law students is, “Don’t feel like you need to take anyone’s advice.” It is, to me, so much more important to figure out what you don’t want to do at times. Say yes to everything. Try it. If it seems like it could be interesting, give it a whirl. The worst that can happen is you don’t have a great time, and you leave.

Say yes to everything. Try it; if it seems interesting, give it a whirl. The worst that can happen is you don't have a great time and you leave.

That’s true. That’s the time to experiment and try different things. Other than your time, there’s not a lot to lose at that point. It’s good to test it out. I also think it’s important to do that because what you think something’s going to be might be very different from what it is to do it. You might have this grand idea, like, “I want to do X,” but it turns out doing X was not at all what you thought and not as much fun as you thought it would be.

Even space law, in this one sense of the moot court, gave you the side of, “Here are the international treaties.” Since it is an international competition, they avoid any true country’s domestic laws. Everybody works with the same court treaties. For a law student, it’s easy to walk away from that experience thinking that all that matters in the space law world is these international norms, which are very applicable. For practitioners here in the US, that is the beginning. We have a whole world of domestic regulations and statutes that are applicable to what we do.

It’s still funny to me when I find myself at space conferences or, better yet, legal conferences, generally where it’s like, “Let’s do a fun space panel.” People always want to say, “Space law is brand new,” or, “Space law is nascent.” The outer space treaty is from 1967, and the principles that led to that or even older than that. We have a rigorous regime. There are lots that are moving all the time. There’s a whole other world. I had no idea as a student that I would one day be so entrenched in launch collision avoidance analysis requirements under federal law. I’m like, “I’m exactly where I need to be.”

That is true that that is the impression that you get, especially from that moot court competition. When some people talk about space law, they’ll say, “It’s international law.” It is, in part, but then there are other things, too. It’s not just that. To me, what’s interesting is the connection between international law and domestic law.

In other areas, you could be a US lawyer on something and not know the international laws or treaties that might apply because it doesn’t impact your day-to-day. That’s not true in space law because of the way the treaties operate. The domestic laws need to be in harmony with the international laws. You have to be aware of that interlocking nature in the training that you had, even to do the domestic law.

That’s precisely right. Anytime I give a 101, a primer, or raison d'être is the treaties. The reason why we have any sort of launch licensing requirements, satellite operation, and how any spacecraft operates that are from the United States all comes down to national responsibility and wanting to make sure there’s continuing supervision and international liability that’s going to read down to the United States.

It all comes down to national responsibility and the desire for continuing supervision and international liability, going to the United States.

That’s where it flows from. It is tied together with those treaty obligations, and making sure that the countries are in compliance with the treaty obligations and the ramifications if they’re not. That’s tied together. You thought, “This is something I’d like to do.” How did you end up where you are at a launch company?

Working with rockets?

Yeah.

Navigating The Regulatory Landscape: From Army Corps To FAA Space Law

Let me back up a little bit. My first job when I left law school was with the Army Corps of Engineers in New England. Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for a better first gig as an attorney because it was much more than getting my feet wet with environmental permitting, a little bit of government contracting, and a little bit of labor law.

It was a small legal team for a rather large Army Corps district. It gave me a solid foundation for the administrative process. What does it look like to produce regulations? What does the notice and comment period look like? How do you need to tie it back, scope-wise, to your statutory authority? It was a good framework because an opportunity came along a few years later to join the FAA’s regulatory team. The job listing at the time was going to have airman certification, with probably a little bit of drone work, with the potential for some space. I’m truly a space nerd through and through, so I jumped.

I know that you’ve had some guests who have talked about this before. It’s 100% true that your skills as an attorney are so transferable regardless of subject matter. Understand how to interpret statutes. Understand how to apply a rulemaking process. For the FAA, all of this helped me find my place. As luck would have it, I joined the FAA at a time when the FAA was going through a big rulemaking process to create a new licensing framework. That licensing framework is in effect, 14 CFR Part 450.

It's 100% true that your skills as an attorney are so transferable, regardless of subject matter.

If you hear about it in the news, it’s the source of a lot of pain because it is a very performance-based regulation. There’s a lot that comes from both the industry side and the FAA side in wrestling with challenging regulations. They try to have one set of rules that fits all types of operations, but all of us operators are very different from one another. We’re heading in the right direction. I jumped on board in time for a massive rulemaking effort, so on the one hand, it did solidify my intent to be on the space side of this portfolio.

It was a little bit more than a small percentage of space. That’s pretty exciting. That’s perfect timing.

It also meant that COVID was not the worst part of my 2020, to give you a sense of how much time. Day in and day out from a little apartment in DC. I got to join the commercial space team. Over the years that I was there, they broke off the commercial space lawyers into their own group, which was wonderful. Certainly, the industry demand made a lot of sense that you should have attorneys entirely focused on this.

I am so grateful, honestly, for the time that I got to spend with some brilliant engineers who took the time to explain rocketry. That’s a thing. I’m not an engineer. I am not a technical person in any way. When I say that law fits my skillset, it was not just the writing and reading aspect. I love learning. That’s what we do. We’re lifelong learners. We try to put ourselves into the mindset of what our clients need, understanding their circumstances, and trying to figure out how to best move forward.

In the rocketry world, there is so much I didn’t understand. I’m like, “I need someone to help me piece together how one evaluates the safety of a launch. How do you get enough information on paper to explain why you have identified all possible ways that this can go wrong?” You have a strong method to ensure that your trajectories are what you say they’re going to be. You’ve considered possible hazards. You’ve mitigated those hazards. You’ve presented a notification to the public. All of these go into it. I’m grateful for all of these folks who’ve taken the time and are still good friends.

That makes a lot of sense. If you’re doing that at the FAA, then you want to have that input. How did you get that input?

Specifically from my client offices?

Yeah.

Project by project. You’d get either a licensing question. A potential applicant wants to come in, and they’ve got a technical issue. I’m so grateful to the engineers who would sit down. I would say something like, “The regulation says far field over blast pressure effects. It’s not an easy acronym. What does that mean?” They’re like, “When boom happened here, boom can happen over there.” I was like, “Honestly, I appreciate that so much.”  To give me a sketched-out, like, “What are we talking about? I understand. A subsequent disaster later, you’re worried about windows breaking at a distance.”

This would happen so many times. I’m leaning forward a little bit when you’re asking, “What are your accomplishments that you’re most proud of?” Lowkey, one of the things I’ll always be very proud of is how hard I have worked to understand what we’re talking about. It’s to make sure that when I advise on space law, it’s not just coming from a sense of, “Here’s what the statute says. Here’s what your regulation says,” but knowing how these pieces fit together. I know a lot more about propulsion than any old attorney should.

Translating Rocket Science For Legal Minds

That comes from that experience at the FAA. I’m glad you said that because I have wondered about how you figure out what the appropriate safety regulation is and what kind of consultants and people can work with the lawyers on that. How do you do that? In the perfect world, maybe you don’t have to understand, but in the best scenario, it would be nice if those who were working out the regulations did understand so that people who are subject to them would understand what they’re supposed to do.

If I had a dollar for any time I said, “Explain it to me like I’m a kindergartner.” This is true for both while I was at the FAA, but also in my role. When I work with engineers, I feel like so often, the role of legal is to try and translate. It’s like, “Engineers who are so brilliant but not generally the best at writing, how do we synthesize what you’ve done, package it into something that clearly shows why we’ve met all of the regulations that somebody else’s engineer’s lawyers wrote, and make sure that they’re speaking the same language?”

Part of that is being able to communicate on both ends, like communicating what the requirements are in a way that could be understood by those who are subject to the regulations. You’re then able to communicate back to the agency, “We have done these things. We’re careful, good stewards who are complying with this. We understand what the focus of avoiding the hazards is. Here’s what we’ve done.”

The FAA rule is honestly set up in a way that is very flexible in the way that operators can choose however they want to comply with these regulations. That’s the concept. It does mean that there’s a lot more work from both ends to try and explain what it is that we’ve done and why it is safe enough.

I hadn’t thought about it from that perspective before.

It’s easy on the one hand to say, “Here’s a numeric threshold. You must do this this number of times,” rather than saying, “Do this safely.” You’re like, “What does it mean to do this safely?” For us, we would say, “We’ve considered all possible hazards. We’ve applied mitigations. The risk to the public is low.”

There has to be some flexibility in those standards because each situation is different, each rocket is different, and the launch scenario is different. You can’t just say, “It has to be exactly this, this, and this each time,” because that might not be possible.

Honestly, there are so many considerations that go into a launch authorization. It is wild. I’ll always be grateful. Even though working on a regulation that large was so time-consuming and very hard labor, it helped me understand so much more about what this process looks like, from delivering your hardware to the launch site, pre-flight preparation, and the actual phases of flight. What do you do afterward? What does the end of flight look like? Are you disposing? Are you re-entering?

That’s so interesting. That’s a good time for you to take that position. That’s pretty amazing. It’s the most important regulation in space flight, and you happened to be there when that was happening. That’s pretty awesome.

It was fortuitous. Dumb luck could probably characterize a lot of my bio.

I like that. Also, luck meets opportunity. You’re looking for opportunities, too. You’re like, “I see that 5% mention of space.” You took that narrow window, and a door opened once you got in there. That’s pretty cool. If you hadn’t done that, you wouldn’t have had that opportunity or experience.

It’s so true. Up until even applying for that, living in New England and working for the Army Corps, I was looking for every possible way to slide a toe to be like, “I’ll attend more space conferences. I’ll keep judging the Manfred Lachs Moot Court. I’ll keep seeing what all of these judges are up to in their professional worlds.” It’s a good tip for law students or anyone thinking about it. Stay plugged in. Your skills will be transferable.

That can be hard to do when you have other things that you need to do. You may have your current job. You’re like, “Should I do this to myself, adding these additional things?” That’s partly where it shows to both yourself and others that you do have an interest. You’re continuing to remain involved.

Big time.

You have a continued interest in it. That’s true. I have also found that those serendipitous things are helpful. There is still a relatively small range of folks who are involved consistently in space and space law. People get familiar with you, and then opportunities come up at the coffee break or whatever. That’s how it goes.

That’s the other thing, too. If I describe how I got interested in space law, that’s one thing, but why did I stay in space law? A huge reason for that is the community itself. It is a very small world. Most of us do know each other, especially if they’ve touched the moot court. Having moved to this industry pretty quickly and not worked in other industries, it’s hard for me to guess, but I am pretty sure the space law community might be one of the most collegial, warm, and supportive of many out there, especially the space law ladies.

You’ve gotten to have a taste of this as well. Despite STEM being still disproportionately male to female, somehow, the space law world is a little bit more breakeven. The women who are there are some of the most encouraging, inspiring people that you could ever hope to meet. Being a part of this community is such a blessing. We all continue to push each other forward, which is, in some ways, miraculous.

The Power Of The Space Law Community

That’s true. There’s genuine support and collegiality.

Even friends giving a nudge when I’d been at the FAA for a little while, like, “Relativity might be looking for a launch operations council.” The truth is, I wasn’t looking to leave. It feels funny to say now as a former Fed. I left a little thing before the big time.

That’s amazing. People give you that good-hearted nudge. That is how I look at it.

To be like, “I know of this company. I think they’d be fantastic. You should give them a whirl.” That is a version of how I got up to Relativity. Honestly, to pivot into what it is between government and in-house, I don’t know if this has come up yet in any of your previous interviews, but I don’t think that the in-house government attorney role is that different from in-house.

From the regulatory side, you’re saying?

No, from the organizational side. Government attorneys are partnered with their agency. I was working very closely at the FAA with our engineers to figure out, “How do we move forward? What’s the right answer?”

You have the same kind of partnership when you’re in-house counsel.

If you are outside counsel, you are contacted for a discreet issue. You do your part, and you may or may not be called again. It’s something like that. We are partnered. I feel lucky that, rather early in my career, a light bulb came on that the way I thrive in practicing law is when I’m partnered with my clients, and we are working together on a shared goal. There’s a relational aspect, too. They don’t choose you per se, at least not like in government. Your clients aren’t necessarily choosing you, so you want to make sure that you would want them to choose you.

That’s a good point.

I wanted to be the type of attorney where I’m like, “Let me be someone that you trust, that you will bring in early, and that you will want to share even future projections of risk, like what your goals are and what you’re thinking about going forward, so that I can help get us there.” There’s this trust-building element that I’m like, “This is how I thrive as an attorney.”

That’s so key. I hadn’t thought about that similarity between the agency and the government work. You’re right. There is that similarity between them. You’re having a similar role hand-in-hand with your client. That’s different from practicing in a law firm. It’s this ongoing relationship across various challenges, issues, or legal questions.

That is a very different thing. Some people like that, as you said you do. Others are much better suited for law practice in a law firm or something like that, where they don’t have that ongoing partnership. Recognize what it is that you liked about it, despite the fact that on the surface, it looks very different. One’s working for the government, and one’s working for private industry, but there’s a parallel between your role in both of those.

It’s very possible that my feelings about practicing law in this way would change if it wasn’t space anymore. The thing is, I love being so plugged into this community. I am fascinated by the technology. I am a bona fide space nerd. I am not an engineer or an astrophysicist, so my way to contribute to this community is in this specific way. Everything about the idea of working in partnership with your clients to achieve the objective of your organization together is music to my ears. I love this. I love being part of the team.

Relativity Space: Pioneering Rocketry And Policy In The Private Sector

That’s so cool. I  think that’s interesting, the way you see the similarities between those. I haven’t heard someone say that before, but I can see it now that you described it.

Every day, there’s something new. It’s like, “What are we doing today?”

That’s awesome. Tell me about Relativity and how you’re using your experience with Part 450 from the FAA to help Relativity in their work.

Relativity is a rocket and additive manufacturing company. We are headquartered in Long Beach, but I’m still based in DC. We design and manufacture reusable rockets. A big part of getting to space is that you need to have a lot of federal authorizations. Luckily, I came over with a good understanding of the overlay of those different federal requirements.

In my role as launch operations council, I manage our licensing program and overall compliance efforts. It’s very funny to be on the other end of the table. I know for sure that I’m in a very unique situation, being able to understand the good intent behind some of the regulatory requirements, even if they are time-consuming and troublesome at times, and also help understand what my engineers are trying to achieve, and make sure that we are on the same sheet of music with our FAA regulators. It’s not just the FAA, too. We’ve got a few other licenses that are at play as well. We also launched from Cape Canaveral. We’re working very closely with SLD 45.

The thing that I had in the back of my mind when I left the FAA for the private sector was that as much as I loved being in this position at the FAA to learn a whole lot about different operations going on around the country, or around the world even, if you’re an US entity and you launch somewhere in the world, you need an FAA license. It doesn’t have to be the US.

I loved being able to have this 1,000-foot view, but when you’re the government or when you’re a regulator, you are impartial to all of it. I’m like, “I would like to feel what it’s like to be on the team, to be working collectively to do something that is so challenging.” That’s where I am. Everything that I hoped for regarding how it feels to work with a group of people who are super smart and super dedicated to doing something that is very challenging is awesome. You’re familiar, I’m sure, with the phrase of iron sharpening iron. This is where I’m set to thrive.

Working with super smart, dedicated people on a challenging task? It's awesome.

It’s challenging all around, so you have to move up in the skillset each time. That’s always fun.

I know I’ve spoken already about the ladies in space law that are fantastic, but it takes a certain type of personality to be like, “I’m an engineer who understands how to get this giant hunk of metal to lower Earth’s orbit.” I am willing to do this under an aggressive timeline and with so many different factors that could stand in the way of me achieving my goal. This is quite the team. It’s awesome. The thing that I love most about working in the space world, though, is that there’s so much hope. Anyone who launches something into outer space is doing so with a vision of tomorrow that is better than today.

That’s the goal. You’re right. It’s part of a belief, in a greater sense. Everybody gains meaning from their work in different ways, and what that means to them about having a purpose-driven or meaningful life. It’s different to be working as part of a larger mission, whatever that is. It’s hard enough to just launch a rocket, but then you have a larger vision on top of that. To be part of making that happen is cool.

It’s not just that I’m working on regulatory compliance here. The thing that I know we’ve touched on a little bit about space law is that it’s not nascent. The principles and the frameworks are there, but there is a lot for certain space activities that are still coming into formation. What eventually becomes the law is so driven by what the industry norms are, and those are changing. In that sense, we have an opportunity, all of us in the launch and re-entry community, to make sure that our technology is safe and the capabilities are improving, so that the norms that flow from this thereafter are what we want them to be. Policy drives the way that we conduct our operations.

Lawyers As Architects: Shaping The Future Of Space Policy

It’s neat to be an integral part of launching the rocket and doing all of that.

I have the smallest role in launching the rocket.

If you don’t have a license, you can’t launch it, so it’s very integral.

That’s very true.

That’s what I’m saying. You may not have done anything with the building and all that, but that’s not our thing.

No one’s going to ask me to weld.

You can’t launch without the license. There you go. Also, the re-entry, so you can come back. That’s very cool. One thing I ask about, too, is the role of mentors or sponsors in your career, how they’ve helped you, and how you pay it forward to others. The reason I ask is that sometimes, people have a view of what mentoring is. They have one view, but it can be many different ways. That’s why I like to ask this, so that people can recognize it when they’re experiencing it. It’s like, “Someone’s trying to help you. Help them help you.”

I’m glad that you said that because my initial answer is always that it is the collective group of people who are like, “Why don’t you try this? Have you thought about this? What if you put your name in for? Have you tried this conference? Why don’t you go see what you can learn from this? Go have lunch with that person. See if they’ll have coffee.”

Those nudges have come from such a large range of people who are both colleagues and friends that I know in space law. I wouldn’t point to a single one of them as a driver of career, but rather this collective idea of particularly helpful women pushing each other forward. That’s been fantastic. When I think about paying it forward, it’s imposter syndrome. There’s still a part of me that’s like, “Am I the one who has advice now to give? That came up so fast. You’re probably right.”

I try to make sure that whenever any students approach me and they want to have coffee or they’d like to do a virtual one-on-one chat, I try to make myself available for those as often as I can. It’s crazy how quickly the tables will turn. Years go by so quickly. I’m like, “You’re right. I do have a lot of knowledge in this area.” It’s so important.

As we are developing the legal norms that are going to continue to govern this industry and future technology, we need more smart people. We need more and more people, especially from the attorney aspect, who are willing, if they don’t have a technical background, to sit down, listen, learn, and be willing to accept when they don’t know things. That’s also an important rule. You’ll never catch me pretending if I do not know. In space law, you'll quickly be humbled on that.

As we develop the legal norms to govern this industry and future technology, we need more smart people.

That’s for sure. That’s right. As far as in-house, you want to, in general, be out with the people who are doing things so you can understand how that works. In this scenario, it’s the engineers.

I am so grateful. Mentorship is the word I should be using more often, but it is never the one that comes to mind. It is more so nudge each other forward in the legal community.

That’s why I mentioned that, because I do think it can come in different ways. We’ll often hear this from law students or people who are in summer positions. They’re like, “We hear we need a mentor.” There might be many people who you can get good advice from and who can be mentors at different points in time, but their impression of this is like, “We need this one mentor who’s going to make all the difference.”

They’re like, “We need a mentor who can dedicate all their time.”

Exactly. For other people, that’s not true, but it doesn’t mean that there aren’t mentoring moments, opportunities, or people who come at the right time, even the people who give you nudges and recommend things. They say, “Have you considered X?” Maybe you haven’t, or you didn’t know about it, or it took someone to say that out loud for you to realize, “That would be a good opportunity for me.” All of that is very helpful. None of it is expected or required, so I always consider it a gift when any of that happens.

You’re 1000% correct.

It’s exactly what you said. I’m like, “When this is happening, this is a good thing. You should pay attention to it. It doesn’t always happen this way.” I’m glad we talked about that. We talked a little bit about your proudest moment in your in-house career. You talked a little bit about that, but I don’t know if there’s anything else you wanted to mention.

Beyond The Books: The Value Of Varied Experiences In Law

When I compare, looking at this incredible panel of women that you’ve been able to speak with over the course of these episodes, there’s a part of me that thinks, “I am in the thick of it compared to some of these people who’ve had much longer careers at this point.” I have so much gas in the tank. I’m sure that what I think of as my most prized accomplishment at this point is going to change a lot.

From where I sit, I am equally very proud of myself for not only doing the hard work to be good counsel to my clients and this industry, but also that, as a young attorney, or even as a law student trying to figure out what I wanted to do, there is so much pressure. I know that we’ve talked about this before, like, “You’ve got to follow this narrow path. You've got to do a clerkship. You’ve got to do this.” I’m proud of myself for being willing to try different things and not just the moot court.

Even in the summer after my 1L year, I wanted to travel. I found something called the International Bar Association. I interned at a law firm in Uruguay. I had a wonderful time. I had the greatest time. It’s this mentality of, “Try all of the things. Figure out if you want to do these types of international agreements. Figure out if you want to be in litigation. Try all of them.”

I am proud of myself that I tried quite a few, and I found what felt the most true to me, which was a relational attorney-client position working with the Army Corps of Engineers. I had to work hard to earn the trust of my New England Dredgers or the hearty New Englanders. To be fair, I was 26. They did walk into our first meeting, where they caught me googling breakwater. It does not instill confidence in my defense. We didn’t have those in Nebraska, so I’m like, “What’s a jetty?”

They were like, “We’re going to start baseline with this one.”

I’m sure that from their perspective, I might as well have had crayons, saying, “Here’s what we should do.” I worked hard to learn their trade, learn the parameters, and develop that. I’m like, “This is fun for me.” I like helping a client succeed by partnering in this way. I’m proud of myself for figuring that out early. I didn’t have to go the route that you hear from some, where they’re like, “I got sucked into this career field, and it’s too late to turn back now.” Maybe it wouldn’t have been where I was happiest, but I feel lucky in that way. I’m proud of myself for that.

The Sweet Spot Of Law: Thriving In Relational Legal Roles

I was going to say that. With what you’ve described so far, that clicked with you earlier than most people. Most people weren’t thinking about that. That is not only skills, but you were like, “What are my best skills? What do I like the most, not only in the substantive topic, but the work? How do I like to work in a team? What kind of scenarios do I like to work in? What do I feel most fulfilled?”

It’s true. I’m my best version as an attorney when somebody else is teaching me something that is also challenging me to learn a lot more to get smarter on something. In both government and in-house, when we’re thinking about the advice that I’m giving, it is also couched in terms of the organizational mission. There are a lot of different factors. It isn’t just, “What does this specific law say that you can do in this case?”

I'm my best as an attorney when someone else is teaching me, challenging me to learn more, to get smarter on something.

It might be a question of risk management, like, “What’s the most practical way to get to what we need to accomplish? What’s risk-averse? What would be a little bit more risk that we’re taking on? What are our overall objectives, and how do we move from there?” I like being part of the team that is making these decisions collectively. I don’t need to be the decision-maker, but I also don’t need to be the one who pontificates, “This is the answer,” and then peaces out.

I think about that, too, when I’m asked to look at something for a client. Especially as an appellate lawyer, there’s this theoretical academic thing that we could talk about, and then there’s what’s more likely to happen. We say, “Knowing all of this practically, what are your options?” I feel like, whether you’re inside the organization or outside, you need to be able to offer those. Offering the legal answer is not what someone’s looking for. They’re like, “How does this fit into our other decisions that we’re making, as well as the goals and risk profile?” You can’t make that decision without putting it within all of that.

You need your client to be understood.

To understand, “Here’s what we could do, but what is the optimal outcome for you? What do you want to happen?”

I like that strategic thinking. This is the most fun. I’m grateful, too, for the pivot to in-house. It’s probably a function of a little bit of the size of our company, but because we’re on the top end of a startup, we’re growing a little bit. A startup is starting to feel like less of an accurate term. The option to expand legal practice to fit business needs is also something. I’m at a stage in my career and am of the mentality that I want to learn more. Let’s go.

You’re right. It’s not like we have this slot and this role, and everything’s set. It’s been that way for years. No one’s going to go outside that boundary.

Space is an excellent area for there to be scope growth.

That’s good.

We’re going to change the scope of our mission a little bit, which is going to require some different operations over here. It’s time to learn some real estate stuff.

You’ve got some new things.

New permit problems.

Spaceports and all that good stuff. That's very cool. I’m so happy for you.

Thank you so much.

You seem happy in what you’re doing and fulfilled in it. It’s always nice to see that and feel that.

For anyone reading, it took a long time to get here, though. It’s like walking on sunshine at this point, but it took a long time. That patience and space law being a distant dream, it did happen sooner than I thought it would, but if you rewound the clock, I don’t think I would’ve seen any of this coming, per se. It still feels like some days, it was that perfect combo of p planco. I’m grateful. That’s something I’m working on enjoying. It’s like, “Enjoy your moment more.”

You keep driving, and you’re like, “How about the moment? How about being in the present?”

It’s like, “You got a lot of the things that you dreamt of. Slow down.”

That’s so true. That’s part of being curious and wanting to improve. I agree with you, especially in the space sector. Both of those things are true about a lot of the people who are drawn to it. They have curious minds, and they want to continue to learn and be excellent at things. If you have that inherent drive, you can sometimes forget to enjoy where you are because you’re always focused on, “I’m going to get to that next thing that I’m going to learn or add to my quiver.”

That’s entirely true.

That’s pretty cool. I usually ask a few lightning round questions at the end. First of all, which talent would you most like to have, but don’t?

I promise you, when I looked at this list of questions, my first answer is usually the truest one, but they’re all ridiculous. I wish that I were better at plumbing and carpentry. Both my fiancé and I owned a property before we met each other. We’re big into DIY. We’ve done a lot. I can’t touch anything plumbing. I wish that I had the space and the skillset. There’s a good chance that one day, when I retire, I’m going to pick up carpentry. I love working in this way, and I wish I had it. It could save us some time.

It would be helpful to have those.

What was the thing you said about trying to add more to the plate when I didn’t need it?

I see a trend here. There are a lot of people who avoid plumbing at all costs. Where the water goes, it’s hard to figure that out. It’s much more challenging.

Those tasks I haven’t touched yet.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself, and then what is the trait you most deplore in others?

This is very revealing. I can be pretty impatient. It serves me well at times in my line of work, where we do need to move quickly. However, when I’m out in the wild, engaging with people there, my fiancé is very kind about being like, “We could probably temper down a little bit.” I’m trying to work on this a lot more. This is precisely what we’ve been talking about.

I’m not appreciating the moment and not taking time to be like, “What is the rush in your personal life? Calm down. You’re fine.” I’m trying to do better at that. At the same time, the quality I deplore in other people is when they’re needlessly slow or unresponsive. I’m like, “I’m the problem.” It seems I try to go outward-facing. It’s still my own bad lens.

It’s tied together. It’s the flip side. That’s why I was asking. Sometimes, you’re like, “Those go together.”

I’m a work in progress there.

The first thing is recognizing and acknowledging. We’re there, at least. That’s an improvement. Change is possible. It all goes together. There’s the good side and there’s the challenging side of the coin. They’re together. You’re more hard-driving and forward-thinking. You're going to move fast to accomplish things.

One day, you’re going to turn around and be like, “Where’d my life go?”

It’s like, “You need to smell the roses a little bit,” but then, as a result of that, you’re impatient with others. You’re like, “Hey.”

It’s never where my heart is. That’s where I’m like, “Line up your head with your heart. Maybe we’ll start with that.”

Personal Growth And Professional Fulfillment

That’s good. Slow down and think about that. That’s a good tool for working on that. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained one quality or ability, what would it be?

That’s very tough, other than the plumbing and carpentry.

I was like, “In addition to that.” Maybe that could be the plumbing and carpentry. We don’t know.

If I could wake up and have an ability, I would add as many languages as a genie’s wish would allow me to have. I am still fluent in Spanish, although I never have opportunities to practice anymore. I love learning languages, and I don’t have the opportunities to study them like I used to. I still take such immense pleasure when I get to break that Spanish out. I remember thinking as a kid in Nebraska, “These are keys to unlocking other parts of the world and learning some stories that I wouldn’t have heard if my brain didn’t know how to translate this.” I wish that constantly, I had a whole library of languages in my head. That’d be cool.

The challenge with learning additional languages is that when you’re in the process of learning those languages, you fill in the gap with the words you don’t know with words from the other languages you do know. It’s not English. Your brain goes, “Foreign language,” and it finds one. In the beginning, you end up speaking this weird combination of languages. People are like, “What are you saying?” After you get over that, it’s good. You don’t even hear it. When you do it, you don’t even hear yourself doing it. People look at you and you’re like, “Did I mix up languages again? I did.”

You’re like, “Did I not make sense?” It was dumb for me to try and learn Portuguese while working in that firm in Uruguay. I sound illiterate to everyone.

You’re like, “I don’t think this is helping.”

I’m not even sure I’m good at English.

Who are your favorite writers?

I read so much. I love Octavia Butler. I love good sci-fi. At the same time, so much of my sense of humor is still sardonic to its core. Kurt Vonnegut will always speak to me. I’ve read every single Vonnegut.

When you said the humor, I was like, “It must be Kurt Vonnegut.”

God bless you, Mr. Rosewater is still one of my favorite books of all time. I don’t have anything else to say for myself.

I knew that when you said that. I’m like, “I know where she’s going with this one.” Have you seen one of his things about storytelling? There’s a YouTube video of him teaching, “Here’s what the story arc is,” and all that stuff. It’s fascinating.

I’m going to pre-empt your question, for anyone reading. You’re going to ask about dinner. I’m not going to say the same person twice, but also, truly, it probably would be Kurt Vonnegut. He has passed. We won’t get to have too many more bits of insight into his writing process, but I feel like he viewed the world, the human condition, and its absurdity in some of its structures in such a way that I’m like, “That’s a brain worth picking.”

It’s interesting, his perspective. That’s how I feel about some of the great writers who also have very good writing books, like Stephen King and Anne Lamott. They’re great books on writing, but in some of them, you learn about their process and how their mind works about the writing process. That’s fascinating. They reveal that part of themselves.

There is no writing book. You think about how they write it, what they think of, and how their process works. I think of the same thing. Each would be slightly unique. One would be super interesting and probably not able to be replicated. I don’t think I would apply any of those things to my own writing, but it would be interesting to figure that out. Who is your hero in real life?

I don’t think I use the word hero very often because, for some reason, I always connote this with somebody that you idolize. I think of everybody as entirely human and imperfect in their own beautiful ways. When I was 22, all of my “heroes” would’ve been people who were a lot further along in their careers and quite a bit older than me. I still have some that I feel would fit that definition.

I’ve had such a good chance to cultivate a close group of people around me that some of my heroes are peers. I’ve got to work with a couple of cool colleagues where I’m like, "Even in your legal practice, I would like to emulate the way that you treat people. I would like to emulate your moral compass.” I have a friend who has a good way of solving problems. It’s a good mix. If I try to name-drop all of them, we’re going to be here for a long time.

The Unwavering Support System

We won’t do that then. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?

My family, 100%. No question. That includes my dude.

I was going to say that. I’m like, “We must include him in this.”

My family is collectively so supportive. I’m lucky that I had a family that was like, “You can do anything that you want to do. You are capable.” Sometimes, that was misadvised. I wasn’t capable of all of the things that my mom said.

You can do absolutely anything that you want to do. You are capable.

That attitude, though, matters because it gives you the freedom to do those things. It may turn out that you’re like, “That was a crash and burn. No way. That was not a good fit,” but you get the practice going out there, doing it, and trying new things. You’re more apt to do that in the future. Also, it gives you strength to have that support.

I’m like, “Even if it goes completely sideways, I am still loved. I am still fine.”

You’re like, “They still believe I’m capable of this. I was not, but it’s beautiful that they thought that.”

I didn’t need to stay in hip hop dance classes as long as I did.

My dad was always like, “Go for it. Whatever.” My mom is very practical. She will say things like, “You should not be doing that.” I also took a hip hop dance class a couple of times. My mom was like, “Did you make it out of there alive?” because I’m not very coordinated.

Me neither. I’m terrible at any kind of dance.

The routines. I couldn’t remember all the pieces. She’s like, “I’m amazed that you made it through that.” I’m like, “It was fun. I know I did do every piece.” There’s some freedom in that, too. You’re very excellence-focused and all this stuff, but it’s giving yourself permission to try something that you know, “This is not my bag. It’s not my thing, but maybe it could be. I don’t know. I’ll try it, but it’s not my natural best self.” It’s okay to try things and not be the best at them. There are some things where you’re like, “I’m never going back to that again because that was bad.”

You only need to try standup once.

That’s what I’m saying. There are a few things where you’re like, “That was good. I did that.” We’ll get to the dinner party. Given the choice of anyone in the world with us or not with us on this plane, who would you invite to a dinner party? It could be more than one person if you can’t decide.

Honestly, Kurt Vonnegut is still such a good answer, but the other one I have in the canon that’s so true is that there are so many questions that I would ask Sally Ride. I want to ask her about how it felt to be pushing through her career at the time that she was. There’s not enough interview footage from when she was alive that covers some of those specific points. We had too many interviewers back then who were still asking absurd questions about hair and makeup in space. If I could go back to that, I’d be like, “No.”

That’s right. A lot of her stuff went up for auction. Did you see that? It includes her journal that she handwrote when she was up on her first flight. It’s like a day-to-day journal of what her experience was. It’s pretty cool.

That’s amazing. I did not see this, but I’d be like, “It is me. I’m not a scientist. One day, years in the future, I will be helping.” I’d have so many questions.

I like that. That’s a good one. I like that one. Last question. What is your motto, if you have one?

I am Midwestern through and through. Work hard and be nice to people.

That is a very Midwestern answer. Speaking as a daughter of someone who grew up in Chicago, that sounds very familiar to me.

Be nice and do your best. A lot of things will go well for you if those two things are true. Maybe that’s the actual thing that gets under my skin. If people are needlessly mean, it’d be hard for me to come back from that.

Gratuitously. There’s no need.

There’s no purpose.

Thank you so much for this. This was awesome. I’ve enjoyed it. It was so fun.

Thank you for this incredible honor. It was so wonderful.

Thank you.

Third Boxcar LLC
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Rachel Williams