Collaboration and Creativity: How Stoel Rives Delivers Client-Centered Solutions

Karen O'Connor
Partner, Labor & Employment

Abstract

Karen O’Connor, Partner in the Labor & Employment Group at Stoel Rives, highlights the firm’s deeply collaborative culture and its value to clients. She explains that collaboration extends beyond individual practice groups to span offices, disciplines, and areas of expertise—allowing the firm to meet a wide range of client needs effectively. O’Connor also emphasizes the creativity that defines Stoel’s approach. Clients often already understand the legal framework when they reach out, but they seek trusted advisors who can help them choose the best path for their business and circumstances. This means providing guidance that blends legal knowledge with practical business insight, rooted in a strong understanding of each client’s industry and objectives. For O’Connor, it’s the combination of collaboration and creativity that enables Stoel Rives to deliver truly client-centered solutions.

Transcript

My name is Karen O'Connor. I am a partner in the Labor and Employment Group, formerly of the Portland office, recently moved to the Boise office. I counsel clients in complex employment situations and then help them navigate those situations when they become litigation.

One of the things I like most about our firm and that immediately comes to mind when I think about Stoel is collaborative. We have an incredibly collaborative culture. We are collaborative not just within our practice groups, but across offices, across practice groups, and across areas of expertise. And that is enormously exciting. More to the point, it really helps us service our clients' needs across a really broad spectrum.

I also think that we are a pretty creative group of lawyers and professionals. Our clients do not just come to us to know what the law is. Honestly, I think most of them probably know when they contact us. They look to us to be a trusted advisor and to help them make the right decision, not just the legal decision, but what is the right decision for the business and the particular situation, which requires us to be creative, and it requires us to be really thoughtful, and it also requires us to know and understand our clients' business and what their needs are. So, I think we are really creative, too.