From Boutique Firm to Big Impact: Karen O’Connor’s Path to Stoel Rives

Karen O'Connor
Partner, Labor & Employment

Abstract

Karen O’Connor, Partner in the Labor & Employment Group at Stoel Rives, shares why she joined the firm and what has kept her there for more than a decade. Coming from a labor and employment boutique, O’Connor and her colleagues recognized Stoel’s strong market presence—often winning the work they competed for—and decided to join the team they respected most. She recalls first encountering Stoel attorneys during her federal clerkship, where their skill, professionalism, and the respect they earned from her judge left a lasting impression. Fourteen years later, O’Connor continues to value the firm’s collaborative culture and deep bench of expertise. Whether the question involves an obscure legal issue or a specialized resource, she finds immediate, informed support from colleagues and staff alike. For O’Connor, the people and resources at Stoel make delivering exceptional client service both possible and rewarding.

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.

I joined Stoel a number of years ago with a couple of people that I practiced with for a long time. We were at a labor and employment boutique firm, and we were ready to make a change. We looked around, we did our due diligence, and whenever we had been losing out on work, we seemed to have been losing it to Stoel, and so we figured, well, if you can’t beat them join them, and so we did.

I was fortunate enough after I graduated from law school to clerk for a federal judge. In that role, I was able to see lots of attorneys from lots of firms. The attorneys at Stoel consistently stood out and were really, really impressive. They were not just impressive to me and to my co-clerk, but I knew how much my judge respected them as well. They had always sort of been the cream of the crop to me, and it was really attractive to me to be a part of that. It was the people that brought me to Stoel.

I feel so lucky to work with a really remarkably talented group of attorneys and business professionals. It is just a pleasure every day to come to work and interact with these people. I have been here for 14 years now, I think, and I am constantly amazed when I send out an email a client needs help in some particularly esoteric area about which I know nothing, and I will send out an email, “Has anybody looked at this? Does anybody know anything about this?” I am instantly showered with oh, you need to talk to this person, or this person has worked in this area, or…it is just remarkable. I have never sent out an email and not gotten an immediate response, not just for a random connection, but somebody who is really an expert in the area. And that is true of our staff as well. I used to joke with my assistant when I first joined about “Who are the elves? Where are the elves?” Whatever you need it is just sort of there, right? Whether you need something from the library, you need someone to find you an article, you need a particular kind of pen, you need a jury consultant. We have extraordinary resources at Stoel which makes it really easy to do our jobs.