67: What It’s Like To Be a Technology & Start-Up Lawyer With Tom Knox, Morrison Foerster [Main T4C episode]

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Tom Knox is a Partner and Strategic Advisor at the law firm, Morrison Foerster, where he counsels clients on corporate, financing, technology transactions and sourcing matters, serving as a strategic advisor to companies in the technology, media, life sciences, transportation, manufacturing and government services sectors, and to investors in such companies.  Today his career is the perfect bridge between his personal interests and his professional skills. As a technology lawyer in northern Virginia, Tom spends time supporting tech startups and planning their financial steps to success. In his senior year of college at Middlebury, Tom Knox knew he would embark on one of two paths: he would follow many others and take the timeless position of a lawyer, or he would break the mold by becoming a computer scientist and entering the then-budding world of Silicon Valley. Instead, Tom found a way to traverse both worlds. Not surprisingly, Tom’s masterful balancing skills extend to his family life, where over the years he has juggled brokering deals at work with spending meaningful time with his four children. He may not be the flashy courtroom prosecutors we see on TV, or the jean-sporting Silicon Valley entrepreneur, but that’s because Tom has always marched to his own drummer.  And so, in his own down-to-earth way that is at once supremely self-confident, modest and exceptionally talented — Tom has carved out a niche and found his passion.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT IN THIS EPISODE:

• What a technology lawyer does on a day-to-day basis
• How to balance your interests and skills to find the perfect career
• How northern Virginia is also a hub for startup companies
• How to impress your boss early on by “managing up”
• Why it’s important to put the hard work in while you’re young
• Whether or not law school is the right career track for you
• A little more about Chief Java Junkie Andrea as she and Tom are old friends dating back to when they were in college!