Better Together: Meet Laura Pasqualone

The combination of Womble Bond Dickinson and Lewis Roca as of January 2025 creates a powerhouse law firm that blends deep industry capabilities with a broad geographic reach.

Together, we've grown into an Am Law 70 firm spanning the US and UK with 37 offices and 1,300+ attorneys. This combination delivers next-level legal solutions while maintaining transparency, collaboration, and respect for all our clients.

Today, we’re spending some time with Laura Pasqualone, a new member of the WBD team and a long-time attorney at Lewis Roca to talk with us about her journey as an attorney and why the combination between Womble Bond Dickinson and Lewis Roca make us better together. 

 More about Laura.

Transcript

Welcome to Womble Perspectives, where we explore a wide range of topics, from the latest legal updates to industry trends to the business of law. Our team of lawyers, professionals and occasional outside guests will take you through the most pressing issues facing businesses today and provide practical and actionable advice to help you navigate the ever changing legal landscape.

With a focus on innovation, collaboration and client service. We are committed to delivering exceptional value to our clients and to the communities we serve. And now our latest episode.

HOST:

The combination of Womble Bond Dickinson and Lewis Roca as of January 2025 creates a powerhouse law firm that blends deep industry capabilities with a broad geographic reach.

Together, we've grown into an Am Law 70 firm spanning the US and UK with 37 offices and 1,300+ attorneys. This combination delivers next-level legal solutions while maintaining transparency, collaboration, and respect for all our clients.

Today, we’re spending some time with Laura Pasqualone, a new member of the WBD team and a long-time attorney at Lewis Roca to talk with us about her journey as an attorney and why the combination between Womble Bond Dickinson and Lewis Roca make us better together. 

Thank you so much, Laura. We appreciate you taking some time out of your busy schedule to sit with us today. For starters, how did you get interested in a career in the law? When did you first decide that you wanted to become a lawyer?

LAURA PASQUALONE:

I didn't grow up knowing any attorneys. I didn't have any attorneys in my family, so I didn't really consider becoming an attorney until a little later stage in my education. I'm also a bit of an introvert at heart and I always viewed attorneys as extroverts, people who like the spotlight. And like to argue, which definitely is not me. 

I was an English major in college and I loved writing and history. In my second or third year of undergrad, I registered for a US Constitutional History class which just happened to be taught by a law professor at the school. And it was pretty much run like a law school class. And I really took to it. I really liked it. 

I'm a rule follower and I like the process of analyzing rules and figuring out how they might apply in unusual circumstances, which I think is really what being an attorney is about. And at the end of the class, my law professor asked me if I'd ever thought about going to law school. And I told him truthfully that I had never really considered it. And he's told me, well, maybe you should. I think you might be good at it. And the rest, as they say, is really history. And I think I really owe him for my career choice because I don't think the idea of becoming a lawyer would have ever crossed my mind.

HOST:

You’ve focused your career on labor and employment law, including employment related litigation. Once you decided that the law was what you wanted to do, how did you get in your particular practice area?

LAURA PASQUALONE:

So you know, the practice area kind of just fell into my lap really. I started out as a commercial litigator practicing in all areas of commercial litigation. And I happened to work with a partner here on some projects, Mary Ellen Simonson, who's an employment and labor attorney in our Phoenix office. She's been a great mentor of mine and I just really clicked working with her. 

And gradually the practice of labor and employment law became more and more of what filled my plate. And I also really enjoyed the practice. What I really like about labor. And employment law is it's such a human Focused area. We are dealing with critical aspects of a person's life, their livelihood. And there's a lot of emotion and drama that comes with the territory, which really can make things interesting. As I tell people, you can't make up the kind of things we see in our work. 

But what I like most about my area is the close, deep relationships I develop with my clients. They come to me looking for a solution for whatever challenging situation may be percolating in their workplace. And my goal always is when I end a conversation with a client, that I have a plan of action so that they feel good about the situation, and we come up with a way to resolve it together. It's not only helping them to avoid the challenges but working through the challenges when they inevitably arise. And there is this feeling of ownership in the work that we do. I'm invested in my clients, their businesses and their workforces. I get to know and learn their businesses, their people, and my goal is to help them be successful at the end of the day which I find to be very rewarding.

HOST:

Great Thank you. And in terms of your current work, what are the most pressing issues that your clients are facing? What's keeping general counsel up at night, and how do you help them solve those types of problems?

LAURA PASQUALONE:

I think one of the biggest challenges my clients are facing right now is trying to assess the employment law landscape. And under this new administration oftentimes it feels like employment rules go through these big pendulum shifts with each changing administration. And that has been especially the case under this new administration with just three months into it. It's a lot to keep up with. 

And also there's a lot of uncertainty regarding what the changing rules really mean and whether they're going to be upheld in court. One thing that has really helped me get through these challenges and give my clients the best advice is being able to seamlessly bounce these new developments by our team of labor and employment experts across Womble. And to me, this has been one of the biggest upsides of our merger. As we've expanded significantly our labor and employment practice group, many of the questions our clients are struggling with do not have clear answers. But we don't have to figure out all of these various issues alone. We have a team of experts we can strategize with to give our clients the best practical advice for going forward.

HOST:

So you’ve spent your entire career with one firm going back to your summer associate days. What made you decide to first put down roots with Lewis Roca and then now with Womble Bond Dickinson.

LAURA PASQUALONE:

I joined Lewis Roca as a summer associate, as you mentioned, after my second year of law school, and I'm an Arizona native, so I knew I was intending to stay in Arizona, and I wanted to be at a firm with deep ties to the Arizona community. Lewis Roca had such an excellent reputation with a strong history in Arizona. 

And on top of that, the people who I met during the interview process were just top notch attorneys. As a type A personality, I really gave great consideration to the decision of where to start my career. But at the end of the day Luis Roca was the clear choice for me. Its reputation in the community for excellence was unmatched. 

And looking back on that decision, I'm just so grateful that I made the choice I did. The people at Lewis Roca are really what have kept me here. I've had the best mentors, people who took me under their wing and taught me how to be a good attorney. And it's just not the attorneys that have made this place great. The staff, the paralegals. We really are a family. And that makes it easy to stay here.

HOST:

That’s great, and we’re committed to making sure that doesn’t change under the new combination. So, you've spoken a little bit already about the advantages of this combination for your clients. Anything else you want to say about that?

LAURA PASQUALONE:

Yeah. So I think most basically, we have a bigger footprint now so we can help our clients in more places. We have boots on the ground, attorneys who are familiar with the local laws and courts that we can turn to who we couldn't turn to before. 

Because employment law in particular is so state specific, having employment attorneys in more jurisdictions have been so valuable to our national clients. Not only have we expanded geographically, but the breadth of our expertise has expanded. In that way, I think this merger has helped even our local clients. 

Just the other week, for example, I had a local client with a nuanced legal issue that I wasn't quite sure how to resolve. And no one in our Lewis Roca firm, our legacy Lewis Roca firm, would have had the expertise to help. But I was able to pull in. An attorney from our D.C. office who had dealt with the issue before. We were able to give immediate cost effectiveness advice for a client. This would not have been possible at our legacy Lewis Roca firm. 

So the breadth of the expertise, the scope of our geographic reach have just expanded greatly, which I think will be a great advantage to our ability to serve our clients both locally and on a national basis.

HOST:

That's a great answer for that one. And so now we're going to skip ahead a little bit, switching gears from your client service role. You're also the managing partner of the Phoenix office and that must be a challenge in and of itself. How do you balance that role with what you do for your labor and employment clients?

LAURA PASQUALONE:

So on top of that role, I'm also a mother of two young children, so time management is definitely an ongoing challenge that I work on. With that said, I think being as busy as I am has really taught me to focus my time on the work and the relationships I most value. I truly enjoy my work and what. I do, which makes working hard a lot easier. 

I've also learned to say no to things, which I think is very important. It's great to be a yes person, but you've got to learn to say no to things that you decide just aren't worth your time. And I also have the Firm to thank for the flexibility that makes everything manageable. 

Having the ability to work from home when my kids have a school event, being able to manage my own schedule really goes a long way. And also being able to work with other women who are living through the same challenges and are succeeding. Having that support system has also been instrumental. 

I’ve had tremendous role models who I really owe to helping me learn how to balance everything. 

HOST:

So our next question is something that pertains to both your role as a labor and employment lawyer and managing partner. How do you integrate new employees onto your team? And what are the keys to successful employee integration?

LAURA PASQUALONE:

So I've tried to learn from my mentors and what really worked for me. When I, you know, work with younger attorneys, I really strive to make them an integral part of the team. I rely on them for their input and strategy. From the outset of a case, I seek direction from them rather than just giving direction. Those are qualities that I really appreciated. 

And the supervisors and the mentors I've worked with over the years and so that's something that I, an approach that I try to take when I work with younger attorneys to help them learn and go to learn and grow. It's also about fostering accountability and ownership early on. This is how I felt valued as a young associate and this is what allowed me to learn and grow. And that's the approach that I really try to take when working with younger attorneys.

HOST:

And also as part of these interviews, we like to just add a personal touch on things. It sounds like you’re really busy all the time, but what do you like to do when you're not working? How do you unwind?

LAURA PASQUALONE:

So free time. What's that? Right? Kidding though. Look I have two amazing children. A 10 year old and a 6 year old daughter. A 10 year old son. They're so much fun and they make me and my husband's life go round. I'm very involved in their activities. Their hobbies are my hobbies basically these days. My son wanted to be in the chess club so I had to brush up on my chess, but he beats me despite my best efforts. 

I'm also getting back into gymnastics, a hobby I had as a kid because my daughter loves it. She's surpassed me already at 6. But it's just fun watching them do the things they love. That's how I enjoy spending my free time. 

And as someone who loves school, as a kid, I love keeping up with my kids school stuff. Just the other day my daughter had career day at school and I had to explain to a kindergarten class what being a lawyer is. You think being a lawyer is hard? Try explaining that to a kindergarten class what we do, exactly. I'll take going to court over that any day. 

At the end of my presentation, I asked the class if anyone wanted to be an attorney and nearly the entire class raised their hand. And when I told my husband this, he said I must have given a very misleading presentation. Maybe I didn't adequately explain to them the challenges of our work but I like to think that I made an honest case for the legal profession. It was an honest case. I truly like what I do and given the chance I would choose it again. Thats really it.

HOST:

We do have one last question. Can you talk a little about your involvement in the community or with organizations that you feel strongly about? 

LAURA PASQUALONE:

Yeah So a lot of my work is for nonprofits here in Arizona which I really love. I'm general counsel for the board of directors of Donor Network of Arizona. I do employment work for the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, the Phoenix Art Museum. Weve done work for the Phoenix Zoo over the years and I really really value my nonprofit clients being integrated in their workforces and finding ways to support them. So that's really how I see myself involved in the community. 

HOST:
That was a terrific discussion and thank you, Laura, for sitting down with us today.

LAURA PASQUALONE:

Alright, well thank you.

Thank you for listening to Womble Perspectives. If you want to learn more about the topics discussed in this episode, please visit The Show Notes, where you can find links to related resources mentioned today. The Show Notes also have more information about our attorneys who provided today's insights, including ways to reach out to them.

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