Kim Koopersmith's Winning Legal Strategy at Akin Gump

Kim Koopersmith is as surprised as anyone by the path her career has taken. On April 1, Koopersmith, 53, assumed the chairmanship of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, an 850-lawyer global law firm with strong roots in Washington, D.C., and Dallas, Texas. Koopersmith, a litigator, is the fourth chair in the firm’s 68-year history and the first woman to hold that position. It's not exactly what she had in mind back in law school: “I assumed I would be working in some public interest capacity,” she says. “It was a surprise to me that I was at a law firm at all.”

After joining Akin Gump in 1994 on a four-day-a-week schedule so she could spend more time raising her daughters, then 7 and 2, Koopersmith worked her way up to the leadership table. Before her election as chairperson last October, she spent five years as the firm’s U.S. managing partner. Now, she's one of fewer than two dozen women leading the 100 biggest, most profitable firms in the U.S. We asked Koopersmith about her new role.