Aileen McGrath has known she wanted to be an appellate lawyer since she was about seven-years old. That’s when McGrath, now a partner in the Supreme Court and appellate practice at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, saw her father make his sole argument at the U.S. Supreme Court. He spent much of his career handling appeals for the New York City Law Department.

“For the rest of his career, he had a drawing on the wall of his office where I had drawn a picture of myself standing at the lectern,” said McGrath when we spoke with her earlier this week. “I had captioned it: ‘I want to be a lawyer because I’m good at arguing.’”