MICHAEL DAVIS

Assistant general counsel, 7-Eleven, Inc.

The legal department:

Dallas-based 7-Eleven has a Texas-sized share of the world’s convenience store market, with 20,600 stores in the United States, Canada and 16 other countries.

His career dreams:

For Davis, a Tulsa, Okla., native, land and sea held equal allure: “I loved boating as a child,” he recalls, “but my career goal was to be a geologist.”

The bar didn’t beckon until well after college, when a 20-something Davis returned from active duty in Vietnam. “When I got home, I decided that I needed a career that would allow me to be successful,” he recalls. “Law fit the bill, and it seemed interesting.”

Law may have been his first career, but Davis says he’s had his share of colorful jobs: “I worked an oil pipeline one summer — good money, hard work!” he laughs. Other unglamorous gigs included counting cars to measure traffic flow at intersections for Tulsa’s motor vehicles department and a school-year stint bagging groceries.

“I didn’t get a dinner break, so my mom would come by the store with burgers every night!”

If he weren’t a lawyer …

“I’ve always been fascinated by geology.”

RAJ VASWANIVice president and general counsel, Kiodex Inc.

The legal department:

New York-based Kiodex is a 2-year-old company providing Web-based management and trading solutions for the commodities markets.

His career dreams:

“I never thought I’d be a lawyer,” Vaswani confesses. “I wanted to trot around the world playing tennis.”

The GC — an avid tennis player since the age of 8 — contemplated going pro after college. Yet when the newly minted Yale grad embarked on the satellite circuit, he realized just how demanding the sport was. “I saw people who were a whole lot better than me — top-ranked juniors — sleeping in their Volkswagen vans, and playing with beat-up tennis balls because it was so hard to make ends meet,” he recalls.

That’s when, Vaswani says, he turned to law, because: “I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and it seemed like good training for so many things.”

If he weren’t a lawyer …

“I think architecture could be in the cards for me. I like its need for cross-functional expertise.”