//by William Lytton

The following piece by William Lytton, Senior Counsel at Dechert LLP, and formerly the Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Tyco International, LTD, tells the story of how one event may set the stage for a very successful career.

Most of our lives, we seem to focus a lot on how to achieve our goals – how do we get from here to there? And then, we plan and work to achieve those goals. Sometimes, we succeed. Often, something unexpected happens and we get to a different place than we had planned, or we get to the place we wanted, but by quite a different route.

With the perspective of age, we have the ability to take a look at where we are, and how we got there. What we find is that literally thousands of decisions, many of them seemingly inconsequential when taken, were critical in determining where we have ended up.

What are some of those critical decisions we made, the directions we took when we came to a fork in the road – a fork that was so small that we barely recognized it as such at the time, and how have they impacted our lives?

An example is one of the first major decisions that most of us had to make – where to go to college. What were the factors we used to make that decision? Did we like the size of the campus, or the weather, or the location? Was it the quality of the teachers or the curriculum? Did it have a good basketball team? Obviously, some of these criteria are more valuable than others. But for many of us, our college is where we met our wife or husband, where we met people who would forever be our closest friends, and it may be where we decided to stay and work and raise a family. Think of what would be different if you had chosen a different school. Who would you have married, who would be your friends, would you have the same job, live in the same home and city? Probably not. But, these are not the things that we thought of in the fall and spring of our senior year in high school. So, as we sit at our dinner table, with our spouse and children around us, consider that if we had chosen a different college, those children probably would not exist, and that person at the other end of the table might be a stranger.

“I Don’t Know Whether It Was the Martinis I Mixed, or the Special Chocolate Cake That My Wife Made for Them, but I Must Have Made a Favorable Impression.”

But there are sometimes other – almost whimsical – decisions we make that have as much or even greater an impact on our lives, though we could not possibly have predicted the importance of those decisions at the time. Let me provide an example of two such decisions in my own life that, in retrospect, had profound impacts on my life and career, and that ended up coming together in some strange cosmic knitting of apparently unrelated and disparate threads of events.

Having graduated from high school in St. Louis, Missouri where I had grown up, I chose Georgetown University over Boston College, St. Louis University and Washington University. In 1969, not only did I meet a fellow Georgetown student that I would marry two years later, but I also happened to be watching TV one evening when Dean Acheson, Harry Truman’s Secretary of State, was debating Senator Charles Percy of Illinois about the Anti Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. I thought Percy did a great job and with the passion of youth I sent him a handwritten letter – which I of course assumed he would personally read – telling him how impressed I was by the debate. And, I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse; I offered to work for him for free. A few days later, I got a call from a woman named Donna in his office and soon thereafter I was alphabetizing carbon copies of responses to constituent letters only a few doors down from the Senator’s office. One thing led to another, and I became a $50 a week intern, doing research for legislative issues. I continued to work in the Senator’s office during law school, and even switched to night school which, along with summer school, allowed me to work full time for the Senator and finish law school in three years. After I graduated from Law School, I continued as a full time legislative assistant, and part of my job was to “staff” issues before the Judiciary Committee.

One day in 1972, a constituent wrote the Senator a letter about the then recent Watergate break-in. Tom in the mailroom had to decide which staff member to send it to. Well, it concerned a crime, the Judiciary Committee handled legislation dealing with crime, so Tom sent it to me, and presto, I became Percy’s Watergate staffer. While working that issue, I got to know one of Senator Howard Baker’s staff members, also right out of law school – A.B. Culvahouse. We worked on the legislation to establish the Office of Independent Counsel, and even worked on a Baker – Percy bill on the same topic.

I also had the responsibility of staffing nominations to the federal bench and to the position of U.S. Attorney, over which the Judiciary Committee had jurisdiction. As a practical matter, the highest ranking federal legislator of the President’s political party had almost unbridled ability to have the President agree to nominate the – in this case – Senator’s choice. So it was that in staffing such nominations in the early ‘70’s I met Jim Thompson, the U.S. Attorney in Chicago, and his First Assistant, Joel Flaum, who Percy had persuaded President Nixon to nominate to the United States District Court in Chicago. They came to D.C. one week to meet with Percy, and I invited them to my house for dinner. I don’t know whether it was the martinis I mixed, or the special chocolate cake that my wife made for them, but I must have made a favorable impression. And, a few years later in 1975, Jim Thompson, and his then First Assistant, Sam Skinner, hired me as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Chicago.

While working in that office from 1975 to 1978, I met the head of the Organized Crime Strike Force, Peter Vaira. When he became U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia, he asked me to come work with him in that office. After checking the map to see exactly where Philadelphia was (remember, I was a mid-Westerner!) I agreed and our family moved East. I eventually became Peter’s First Assistant and tried a number of high profile cases, including a large police corruption case.

I left that office in 1982 and entered private practice, trying all sorts of criminal and civil cases. In early June of 1985, I got a call from someone named Bill Brown whom I had never met, but who had heard of me as result of my experience as a prosecutor in the police corruption cases. He had just been appointed by Wilson Goode, the Mayor of Philadelphia, to lead an independent commission to investigate the events of May 13, 1985 when the Philadelphia Police Force had a day long running gun battle with members of a counter culture group calling themselves “MOVE” who had barricaded themselves in a row house in Philadelphia. The siege ended when a police helicopter dropped an explosive devise on the roof of the row house, causing a fire that eventually killed 11 occupants in the house, including 5 children, and burned down 61 homes in the neighborhood. Because of my investigation and prosecution of the corrupt Philadelphia police officers, Bill Brown thought that my background would be useful to help his commission investigate the actions of the police on May 13th.

To Laugh Often and Much; to Win the Respect of Intelligent People and the Affection of Children; to Earn the Appreciation of Honest Critics and Endure the Betrayal of False Friends; to Appreciate Beauty; to Find the Best in Others; to Leave the World a Little Better; Whether by a Healthy Child, a Garden Patch or Redeemed Social Condition; to Know Even One Life Has Breathed Easier Because You Have Lived. This Is the Meaning of Success.

The hearings of the commission were televised for five weeks in the fall of 1985, and I was the principle interrogator of most of the witnesses, before the commission members began their examinations. As a result, I received a lot of notoriety and media attention as the daily televised hearings were widely watched and commented upon. When the Commission ended its work, I resumed my trial practice, and also did some work as a commentator on world and local events on a Philadelphia ABC affiliate’s Sunday morning show called “Inside Edition.”

Two years later, one early Monday morning in March of 1987, my old friend A.B. Culvahouse called me. Two days before, he had been named Counsel to President Reagan, and Howard Baker had become Chief of Staff. A.B. and I had kept in touch over the years since our time together in the Senate and remained good friends. As a result, he knew of my background as a federal prosecutor and chief counsel of the MOVE Commission, and my experience in dealing with highly publicized matters. He asked me to come down to Washington and work with him to provide legal counsel to the President and organize the White House response to the various investigations of the Iran Contra Affair. During the course of an incredible 6 months, A.B. and I had the unique opportunity to interact frequently with President Reagan and other senior leaders in both the Executive and Legislative branches. One late night in his office on the second floor of the West Wing, A.B. and I reflected on the extraordinary task we were engaged in and how incredibly lucky we were to be there. We both agreed that if he and I had tried to plan in 1973 while working in the Senate how we could arrange our careers so that 14 years later we could be working for the President of the United States on a critical legal and political issue of national and international importance, neither of us would have made the career choices we did that, as it turned out, qualified us for the task at hand. The Iran Contra Congressional hearings took place in the summer of 1987, the White House generally received good marks for the way we handled and responded to the investigation, and I went back to my law firm in September of 1987, though I continued to serve as consultant to the President through the end of his term. I also was called upon to serve as Special Counsel to the first President Bush when his counsel had to recuse himself as to certain maters involving Iran Contra.

In 1989, I was back in private practice as a trial lawyer in Philadelphia. Zoë Baird, who was a friend of A.B.’s, asked him for ideas on who might be a good candidate to become the General Counsel to GE’s Aerospace business, headquartered outside of Philadelphia. That business had ongoing civil and criminal matters being prosecuted by the Philadelphia U.S. Attorney’s office, where I had served. A.B. suggested she talk with me.

When she first called me to talk about the job, I was not really interested. After all, I was a moderately well known and successful trial lawyer in Philadelphia and the future looked promising. However, I took the chance and interviewed with GE’s General Counsel, Ben Heinemann, and CEO Jack Welch. As the interview process went on, I came to realize that while I loved being a trial lawyer, I had already tried just about every type of case I could hope for: criminal prosecution and defense; civil cases representing both plaintiffs and defendants; cases that had gotten a lot of headlines and public attention; public investigations and high profile assignments. At the age of 41, I realized that if I did not make a significant career change, I could look forward to new clients and cases, but they would be similar in many respects to, and in some case less challenging than, cases that I had already handled. On the other hand, I had the opportunity to try something completely new, challenging, and way outside of my comfort zone. So, I took the job and entered the world of corporate counsel.

If I had not seen the Acheson-Percy debate and written that letter in 1969, I would not have met Jim Thompson and probably would never have been a federal prosecutor; I would not have met Culvahouse and would never have worked in the White House; and, I would never have had the experiences that made me a viable candidate for the GE job.

Another pretty random and seemingly unimportant fork in my professional road occurred at breakfast one morning early in my career as General Counsel at GE Aerospace. Since I had never worked in a corporation, much less as a general counsel, I knew I needed help to learn the ropes and establish a network of colleagues whom I could learn from and interact with. A lawyer whom I had met as a result of my involvement in municipal government in Easttown Township in Pennsylvania (which, of course was one of the outcomes of my government service career), and who had worked in the legal department of a corporation, suggested that I become involved in ACCA – the American Corporate Counsel Association. It was at that time still a relatively new and small national organization. Unlike the ABA, ACCA was focused exclusively on the issues and interests of the in-house corporate legal community. And so it was that I went to ACCA’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

I remember the first morning having breakfast at the hotel where the meeting was taking place. Since I knew no one, I carried my coffee to a large round table with an empty seat where some other ACCA attendees with name badges were sitting. After introductions, I learned that my tablemates were getting ready to do a panel presentation on an issue later that day. As I listened to their discussions and preparations, I realized that the topic was one on which I had some very specific experience and ideas. I offered a few of my experiences and ideas to them, and the next thing I knew, I was added as a panelist in their presentation. My presentation went well, and I ended up meeting some of the staff members who ran ACCA as well as some of the leaders who were on ACCA’s Board of Directors. In subsequent ACCA meetings, I was invited to make presentations on other panels and through those experiences, I was asked to serve on ACCA’s Board of Directors. Eventually, I became Chairman of ACCA’s Board for a one year term in October of 2001.

As an ACCA leader, I had tremendous exposure to many, many experienced corporate counsel and a plethora of great ideas. I learned that one of the unique traits of my colleagues in the in-house corporate bar was an extraordinary willingness to share ideas and best practices, and to help identify and find solutions to problems that were common to all of us, no matter what industry or company we were in. Indeed, lawyers for competitors were always wiling to help on the theory that together we could help raise the level of professionalism, expertise and respect for the corporate bar – which was a worthy goal for all of us and our corporations. Because ACCA does not have the bureaucracy, politics and diffuse goals and membership that the ABA has, I was able to very quickly take on a leadership role at ACCA, which brought with it national leadership in the legal profession.

In the fall of 2002, when Tyco was going through a public scourging as a result of the misdeeds of its former executive leadership, the new CEO, Ed Breen, needed to find a new General Counsel as well as an entirely new senior corporate leadership team and a new Board of Directors. Somehow, my name was put forward to Ed as a candidate for the GC job. We met several times and we hit it off. Though we came from completely different backgrounds, we shared some common values. I don’t know for sure what it was about my background that resulted in either my name being proposed to Ed by the search firm, or in his offering me the job. But, I do know that if I had not written that letter to Senator Percy in 1969, and if I had not chosen a particular table at the ACCA meeting at which to eat my breakfast, I probably would not have gotten the job as General Counsel at Tyco.

So, what are the lessons to be learned? Two things come to mind. First, you really cannot plan your life or your career. In 1966 when I decided to go to Georgetown University, and three years later when I was in my senior year, there is no way that I could have envisioned or planned for the career that I have had. However, I did use that time and the subsequent years to prepare for what I could not plan for. I was fortunate that, in dealing with so many difficult issues now, I could think back to the wide variety of experiences as well as role models that I hadhad, to help me identify the issues and hopefully the solutions. The other side of that coin, however, was that I also feared that I might miss recognizing the significance of issues, or make less than perfect decisions, because I lacked critical experience in some area. In my job at Tyco, while I could not claim to “have seen it all”, I took comfort in knowing that I had seen an awful lot. There is no substitute for that type of broad experience. Thus, the first lesson is to prepare by focusing on getting great experience more than on trying to plan where that experience may one day take you.

Second, my history suggests that being open to new ideas, opportunities and challenges is essential to the blossoming of a career. Taking chances that are values based, and even being impulsive enough to write a letter to let someone know how you feel, may be just the catalyst needed to take your career and your life in directions you could never have imagined, much less planned. Sometimes the fork in the road is a big one, like taking a new job. The problem is that in making such a decision, you may feel like someone waiting for a bus standing on a dirt road with fields stretching to every horizon. A bus comes along going somewhere you had not really considered. You have to make a decision on whether to get on that bus, not knowing whether four more buses with different or better destinations – or no buses at all – are just over the horizon. We act and make decisions with imperfect knowledge. Deciding which forks in the road to take is a process of experience and luck, as well as learning from both the mistakes and successes of ourselves and others.

With the benefit of hindsight, I have found that a good and guiding principle in making these decisions is that whatever we do in life, it should meet two basic criteria. First, what we do should make a positive difference – whether on a person, your family, your community, your colleagues, your company or your country. That gives what you do meaning and provides a sense of satisfaction knowing that your time has been well spent, and someone’s life is better as a result of what you did. Second, we need to like who we work with, what we do and have fun. We have to enjoy our professional life as well as our personal life. There should be time for laughter, no matter how serious the issue. I recall some tense meetings in the Oval Office, reviewing documents with President Reagan that we knew could possibly be used in an effort to impeach him. Yet, in almost every such situation, the President went out of his way to set a relaxed mood – to let some of the air out of the balloon, perhaps by telling a joke, or just by an encouraging smile on his face. It made a tremendous difference to those of us in that room at the time. You need to enjoy the people you work with, and you need to try and make the people you work with enjoy working with you. Having the ability to create that type of easy atmosphere is crucial to making the more unpleasant tasks that come with any job more bearable, and the recovery time shorter. Laughing at ourselves and with others is a good way to make getting up the next day and going to the office a lot easier.

In my daughter’s high school year book, I recall reading a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson on the meaning of success. It is one that I have used often in presentations, and it is one worth repeating.

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success.

As we consider where we are going in our lives, this guidance from Emerson, as well as my own experience, may be helpful in charting the path we will eventually take – with the myriad of forks in the road that we may not even recognize as significant at the time. With luck, at the end of our journey, we will be able to look back on how we got here and not regret either the paths we took, or the ones we did not choose.