Being Still, Avoiding Deal Killers, and Late Nights in the Office

Discovery with Colleen Goodell Knecht

Published in 2023 Southwest Super Lawyers magazine

By Colleen Goodell Knecht on April 4, 2023

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I can’t go a day without … Diet Coke.

If you were in my office, you’d … notice that we always have candy stocked.

My colleagues would be surprised to know that … I still favor old-school telephonic conference calls to Microsoft Teams or Zoom meetings.

When I was a newbie lawyer I … accidentally got locked in the stairwell of my office building on a Friday night at 11:00 p.m.

The lawyer I most admire is … my mentor, Gary Zwillinger, who passed away in 2016.

The qualities I most like in a lawyer are … I like to work with lawyers who are intelligent, fair and able to think outside the box to find compromise and solutions. Nobody likes a deal killer!

When I started, I wish I knew … how to establish and uphold boundaries.

If I weren’t a lawyer, I’d be … a puppy wrangler.

My real-life hero is … my mom.

On weekends I … watch a lot of youth sports—my teenage daughters play travel club soccer and compete in Level 10 gymnastics, respectively.

The talent I wish I had is … cooking without a recipe.

My favorite song lyric is … “The world’s just spinning a little too fast/If things don’t slow down soon, we might not last/So just for a moment, let’s be still” by The Head and the Heart.

My favorite podcast is … a tie between We Can Do Hard Things and Morbid.

The last TV show I binge-watched was … Ted Lasso—it’s fantastic!

Nothing cheers me up like … seeing my kids succeed at something they have worked hard to achieve.

My guilty pleasure is … watching documentary-style medical TV shows like My 600-lb Life. (I know, weird.)

My least-favorite word is … laundry.

If I won the lottery I’d … move my family to a beach house on Coronado Island.

The question I wish people would stop asking is … “What’s for dinner?”

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