About Nancy Henderson
Nancy Henderson is an award-winning journalist who has published hundreds of articles in Smithsonian, The New York Times, Parade, The Wall Street Journal and other publications. The author of Sewing Hope and Able! How One Company’s Extraordinary Workforce Changed the Way We Look at Disability Today, she enjoys breaking stereotypes and often writes about people who are making a difference through their work. Over the years, she’s enjoyed listening to family stories about her grandfather, who prosecuted cases as a solicitor general in North Carolina long before she was born.
Articles written by Nancy Henderson
Broker Between Two Worlds
Sonam Vachhani uses her prosecutorial—and people—skills in her family law practiceLike a lot of first-generation Americans, Sonam Vachhani was often called upon to translate complex information for her parents. “My entire life, I was taking something that was really confusing, really intimidating, and trying to make it accessible,” says Vachhani, whose parents came to the U.S. after emigrating from India to Canada in the 1980s. As an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia, she had that same feeling of being “a broker between two worlds. … I found myself trying …
‘One More Day’
Roy Willey’s unprecedented verdict for a grieving mother who refused to give upLike most South Carolinians, Roy T. Willey IV learned about Brittanee Drexel from the billboards her mom (Dawn Conley) plastered along the coastal highway after the 17-year-old disappeared from Myrtle Beach during spring break in 2009. “Everybody knew that Brittanee Drexel was missing,” says Willey. “Brittanee’s picture was everywhere.” Over the years, few leads surfaced, but Conley refused to give up, even moving to Myrtle Beach and continuing to organize marches and vigils. Finally, …
Indefatigable
Dev Sethi relentlessly channels his own underdog experience to help plaintiff clientsIn the early 2000s, a south Arizona schoolteacher and Vietnam veteran was chaperoning schoolchildren in a 15-passenger Ford van when one of the vehicle’s Goodyear Load Range E tires suddenly failed, the driver lost control, and the vehicle rolled. The teacher’s right arm was ejected through the shattered-glass window and torn off near her shoulder. “Goodyear knew, but the public didn’t, that these tires were deadly,” says Dev Sethi, 53, now a litigator at Schmidt, Sethi & Akmajian …
From There to Here
Four attorneys on the ups and downs of practicing law for 20 yearsFor many rookie attorneys in New Orleans, the big concern in 2005 was landing a job after law school. Then came the storm of the century. “One cannot overstate the impact of Hurricane Katrina and the issues of the law that we were dealing with,” says Kristin Beckman, a commercial defense litigator at Pipes Miles Beckman. “I took the Bar in the Superdome a month before Katrina hit, and I didn’t even know if I was going to still have a job after that. And I was very lucky that I …
‘No Other Option’
When her aunt was abducted, Cheyenne Somers orchestrated the rescueAll summer, Cheyenne Somers and her family had been watching and waiting, hoping the male relative who had driven her aging aunt across the border to Mexico against her will would bring her back home. But her aunt’s messages, scribbled on a small writing tablet because her worsening aphasia inhibited her ability to speak, and discreetly photographed and forwarded by a friend, were becoming more urgent: “Please help me.” “He locks me in the house and won’t let me leave.” “I need to …
Noble Calling
How employment attorney Laura Noble launched the firm she always wanted to work forOne day, in the midst of prosecuting rapes and aggravated assaults as a young lawyer in the high-pressure Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, Laura Noble found herself antsy to wrap up a conversation with two tourists who’d been jabbed at by a man wielding a boxcutter. “I had a million cases on my desk,” she recalls. Losing her patience with what would no doubt end up as a misdemeanor, she curtly told them, “You’re fine. Gotta go.” “And the way they both looked at me, …
‘Where I’m Supposed to Be’
Personal trauma prompted Natanya Brooks to switch legal sidesIn 2016, six weeks pregnant with her second daughter and lying on the ultrasound table for a routine examination, Natanya Brooks felt healthy, strong, and full of hope for the future. All that changed in a second. “There’s a mass here 10 times bigger than your baby!” she remembers the doctor shouting. At this point in her life, Brooks wasn’t even used to being sick. A lifelong swimmer, she had broken numerous records in high school and at Georgia Tech. As an insurance defense …
The Primary Obligation
Prosecutor-turned-defense lawyer Sergio Acosta knows what the other side is thinkingDuring the first hour of the first day of Sergio Acosta’s first job after law school in 1985, Janet Reno, then state attorney for Miami-Dade County, addressed two dozen new assistant state attorneys in Florida. “One of the things that stuck most with me,” Acosta recalls, “was that she said, ‘Our primary obligation as a prosecutor is not to make sure that every guilty person goes to jail. It’s to make sure that no innocent person goes to jail.’” After earning his J.D. from …
Give and Let Give
Graham Grady thrives on volunteer workWhen his third-grade teacher asked students to submit potential storylines for an upcoming class play, a young Graham Grady knew exactly what to write. “When the postman would come down the street, I would run outside and interrogate him: How many houses do you deliver to? Can I push the cart? And where do you get the rubber bands?” recalls Grady of his obsession with airmail, zip codes, trucks and all other things mail. “I’ve just always been enthralled by the postal system, …
A Lifetime Commitment: The Benefits and Complications Involved in Adopting a Stepchild
Recently, a throng of family members and friends crowded into a Boston courtroom to witness the finalization of a 12-year-old boy’s adoption by his stepfather. The two were dressed alike, in suits and fancy matching sneakers. “They were extremely close, and he called him ‘Dad’ already,” says their adoption attorney, Joyce Kauffman. “He was the only father this child had really ever known, and the child very much wanted to have that legal relationship acknowledged. It was …
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