How I Made Partner: 'Be Reliable and Responsible,' Says Sonja Sahlsten of Finnegan

Sonja Sahlsten was elected to Finnegan’s partnership in 2024. In this Law.com How I Made It installment, Sonja discusses her journey from summer associate to partner. Snippets from the interview can be found below. Read the full interview here.

How long have you been at the firm?

I have been at Finnegan for about eight years. I first joined the firm as a summer associate in 2014 and returned as an associate after graduating law school in 2015. I worked at Finnegan until 2019, when I left to do a 1-year clerkship for the Honorable Judge Sharon Prost at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. I returned to Finnegan in 2020 and have been there ever since.

What was your criteria in selecting your current firm?

When I was in law school, I knew that I wanted to use my background in mechanical engineering and focus on patent litigation. The fact that Finnegan had experts in every area of IP and had a strong patent litigation practice in district courts around the country and in appeals to the Federal Circuit was attractive to me. Once I got to Finnegan, I received great training as a new associate and worked on interesting and challenging cases. Most importantly, I liked the people I worked with, and I had a lot of great supporters and mentors. When I was deciding where to go after my clerkship, I wanted a place where I could shape my own practice and where there was a realistic path to partnership, and Finnegan was an easy choice.

What do you think was the deciding point for the firm in making you partner? Was it your performance on a specific case? A personality trait? Making connections with the right people?

I think the key to making partner was earning the trust of my colleagues and functioning like a partner in their eyes. On my litigation matters, that meant being someone that my colleagues could trust to effectively manage cases, guide case strategy, interact with the client, and argue in court. In the years leading up to making partner, I was fortunate to have several trials where I got to show my skills and confidence in the courtroom.

My investment in firm citizenship and leadership was also important in partnership consideration. In my time as an associate, I devoted significant time and effort to nonbillable initiatives that are important to me and the firm, including recruiting, mentoring, and retaining diverse attorneys and teaching as an adjunct professor. Finally, I had a thoughtful business development plan that I was passionate about and aligned with the firm.

What advice would you give an associate who wants to make partner?

Be reliable and responsible. Trust is so important, and the way to build that with your colleagues is by being reliable. If you are someone that your colleagues can count on, they are going to want to work with you and will invest in you as someone they see as a future partner. As you get more senior and approach partnership consideration, it is also important to take responsibility, not only for yourself and your work, but also for those that you supervise.

How would you describe your work mindset?

My approach is to always be prepared, which gives me confidence.

If you participate in firm or industry initiatives, please mention the initiatives you are working on as well as the impact you hope to achieve.

I focus my pro bono practice on juvenile resentencing under D.C.’s Second Look Amendment Act, which provides an opportunity for a sentence reduction for people who committed crimes as juveniles or young adults, have served more than 15 years in prison, and do not pose a danger to the community. Through this work, I have helped several clients return to the community after serving long sentences. I have also developed valuable litigation skills examining witnesses and doing closing arguments in these cases. Through my pro bono work, I have become closer to the D.C. community and reentry support services and developed an interest in criminal justice reform.

In 2020, I helped launch the D.C. Chapter of the Women in IP Network (WIN) and have served as a steering committee member and now co-chair of the organization. Through this work, we are striving to create a positive, personal and professional network for women in IP to increase diversity in the profession and help more women succeed.