Kelli Edson featured in "Kelli Edson focused on building Quarles caring culture"
Below is an excerpt:
Why Kelli is a big deal: Kelli knew she wanted to do law from an early age. The Plant City native once told a guidance counselor she would go to Harvard but the counselor told her she wasn’t going to get in. Her response: ‘I’m not sure you should be a guidance counselor.’ As managing partner of Chicago-based Quarles & Brady’s Tampa office for the last four years, Kelli is transitioning out of that administrative role this month. She has helped build the Tampa presence of the law firm, including a focus on an inclusive and entrepreneurial culture. She has handled a wide variety of litigation matters throughout her career, including work in everything from trusts, real estate, investments and contracts, to bankruptcy, insurance, torts, products liability, class actions, landlord/tenant disputes, intellectual property, tech and unfair trade practices. The former special assistant district attorney in Cambridge District Court in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Kelli has successfully tried numerous jury and bench trials.
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When did you know law was your path? My mom tells me she knew I wanted to be a lawyer when I was really little. [I’ll] tell you how much my dad loved us all. They were in Plant City and took us to the beach for two weeks. My father hated the beach. We were at the pool at some hotel at the beach, and my mom said there were kids playing around the pool and there was a really big kid who yanked a toy from a little kid. I was half his size and I yanked it out of his hand and said, ‘That’s not nice,’ and I handed it back to the little kid. That’s when my mom decided I wanted to be a lawyer. I had no idea about that but in third grade I decided, based on what little input I had, that it would be really neat to be a judge and the best way to be a judge was to be a lawyer, and the best way to that would be to go to Harvard, and I applied to Harvard.