Alumni Career Profiles
Linda K. DiSantis
Formerly the City Attorney for Atlanta
GSU College of Law 1988
When I graduated from high school in the 1960s, I had some fairly traditional ideas about my career choices as a woman. Instead of going to medical school, which I briefly considered, I chose to go to nursing school at a three year hospital-based nursing program. However, when I graduated, I started on the somewhat less traditional path that eventually led to where I am today. My first job out of nursing school was in the emergency room of Cook County Hospital in Chicago, the setting for the current popular TV show "ER." It was an extremely busy, exciting place to work that proved to be challenging and exciting in a place that provided important service to the public.
Later, after marrying, having two children, and moving to Atlanta, I decided to go back to school to get the bachelor's degree that I did not have because of the nursing school option I had chosen. I went back thinking that I would get a degree in nursing and continue down that path. However, I soon discovered other things appealed to me more, and I ended up with a degree in political science from Georgia State. During my time at GSU, I became active in an environmental group and volunteered with the group by monitoring legislation at the Georgia General Assembly. This activity led me to think that I might want to be a lobbyist someday, and upon determining that I needed some credentials to do that, decided to go to law school. I chose to continue my education at GSU and entered the College of Law in 1985, just at the time the school had received its first provisional accreditation from the ABA.
Although I had fully intended to pursue my lobbying career, I discovered in law school that I really liked learning to be a lawyer. During the summer after my first year, I worked at the Georgia Department of Community Affairs Criminal Justice division through the Governor's intern program. I spent the summer researching prisoner lawsuits and writing a manual for use in the prison system. The intent of the manual was for managers to gain a greater understanding of how to avoid creating or maintaining conditions that led to liability. That experience led me to an externship during law school at the organization now known as the Southern Center for Human Rights, which deals with death penalty cases.
During my second summer in law school, I took the real plunge into actually practicing law and took a summer associate job at two law firms in Atlanta. I ended up beginning my law career at Alston & Bird when I graduated in 1988. My practiced at Alston & Bird centered on environmental law and commercial litigation. I was able to translate the experience that I had working on environmental issues from a policy and legislative perspective into the practice of environmental law. My volunteer work over the years proved to be very valuable to me in understanding the context of my clients' issues, and I believed made the transition to practicing law much easier and made me more effective as an advocate for my client.
In 1992, an incredible opportunity came along for me when UPS moved its corporate office to Atlanta, and I was hired to be the company's environmental attorney. I spent 10 ½ years with that great company, and my duties during that time increased and changed. I became part of the management team in the legal department; I led the effort that established the company's worldwide compliance program; and I was able to participate in technology strategy planning and in public affairs matters. It was a terrific legal job in a fascinating business with a tremendous amount of responsibility. During this time, I continued to stay involved in community issues by serving on the boards of a variety of environmental and business organizations.
Despite the great fun I was having at UPS, in 2002 I got inspired to take another turn in my career. As a resident of the City of Atlanta, I became very interested in what the new Mayor, Shirley Franklin, was doing in early 2002. Clearly, the City had suffered from a lack of good leadership for a number of years, and Mayor Franklin was obviously focused on fixing all of that. She made a decision about how she would select her senior staff that provided me with an opportunity that would otherwise been unavailable to me. She decided to select her senior team using independent search committees that were tasked with finding the best people available. The Mayor wanted to select her team based on merit. Because this approach gave me an opportunity to be considered, I decided to take a leap and put my hat in the ring for the job as City Attorney. It is not anything I had ever considered doing before, but when I looked at what the Mayor was trying to do and considered the skills that I had, I knew that I had what she needed. I became the City Attorney for Atlanta in August 2002, and have had experiences since then that I could not have imagined.
As City Attorney, I have focused a tremendous amount of energy on improving the organization and functioning of the Law Department. I have developed a great management team, and we are working hard everyday to provide top notch legal services to the City. It is a demanding job in a difficult environment because so much is going on, so much about the City government needed to be fixed, and resources are at best limited.
People often ask me why I would leave a great company like UPS to go work for the City of Atlanta (and take a considerable pay cut in the process). And I will admit there have been times when I have wondered that myself. But I have believed that being part of the community is important and we all have an obligation to contribute in a way that improves the place that we live. This opportunity came along at a time when I was ready to perform public service in a more significant way than I had done previously, and I believe the skills I have brought to the position have been essential in addressing many of the significant challenges the City is facing these days.
It may seem like a long way from the emergency room at Cook County to the City Attorney's office in Atlanta. But in some ways, they are really closer than you think. Whether it was working in a large, urban, public hospital in the 1960s, finding ways to contribute through volunteer service with community organizations, or as now, taking on an important position in the public sector, I believe we all have a responsibility to give back. Being City Attorney in a city like Atlanta at this time in its history is extraordinarily challenging. The rewards of the job are tremendous, in particular working with a Mayor who is ethical, courageous, energetic and committed to making Atlanta the best run city in the country.
This article originally appeared in the CSO Graduate Newsletter and Job Bulletin in July 2005.
