Anna Selbrede

IM I / 6 / 11AP
9/24/2016
First Quarter Interview: Andrea Gehman
I actually did this interview because I was curious about the APL Office of Counsel, not
because I needed a First Quarter Interview. I did not realize I would be using it for my First
Quarter Interview until long after it was completed, so I do not have record of the exact questions
I asked. However, I took notes so I was able to reconstruct general questions from her responses:

Ive passed by the APL Office of Counsel every day on my way to building 8, and I always
wonder what law could be doing in an engineering office. Can you explain the role of the
APL Office of Counsel at APL?
Two sides to the APL Office of Counsel: counseling and litigation. Counseling is keeping people
out of trouble before they even do something wrong (preventative). The counseling is not just
discipline, but also government contracts and more. In fact many people I work with directly are
here because someone noticed something else was wrong. Someone was missing days off at
work, so they looked in further and realized they had an anxiety issue or a problem at home.
Then I bring them in and work with them. Litigation is more of the classic going before a judge
for a patent and representing an APL engineer in court. I dont like it as much.
[I asked a sort of prodding question, mentioning that my mother was a prosecutor and
always said the paper/contact stuff was really boring.] General gist: why dont you like
litigation?
I take pride in my work in that I am doing something good. In litigation, you are generally
defending an engineer, which is great and good. But sometimes you are defending a guilty
engineer. That just wasnt for me. Where I work its more black and white and I always know
Im doing a good thing. Of course sometimes you do settle, but you are still asking for something
that may not be the best option overall; you are just taking a side and trying to get as much as
possible.
So what do you specialize in with the Office of Counsel? (I know its within the counseling
side)
I am the Senior Associate of General Counsel, dealing with tax, employment, and benefits. So
Ive read a lot and I do a lot dealing with say healthcare and other things you should get from
your job.
How did you get to APL?
(This is a really long journey and I couldnt keep up with my notes. Heres what I got:) Out of
undergrad (at Cornell in Industrial Labor something something) I became a benefits manager for
seven years as a company where all the other people in the sector quit or were fired, so I had an
entry level salary for a very high level job. Definitely unfair, but could not sue because there is
nothing against anti-discrimination. Went back to law school through front loaded school and
then night school with children because I wanted to do something.
So why didnt you get your law degree initially? You seemed to always be working in law
Honestly, when I was in college, all of the pre-law students were obnoxious and self centered,
and that was not somewhere I wanted to go. The pre-law students were always the ones tearing
the one page you needed out of the book instead of just copying it, so I did not want to be like
that. However, I did like law so I went back later.
So Im interested in engineering and law and public policy. (I explained the whole thing but
thats the general idea.) Do you know of anyone I can talk to next just to see what theyre
doing and how they got there?
Someone from NSAD, operational engineer. Some cool interesting stuff. Built a board
game that you play just to make a decision.
Christine Fox does policy driven projects like making a secure smartphone for President
Obama
Noah Hayward (patent lead) just down the hall
Sung Kim next door (could probably hear us the whole time)
 Reflection

I interviewed Andrea Gehman, the Senior Associate of General Counsel at APL. The

interview took place in her office on my first day back at APL for the school year. I really just

interviewed because I was interested in what a law office could be doing at APL. I had asked the

intern coordinator for a recommendation on who to talk to, and she recommended Ms. Gehman.

It is a shame that I did not record this interview. It was about an hour long and I only have one

page of wide-ruled notes. I learned quite a lot from Ms. Gehman and it was really fun to talk to

her. Maybe because I was only doing this for fun, I was relaxed and just let the conversation flow

naturally. As already mentioned, next time I will record it (with permission) or at least take better

notes so I will have more to go off of afterwards. Maybe because she is so used to helping people

as her main job, as soon as I explained what I am interested in, she began making a list of people

I could go talk to in order to learn more or possibly intern with. I did not expect her to do that,

but it was really cool and I would love to meet some of the people. Overall, I mainly learned

about counseling (as it deals with law) because that is her job, and that was interesting because I

always thought it would be really boring. Next, I will definitely interview maybe a litigator to see

what they do and how they are different. For now, this was fun.