The legal profession is demanding and intense. Work-life balance is a challenge for both women and men.

But it’s also an incredibly satisfying career path for five Nashville female attorneys at the top of their games. They include a sole proprietor practicing consumer bankruptcy, an immigration attorney, a corporate litigator, a lawyer for the long-term care industry, and a former public defender turned labor lawyer for the U.S. government.

“The law is a really good profession for women,” Willow Fort says. “You get to be of service, you get to be creative, having clients is a bit of a caretaking role sometimes and it’s insane multi-tasking. It’s analytical and it’s emotive: if you want to negotiate a settlement, you’ve got to be in touch with the emotions of all the different folks or you’re just going to be hammering it through – and sometimes that’s how you have to get things done too.”

Each of the five women has found a different path to success that reflects her personality and interests, and as a group they reflect the diversity of career paths for women in law.