This Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month, we are pleased to highlight Paolo Pasicolan, a principal in our Baltimore office. Paolo shares what AANHPI Heritage Month Means to him and, in keeping with the month’s theme of “Advancing Leaders Through Innovation,” explains strategies he uses to overcome obstacles to achieve success.

“My heritage is my superpower. I find that having both an Eastern and Western mindset allows me to understand and translate different but not necessarily diametrically opposed ways of thinking, which comes in very handy as a lawyer!

“I’m not so original to think that any of my strategies are ‘innovative.’ But I see part of my job as being a translator of legalese, which involves identifying legal concepts, prioritizing them in the order that most affects my clients and then presenting them in nontechnical terms and sometimes by analogy to allow my client to make informed decisions.”