Career Path Of An Attorney At Fisher Phillips

Thank you for the question. When I was in college, I attended UC Davis. First, I was a football athlete, and when football ended for me, I had to seek employment to pay for my living expenses. My first job was at Wells Fargo Bank as a teller.

I worked at Wells Fargo Bank until I graduated from UC Davis in 2007. During that period, I was promoted from teller to banker. At the time of my graduation, I learned that Target was hiring managers nationwide due to opening multiple stores.

I sought employment with Target and they hired me as an entry-level store manager in Folsom. My role, as part of the management structure, was to oversee store operations, specifically focusing on loss prevention. This included addressing losses from logistics processes, organized retail crime, internal employee theft, and fraud.

After achieving some success and recognition, a pharmacist at the store called me over. She told me, "Ryan, I think you're better than this job here at Target. You should call my friend at the state capital." She wrote down a name and phone number on a piece of paper and handed it to me.

I followed up with her friend at the state capitol, who happened to be the Deputy Chief Senate Sergeant at Arms. I went to meet her, and she assumed I wanted the job of Senate Sergeant at Arms. I had no idea what it entailed; I was just following the pharmacist's advice.

She said, "If you're serious about this job, you need to get firearms training through a program at the junior college." The training cost $700, which I didn't have at the time. My girlfriend at the time used her credit card, and I completed the firearms training. I then went back and went through the interview process, and they hired me.

They hired me as a law enforcement officer doing dignitary protection in the Senate and put me through the police academy. I graduated from the police academy in either 2008 or 2009. I was a dignitary protection law enforcement officer in the Senate with statewide jurisdiction. I did that for about a year and a half and realized this was interesting work, and I might be able to do more.

So, I went to Sacramento State University and earned a master's degree in Criminal Justice through a part-time program while I was still a law enforcement officer. That was a two-year program. Near the end of that program, I was escorting a senator to an event in San Francisco.

As he was leaving the event, he was walking with a young Kamala Harris, who was the District Attorney of San Francisco at the time. I asked him, "Who's that lady? She seemed really important." He told me about her and spent about an hour discussing her promising career.

Then he turned to me and talked about my potential, telling me I could do more than I was doing. He essentially dared me to go to law school, and I took him up on that dare. Instead of graduating with my degree in criminal justice and seeking employment with the FBI or CIA, which was my plan, I decided to go to law school.

I attended UC Law, San Francisco, which was a good law school and the same one Kamala Harris attended. My first summer job was with a firm in San Francisco. It was a paid summer associate position, which was hard to get as a first-year law student. The partner who brought me on mentored me in employment law, and I have been doing employment law ever since.