Laurie Mesa is a legal assistant and works on the firm’s warranty team. She celebrated her 20th anniversary with the firm in April, 2025 and shared this reflection.

I began at RumbergerKirk as a floater. Although I had many years of legal experience, I had never worked in litigation before. My experience had been primarily workers’ compensation and a small amount of family law, wills and trusts. Beginning as a floater was a great way to work with a lot of different people, in different practice areas, and truly get to know the firm.

Keeping the Warranty Team on Track

After working for about a month, a position became available on the warranty team with Charlie Mitchell and Steve Klein and my journey into the world of car warranties began. 

I feel truly blessed to be a part of the warranty team. As a team we have gone through a lot of growing pains and changes over the course of 20 years, but we are close-knit group and always pull together to get things done and protect our clients’ interests. One of the things I am most proud of in my role has been establishing and maintaining a good working relationship with our clients. As the unofficial “team mom,” I do what I can to help keep everyone on track and ensure deadlines are met.

Building Lasting Relationships

To me, one of the best things about working at RK is that you are part of a large family, who is there to support you when times are good and also, and perhaps more importantly, when times are bad.  I have been blessed to form friendships with people that I work for, and with, that will last for the rest of my lifetime.

I am grateful that I was given the opportunity to work here, and as I reflect back on the last 20 years, I recall being asked during my interview what I was looking for from a prospective employer. I answered, “A place I can call ‘home’ for the remainder of my legal career.”  I most definitely found that!

One of my favorite memories was being part of the team that won a big case after a 10-year battle. We lost the first trial (I was not yet at the firm), but successfully appealed it and then won the second trial.

Hobbies and Fun Facts

When I am not at work, I enjoy reading, listening to music and run the Facebook group for my partner John’s musical duo, Feels So Right.  A fun fact that most of my colleagues don’t know about me is that I collect both Boyd’s Bears and Cherished Teddies and probably between the two have a collection of over 500!