Founder And CEO, Leg Up Legal
After completing her BS/Business Administration, Vichayanonda worked at a marketing agency in Las Colinas for two years. She developed an interest in trademark and copyright law so she decided to go to law school at University of New Hampshire School of Law (formerly Franklin Pierce Law Center), where she specialized in intellectual property. Throughout her legal education, she sought practice-based experience, including competing in the Saul Lefkowitz Trademark Moot Court Competition, working as a judicial intern for the 14th District Court of Texas, working in the UNH Law Intellectual Property Clinic, and a stint with Under Armour. She completed her law degree in 2013, and began working for Kelly IP, a trademark and copyright boutique firm in Washington, D.C., where she represented clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses and nonprofits. In 2018, Vichayanonda founded Leg Up Legal, a startup providing a mentoring program and platform to connect prospective law students to attorney mentors.
Why did you leave Washington, D.C.?
I wanted to come back to Texas to be closer to family, so I joined the Dallas office of Haynes and Boone, LLP, in 2017. I mentored many law students and young lawyers and found a true passion helping others get started in the legal industry. I put together a number of resources for these mentees and then I shared them with a bigger audience through an online platform. And thus, Leg Up Legal was born.
Describe how Leg Up Legal works.
Leg Up Legal is a mentoring platform to help prospective law students learn more about legal career paths, clarify their goals and build their professional connections. When you sign up for our mentoring program, you build a profile, match with a mentor and meet online to accomplish your mentoring objectives. We provide a comprehensive mentoring curriculum with recommended objectives for mentees who don’t know where to begin. Leg Up Legal partners with undergraduate universities which provide students free access to our mentoring program. We also partner with legal employers to connect their attorneys to students to help with their recruiting initiatives.
What are your current job responsibilities?
Currently, I’m a solo founder in search of other co-founders so right now I wear all the hats at Leg Up Legal. I work one-on-one with students for individual career coaching, create content for the online platform, developed the Leg Up Legal marketing materials and run the business. On the entrepreneurship side, I’ve participated in a startup accelerator to clarify my business model and prepare for fundraising. I’ve pitched my startup at a number of events in Dallas, including 1MillionCups, the CometX/GalXc pitch competition and Dallas New Tech. And I’m building relationships with potential educational partners and other attorney mentors for the platform.
How has your Jindal School degree impacted your career?
Everything that I’ve done in my life up until now has prepared me to take on this role. The courses I took at UT Dallas helped prepare me for a career in marketing, and I used that knowledge to land my first job at a marketing agency. Working at the marketing agency helped me build skills in promoting brands and online advertising, and that’s how I developed an interest in trademark in copyright law. All of that led me to pursue law school and build my career as a trademark and copyright lawyer. Most of all, I started nurturing my entrepreneurial spirit while I was at UTD. When I attended UTD from 2004 to 2008, it didn’t have many of the amazing entrepreneurship programs that it has now, but that entrepreneurial spirit was always there. During that time, UTD was a bit of an underdog in business programs compared to SMU and UT and the other Texas universities. I didn’t move back to Dallas until 2017. I hadn’t seen UTD’s campus in 10 years when I returned and I was shocked and amazed at how much our university had grown. I am amazed to see how it has flourished in the last 10 years and I’m glad that my degree continues to appreciate with the reputation of our university.
How are you connected to the university now?
When I moved back to Dallas, I immediately wanted to get involved in the UTD community so I started attending alumni networking events, hosting events on campus through my startup, and speaking at events for the pre-law program at UTD. I found even more ways to get involved when I learned that UTD was launching an accelerator for women who are affiliated with UT Dallas. Through participating in the first cohort of GalXc, I met dozens of fantastic student and alumni entrepreneurs in the CometX and GalXc classes and I’m blown away by the quality of entrepreneurship resources UTD now offers. If you’re attending UTD, I encourage you to seek out all this university has to offer because there are amazing things going on all around campus. While I was highly satisfied with the quality of the education I received from UTD, my degree has appreciated so much since I graduated because the university has worked so hard to build an excellent reputation and grow its programs. Continuing to be involved at UTD has brought me opportunities that I have never imagined. So, after you graduate, remember to stay involved with your alma mater!
What do you enjoy about your current position?
This was what I was born to do. Some people live their whole lives not truly finding their purpose, but I have found mine. Entrepreneurship is hard—harder than being a lawyer. It is mentally, physically and emotionally challenging and it can be much less financially rewarding in the short-term. But, everything that I’ve done in my life up until this point leads me to believe that this is the right path for me. I love helping others navigate the first steps on their legal career paths. It is so rewarding to work with students and help them figure out what the practice of law is really like, how many different legal career paths exist and how they can get started building their careers. I remember how lost, intimidated and anxious I felt when I was in law school trying to figure out how to start my career and I want to help ease that transition for as many people as possible. My favorite part of my job is watching my mentees grow and hearing about their successes, including helping them decide which law schools they want to attend to being able to forge their first professional relationships.
How do you see your profession changing in the next five or 10 years?
The practice of law is changing immensely. Legal employers are still struggling with improving gender and racial diversity and equality. Millennials also are changing how law firms view work/life balance, remote work and non-monetary compensation. Law firms and clients are utilizing cost-savings measures, such as outsourcing legal work to third party companies, also known as alternative legal services providers. Companies are using artificial intelligence for various legal functions including trademark searching, case law research, improving billing, etc. The law is constantly changing and adapting to new issues that arise from technology, expansion of the global economy and innovations in business. On the business law side, there has been a huge growth in the use of alternative legal service providers and other cost saving measures and the market for legal services has grown. For lawyers serving individuals, we’ve seen the cost of legal services increase to the point where many individuals are forgoing legal services. We need to find new cost-efficient ways to provide access to justice and satisfy the underserved demand. In short, the practice of law is changing rapidly in almost every aspect, which creates a huge amount of opportunity for people who are willing to not only adapt to these changes, but lead the way as thought leaders and conversation drivers.
What unexpected experience or event has influenced your current professional life?
The whole experience of conceiving Leg Up Legal has been an unexpected. While I was mentoring students and working full time, it dawned on me that I could reach a greater audience by using a technology platform. The idea hit me sometime in February 2018, and then I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I started thinking about it all the time: On my commute to work, while I was cooking dinner, in the shower, even in my dreams. The more I worked on it, the more my passion grew. I don’t know if anyone is ever fully prepared to take the leap into entrepreneurship, but even if I wasn’t prepared, I was ready, willing and able. Honestly, I’ve never felt happier in my professional life. Not all days are good, most days are really hard, and I feel like I’m being pulled in 100 different directions at once, but I know that there is a need for the services that I’m providing. And each and every student who I work with helps to validate that belief when I see their growth and understanding.
What is a professional highlight of your career, either where you currently work or in the past?
A highlight from my legal career was helping to bring one of my first clients in the door when I was a junior associate. My client contact was one of my former bosses who became a lifelong mentor and friend. At the time, he had moved from an athletic consumer goods company to a confectionary company. My partners and I pitched his business and won, and I played a leading role in the pitch and later on in the day-to-day service for that client. Going through that process as a third-year attorney was a huge win early on in my career.
What characteristics do you look for when hiring people into your workplace?
When I think about adding people to my company, I want to find people with great empathy. Not just good lawyers, but good teachers. I believe in providing opportunities to fail in a safe space, and learning through those mistakes, is what allows you to become successful. I want to find people who are willing to give back and guide the next generation of people behind them. If your main motivation is money or you think there’s only a limited amount of room at the table, this company is not for you.
Why did you come to UT Dallas?
I was not planning to attend UT Dallas, as I was actually registered to attend SMU. I came to UT Dallas during the summer after graduating high school to support my twin sister during her summer orientation. Dr. J. Michael Coleman was undergraduate education dean at the time, and he sat next to us at lunch. (Coleman is now retired.) He asked if we were both ready for the fall semester, and I shared that I was attending SMU. Dean Coleman asked if my sister received any scholarship funding, and my sister replied that she did. He then offered to increase her scholarship amount and give me that same amount if I decided to go to UTD instead of SMU. He even took out a business card, wrote, “Go to College Free Card” on the back, and gave me one week to decide. After the orientation, my mom, said, “If you go to UTD, I will buy you a car.” I was 17 and I really wanted a car so that was an easy decision to make. Dean Coleman was true to his word, and a couple weeks later, I was at my own orientation. Even though I made the decision quickly and on a bit of a whim, I don’t regret it in the least. UTD gave me a quality education without any undergraduate debt.
What is your favorite UT Dallas memory?
I hung out with a lot of nerds at UT Dallas and I am all for keeping UTD nerdy. My sister and boyfriend at the time were ATEC (School of Arts, Technology and Emerging Communication) students and I spent a lot of time with that crowd. We would play computer games and video games, watch anime, and play Settlers of Catan. You could do anything at UTD and no one judged you or pressured you.
Did a UT Dallas professor inspire you?
Dean Coleman was that person. He provided all the opportunities and embodied all that UTD should be. He was always available to talk to students and was generous with his time.
Has something about your UT Dallas education surprised you since graduating?
I’m surprised by how much UTD has grown. We had less than 15,000 students when I graduated in 2008. (The university now has more than 28,000 students.) I walk around campus today and it is so bustling and vibrant. When I attended, it was very much a commuter school so seeing the campus so lively is very surprising.
