HHM Feature: Marissa Román Griffith on her life in law

When did you first realize you wanted to become a lawyer?

When I was in fifth through eighth grade, my mother went to Georgetown Law at night to pursue a second career as an attorney. On nights when I would otherwise be home alone, I would often tag along, and her professors were very understanding and let me sit in the classroom with her. Obviously, I didn’t understand much that was being discussed, but I would attempt to take notes and found it all pretty fascinating. I was an avid reader, and I loved to think and analyze, so I thought becoming a lawyer would suit me.

When I eventually went to law school, I headed west to California because, in the back of my mind, I was hoping to work in the entertainment industry someday. Film and television have always been personal passions of mine, and I even studied film in high school and college. But I wasn’t interested in the creative side; I wanted to focus on the business side. I also knew I wanted to do something transactional, and I really liked corporate law as well as finance.

When I began working in entertainment finance, it was primarily film finance on an individual project basis only. That expanded into working on corporate credit facilities and slate financings, then representing smaller studios and production companies who want to strike a deal with a major studio (like Sony or Paramount) and, more recently, a streamer (like Amazon or Netflix) to be co-production and/or co-financing partners, and then acquisition representations, whether for the target or the acquirer (or the financier of the target or acquirer) in connection with a single project, a library or an entire business.

You were one of four recipients of the inaugural Akin DEI Leadership Awards, and you also received the Jonathan Howard Legacy Award from Outfest. Could you describe your pro bono and diversity work?

I’ve done pro bono my whole career, and I’m fortunate to be at a law firm that actively supports pro bono service. I did quite a bit of step-parent adoption work as an associate, which I found very fulfilling, for the Alliance for Children’s Rights. Most recently, I’ve been supervising our junior attorneys on asylum cases and also a felony conviction expungement project.

It has always been personally important to me to give back to the community, particularly communities of color and other underrepresented communities. So, several years ago, I started serving on different boards in different capacities—Outfest, an LGBTQIA+-focused arts organization, was one of them. I served on Outfest’s board, including as board co-president for the first two years of the pandemic. Those were stressful, make-or-break times for that organization.

I’ve also been a longstanding trustee of the Mexican-American Bar Foundation, which raises scholarship funds for low-income Latinx law students who attend a Southern California-based law school. Every year, MABF holds a big gala to raise funds to give out 20 to 25 scholarships that are about $7,500 to $10,000 each. The recipients are almost always the first in their family not only to go to law school, but to go to college—and often even the first to graduate high school. The scholarship recipients are very impressive. The gala is a very meaningful event because the whole point of MABF is to increase the number of professionals of Latinx descent in the legal profession, and the scholarships are a lifeline for the recipients.

What has your experience been as a Latina in the legal industry?

When you’re a women of color in the legal industry, it’s a double whammy. When I was starting out, there were very few women and very few attorneys of color (and they were usually male). I rarely saw or worked with a female partner. Going into a room, I was often the only woman there as well as the sole attorney of color. It was often assumed I was the junior person, and I would be asked to go get coffee and make copies. Thankfully, the professional world is a lot different now than it was in the 1990s and early 2000s. But, sadly, not much progress has been made with regard to the number of female partners of color in BigLaw.

As a proud Puerto Rican, it’s important to me to advocate for people in underrepresented groups, both within and outside the firm. That’s a big reason why the DEI work that I am involved in at Akin has been very meaningful to me.

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