"It's a Great Day to be an Adult and an Eagle."
Note: Just like Clark Kent would meekly go about his work without fuss or complaint, Jessica (Anderson) Edwards was an outstanding if not reserved part of the classroom. Yet outside of the classroom, she was a feared competitor. Instead of a cape, Super Jessica would emerge in a business suit and crush Speech and Mock Trial villains.
Swinging Sledgehammers
My favorite memory of Jessica Edwards involves a public service announcement made for Principal Warren Stowell to remind the student body of some rules. My National Honor Society chapter volunteered to make a Channel One video illustrating these rules, and Team Jessica (Davis and Anderson) took the vandalism segment. So Jessica Davis hauls in a junkyard vehicle from B&R and as someone filmed (I was inside filming another segment), Jessica and a group of “vandals” took sledgehammers and spray cans to that car in the school parking lot.
A concerned citizen drove into the parking lot to confront these crazed millennials: “Hey, what are you kids doing?”
Standing on top of the junker car, sledgehammer in hand, Jessica Edwards politely tells them, “Don’t worry, sir, we’re in NHS.”
Thoroughly convinced of Jessica’s compelling counter, the couple retreated and left the vandals to their business. It was one of many situations Jessica would successfully litigate.
Prior to this moment, she’d effectively swayed the entire chapter to end the long-standing tradition of organizing a post-prom for the student body. Since I’d pushed the concept of ownership and democratic process within the chapter as adviser, she argued and convinced the members to head in a more diverse strategy to help the community. Having convinced the chapter, she then took on the task of breaking the news to the community, which she articulated in a “letter to the editor” in the local newspaper.
Along with being an NHS officer, Jessica Edwards’ high school career included participation in several activities where she distinguished herself artistically and academically. She became Maple River’s first three-time state medalist in speech while also juggling intense schedules with drama and mock trial. “I think the experiences in mock trial and in speech really gave me a good foundation in the field that I'm in now,” Edwards reflected. “I'm an attorney, and I know that the critical-thinking, the public speaking, the communication skills—those things that I really found myself drawn to and doing activities that required those skillsets—those are the same things that I've continued to pursue in a lot of ways even today.” While she had talent to pursue any of her dreams, Edwards ultimately chose to pursue law. “The experience of going to state in mock trial and earning recognition at state, and the work we had done to get there, and the relationships with the attorney coaches we worked with definitely played a part in my deciding to consider law. I didn't have any other lawyers in my family really.”
Handling the Truth
To chase down her dreams, Edwards had a challenging path ahead of her. After graduating from Maple River in 2004, she attended the University of Minnesota Morris. “I was going on to law school, so I just went with what I was enjoying doing and I majored in Psychology.” After graduating in 2007, she modified her career goals to include a personal goal: she got married. While she kept her eye on the prize of becoming a lawyer, she admits there were some challenges in balancing such ambitious personal and professional goals. “I got married super young–probably too young–and certainly had challenges along the way, but we've built a really strong relationship together and a really beautiful family. I'm really proud of that, even though it’s probably not something that I was thinking about as a goal when I was a senior in high school.”
Edwards continued her journey at the University of Minnesota Law School, which she graduated in 2010. Her resume continued to strengthen as she interned during law school at one of Minneapolis’ largest firms, Fredrikson and Byron, and then worked in a clerkship for Federal District Court Judge Kyle for the District of Minnesota. “I clerked for a year and a half. Clerking is a really cool experience. You work closely with the judge preparing for hearings and trials and drafting opinions and reviewing all of the briefs. It's just a really good way, especially for lawyers who want to litigate, to learn all of the ins and outs of the court system and get to see a lot of different lawyers and different styles.” These experiences led her to becoming an associate at Fredrikson where she started her practice in commercial litigation.
Breaking Good
Edwards has now been married to her husband Ben for 17 years this summer and has two children: Simon who is eight and Amelie who is three. After years of fighting to get to the next level, she found her definition of success changing. “I think probably the biggest way that I've changed and evolved is being a parent now and having that lens on life and just the way it has taught me to shift and balance my priorities differently. I sort of recalibrated in some ways what I think of as success, and I realized that it's not all about work and professional success.” Edwards found balance through professional change. “I didn't feel like I could keep litigating at the level that I wanted to be and also have the work-life balance that I wanted to have for my family, so I made a shift and I took a job as associate general counsel for Abra Auto Body.” Following a corporate merger at Abra, she continued down this path at Entrust Corporation, where for the past four and a half years, she’s been responsible for employment law and litigation for the company.
“I'm very happy with it but it was a difficult change for me at first and kind of required me to recalibrate my view of success. Up to that point, I had very much been thinking that my path was to be a partner at a big law firm and that was what I wanted to do. So it definitely was a change and personally kind of a challenge for me to decide that maybe wasn't the right path for me. I'm happy with where I've landed and found that I really like a lot of things about working as an in-house lawyer as compared to private practice.”
Looking back at her time at Maple River twenty years later, she admits, “I was ready to move on to the next thing,” and she also has some advice for seniors feeling the same way. “I would say two things: the first, which has served me well, is just try to do the best that you can at whatever you're doing and be ready for doors that may open. Put yourself in positions where you'll hopefully have opportunities. You don't have to have it all planned out–just take the next opportunity that presents itself and trust that things will work out the way they're supposed to.
“The second thing I would say I have definitely learned (and I was just talking about this with a friend from high school recently actually) is that the world is so much bigger than you think it is. Not to imply anything negative about Mapleton, but the world is so much bigger than the small town that you've grown up in, and there's just so much more diversity of every type in the world. I think it's important to be open-minded to all of that and embrace it.”
Life in 2004
Oscar Winner: Million Dollar Baby
Top-selling artist: Usher
President: George Bush
Viking Season: 6-10
Twins Season: 94-68
Price of gas: $2.84
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