Legal Business

The Client Profile: Terra Potter, Hexcel Corporation

Terra Potter (whose middle name is Cotta – LB has seen the proof) proudly proclaims on LinkedIn that she originally hails from a cornfield outside Chicago and, while many lawyers claim to have had an unconventional path into a legal career, hers has been more so than most. Growing up in Rochelle, Illinois, she started working in kitchens, first as a dishwasher at the age of 14, before working her way up the cooking ladder, and so set her sights on a culinary career. A move to Hyde Park, New York and The Culinary Institute of America at the age of 17 had the unexpected consequence of a passion for the law.

‘The penultimate class was restaurant law, which is actually just like contract law’, Potter recalls. ‘It was so cool and the world made sense through it. That sparked the joy for law in me.’