“It was serendipity,” said Elizabeth Jochum on how she found the world of government contracting.
In her first job out of college, she was working as a reporter for Government Executive, a Washington-based magazine covering government agencies. There was a restaffing, and she found herself in a new beat—government contracting—despite not having any background in it.
“It was a great life move. I became really interested in regulatory changes and the various types of litigation that can arise, and soon realized my heart was in government contracts law, not journalism,” she said.
The two areas are “similar, though. We get to write a lot, and talk to different people,” she said.
Learning to digest a lot of complex information, and distill that into compelling up-front points has been useful in practicing law, she said.
“Especially in bid protests, you’re trying to take what can potentially be a very nuanced issue and grab the GAO attorney or judge’s attention quickly that something has gone awry here. It’s very similar to how you try to quickly grab a reader when writing a news piece,” she said.
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"They’ve Got Next: Government Contracts Fresh Face Elizabeth Jochum," by Daniel Seiden was published in Bloomberg Law on May 9, 2023.