The Human Side of the Deal

“I love how weird and complicated humans are,” says Kristen E. Prinz, ’06.

At the firm she founded, The Prinz Law Firm, much of her work is focused on executive employment, where she gets to delve into some of the most complicated careers that exist.

“When I was growing up, I didn’t realize the breadth of what’s possible and what people could do with their careers,” she says. “Now I get to not just see that, but also really dig in and be a part of that for people.”

Prinz’s own story is filled with false starts and career growth. Before she became an attorney, Prinz dipped her toes in a few different pools.

“I worked in marketing after college and then I worked for a startup in Seattle, like a dot-com in the early dot-com days,” she says.

When the dot-com bubble burst, her employer went belly up, and Prinz headed back to her hometown of Chicago for a fresh start.

She was working in the marketing department at a local law firm when she decided, on a whim, to take the LSAT, which was two weeks later.

“I told my husband, my boyfriend at the time, that I would take the LSAT. He asked why,” she says. “I told him I thought I’d be good at it.”

It turns out she was right. Her score was high, and it got her admitted to Chicago-Kent College of Law’s evening program.

“I didn’t think I really even wanted to practice law,” she says. “I had a good job. I was working full time.”

And she also had something to prove. She wanted to be good at being an attorney, too, so she dove into law school headfirst and excelled.

Despite working full-time, Prinz made time to serve as president of the Evening Law Student Society to represent students like her and make them feel welcome on campus.

There, she met Sara Sirotzky (FIN ’01), a former managing director at Marsh Risk, an insurance broking, risk management, and business advisory firm. 

The two women hit it off and have stayed friends. In particular, they share a love of networking. Sirotzky has sponsored Prinz’s membership bids into multiple local organizations, and the two frequently run into each other at events.

“I opened the door for Kristen, but she would have done it herself,” says Sirotzky. “She’s a born leader who’s bright and assertive and determined to be successful.”

Prinz is currently a member of the Illinois chapter of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum’s Making History Network, a board member at the single mother support non-profit New Moms, and a board member at the National Sleep Foundation. That’s in addition to roles at local groups, including the Chicago Network, the Economic Club of Chicago, and the Executives’ Club of Chicago.

“If you want to make changes in the world, you really need to be connected to your community, and it’s easy to get involved,” she says. “You’ll have a more varied and interesting career if you get out there and meet people, talk to people, and really show interest.”

After law school, Prinz took a job at Bellows and Bellows, where she stayed for nearly three years before leaving to start The Prinz Law Firm.

“I didn’t want to do general practice,” she says. “I just felt like I can’t be good at being everything to everyone. You have to be something specific.”

Employment law was where she found her niche, and how she narrowed her focus.

“[Employment] is a lot about identity, and I think the bigger your career is, the more that is true,” she says. “Seeing yourself as successful is pretty critical.”

Much of her work involves negotiating, a skill she has down to a science. 

Her book on the subject, New Rules of Negotiation: Get What Matters, will be published this fall by John Murray Press. 

“Negotiation is just relationships and our life,” she says. “How are we interacting with the people that we care about? Those are all negotiations.”

But she cautions that negotiations are not short-term transactional affairs that are focused solely on financial matters.

“Being cruel and transactional is very effective in the short term, but the long-term impact is very costly,” she says. “[You need to think about] what’s most important to people, and how do we get to a point where we’re really thinking more about relational negotiations.”