The summer after her 1L year at USC Gould School of Law, Nicole N. King (JD 2012) found herself fighting for real clients in moments of crisis — divorce, domestic violence, paternity suits, child-custody battles and property division.
As a Trope and Trope Fellow at the Harriett Buhai Center for Family Law, King learned first-hand how good lawyering could transform the lives of everyday people. Established in 1995 by USC alumnus Sorrell Trope (BA 1947, JD 1949), the fellowship is awarded annually to one outstanding USC Gould student.
“Family law came naturally to me, because I myself was a child of divorce,” says King, who at age 12 would wait in the reception area while her mom met with her divorce attorney. “But I wasn’t one of those kids who saw divorce as the end of the world. For me, it was a relief and brought peace at home. Divorce marked a new beginning, an opportunity to rebuild our family with stability, love and security. Legal advocacy in moments of family upheaval is powerful; it creates options, restores agency, and allows families to move forward with dignity.”
Today, King is a trial attorney at Venable LLP. She’s built a robust practice at the intersection of product liability and mass torts, and complex commercial litigation. But that summer fellowship in family law had important ripple effects.
In January, King was named president of the Buhai Center’s board of directors. These days, the nonprofit legal aid organization commands a significant chunk of King’s attention in leading the board members, guiding governance, shaping strategy, and ensuring the Buhai Center stays aligned with its mission. In close partnership with executive director Stacy Horth-Neubert, King weighs in on major decisions, oversees fiduciary matters, and backs fundraising and external engagement efforts.
Early start in law
It’s a far stretch from where King imagined she’d be when she first started her legal journey 17 years ago.
The native New Yorker had grown up on Long Island, the child of hard-working immigrants from the Caribbean island-nation of Saint Lucia.
Her parents modeled discipline and resourcefulness that King internalized early on. Her mom put in 44 years as a geriatric nurse; her dad is an accountant and small-business owner.
By fourth grade, King knew she wanted to be a lawyer. She studied political science at The George Washington University, but postponed her legal education to stay on in D.C. as a staff assistant to U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee of California’s 12th district.
King recalls the exact moment she knew she didn’t belong on Capitol Hill. She and the congresswoman were walking back to her office after a pivotal House vote. Lee was on cloud nine.
“How long have you been working on passing this bill?” King remembers asking in the hallway of the Rayburn House Office Building.
“Ten years,” the congresswoman, who is now mayor of Oakland, had replied.
King’s heart sank. “I realized I had little patience for the slow pace of change in a legislative body. I wanted to have a voice. I wanted to take up space. I wanted to lead, and I needed faster, concrete results from my work.”
A chance meeting
It was an undergraduate study-abroad experience in Italy that put USC Gould on King’s radar. One night she found herself eating at a communal table in Sicily, sitting across from a fellow American, telling him her story.
She was going to be an entertainment lawyer, King had confided. She loved music, wanted to be part of that world — not as talent but as the strategist behind it. (King had played trumpet and French horn in school, but cheerfully admits to being tone deaf.)
The stranger, who turned out to be head of admissions at USC at the time, listened and then offered this sage advice: “If you want to do entertainment law, you have to go to USC.”
King filed away that information, and after her two-year stint as a Hill staffer, grabbed her USC Gould admissions offer. She’s been in Los Angeles ever since.
Entertainment law quickly fell by the wayside, however. King naturally gravitated toward clinical and skills-based courses.
“After 1L, I felt so bogged down with theory. I really wanted to practice law,” she says.
The Buhai Center summer fellowship delivered. King was amazed at the degree of autonomy she was given.
“Everyone thought I was tough because I’m from New York,” she says, laughing, “so I was assigned to work with many of the male clients wanting to establish paternity or visitation rights.”
She vividly recalls a case involving a father whose untreated mental illness had spiraled into addiction and criminal charges for theft. He was served with child support papers while in prison. Once released, he rebuilt his life and sought representation at the Buhai Center. King drafted declarations in his petition for paternity and visitation rights to the child he’d never met.
King also got to work closely with then-executive director Betty Nordwind on special projects aimed at disrupting the pipeline between domestic violence and women’s incarceration. They visited jails and homeless shelters on information-gathering trips.
“We had a really great relationship,” King recalls.
Back at USC Gould, King loaded her schedule with practice-oriented courses. One of her favorites was Professor Thomas Lyon’s seminar on child-interviewing. She and her classmates honed their interview skills on visits to a neighborhood elementary school. Being a research assistant to Lyon helped deepen the course’s impact.
Other favorite practice-oriented courses included pre-trial advocacy (LAW 820) and deposition strategies (LAW 809).
Outside the classroom, King won honors in Hale Moot Court and was active in the USC Gould chapter of the Black Law Students Association, rising to leadership roles over her three years.
She forged close ties with longtime USC Gould leader Chloe Reid. “Dean Reid is part of my lifelong cabinet of trusted advisors,” King says of the former law school admissions dean who is now senior director of development.
Looking back, King traces all of her consequential professional decisions to relationships forged in the USC Gould community.
The list starts with career advisor Rachel Kronick Rothbart, who initially connected King with the Buhai Center. Before joining USC, Rothbart, now senior director at the law school’s Career Services Office, had spent 10 years as a staff attorney at the Koreatown-based public interest family law center.
A summer associate position under USC alum Shelly Gopaul (JD 2006) led to King’s first Big Law job at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, where she became a commercial litigation associate, specializing in financial services matters. After five years in the firm’s Santa Monica offices, King was ready for a larger canvas. Two USC connections, Ben Whitwell (JD 1988) and friend Kimberley David (JD 2013), steered her toward Venable.
“It really has been the Trojan network that has sustained me,” King says. “From my very first job as a 1L, every major move has involved a USC alum.”
At Venable, King has built a practice in complex commercial litigation with a focus on business disputes, product liability, mass and toxic torts, consumer claims and insurance recovery.
Since 2021, she has been named yearly to The Best Lawyers in America: Ones to Watch. In 2024, she represented her firm as a regional fellow of the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity. King currently sits on Venable’s hiring committee and is the West Coast deputy chair of its affinity group for Black attorneys.
Although she’s established a solid practice in civil litigation, King says one of her most consequential courtroom victories came on a pro bono family law case. Squaring off against a seasoned family law attorney, she secured a judgment of dissolution of marriage and an award for spousal support for her client, an undocumented immigrant who was experiencing domestic violence and sexual abuse in her marriage. King successfully first-chaired a bench trial seeking her client’s requested relief. “I didn’t expect to win. It was a 14-month marriage,” she says. But King won all rulings in the client’s favor. The Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles featured King in its Pro Bono Spotlight for her achievement.
The case reignited King’s involvement with the Buhai Center.
“Betty and I had kept in touch over the years,” she says, of Nordwind, who along with USC Gould classmates Sarah M. Luetto (JD 2011) and Serine A. Tsuda (JD 2012) recruited King to serve on the center’s 22-person volunteer board. She was elevated to the presidency in January 2026.
Work-life balance
Off the clock, King leads an active life. She boxes three times a week and goes salsa dancing, loves reading memoirs, attends theater regularly, and travels the globe. In fact, she’s touched five of seven continents. She recently celebrated her 40th birthday at Lake Como in Italy.
Her passion for music hasn’t faded. She enjoys many genres and goes often to live concerts — one of the latest being Bad Bunny’s blowout at the national stadium in Costa Rica last December.
It’s not the kind of work-life balance one associates with a litigation career in Big Law. Yet King doesn’t anchor her identity in exceptionalism.
“I believe ordinary people can do extraordinary things,” she says. “I’m no exception to that. What sets me apart is how I’ve chosen to live that belief in practice.”
Nicole N. King, JD 2012, is counsel at Venable LLP, Los Angeles. She serves as president of the board of directors of the Harriett Buhai Center for Family Law.
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