Taking the reins

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”It’s very entrepreneurial. That’s what she exemplifies — an entrepreneurial spirit that is very unique among lawyers,” said Joshua G. Vincent, a capital partner in Hinshaw & Culbertson who serves as chairman of the firm’s Attorney Training and Education Committee. ”The ones that are most successful in the long term are the ones who approach the profession with that entrepreneurial spirit.”

A source of inspiration

At the firm, Vincent said, Ocrant has become a source of inspiration for associates looking for tips on how to develop business, ‘’something young lawyers are a little mystified about.”

As part of a Hinshaw University course on business development offered to the firm’s new associates each year, Vincent likes to feature Ocrant on a panel of attorneys who share their insight into that topic.

”She is a perfect example of a younger lawyer who took a hobby that she was very passionate about and converted that into a niche practice area that has become very successful for her in more ways than one,” Vincent said. ”Some of the most successful lawyers, in terms of business development, are the ones that are able to create niche practices and be the best at some discrete area that no one else is involved in. That’s what makes you unique, and that’s exactly what she has done.”

At the firm of about 475 lawyers, ”everyone knows that’s her thing,” said Steven R. Bonanno, a litigation partner who frequently partners with Ocrant on cases. ”If anyone brought in an equine matter, they would almost certainly involve her. It’s like an in-house resource.

”She puts her whole heart into equine law and into the equine world in her personal life,” Bonanno said. ”I have a running joke with her that we should make a trivia contest as to how many horses are in her office, whether it’s pictures or little statues. If you walk into her office, you can tell what she’s in love with. It’s horses, everywhere.”

When asked just what is it about horses, Ocrant repeats a quote by Winston Churchill: ”There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.”

A resident of Barrington who was raised in Highland Park, Ocrant acquired a love of horses at a young age, from the time her stay-at-home-mom — who rode horses of her own — gave in to a 7-year-old Ocrant’s pleadings to let her ride one of her Thoroughbreds.

”She was really nervous about putting me on this horse. With her, if she’d go out on a field, he would just take off,” Ocrant said. ”She put me on him and he reacted to me being small and inexperienced. I didn’t take the tight rein on him and I didn’t put my leg on him real tight like my mom would and ask him to do stuff. I just sat up there. And he treated me like he was a pony. He just walked around like a perfect gentleman.

”I think this horse of my mom’s, his brain was that special. As I learned to ride, he took care of me. He jumped everything. He never took off. He never spooked at anything … His job was, ‘Okay - I’m going to take this little girl around.’ He took care of me, and that’s what got me hooked.”

Ocrant said her love of horses has since evolved into a partnership.

”They’re not a pet, they’re not a tool for sport. They really become my partner in whatever it is that I’m doing,” Ocrant said. ”What do you expect from your partner in life? You expect somebody you can lean on, somebody you can trust, somebody you can confide in, somebody that’s going to be there without judgment. Even though horses can’t speak English, I think I get that relationship from my horses.”

Today, Ocrant — who is also a professionally trained and certified mediator — is as much a part of the industry as she is a practitioner representing industry players.

As a lawyer, she said, ”I am so much more effective because I get it. I get the passions of the parties to their horses, I get the financial dedication of these parties, I also get that they need to move on from this dispute and continue their efforts in other equine activities.”

As her practice has grown, so too has its potential to generate more work for other substantive practice groups and geographic locations of the firm.

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