The experience was a difficult one, but it flipped something inside Michele. She grew accustomed to being the only African American woman in the room, and the feeling no longer paralyzed her. I’m not the stupid one, she thought to herself. I’m the smart one. She buried herself even deeper in her studies, determined to outdo anyone who doubted her.

She graduated with a stellar record—she’s now grateful for the experience—and went off to college. The racial percentages there were, unfortunately, nearly identical. It was the same story at Berkeley, where Michele earned a law degree in 1980.

After she graduated, Michele became a public defender in Washington, D.C. It’s a notoriously difficult, thankless job. Public defenders are overburdened with indigent clients, most of whom manage to secure just a few hours of their busy lawyer’s time. Because of that, Michele said, most people expect their public defenders to be distracted or incompetent.

Michele decided she would be amazing. She’d visit her clients in prison on weekends, when other lawyers were relaxing. In court, prosecutors would size her up, thinking a black woman would be easily bested. Fine, she thought, if that means you’re going to not work as hard and you’re going to sleep a little longer. When she talked to juries, she would try to put herself in their shoes, appealing to their common sense without condescending to them. Soon, she became so good in oral arguments that other lawyers would come to her trials just to watch her and learn.

Once, early in her career, she was handling a case with a senior attorney, and he asked her for a draft of the opening statement. When he read it, he asked, “Did someone help you write this?”

Michele knew what that meant.

“The problem is, if you didn’t write it yourself,” he continued, “you’re going to have a really tough time memorizing it.”

She decided she was going to give the most brilliant opening statement in the history of opening statements. As she entered the courtroom, she glimpsed the senior attorney out of the corner of her eye. I can’t wait to see the expression on this asshole’s face when he realizes that I am not only good, she thought to herself, but better than he will ever be.

And then…she nailed it. It was a flawless, powerful statement, delivered expertly. “I didn’t find ignorance and prejudice would demotivate me,” Michele explained. “I found it would excite me.”

Years later, she was made partner at one of the country’s top law firms, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom—thus becoming one of the fewer than 3 percent of law partners who are women of color.287 In 2014, Michele was named director of the National Basketball Players Association. It made her an outsider yet again: the first woman to head a major North American professional sports union.