However, older men used the fact that she was the daughter of the boss as an excuse to not take the budding legal star seriously. "They assumed that I only had a job because I was Dennis' daughter. And I used to actually be kind of hot," she said with a laugh, "so I would come in and I was just a cute, little girl that was this other colleague's daughter and they really underestimated me. And rather than getting frustrated or fighting it, I used it to my advantage.
While the sexism hasn't completely dissipated—the accomplished attorney still gets called "sweetie" and "honey" on occasion to this day—according to Wasser, you don't have to mimic the stereotypical behavior of men in order to succeed. "It's not the most lovely way of coming to what you need to come to," she acknowledged. "It would be nice if we just were on the partner track and everybody appreciated what we did and then they handed it to us, but a lot of times, we really do have to fight for it.