For Raheem S. Watson, a first-year associate with Conrad O'Brien, PC, the path toward a career in law began in a fish tank.

While a student in the city's Overbrook High School, Watson spent a summer working in a pet shop that specialized in exotic fish. One of the shop's regular customers was the wife of Rotan Lee, a prominent attorney, Philadelphia Daily News columnist and city school board president credited with spearheading ambitious reforms.

When the shop owner could not visit the Lee home one day to clean the salt-water fish tank, Watson agreed to go. So began a relationship that inexorably led Lee to become Watson's confidant and godfather and pushed his young protégé toward a life in law.

"He wanted me to be an attorney," Watson said of his mentor, who died in 2006.

While he was still at Overbrook, Watson joined the school's mock trial team and discovered that making persuasive arguments came naturally to him. Watson soaked up insights about business, the practice of law and "how to be a gentleman" during his final summer of high school, when he worked for Lee. While at Penn State University, Watson helped form a mock trial team and was named Best Attorney Advocate in a regional competition held at Princeton University in 2001.

After graduating, Watson spent a few years working as a financial analyst for an accounting firm in Washington, D.C.

Once in law school, Watson opted to complete a concentration in Business and Entrepreneurship Law and earned a place on the Drexel Law Review.

He also returned to Overbrook to coach the high school's mock trial team, reliving his own early brushes with oral advocacy and witnessing familiar sparks of excitement in a new generation of students.

Without Lee to advise him on finding a job, Watson turned during his 1L year to the law school's Career and Professional Development Office.

"As a 1L, it's critical that you stay in touch with career services," Watson said. "Amy Montemarano (assistant dean for career services) really understands the job landscape. They're all there to navigate you through this process. The more they know you, the better they can guide you."

Through the CPDO, Watson secured an on campus interview with Conrad, O'Brien, which led to a summer job and ultimately, a permanent offer.

Watson is delighted to be at the firm, handling a wide variety of litigation including commercial, securities and white collar criminal defense.

"Associates here are on a faster pace, in terms of the practical skills we acquire," he said. "We're intimately involved in trial work. We manage entire cases and advise clients, all at a greater depth than associates at larger firms. Here, you have to be on your A-game all the time."

As Watson gathers experience, the advice of his mentor remains with him.

"One of the things he'd always tell me was to approach everything with a sense of excellence and to take pride in what you do," Watson said. "I cling to those words today, and that has helped me in my pursuit of becoming the best attorney I can be."