PROFILES IN
LEADERSHIP JOURNAL
2025
AWARD
EMERGING
LEADERS
Annie Collart
Partner, White Collar & Investigations
Education: JD, Seton Hall University School of Law; BA, Marquette University Company Name: FBT Gibbons LLP Industry: Law Company CEO: Robert Sartin, Chairman; Peter Torcicollo and Adam Hall, Co-Managing Partners Number of Employees: 1,429 Words you live by: Assume the best about people. Who is your personal hero? My father What book(s) are you reading? Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, Dismantling Mass Incarceration by Premal Dharia, James Forman Jr. and Maria Hawilo, and The Mists of Avalon e-book by Marion Zimmer Bradley What was your first job? Supercuts (sweeping up the aftermath of questionable mid-90s haircuts) Favorite charity: NJCRI (North Jersey Community Research Initiative) Interests/Hobbies: Farming Family: Spouse Neil, Daughter Farryn, Son Rory
Never underestimate the value of showing up and saying thank you There is no professional milestone, award, or position of authority that has caused me to feel a meaningful sense of leadership. What has been genuinely impactful in shaping how I think about myself as a leader is something far quieter: the private notes of women who took the time to say thank you. In the practice of law, there are many days in between the significant career milestones and big case wins. Those days are sometimes fun, but they are also sometimes mundane and often challenging. Lawyers are, in part, a means of outsourcing a client’s stress, which can be considerable. If we are doing the job right, we cannot help but take on that stress. It is why we are distracted on weekends, puzzling through an issue, and it is why we stay up well past midnight preparing to cross examine a witness. Add to that the very human experience—sleepless nights when norovirus hits your family, the loss of a loved one, disagreements with your partner,
or the nagging feeling that you are failing on all fronts as you drop off a work call early just in time to arrive late for a child’s school performance. Half of leadership is showing up. The world deserves law firms with partners and leaders who are female, who are volunteers, who are active members of their family—i.e., leadership that reflects the population of the world in which we live and work. When the challenging days accumulate, leadership overcomes and continues to show up. And what has caused me to recognize that I am part of that leadership is not any professional award or client win. It is a heartfelt text from a colleague up for partner; a card from an intern now headed to law school after a summer working together; a letter from a paralegal now studying prison reform issues. It is the people who are busy, just like the rest of us, and nevertheless take the time to remind me that there is value in continuing to show up.
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