In a 2019 graduation speech at George Washington University, she said leaving law was “one of the biggest, craziest jumps” she ever made.
“It wasn’t a cliff; it was the federal courthouse here in Washington, DC,” she said.
Months before she was due to start as a law clerk for a federal judge, she had an epiphany.
“It wasn’t my dream,” she said. “What I really wanted was to go back to my roots in journalism. I still had that nagging hope that one day I could really make it in television news.”
Guthrie spoke with the judge. He asked why she didn’t come work for him for a year, since it would help her career, especially since she didn’t have a job lined up.
“And that’s when I looked at him and told him: ‘I know you’re right. What you say makes perfect sense,'” she said. “‘But I also know myself, and if I don’t do this, right this minute, I will never have the guts again.'”
From 2004 to 2006, she was Court TV’s legal-affairs correspondent.
She covered cases like the Zacarias Moussaoui trial, the Boston clergy sex-abuse scandal, and the Scooter Libby case.