By Hannah Sholl '99 and Sarah Kroll-Rosenbaum ‛01
We met on Sarah’s first day at Barnard in the fall of 1997. The two of us had never met, but our roommates were sisters and remain our dear friends. Sarah arrived in ripped jean shorts and her “Never Doubt That a Small Group of Thoughtful, Committed Citizens Can Change the World” t-shirt. Hannah was comparatively mature, elegant, and for Sarah, the paragon of a Barnard woman. She studied urban planning, joined dance classes on the lawn in front of the library, and traversed Morningside Heights with purpose. Between the two of us, we took every political science, philosophy, and urban studies class Barnard offered. We were inspired by Gandhi, challenged by Iris Young, and moved by Mary Oliver. We took our work seriously, recognizing the profound privilege of our time on campus.
We had no idea that nearly 30 years later we would be joining forces to open up a law firm together.
We launched our firm, Grove Law LLP on June 30, 2025 — it’s a new breed of law firm rooted in integrity, obsessed with innovation, and dedicated to holistic counsel grounded in deep listening. Grove Law was born not only out of our shared commitment to reimagining legal practice, but also out of the friendship and foundation we built at Barnard — where we learned the power of rigorous thought, fearless creativity, and the strength of women supporting each other.
‘A Popsicle Stand of Our Own’
The path to opening up our own firm was not linear. In fact, immediately after college neither of us went into law right away. But our guiding principles that led us here were with us throughout our journey.
Shortly after graduating in 1999, Hannah published “Barnard Brilliance” for the Last Word column of Barnard Magazine. She chronicled her search for that “lustrous quality that defines Barnard women” — the way they “walk and talk with such brilliance” and “seem to enjoy the success that comes from balancing the honor of being female with the virtue of pursuing distinction.” She concluded that “Barnard Brilliance is the result of four years spent honestly searching for real knowledge and a real sense of what it means to be alive, four years spent living in New York City and reaping the benefits of an extraordinary institution … it is the gift of a critical mind and the desire to build lifelong intellectual pursuits.”
After Barnard, Hannah became an urban planner and Sarah worked at democracy-building organizations. We each went to law school and then reunited at one of the nation’s preeminent litigation firms. There, our friendship truly took root. We poured ourselves into the daunting task of becoming lawyers, working diligently to learn our craft while clinging to our sense of ourselves as women and individuals. We tried to embrace the culture that we had entered, but over late-night conference room dinners we often wondered why things that seemed so important to us were not valued: the ability to live whole lives while building successful practices, the awareness of other people’s authentic strengths, and the importance of building strong, functional teams that drew on those strengths. We dreamed, schemed, and joked: someday we’ll have a popsicle stand of our own.
Our paths widened and we thrived. As we grew, we continued to support each other. Hannah put Sarah on a plane to Los Angeles to find reinvention. We married wonderful men and then held each other’s hearts in the beautiful and complicated journey of becoming mothers, with Hannah helping Sarah briefly step back from the big-law partnership track after losing two pregnancies six months apart. Over the course of two decades, we discovered who we were as lawyers. Hannah became an integrator — someone with a unique ability to assemble and coordinate teams of lawyers to advance her clients’ interests. She instinctively amplifies the voices of colleagues whose perspectives might otherwise be overshadowed, and she has been entrusted with leading large teams that must collaborate to deliver results. Sarah made partner on her own terms and developed a large practice in staffing law, reveling in the multidimensional legal and business dynamics of that industry’s daily flow. Sarah is recognized nationally for her ability to help clients navigate high-stakes business decisions with clarity and vision, ensuring their strategies are not only legally sound but also aligned with long-term growth. Sarah built this reputation by developing a team of lawyers whose authentic strengths are honored and celebrated. Grove is a fulfillment of Hannah’s prophecy in “Barnard Brilliance”: for nearly three decades, we have balanced the honor of being women with the pursuit of excellence, honestly searching for ways to be our best selves while continuing to build the kind of critical minds that make our work as lawyers feel fully alive. And now we are building a law firm around those same ideals. We launched Grove with five of Sarah’s former colleagues in California. In New York, we recently welcomed Elizabeth Puccio-Williams ‘16 as an associate and Emily Gao CC ‘25 as a paralegal.
Together, we are building a law firm shaped by the kind of women Barnard helped us become. And, as we learned at Barnard, we should never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.
