“Christy has
great instincts—
good gut
feelings,”
says Nexsen Pruet
partner Ben Kahn.
“There may be one
answer to a situation
legally, but she’ll
look at it and use
her common sense
… which helps head
off issues before they
become issues.”
financial institutions. “She can get to the
issues quickly or settle quickly.”
Nexsen Pruet partner Rick Mendoza
says Myatt has a “sixth sense,” and notes,
“She is keenly intelligent but also has
good intuition, an ability to understand the
variable levels and textures of a situation.”
It’s a trait evident in how Myatt handles
companies that need to restructure their
financial operations. “She has been very
good at workouts,” Mendoza says. “Those
kinds of matters require creativity. …
Parameters are more or less set by law,
but you also have to understand what
clients need and want and what the
other side needs and wants. It’s solution
oriented. It’s finding a way to bridge the
gap between the clients.”
Myatt, 55, has been bridging gaps
much of her life. She grew up in High
Point, the oldest of three girls, and was
a cheerleader and played a variety of
sports at her high school, Westchester
Academy (now Westchester Country Day
School). “It was a small private school—
there were 15 in my graduating class—
and you had to do it all,” she says. “There
were not many female sports or athletes
back then, but I was thrust into the
environment. I’m not sure I would have
done it otherwise, and I loved it.”
Other experiences during her time at
Westchester pushed her toward law: In
addition to encouragement from a high
school teacher, Myatt saw the movie
Adam’s Rib and was inspired by the
attorney played by Katharine Hepburn. “I
wanted to be just like her,” Myatt says. “She
was independent and feisty, yet caring and
supportive of her clients and family.”
Her mother, Chris Myatt, encouraged
the idea. “Christy has always been a
focused person, very honest, very ethical,”
Chris says, noting that while there were
few women attorneys at that time, in
the 1970s, it didn’t faze her daughter.
“She liked a challenge, whether it was
swimming, skiing or going to law school—
she relished a challenge.”
After earning a double major in English
and political science, and then her J.D.,
at Wake Forest, Myatt did something
unusual for new lawyers in the early
1980s—she hung out her shingle. For
