As a senior counsel at Cox Communications, Bryan Carter’s days pack a lot of action and a lot of variety. He was kind enough to recently spare a few minutes to talk with us about his duties at the company, as well as the career path he considered during his college years and the tunes that populate his iPod.
Many thanks to Bryan for his time …
HS: Give us a brief description of your duties and responsibilities at Cox.
Carter: As senior counsel at Cox Communications Inc., I provide dedicated legal advice and support to Cox’s commercial services division, Cox Business, which allows me to interface with many aspects of Cox’s commercial business. My primary duties and responsibilities include drafting, negotiating and reviewing various types of agreements for our Cox Business Carrier Accounts team to provide backhaul services and fiber-based services to many of the nation’s largest telecommunications providers.
I provide similar legal support for Cox Business’ retail services and national accounts organizations, which are each split into 11 markets across the country, and for Cox Business’ hospitality services unit, Hospitality Network, which provides voice, video and data services to casinos and hotels in Nevada and Louisiana.
HS: What is the most satisfying thing about your job?
Carter: It’s difficult to pick just one thing about my job that I enjoy. Cox treats its employees incredibly well and always aims to do the right thing by its employees and its customers. As a result, working at Cox is a privilege because you are generally working with highly motivated people who share that perspective and treat their colleagues and our customers with the utmost respect.
The other thing that I enjoy is that no two days are the same. I may be drafting most of the time on Monday, strategizing with our Product Development and Carrier Accounts teams primarily on Tuesday, and then helping the Operations team streamline process flows on Wednesday, and so on. You never really know what’s in store on the following day, and that’s exciting.
HS: Did you consider any other career path before becoming a lawyer?
Carter: While I was in college, I interned in Washington D.C. on two separate occasions. After my freshman year, I spent two months at Battelle, a large contractor for the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Energy. After my junior year, I interned at the U.S. Department of State for the summer in the Bureau of Legislative Affairs.
I went into law school thinking that I would one day get into government service, but the odds of that are pretty slim these days.
HS: What song gets the most play on your iPod?
Carter: I’m kind of all over the place when it comes to music, but it’s safe to say that I’m a Top 40 guy. Justin Timberlake, Bruno Mars, Lorde, and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis are all likely candidates to be playing on my iPod right now.