Erica started her legal career in Washington, D.C., where she was a litigation associate at two prominent international law firms. Erica's practice included product liability litigation, white collar defense, and  commercial litigation. She litigated headline-generating “Fen-Phen” wrongful death cases and claims for irreversible cardiac abnormalities and fatal pulmonary diseases attributable to the drug. She also handled sensitive and confidential projects arising out of the U.S. government’s landmark racketeering lawsuit against “Big Tobacco” and the litigation challenging the health effects of light cigarettes. Erica’s white collar work included criminal prosecutions and internal investigations, with an emphasis on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

Erica leveraged the exceptional skills that she sharpened in private practice and public service to become Associate General Counsel for the nation’s largest retailer. She initially managed the company's responses to subpoenas issued by the Department of Justice, the Securities & Exchange Commission, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, and multiple other state and federal agencies. Erica later joined the global investigations group and spent considerable time in five countries across Central, North, and South America. She was dispatched to Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Nicaragua, where she investigated alleged corrupt business practices, ethics violations, and other employee misconduct that implicated the FCPA.

One of the nation's oldest environmental non-profit organizations recruited Erica to be its Chief Legal Officer as part of its response to systemic issues uncovered during an internal investigation. Erica' s effectiveness in enterprise risk management and remediating lapses in internal controls drew her to the role. She had oversight of the organization's legal, governance, compliance, and labor relations functions. She advised its Board of Directors and served as a thought partner to the Board and the executive leadership team. Erica also supervised compliance officers, labor relations staff, and  a litigation team within the legal department that  included more than fifty attorneys and staff who leveraged litigation, advocacy, and grassroots organizing to fight climate change, protect clean air, water, and wilderness, and pursue justice for communities threatened by pollution.