During my first year in the job, I was hanging out in my friend Alyssa Mastromonaco’s office when Pete Rouse walked in—a senior advisor to Obama who had been such an institution on Capitol Hill that he was referred to as the 101st senator. He asked us if we had federal liability insurance. I didn’t even know what that was or why I’d need it. “Look it up,” he said. “This is not optional.” I did what I was told and ended up spending a couple hundred dollars a year to cover legal expenses that might come from investigations. This ended up saving me around $100,000.
