Ms. Ashby, a then-28-year-old graduate of the University of Virginia law school, had recently left a six-figure salary as an associate in a private law firm to become a $39,000-a-year legal-aid lawyer. "I wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing," says Ms. Ashby, who grew up in a Norfolk, Va., public-housing complex, the daughter of a single, teenage mother. Her conscience, she says, "was picking at me."

2. What do you do when you're an administration official and you have to resign because you have allegedly assaulted someone? You join a corporate lobbying firm. There is a place for every rotten person in this world.