The Legal Navigator - Fall 2020

2020: Issue No. 7

Insight into leading legal talent and issues affecting the legal market

Transitions, Advancement & Girl Power An Interview with Stasia Kelly & Jackie Kim Park, DLA Piper

STASIA KELLY

JACKIE KIM PARK

Career Insights from Legal Mavericks

ADV ICE TO YOUN G LAWYERS

360

SPECIAL FEATURE:

Spinning off a Legal Department

Have You Taken the GC Oath?

5 TH I N G S YOU D I D N’T KNOW

TO LEAD

Jay Bilas, College Basketball Analyst for ESPN and Of Counsel with Moore & Van Allen

Kirsten Keegan Vasquez,

M O ME N TUM

Partner & Vice President, Law Firm Recruiting & Interim Legal Solutions

A Major, Lindsey & Africa Publication An Allegis Group Company

Major, Lindsey & Africa is the world’s leading legal search firm. The firm, founded in 1982, offers a range of specialized legal recruiting and advisory services to meet the ever-changing needs of law firms and legal departments and to support the career aspirations of talented lawyers and legal and compliance professionals. With more than 25 offices and 200-plus search consultants around the world, Major, Lindsey & Africa uses its market knowledge and experience to partner with organizations to fulfill their legal talent needs and provide solutions to increase team efficiency and effectiveness. Major, Lindsey & Africa is an Allegis Group company, the global leader in talent solutions.

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The Legal Navigator ED ITO R-I N - C HI EF

Jennifer Silver – jesilver@mlaglobal.com EXEC U T I V E ED I TOR

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Cover Story 04 Transitions, Advancement & Girl Power An Interview with Stasia Kelly & Jackie Kim Park, DLA Piper

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Standards 10 Momentum Career Insights from Legal Mavericks

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10 I SS UE 7

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Spinning Off a Legal Department

18 5 Things You Didn’t Know Jay Bilas College Basketball Analyst for ESPN and Of Counsel with Moore & Van Allen

19 Advice to Young Lawyers 19

20 Special Feature: Have You Taken the GC Oath?

22 To Lead Kirsten Keegan Vasquez

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Partner & Vice President, Law Firm Recruiting & Interim Legal Solutions For reprints and permission, contact htravaglini@mlaglobal.com.

T RA NS ITIONS ADVAN C E ME N T

GI R L P OW ER

A N IN TE RV IE W WITH

STASI A KELLY & J AC KI E KI M PAR K, DLA P I P ER

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hen Jackie Kim Park was named the next co-U.S. managing partner of DLA Piper with her counterpart Richard Chesley, she never imagined her first few months in the role would be amidst a global pandemic. But thanks to the leadership and guidance of outgoing Managing Partner Stasia Kelly—who was also the first female in the position—Jackie has had a role model to help make her transition seamless.

certain COVER STORY initiatives and programs that we had not seen before. It was a breath of fresh air just for us to watch her—and that’s been the value that Stasia has had in DLA Piper’s growth. Our firm is a new firm; we don’t have a hallway with oil paintings of leaders from the past century. A lot of the things that Stasia has done, the viewpoints that she’s brought to us, and the initiatives and programs, are all a testimony to how innovative the firm is and have set us up for our continued growth.

What were some of the goals you had for the firm?

STAS I A K E L LY’ S STO RY Stasia, you joined DLA Piper after 15 years in-house. What brought you back to law firm life? And how did you become the first female managing partner of the firm?

Stasia: I had been GC in four different companies in four different industries.

I really loved my time as a GC, but I really didn’t have an appetite to do a fifth.Still, I wasn’t ready to hang up my spurs. So, I talked to a number of law firms, and DLA Piper was the only one that basically said, “Even though we are not sure exactly what role you should play, we will help you figure it out.” It was an invitation for creativity.

I did spend a couple of years reinventing myself, and I loved it.

It was during that time that firm leadership decided to designate managing partners. They saw that I had a wealth of management experience as a general counsel, and I was fortunate to be chosen for that role. I wasn’t very well known in the firm, so I had to navigate a bit on my own to figure out what the role was and what I was going to be doing.

But DLA is very entrepreneurial, and the mindset is very much “let’s try something we haven’t tried before, and we’ll support you.”

What did being named the first female in this role mean to you? Was this a goal of yours?

Stasia: I was absolutely thrilled. I certainly never anticipated this role.

People often say to me, “You’ve had such a great career path.” I actually never had a discernable path, but I was very fortunate to have different opportunities in my career. DLA was a new path, and it’s really exciting when you get to do something different and are able to apply the talent, skill and experience that you have and translate it into a different setting.

And I was fortunate that leadership gave me an opportunity to work with the women of DLA. I’ve always mentored women in my career. My mentors were all men because there weren’t any women, so I wanted to become that mentor to as many DLA lawyers as I could.

Jackie: I’ve been at the firm since 2004, and the group I was with opened the downtown LA office.

When Stasia came in, she was the first female I had seen who had traveled a different path to BigLaw leadership.

Since she didn’t come from a traditional law background, she was able to “think outside the box” and used that vantage point to start

Stasia: There were the goals I had to contribute to the success of the firm, and there were the goals I had as a woman leader. For example, in the years that I was managing partner, the practice of law went through a huge shift. Ten years ago, law firms didn’t always operate as businesses.

One of the things I knew I could contribute was to understand what clients expect from their outside counsel, other than excellent legal work, and translate that to the firm.

Also, during the years when in-house departments were consolidating and setting up operation centers, I tried to be the translator between our big clients and the firm when it came to interacting with the GCs. Another goal was D&I related. The focus on diversity and inclusion, including the Mansfield Rule, has completely changed the face of what law firms are going to look like. I’m very proud that we started several D&I programs a long time before many firms did this. We have very exciting efforts going on in this area, from the Mansfield Rule, to our relationship with NYU’s Kenji Yoshino.

And we continued our relationship with organizations like DirectWomen and the Leadership Council for Legal Diversity. So, bringing the firm into those organizations

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and making them a real part of the fabric of what we do and then taking the lessons from there and spreading them across the firm with the help of male and female partners was a particular goal of mine.

What accomplishment are you most proud of?

Stasia: Honestly, the accomplishment I’m really the proudest of is that Jackie Park is now in that chair.

The fact that the firm acknowledged that the first one worked and has now said “we’re going to improve on the model” with Jackie is great. I’m very proud of that.

THE TRANSITION What did the transition process look like?

Jackie: I have spent my entire career in BigLaw. I’ve been a practicing real estate attorney and that’s what I’ve focused on for the past 30-plus years. Along the way, I have also held a number of leadership positions. So, I not only had a high level of knowledge about the firm but also had a strong grasp of the challenges facing the firm. But of course, nothing could have prepared us for the pandemic.

In fact, when Rick and I officially took on our roles on April 2, 2020, we had just transitioned our 27 U.S. offices to mandatory telework two weeks before.

So, the first six months were really a trial by fire.

There were issues that I never expected to deal with, including how to get 27 offices, 1,600 attorneys, and 2,700 business professionals from brick-and-mortar operations to working from home. We had to quickly pivot and take decisive and strategic actions during the transition. And then when people left the office, we thought it was only going to be for two weeks.

Though it quickly became clear that it was going to be much longer—and then we had other issues to consider. What about the mail that comes in? What are we going to do with office supplies? Can I go back into the office and grab something? It created a plethora of issues that we attacked one by one and tried the best that we could. There was no playbook, but there was an amazing amount of coordination by all of our leaders and support by our people.

Everyone quickly realized that we all had to be on the same page and push in the same direction.

Personally, it’s been amazing to be part of this. I’ve seen the collaboration and the hard work; it was putting the firm first. It really made me realize how strongly positioned we are and how we have grown and developed through Stasia’s leadership so that we can navigate a crisis like this. I am confident that this institutional focus and collaboration has been one of the primary reasons why we have been able to put the health and safety of our workforce first, while also continuing to meet and exceed the needs of our clients.

I think that this transition has really served to strengthen our resolve, and it has me even more excited than I was when I was initially tapped for the role, because I got both a bird’s-eye view and a boots-on-the-ground view of what this firm is all about. So that has been my journey.

I was fortunate that leadership gave me an opportunity to work with the women of DLA. 6

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JAC K I E K I M PAR K’ S STO RY How has your upbringing and your experiences as the “only only” influenced your career and leadership style?

Jackie: My background has driven a lot of the decisions that I’ve made in my life, and my background has been the foundation of my leadership style.

When I immigrated to the U.S. from Korea, we moved from Seoul to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, in the mid1960s. When we came, we were the only Asian Americans the local community had ever seen. We weren’t white. We weren’t black. We essentially didn’t fit in anywhere, so it was a difficult period.

When I joined a big law firm in Chicago in the mid-1980s, I was informed that I was the first Asian-American associate, which really was quite stunning. It was like being back in Alabama. From my standpoint, when you are the only one, or when you are only one of a few, there is an immense amount of pressure not only to perform but also to be perfect because you’re representing all the others. That pressure comes in many forms, feeling like you have to work harder, better and faster than your peers.

While that pressure can be debilitating, it can also be an incredible motivating force to be the best you can be.

Was becoming a managing partner a goal of yours?

COVER STORY

Jackie: No, my short-term goal was extremely simple— survive BigLaw, learn as much as I can and pay off my student loans. I did not see myself as becoming part of the institutional law firm world.

I didn’t have an articulated vision of what I was going to do; my evolution to firm leadership was really more organic. I knew that sitting in an office and just working for 12 to 15 hours a day was not for me. I wanted to get involved in communities at the firm that interested me and that would allow me to connect with people. So, as an associate, I became involved in the summer associate program. I also became involved in the diversity and inclusion activities in my office, the pro bono program and anything where I could get involved with people. I love connecting with people; that feeds my soul.

I want to make sure that this workplace community we have at DLA Piper is a village for everyone so that they can feel safe, hone their craft, collaborate with others, and learn and thrive.

What I’m hoping for is that instead of attorneys feeling like they have to be perfect and spending all the extraneous energy on trying to fit in, it really should be an even playing field so that everyone can focus on what they need to do for their career. I’m hopeful that having a diverse female partner in a leadership position is evidence that we can have an even playing field and alleviate all of those extraneous pressures. When you’re the only one in the room, it’s a lot of pressure because you know it, they know it, everyone knows it.

When I was a young attorney, I knew I could stay safe in my little world, but when I built bridges and got to know, collaborate with and learn from people, I realized that ultimately allowed me to create a platform and community where I could thrive.

I want to make sure that this workplace community we have at DLA Piper is a village for everyone so that they can feel safe, hone their craft, collaborate with others, and learn and thrive.

When I became a partner and found my voice, I then joined regional and national committees. This process of doing something that I liked and believed in gave me an understanding of all the fundamental pillars of a law firm. So, when they did ask me to take on this role, I felt that it was something that I was very well prepared for because I had lived my life and I had been involved in all the different facets of a law firm.

Stasia: I would tell all young attorneys that you make your way. Figure out what you’re good at and what makes you happy and follow that path. That’s the kind of path that leads to leadership and culminates in what just happened to Jackie.

What are some of your top priorities as managing partner?

Jackie: I like to put my priorities in three buckets. The first bucket is that we have to develop and drive a culture of honoring and caring for each other because it is the culture that’s going to help us rise to the challenges. It’s also the culture that is the glue that holds all of us together. If we are committed to the firm, if we feel like we are a part of the firm “village,” then that is going to inure to the benefit of the entire firm.

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Second, the new management team needs to execute on a strategic plan that is going to help drive our brand.

That brand and the strategic plan will then differentiate us from our competitors in the marketplace. We want to make sure that people understand who we are.

The third one is the most important and will help drive the strategic plan and drive our culture.

When Stasia came, people really didn’t know who she was because she hadn’t lived in DLA Piper.

And because of that, she had this ability to go around the country and listen and learn from people.

When she did that, she realized how invaluable and needed it was. I want to continue her tradition of listening and learning because you really can’t be an effective leader without listening to people, their issues, their concerns as well as their successes, achievements and joys and learning from them. All of this will then help us drive the initiatives and decisions that will provide our people and the firm with a platform for success.

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A FOCUS ON DIVERSITY & MENTORSHIP What are you and DLA Piper doing to advance diverse talent?

Stasia: We’ve been focused on this for a long time. When I went to law school, 55 percent of the graduates were women. Everyone said that when looking ahead, 55 percent of equity partners in law firms were going to be women in the next 10 years. Well, that didn’t happen.

So, we wanted to focus on what is keeping women and other diverse lawyers from becoming integrated in the fabric of the firm. It’s a very difficult question, and there’s no easy answer. I think law firms, and particularly DLA, really want to attack this head-on and try to figure out what levers we can move and what actions we can take.

That led us to signing up for the Mansfield Rule and creating diversity and inclusion groups. We also hold our partners accountable for diversity and inclusion metrics.

The magic of all of this is having a diverse culture. Diversity of thought, diversity of skill, diversity of experience enriches the culture and relationships with clients. That’s one of the reasons why I think we’ve become successful.

Last year when we made our new partners, the incoming class was 42 percent diverse. We’re tracking it; we’re celebrating it. And we talk about it as a really meaningful part of the firm. When we do that, it becomes real. And then when we live it, we realize the richness that diversity and inclusion bring to an organization and to clients.

Our clients not only want their departments to be diverse, they want their law firms to be diverse. So, when clients tell you they want to know what your diversity statistics are, to see it in the pitch and proposal team, they don’t want to see that you’ve got 10 diverse lawyers on a piece of paper. They want to see diverse lawyers working on their matters. I think the client and the law firm perspective on diversity have come together in a way that shows real commitment to D&I goals. And the experience is positive coming out of that commitment.

Jackie: Stasia mentioned the newly minted partner class that we had in the U.S. and the high percentage of that group that was diverse. It wasn’t by accident.

It was years and years of intentionality, focus and diligence—developing all of our associates and giving them opportunities to learn and hone their skill set and providing them with the tools to succeed.

We have also tried to think outside the box. One of the things that we did was develop a great partnership with NYU Law School. Professor Kenji Yoshino leads the Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at NYU Law School. He has these groundbreaking techniques to teach people how to identify certain situations when they may not even know that they’re being discriminatory or they’re being less than true to our authenticity. Working with him, we have trained more than 2,000 lawyers and

staff globally in areas such as in the workplace, critical conversations and effective allyship. With all of the work that we’ve done, we were really proud when we were recognized by the Financial Times as the most innovative law firm in North America for diversity last year.

Why is it important to both of you to mentor and help advance women in the legal industry?

Stasia: Among other reasons, it is important to me to mentor because I never had a woman mentor. I realized how hard that road is without a person in leadership to watch. I just had all the guys—and they were great—but they didn’t identify with me in a lot of different areas.

I follow the people whom I’ve mentored over the years and I continue to help them. When they get new, bigger GC jobs, I’ll get on the phone with them every couple of weeks and just walk through what their issues are. That’s been successful for me personally and for my mentees, and it’s also brought business to the firm.

Also, as a working parent, there COVER STORY are two things I learned along the way: the first one is that your kids are watching. My daughters are now pursuing their own career paths. They often tell me that the reason for their independence and their sense of self was that they were forced to be independent thinkers and decisionmakers. The example that working parents set each day by going to work is a powerful and unspoken message. No lecture, no words, just by doing. The second one is to keep your foot in the game. You have to do what works for you and your family, but if you can hone your skill set and stay relevant, keep your foot in the game so that when your kids do go off on their own paths, then you will have the power to decide what your career will look like. If you leave the game altogether, your options will be significantly reduced.

What advice do you have for women who want to become a leader in the legal industry?

Jackie: Once you develop your legal specialty and expertise, you have to take risks. You have your comfort zone of working in your specific field with your group, but to become a leader, you have to develop career competencies of being able to work with others, navigating and influencing multiple sources of views and getting them to come together. You have to understand how all the pieces work together and how to get everyone under the umbrella.

Diversity of thought, diversity of skill, diversity of experience enriches the culture and relationships with clients.

Jackie: It’s a duty that we have.

I am a big fan of the saying “if you can see it, you can be it.” And for me, seeing Stasia in this role made me believe that was possible for other women, including me. Also, we have to break the cycle of Stasia being the first or me being the only.

We need to support other women lawyers so that we can not only advance our firm but advance our profession.

Like Stasia, when I graduated from law school in the mid’80s, more than half of the graduates from my class were women. And then in my first year at a law firm, half of them were women. But then with each passing few years, you see more and more women falling by the wayside.

This isn’t the path for everyone, but if we are seated at the table, mentoring and sponsoring other women, we can then focus on helping other women through.

Stasia: I would also say that when you are thinking about becoming a leader, you need to learn to not take things personally. Everyone has their own agendas and their own issues, so you just have to keep an eye on the bigger picture and what is good for the firm. And you have to be willing to take some difficult steps. There will be times when people you are leading are not taking your advice. Making difficult decisions and shaping your teams are all part of being a good leader. Doing this along the way makes it much easier to gain that skill set.

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MOMENTUM

Career insights from legal mavericks

J . DA NIELLE CARR Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Lowenstein Sandler I thought I would be a lawyer itself to do a two-year contract with my entire career. That all started to the city of Chicago working on a change during my second year of disparity study, I left the firm to go practice at a big Chicago law firm out on my own as a solo practitioner. when my roommate and I, after During the disparity survey, my job earning a reputation for hosting was interviewing minority business great house parties, decided to form owners. I got to learn about many a group along with six other friends of the hurdles the owners had to called Collage and ventured into overcome in order to do business; the business of party promotions. most of these hurdles were not faced The Collage events were relatively by non-diverse business owners. That successful, but then, while on a trip to was my real first exposure to diversity San Diego with a group of friends, I issues outside of the law firm setting. attended a party called When a position became open to serve as the First Fridays, which organization’s executive director, several people was a networking called me and told me about it because they and socializing event knew I had worked in one of the largest firms for African-American in Chicago and that I knew a lot about hurdles professionals, held faced by most, if not all, diverse associates. on the first Friday of each month in Fast forward a little: There was an alternative venues to keep it fresh. organization in Chicago called the We were all sold on the concept, and Chicago Committee on Minorities one friend took it to Washington, in Large Law Firms. When a position D.C.; another launched the event became open to serve as the in Los Angeles; and I followed suit organization’s executive director, by hosting the party in Chicago. several people called me and told This was the early ’90s and there me about it because they knew I had weren’t a lot of avenues for Africanworked in one of the largest firms in American professionals to get Chicago and that I knew a lot about together, so it was the perfect niche. hurdles faced by most, if not all, After three years with a large firm, I diverse associates. I also knew how shifted gears and went to work at a to coordinate successful events, minority-owned law firm. This was which was an important function of a unique experience and absolutely the role. The six years I spent with wonderful. All the while, I continued the Chicago Committee gave me a hosting First Fridays and it became a real deep dive into doing diversity lucrative secondary source of income. and inclusion work and laid the When the opportunity presented foundation for all that has followed.

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While I always wanted to be a lawyer, I think I was born to be a diversity professional. There are so many different things about my background that just reek of diversity. My mother is white; my dad is black. We’ve practiced Christianity and Judaism.

My mother has been married to a Native American, a white guy and a black guy. My brother is married to a Native American. Dinner around my table is like a melting pot.

There are so many people out there that need a voice, and that’s what I try to do. I had a professor who said that the key to success, to happiness in life, is to find a job where you would go and you wouldn’t have to get paid. If I hit the lottery tomorrow, I would still go to work because I love what I do. And it’s just icing on the cake to be at a law firm among a group of people who “get it” and are onboard with taking the firm to the next level.

MOMEN T U M

T UVI KEINAN, Partner, Brown Rudnick I took time out of legal practice and worked as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley for many years. During that time, I discovered that a lot of the smart ideas for innovative pitches to clients came from lawyers yet it was the investment banks that were cleverly repackaging those ideas and crossing them with sources of capital. I also discovered that many private equity lawyers in finance do THE CHALLENGE not have a WAS TO FIGURE good grasp of OUT HOW TO higher math.

GET BUSINESS It’s a criticism OPPORTUNITIES that often gets AND TO EXECUTE leveled at THEM WITHOUT lawyers, but HAVING A TEAM. it does have some real implications.

In my role as the pan-European CFO for Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing, it was staggering to see how very few lawyers understood the complex math calculations and were truly commercial.

This was one of the reasons I was interested in returning to the law. A lot of people thought I was crazy because it’s very unusual for a lawyer to become a banker. But it’s almost unheard of for a banker to go back and become a lawyer and de facto go from being the client to the service provider.

I joined Brown Rudnick to build their private equity practice. Brown Rudnick has a long tradition of acting holistically for clients, which is what attracted me to the firm. Historically, lawyers could add value by introducing business opportunities to their clients and as a result of that gain legal work, but they were never able to charge for that work because of the broker-dealer rule in the U.S.

However, around 2009, the law changed in England and Wales and law firms were allowed to become multidisciplinary partnerships, meaning law firms were allowed to conduct other activities that were ancillary to their pure legal fee earning. Brown Rudnick wanted to hire someone to start the initiative of being able to lead a legal transaction as well as broker deals, and broker the debt associated with those deals—a full service offering from origination to documentation, execution and post completion.

I accepted that impossible mission, but I had no resources. I had the vision, but I had no department. I was asked to create a private equity practice that served the U.S. family offices and funds that we represented in Europe and to find and create deals or match deals to clients.

The challenge was to figure out how to get business opportunities and to execute them without having a team.

It was an evolution of hiring other partners who were like-minded and those partners supplementing the puzzle pieces we had. We started off by hiring a partner who focused on finance, then we added another person focused on leveraged finance. Then we added private equity corporate, real estate hospitality expertise, distressed financing and secondary debt trading. With every new hire we made, two plus two equaled five because not only did we bring in someone that had their own business, but together we were able to combine forces and originate more business respectively. I built a structure where everybody complemented each other’s practice and we were all moving forward together as a multi-disciplined team.

It was very much a step-by-step process, but fast forward to today, when we have 23 people on the team. ...TOGETHER WE WERE ABLE TO COMBINE FORCES AND ORIGINATE MORE BUSINESS RESPECTIVELY.

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SA R A M OSS, Vice Chairman, Estee Lauder Companies Inc. When I was growing up, I didn’t think a career in the law was possible. At that time, women in the law were few and far between, and there were no role models for me. I became a teacher and taught high school history for three years.

During that time, I became involved in the women’s rights movement and was ready to take on the challenge of law school. I chose NYU Law because it had significantly more women students than other law schools and had already developed a strong women’s network.

After graduation, I served as a law clerk for United States District Judge Constance Baker Motley, the first AfricanAmerican woman on the federal bench. After my clerkship, I went to Davis Polk & Wardwell. At Davis Polk, I learned the highest standards of practice, and I had the good fortune to work with litigation partner Robert “Bob” B. Fiske Jr.

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MY PATH WAS NOT LINEAR; I TOOK OPPORTUNITIES THAT WERE EXCITING AND CHALLENGING – AND ALL OF THEM HELPED TO BUILD MY CAREER.

In 2003, I came to The Estée Lauder Companies as general counsel.

Last year, I was promoted to become the company’s first vice chairman. In this role, I advise the board, senior management and the Lauder family. I also have the privilege of developing our Gender Equality Strategy and helping to lead our Women’s Leadership Network. Our company was founded by an incredible woman, Mrs. Estée Lauder, and we have a global workforce that is 84 percent women. We want to lead in giving women unparalleled opportunities around the world. So, in many ways, I have come full circle. Women’s leadership has been a driving force throughout my career, and I feel very lucky to be able to focus on this in my current role as vice chairman.

A year after I joined the firm, Bob Fiske became the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and encouraged me to apply. I became one of the few women assistants in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Standing up in court and persuading a jury to convict beyond a reasonable doubt was the greatest challenge of my career, and my legal skills grew tremendously in that position.

None of the steps in my career have been planned. My path was not linear; I took opportunities that were exciting and challenging—and all of them helped to build my career. With each step, I learned how to take risks and meet obstacles with grit and resilience. Also, significantly, at each step I looked for women who would support and encourage me. In law school, I found a group of strong women who became good friends. At Davis Polk and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, I joined the women’s basketball teams to enable me to build relationships with the few other women in those offices. Many of these women remain among my closest friends.

I returned to Davis Polk after the U.S. Attorney’s Office. I was expecting my first child at the time, so I worked out a parttime arrangement with the firm. A few years later, I became a litigation partner at the newly formed Howard Darby & Levin (now merged with Covington & Burling).

My advice to any lawyer or professional is to find what you love and work hard at it. To be successful, your work needs to be fueled by passion. It is never too late to find what you love. Also, find a community to support you. It will add great joy to your work and to your life.

Major, Lindsey & Africa

M A RY O’CARROLL,

MOMEN T U M

Head of Legal Operations, Technology and Strategy, Google Inc. I always knew I wanted to go into business. There was something that just seemed glamorous and I FOUND OUT VERY QUICKLY exciting about that world and Wall Street. In college, THAT IN-HOUSE LEGAL it seemed like the clear way to enter the business DEPARTMENT OPERATIONS world was to start in investment banking because it WERE VERY DIFFERENT would expose me to different industries and different FROM THE LAW FIRM. types of companies and problems. I transitioned into strategy consulting because I liked the idea of helping companies grow or solve their problems. I got was very innovative— to dive in deep with different companies and clients and and Orrick was a very learn what made them successful, consult with them on the innovative firm—but challenges they were facing and then help them come up you don’t get more with solutions. The problem I found was that once I figured innovative than Google. out what solutions to propose, it was time to move on to the I found out very quickly that in-house legal department next client project. I found myself wanting to stick around operations were very different from the law firm. Unlike the and help solve these challenges and actually be the one firms, we had no access to a wealth of data and we faced implementing the solutions. different types of challenges to solve. So, I started building I started looking to go in-house, and I kind of fell into a role the legal department operations from scratch and it all kind at Orrick. I joined Orrick, working at first for the CFO, then of snowballed from there. ended up very quickly shifting to reporting to the COO Nobody knew what legal operations was at that time, and working on profitability analysis. This role involved so the first thing that I started focusing on was trying to everything from figuring out matter and practice group figure out if we were getting good value out of the money profitability to advising the partners on how to run the we were spending with outside counsel. That led to business side of things such as pricing and staffing matters. figuring out what we should be using law firms for, who I loved it. are we using, how much and all those questions. We Then I got a call from Google. They said, ‘We know you do started figuring out what data we needed to answer those operations at this law firm and we’d love to have you come questions and building pipelines to collect it. Over time, and do operations in our legal department.’ Google had the role also expanded, not just to financial and outside probably 200 people in the legal department at the time. counsel management, but systems and tools, knowledge And I figured that would just be like running a small-sized management, process improvements, strategic planning, law firm within a company. I really loved my job at Orrick, and so much more. but I’ve always been interested in working at a place that

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WIL L IA M O’ NEIL, Partner, Winston & Strawn Growing up, I was always interested in both the law and politics. My dad was a lawyer—he prosecuted race discrimination cases for the Department of Justice under the Nixon administration before leaving the practice of law for a career in politics. He is the smartest guy I know, and I wanted to be like him. I obtained my undergraduate degree in political science and worked for Senator Luger on Capitol Hill before realizing that I did not want to pursue a career in politics and instead wanted to focus on becoming a lawyer.

When I accepted my offer to join Winston & Strawn as a first-year associate, I was torn between the M&A group and the litigation group. The art of the deal was really, really fascinating to me. I felt like a piece of me was a dealmaker by nature. I enjoyed that piece of it, but I felt like a bigger piece of me wanted to stand up and argue and try cases. I wanted to take a run at trying to be more persuasive than my opponent—I get a rush from standing up and trying to do that. So, ultimately, I chose litigation. I have since devoted my career to developing and honing my skills as a trial lawyer.

As a trial lawyer, the greatest challenge I faced was losing a jury trial I believed we were going to win (or at least, I felt we deserved to win). After winning the first seven trials I took to verdict, the thought of losing was starting to seem

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improbable— particularly on a case I felt my client deserved to win.

Now, with a few years of additional perspective, I realize that if you put yourself in the arena enough as a trial lawyer, losing once in a while is inevitable. I have learned from one of my mentors, Dan Webb, that the better you get at your craft, the tougher the assignments you get. Most clients don’t hire Dan Webb to try cases that any lawyer can win; they hire him to try cases that virtually no one else but him can win.

Everything came full circle for me about 10 years ago when I chose to concentrate my litigation practice on M&A disputes. Now, I primarily work with private equity firms and strategic acquirers on post-closing disputes. I am equal parts business counselor and zealous courtroom advocate.

I personally find this to be a hugely fulfilling marriage of a subject matter that I love (deal-making) with a task that I love (advocacy).

360

Spinning Off a Legal Department

Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Bolthouse Farms

In the spring of 2018, Campbell Soup Company made a big announcement saying they were thinking of changing the strategic direction. Then in September 2018, they made an announcement saying that they intended to divest themselves of the Fresh division, which included Bolthouse Farms. In June 2019, Bolthouse Farms was officially sold to Butterfly Equity, and Matt Ayres and his lean legal team found themselves with a big job ahead of themselves— building a new standalone legal department.

Christine Kennedy

When the sale of Bolthouse Farms was announced, what were the initial considerations the legal department?

Matthew Ayres

Managing Director, Transform Advisory Services, Major, Lindsey & Africa

Bodie McNaught Managing Director, Interim Legal Talent, Major, Lindsey & Africa

Matt: Because we had a very public announcement of a sale process, we began the exercise of coming up with what a standalone, totally independent legal department might look like. We looked at the most extreme end of a spectrum of possibilities and made the assumption of that if the buyer was a private equity company, generally speaking, you don’t have another legal team that you’re going to fold into; you’re on your own.

So, we looked at the biggest gap scenario, going from shared resources to absolutely no resources. And we began that exercise before the bidding process for the auction and came up with a list of the functional things that the three of us could take care of. We then took a look at the broader areas of the sort of legal issues an independent food company would encounter. What

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are our gaps? What can we do now? What do we rely on Campbell for day to day? There were a lot of things that we could do and we were happy about that, but there were a few areas in which we were almost entirely dependent on cross-functional folks in Campbell.

With that gap analysis, we then broke down each area and discussed if we were going to hire to fill that gap, use outside counsel or try something that we hadn’t thought of yet. We got to a place where we had mapped out the legal work into large buckets.

As the sale process continued, it became apparent that all of the serious buyers were private equity companies, so doing that work in advance was really helpful. Two weeks after the sale was announced, I sat down with the guy who was going to be the new CFO of Bolthouse from the private equity group. I was able to say to him that I had a very wellthought-out plan that spoke to what the gaps were, not only in terms of headcount and capability, but also systems.

And you have to think about processes and systems because if you’re not thinking about legal operations, processes and systems, you’re missing the big picture. If you just focus on people, you’re going to miss how you’re going to get the work done. We did a very intense analysis of every single systems and processes that we use. How do we communicate with one another? How do we store things? What about contract management? What about matter management and billing? What about discovery tools? What about legal research tools? We just started thinking about everything that we do and took for granted.

We realized how much of what we were talking about normally falls under the broader bucket of legal operations and—we not only needed all of those systems, but we also needed someone to handle legal operations.

The three of us in the legal team had some heart-to-heart conversations about what the new world was going to look like. It was going to be hard on the team because they were going to do a lot more and, potentially, we weren’t going to get all of the roles and processes completed on day one.

Bodie and Christine, when did you enter the conversation with Matt about turning his plan into reality?

Bodie: Matt and I had worked together for a long time during his time at Campbell. When he started transitioning into this new role, we chatted about what was going on and how we could help them through that process. We used our Make-Buy tool and had a lot of conversations around what his team looked like and what that next hire should be.

Once the spinoff was more formalized and he knew they needed to build a standalone department with two employees, we went a little bit deeper.

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We started to talk about processes, systems and what those next steps could look like. That’s when we brought in the MLA Transform team.

Christine: I still remember our first conversation. Matt understood that in order to improve, he needed to have a little reflection pointed his way and to really think about where this law department was going. Matt had done an incredible amount of legwork. When Mark and I came in, we started brainstorming and talking through the possibilities at a high level, looking at where Bolthouse Farms’ legal department wanted to be on day one and then on day 365. We walked through the different systems they were going to lose and helped pinpoint those critical systems they would need to get in the door.

We realized how much of what we were talking about normally falls under the broader bucket of legal operations and we not only needed all of those systems, but we also needed someone to handle legal operations. – MATTHEW AYRES How did you develop a baseline for what your department would need to even begin operating?

Matt: I cannot overstate the importance of getting that benchmark and having that external viewpoint, especially when you are working with a team of folks who have been together for a long time. I had been at Campbell for 10 years and I knew Campbell’s systems. Getting that external perspective and having those hard conversations about where we are on a maturity model was invaluable.

Christine: When we first engaged Matt regarding Transform Advisory Services, we discussed differentiating his immediate needs as a building-from-new law department today from what the department will need in one year or even five years. Appreciating that many of the corporate systems and personnel they traditionally relied on would be lost, it was necessary to holistically assess where Bolthouse Farms was today to determine how mature the legal department was before identifying a system or personnel headcount arbitrarily.

Our Maturity Assessment dives into hundreds of data points, canvasing business alignment and coverage, resourcing strategy and management, and budget and financial management, to name a few. This deep-dive assessment built a framework for next steps in architecting the newly forming law department from scratch. This was customized to Matt and his team, not a pre-built solution they would have to fit into. From there, we were able to help him move forward with a strategy.

How did you decide to staff your department? What roles did you feel like you needed to get off the ground?

We had to think about the core substantive areas of the law, and I knew we had gaps on labor and employment, litigation, marketing and IP. I was the only attorney to start.

I was a transactional lawyer by trade but didn’t know a lot about litigation or labor and employment. I needed to fill that role quickly. I was able to find a local attorney who didn’t have the deep labor and employment background but had the hunger to learn and was a litigator by training.

Also, we knew we were lacking on food law and marketing.

Although that took longer to fill, we did manage to fill that role with a contract attorney. And then, obviously, legal operations—that to me was a real core gap.

Also, Bolthouse did not have a standalone corporate compliance program. While we’re a privately held company and don’t have the same reporting and compliance issues as a public company, we want to be a public company someday, perhaps. And that doesn’t happen overnight, and you certainly can’t operate like a mom and pop startup company and then flip to issuing an IPO. You have to have a compliance program in place for quite some time, so that was the other area that we needed to fill the gap.

Bodie: Early on, when Matt took on his new role, we had a lot of discussions around when it would be the right time to hire his first attorney (or more) as well as discussing the best profile for him based on his business needs. I shared MLA’s Make-Buy tool with Matt and walked through how it could assist him. Using specific data points provided by Matt, MLA’s Make-Buy Tool helped us analyze, calculate and understand the costs to hire a new lawyer for his legal department versus using outside counsel. He quickly realized that making an internal hire would be the least expensive option when it came to meeting his legal needs.

Matt found this tool very helpful with his decision-making and moved forward with making his first attorney hire.

What is the biggest challenge you are currently facing?

Matt: The challenge is, as 2020 moves on and continues to throw us new surprises here and there, as an essential industry, having to develop a whole new route to deal with our ongoing operations to protect business continuity and, most importantly, the health and safety of our employees. We actually have a whole new role; the seventh and newest member of our legal team is a crisis management specialist. Right now, she is dedicated to mostly COVID-related issues. Once that ends, there are other crisis management and business continuity areas that we need to think about, particularly as we keep growing.

However, if something 360 is not an emergency, the timing slips and priorities change. So, I have to manage expectations with my team and we have to be flexible.

You realize, at some point, you can’t do everything.

The beginning of COVID was nuts; we had to set expectations for our own health and wellness and that meant readjusting expectations on timing. On some things, we could get the work done, but it might not be in the original time frame—and being able to mentally let go of that is important.

Where are you in your timeline right now?

Matt: We had a model timeline of what we would put into place by when, but we have to be flexible. Flexibility is the key. When we talked about where we wanted to be in on day 365, no one expected that we would be in the middle of a global pandemic. It really puts in to practice that phrase “expect the unexpected.”

But when I think about it, we’re up to seven people in the legal department right now in a little over a year. I don’t think we could have made an argument for that if it weren’t for the framework exercises that we put into place. If we didn’t have that outside perspective from MLA and the outside data, there’s no way I would have justified the growth to seven people.

You have to have the data and the backup to show the value that you’re going to bring to the company in terms of recapturing revenue or making processes faster or protecting the company, and you need the road map to get there.

The work that we’re doing will continue for as long as we’re continuing to grow as a company. We still have work to do to make improvements on our systems. There’s some work that we will continue to do on people, which will eventually overlay with the organization’s plans for organic growth as well as through strategic development and M&A activity. It’s not as if we decided we have a timeline and here are all the systems and we’re done and now we’re going to have a static department for the next five years.

About Bolthouse Farms For more than a century, Bolthouse Farms has been known as the innovation leader in growing and distributing carrots and high-quality, innovative branded products. Employing more than 2,200 people and headquartered in Bakersfield in California’s fertile San Joaquin Valley, Bolthouse Farms is one of the largest carrot growers and distributors in the U.S. Guided by its vision—Plants Powering People—the company produces and sells super-premium juices, smoothies, café beverages, protein shakes, functional beverages and premium refrigerated dressings, all under the Bolthouse Farms® brand name. Visit Bolthouse Farms or follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

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THINGS YOU DIDN’T KNOW 1

Jay’s parents always expected him to go to law school.

Jay Bilas College Basketball Analyst for ESPN and Of Counsel with Moore & Van Allen Many know Jay Bilas as one of ESPN’s college basketball analyst, and some may remember him from his days playing basketball at Duke University, but one thing you may not know about Jay is that is he of counsel will Moore & Van Allen, one of the largest regional law firms in the Southeast. Here are five other things you may not know about Jay and his amazing career: I’ve being dealing with.’ I covered the Rae Carruth trial in Charlotte for ESPN and all the NCAA regulatory issues on infractions issues—things like that.

There have been so many legal issues that have come up over the years, and to be able to pick up the phone and call one of my colleagues to run it by him has been invaluable.”

” From the time I was a kid, both of my parents, but especially my father, started hammering into my head that I needed to go to law school. He felt that a college degree wasn’t going to be enough, even though neither one of my parents had the opportunity to go to college. My dad felt like a law degree was the best and most versatile degree to have because you didn’t have to be a lawyer. He felt like the beauty of a law degree was that it would teach you a different way of thinking and that you didn’t have to practice law. A lot of successful people in other avenues had law degrees.”

2

He went to law school after his third year of playing pro ball.

“ After my third year playing professionally, I took the LSAT. I actually took the LSAT at an air force base in Spain. I had to leave my team midweek to go take the exam and I studied for it while I was playing overseas. I got admitted to Duke Law School, and then at the same time, I got offered a coaching position at Duke by Coach K, my old coach. So, I thought, ‘What could be better?

I’ll coach at the same time I’m in law school.’ So that’s what I did.”

3

J ay was drafted by the Dallas Mavericks but instead played in Italy for three years professionally.

“ I got drafted by the Dallas Mavericks and I went to rookie camp. Then right about the time veterans’ camp was starting, I got an offer in Italy. It was substantially more money than I would have gotten if I’d made the Mavericks.

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So, I debated whether to take the risk and go to veterans’ camp and maybe get cut or go to Italy and play pro basketball. I knew I could play in the NBA, but I wasn’t going to be a great player—but I was a really good European pro. It was nice for me to go from being a star high-school player, then be a role player in college on a great team, and then be a star player again. Italy was the best league in the world outside of the United States.

It was an adventure in a way, and it was the right level of professional basketball for me at the time.

It was fun.”

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is legal background H has helped immensely in his ESPN career.

“ It’s been amazing how much crossover there is now into legal issues in my job at ESPN. I do a fairly decent job of assessing things from a legal perspective, but I’ve always got those resources at Moore & Van Allen to be able to call my colleagues and say, ‘Hey, here’s an issue that

Jay is a member of the Screen Actors Guild

“ When I was a senior in high school, one of my teachers directed a play and he said, ‘I want you to be the lead in the play.’ I don’t know if I was good enough to get the part, but he was offering it to me, so I did it. It was very successful and I wound up winning the Bank of America best actor award.

Then when I was playing overseas, I got a phone call from somebody at the Lakers organization. I was back home for the summer, and the guy told me about a Minolta camera commercial shooting in LA. They were looking for six to eight basketball players for the commercial. I went to the audition, and there were 50 guys there who looked just like me. But I went through the whole process, and ultimately, I wound up getting the part in this Minolta camera commercial that played for about two or three years. After the Minolta commercial, I wound up getting an agent at the suggestion of one of the cameramen (and joined the union). He sent me on an audition for a part as an alien cop in a Dolph Lundgren movie, “I Come in Peace”. I went and read for it and then got two more callbacks and got the part. The movie came out while I was in law school.”

Advice to Young Lawyers Our legal mavericks featured throughout this magazine share advice that they either found beneficial as a young lawyer or wish they had known back then.

JAY B I L AS

STASI A KE L LY

SA RA MOSS

In my first year, I was a little bit intimidated by everything. I’d never really gone through anything quite like that before. I remember feeling like I didn’t know if it was the right place for me. My dad said to me, “You don’t get a prize for knowing it at first; you get a diploma for knowing it at the end.” And that calmed me down.

Your first year seems difficult, as does law practice, at first. But just keep plugging along and you will figure it out.

Be true to yourself and be open to taking risks. So many people stay in same job for 40 years because they are afraid of getting out and taking a risk. If you take a risk in your career and it doesn’t work out, it’s fixable.

You’ll learn from your mistake and then be better off next time. So, listen for opportunities, take the risk and that will open doors for you.

My advice to any lawyer or professional is to find what you love and work hard at it. To be successful, your work needs to be fueled by passion. It is never too late to find what you love. Also, find a community to support you. It will add great joy to your work and to your life.

J. DA N I E L L E C A RR

Know you are not alone, not the only one trying to fit in, not the only one navigating an unfamiliar system.

Most, if not all, of the people you look up in the profession have been there too, so reach out to them because they are there to help you and, more importantly, want to help. Never, ever feel like you have to go it on your own. If you never find your groove and decide practicing law is not for you, don’t stick around out of fear of being deemed a failure or just for the money. You will find so much more satisfaction doing something that makes you happy. Advice I received years ago that I hold true to this day is to find a job where you enjoy it so much that you would do it for free.

T U VI KE INA N

Be bold and don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to express your opinion and don’t be afraid to experience because it’s the experiences that ultimately shape your career. If you shy away from challenges, if you shy away from experiencing, if you only stick with what you’re comfortable with, then you will only progress to a certain degree.

J ACKI E KIM PA RK

Raise your hand. When I was a young associate, I had a great secretary who told me, “You don’t GET if you don’t ASK.” People don’t know you want certain things unless you tell them.

You have to be proactive about letting people know what you want, and then see what comes in. It’s not going to happen if you just wait for people to knock on your door.

MA RY O’CA RROL L If you want to succeed, don’t wait for that change. Be the change. Lead, ask questions, be curious, challenge the status quo. Take risks and try things in different ways, and learn from your mistakes.

WILLIAM O’NEILL The greatest asset you have in the business world is your collection of authentic, meaningful personal relationships. Life is a team sport.

Law school teaches you to focus on individual accolades (great grades), but to succeed as a practitioner, you have to both be pulled forward by great leaders and mentors and then repay that debt by reaching back and pulling up the next generation behind you.

Great law firms are built on a culture of stewardship. To some degree, success requires adopting a mindset of selflessness—if you wake up each day and consider how you can help others in your personal and professional network, I believe you will find yourself not only more fulfilled, but also more successful.

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S P ECIAL F E ATURE :

Have You Taken the GC Oath?

Simon Zinger, group general counsel at Dentsu, noticed a lack of coordinated and collective behavior from in-house legal teams and organizations in response to corporate social responsibilities and social justice. He saw varying levels of actions and different stories being told by different companies and thought if he created something all GCs could collectively achieve, then overall, legal leaders would be generating a stronger impact because they would all be moving in the same direction with common goals. Thus, Simon began drawing the road map that has become the GC Oath.

The GC Oath, inspired by the Hippocratic Oath for doctors, is meant for general counsel and other legal department leaders so they can foster a consistent and global approach to actions that can be taken across certain critical areas. The oath speaks to professional responsibility and ethics; leadership, diversity and inclusion; social impact and pro bono; internal clients; external parties; and personal behavior.

On September 1, 2020, the GC Oath was released, and it has garnered an overwhelming positive response.

Q: A:

How has the oath been received by the legal community?

I have seen many positive reactions from individual general counsel who have declared their personal commitment to the oath on LinkedIn.

A number of the law firms we work with have been very helpful. They’ve added it to their own initiatives, so they have panels and they have different ways of how they engage with clients. I asked a few of them to weave it into their own efforts because they obviously work with a lot of GCs. One of the most wonderful things has been the support from the Association of Corporate Counsel. They approved, at the board level, that all of their global chapters would support it, endorse it and promote it to their constituencies.

It’s amazing; I was not expecting that level of support. The Minority Corporate Counsel Association was very quick to share the oath with their membership. And the Thomson Reuters Foundation gave us their endorsement.

I’ve spoken on a few panels. It’s been nice. I’ve been able to promote it at the ACC annual conference and on a few Thomson Reuters panels recently, speaking about diversity inclusion and leadership.

My primary ambition at the moment is to raise as much awareness as I can about it.

People will take to it in different ways. Some people will see the value in it. Some people might say it’s not for me, but as long as I can get in front of someone and have them see it, then maybe they will think about whether it can be one tool amongst several different ways in which they approach some of the issues that I address in the document.

Q: A:

How has Dentsu responded to the oath?

Dentsu has been very supportive and helped me with some of my media and promotional efforts. I am fortunate that Dentsu is already supportive and encouraging of our legal team’s growing pro bono initiatives. I feel that many of my colleagues are supportive because they see the oath initiative as a natural extension of the many projects the company is undertaking in the areas of diversity, inclusion and social impact more broadly.

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Q: A:

What inspired you to create the GC Oath?

I saw what was happening in the U.S. in the spring, with the increasing focus on social injustice, and I felt like I needed to do something. But I was struggling to understand what more we as a team could do, or I could do personally. I started participating in or at least listening to panel discussions and understanding what different organizations were doing. But the more I listened, the more confused I was and the more I couldn’t actually pinpoint what I wanted to do or how I wanted to do it. So, I sat back and almost drew this road map, looking at what things are important to me as a lawyer and a leader. If I have influence in my organization, if I have a certain kind of power, if I can take things in a certain direction, what will do?

Q: A:

What are your next steps?

For my team, we’re working on how we now build this into our framework, how we as a team support each other, and, develop each other and recruit people. My team is very keen to take it to the next level in terms of how we behave as a team.

This is something I didn’t expect: one person took a forensic approach to it in the sense that he came to me and said, “I really liked this, but I don’t think I can commit to it,” and he took time to actually think through his own life journey and philosophical makeup. He really went deep into his soul about the things that were in the oath, and he just said, “If I’m going to do this, I want to do this properly.

Before I commit, I need to work on a few areas.” So, for him, he took a very deep look into himself, and it opened his eyes to maybe other things that he could work on as a human being.

For the legal community, it’s spreading the word. I hope to reach general counsel across the world with the oath, so that they have the opportunity to consider whether it is something they can personally support, and then inform their teams, legal suppliers and organizations about.

Q: A:

How can GCs and the legal community show their commitment?

I decided early on that it’s something I couldn’t track. It’s really a personal commitment.

GCs can visit https://generalcounseloath.com/ to take the oath. Then the key thing is, if you take the commitment, tell your team about it, because it’s something you want to celebrate internally. Maybe tell your law firms about it and explain why you are taking the commitment. If you want to tell people on social media or in other communities, that’s a personal decision. The real difference should come, and on so many levels, when GCs start putting the commitments into action.

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TO L E A D

MAKE WAY for

Women in Law

By Kirsten Keegan Vasquez Partner & Vice President, Law Firm Recruiting & Interim Legal Solutions The majority of women in the legal profession will tell you that when they graduated from law school, more than half of their graduating class was female. (Both Stasia Kelly and Jackie Kim Park tell this same story in our cover article.)

That is a change for the better from generations past. But, when looking at the senior ranks of law firms and in-house legal departments, the number of women who have risen to the top of the profession doesn’t approach those graduation percentages.

SO, WHAT HAPPENS ALONG THE WAY? This is a complicated question and the answers are loaded with the potential for over-generalization. We all, regardless of gender, make choices about our careers based on myriad professional and personal factors. Some choose family over a career; others choose to balance career aspirations with family demands. Some follow their significant other’s career path and deprioritize their own.

Some make pragmatic, one-issue, financial decisions about career versus family. Indeed, how often have we heard a parent say, “It didn’t make sense. I was working to pay for child care”? Unfortunately, when we dig in with lawyers

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on these sensitive topics, the underlying financial and moral dilemmas that force these difficult decisions still impact women far more often than men. And, more often, women deprioritize their careers.

If that’s true, compounding the negative impact on women is the resulting reduction in the number of available role models as women look around and above them for guidance and a champion. In some organizations, unintended consequences of old systems and structures create barriers that keep women from reaching certain performance standards or reward levels. For example, our own Partner Compensation Survey has borne out that, in large law firms, origination credit is the key factor in what is a very real gender pay gap. While origination credit is hard earned by lawyers who have happy clients and who prioritize the development of a book of business, how and where origination credit is awarded can still be subject to time spent socializing and playing golf, and to inheriting clients from champions and mentors through subjective succession planning. If family demands, some societal stigma about aggressive sales, lack of resources and even some business traditions are stacked against women having equal access to client development opportunities, the originations gap at law firms is very difficult to solve.

So, we are seeing more and more women opt out of the profession before they are ready to be hired in-house or considered for partner, opt out of full-time work within the law, or opt in to a law-adjacent profession (like recruiting!) that allows them more balance and the ability to successfully keep all the plates spinning. And 2020 has made this tension clearer and more heartbreaking than it has been in decades.

Women feel they are in a fight for their legal careers, and too often they feel a tremendous loss of opportunity—one that was beyond their control to prevent.

SO, WHAT CAN BE DONE?

is valued, is it valued across TO LEAD the board? It is too easy for the former to become “difficult” and the latter to become “arrogant” without a deliberate commitment within an organization to break down old gender norms and stereotypes. Finally, here is where recommendations for women to join affinity groups and bar associations might be germane. I’m not including them. While of course such organizations are of tremendous benefit, those endeavors require time and investment; away from family and impactful legal work. Do we require our male counterparts to join such groups to achieve and rise? I fear that, while we are at our affinity group meetings, they are busy grabbing that origination credit or leading that integral legal department initiative.

What inspires me?

That there are many women in the legal profession paving the way for others and leading the charge for future generations.

To put it simply, talented women need to be promoted; in law firms and in legal departments.

If we don’t see others like ourselves holding the equity partner or general counsel title, it’s hard to imagine ourselves there. Promotion, of course, must be earned. We can’t expect and don’t want women to be placed into top roles without the requisite skills.

But, given the potential for unconscious biases and societal demands to be at work against women, talent can go unrecognized, unfed and unrewarded.

How do we make a more conscious and deliberate effort to “see” talented women? Organizations need to make sure women are receiving proper training and have access to professional development opportunities. Women need representation on hiring and compensation committees.

Women need to be given access to mentors within their organizations and the broader profession. Mentors should be a mix of all genders and backgrounds so that mentor and mentee each benefit from expansion of their world view. If the mentors benefit from these relationships, real change can occur because they will use their power within an organization to inform new ways of knowing and doing. Indeed, mentor or not, those with power in every organization must look at the traditions and rituals that may be inhibiting or even preventing talented women from achieving recognition and success. And, difficult as it is, we need to assign the same adjectives and superlatives to talent, regardless of gender. If “assertive” is a sought-after leadership quality at the organization, can both women and men demonstrate it with the same reception? If “confident”

Don’t mishear me. Support systems need to be set up within an organization to help women juggle their personal and professional responsibilities. Employee resource groups are a place to start because having a group of like-minded people supporting each other can help a person feel included and like they belong within an organization. Flexible work schedules may be the most significant support an organization could offer. If a woman is a working mom or caring for elderly relatives, having the flexibility to take care of personal needs and work at more convenient times allows her to show her talent and manage her life. If 2020 has shown us anything positive, it is that face time in an office as a measure of commitment for legal professionals is an outdated construct.

What inspires me? That there are many women in the legal profession paving the way for others and leading the charge for future generations—as Stasia Kelly has done as the first female co-managing partner at DLA, as Sara Moss set out to do throughout her career and at Estee Lauder, and as Mary O’Carroll has done in her role developing legal operations.

We need more who will follow in their warrior footsteps.

As with diversity of all kinds at the decision-making table, women in leadership bring a different perspective.

Indeed, organizations are better and stronger with female voices included, heard and rewarded at every level.

The Legal Navigator

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Thank you to our consultants for connecting us with our outstanding interviewees!

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Richard Hsu Christine Kennedy

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BALTIMO RE L AS VEGAS SAN DIE GO

Dustin Laws Jon Lindsey

BAS KING RIDGE LO NDO N

B EI J I NG** LOS ANGELES

SAN FRANC IS CO

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Louis Ramos Cloud Schnoebelen

B OSTON MI AMI SEOUL*

CHAR LOTTE

CHI CAGO

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Glenn Tannous Naveen Tuli

DALLAS NEW YOR K

SYDNEY

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TOKYO

DELHI**

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