In-house ACCess : In-house ACCess: Association of Corporate Counsel : ACC : The In-house Counsel Bar Association

Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living. –Miriam Beard, business writer

This holiday season, I had the good fortune to vacation in China for 15 days, and it was an awesome experience. The highlights of my trip included walking the Great Wall, seeing the Terra Cotta Warriors, hugging a baby panda on Christmas Day and spending New Year’s Eve enjoying the spectacle of the Bund in Shanghai. These experiences, and the many terrific people I met along the way, have enriched my life and left me feeling quite enthused at the start of this New Year.

The vacation was long overdue. Since I started at ACC about six months ago, my work schedule has been pretty hard-driving and demanding: High expectations were set by myself and by others. I’ve been busy trying to take in as much new information as possible, and quickly –– all the while being able to count on one hand the number of days in a month that I was not traveling for ACC.

So, when my “me time” finally came, some friends were surprised that my first choice was to hit the road again –– this time traveling to the other side of the globe to relax. However, for me, there’s nothing quite as exciting as a travel vacation and the opportunity to experience a culture much different from my own; to see the world with only two purposes in mind –– personal enrichment and a good time. China offered both in abundance!

In China, I learned that 2012 is the Year of the Dragon, and it is one of the most celebrated and anticipated of the Chinese Lunar calendar, as the dragon is a symbol of power and wealth. Therefore, the coming year is anticipated to bring good fortune and success.

Hopefully, this served as a good omen, because upon my return to the office, my focus turned to ACC’s strategic plan, which will chart the basis for ACC’s success over the next five years. Our work on it is nearing the homestretch, with the plan in its final stages of development for presentation to the ACC board early this month. This strategic planning process has received unprecedented levels of member feedback, and thereby provided the ACC staff and board of directors with a clear understanding of the value drivers that underlie the decision to join — and remain –– a member of ACC. I am looking forward to sharing the results and findings with you all soon after the board approves the plan. In the meantime, I would like to thank the 4,130 members who completed our online strategic plan survey, the 55 members who participated in focus groups held at our Annual Meeting, and the 16 members who were kind enough to be interviewed for their thoughts on ACC’s mission, vision and current strategy.

As you can see, ACC members were quite engaged in our planning process. In addition, I personally spoke with board members and with our leadership in Europe, whose thoughts and ideas were all taken into great consideration during our planning.  

ACC strives to be an organization that not only fulfills our members’ needs, but that anticipates and exceeds them. A strong strategic plan is critical in doing this. Therefore, thank you again to each and every member who took the time to respond to an email, fill out a survey, serve on a committee, or simply engage in a conversation with me.    

Next month, I will continue the conversation here, highlighting in some detail parts of ACC’s strategic plan. I am anxious to share with you all the exciting things to come for your in-house association in this Year of the Dragon, and beyond.

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By Julia Alanen

Project Coordinator, Global Pro Bono

Pro Bono Institute

A growing number of legal departments are enhancing their pro bono and corporate social responsibility schemes by adding a global element. Some legal departments use global pro bono to engage their attorneys in offices abroad by offering them coveted pro bono opportunities similar to those available to stateside staff. Others use it as a vehicle to promote cross-border teambuilding by engaging multiple offices in collaborative pro bono projects. Global pro bono is also used to engender trust, build reputation, and positively impact the countries and communities where companies maintain a physical presence or do business. Whatever the impetus, in-house legal professionals are clamoring for opportunities to do global pro bono.

On Feb. 7, 2012, Bruce Ives, vice president and deputy general counsel at Hewlett-Packard Company,* Esteban Mazzucco, legal director for Latin America South at Syngenta and ACC Argentina Chapter President, and Michael Sposato, deputy general counsel at Caterpillar Inc.,* will continue the conversation on this topic, which they started at ACC’s Annual Meeting last October, through a webinar hosted by CPBO, in partnership with Global Pro Bono Project of the Pro Bono Institute (PBI). CPBO is ACC’s joint venture with PBI. The panelists will share diverse examples of successful global pro bono initiatives, including:

• direct legal services and litigation;
• commercial and transactional work;
• international human rights and humanitarian work;
• democracy building and rule of law initiatives;
• disaster relief;
• legal research and policy advocacy; and
• legal and clinical education.

During the October 2011 session on in-house global pro bono, Ives, Mazzucco and Sposato shared their experiences and perspectives on doing global pro bono work. The trio tackled topics that included:

• identifying quality global pro bono partners and projects;
• structuring and managing a global pro bono component;
• leveraging in-house resources by partnering with law firms and NGOs;
• identifying and overcoming obstacles in jurisdictions with no history or tradition of pro bono;
• teambuilding and engaging remote offices through collaborative global pro bono projects;
• involving non-lawyer staff in global pro bono;
• enhancing employee recruitment, retention and advancement through global pro bono; and
• boosting business and building reputation in emerging markets by advancing democracy and the rule of law through pro bono.

Four key takeaways were:

1. Pro bono opportunities exist for any lawyer, anywhere, with any skill set;
2. In today’s global economy, doing good globally is globally good for business;
3. Often, the challenge is figuring out how to effectively and meaningfully match the growing interest in providing assistance to identified needs; and
4. Legal departments, law firms and NGOs continue to work together to address obstacles and identify opportunities for lawyers interested in providing pro bono services.

So, if you missed CPBO’s session on in-house global pro bono, click here for more information about the Feb. 7 webinar.

To learn about global pro bono opportunities for your in-house legal department, contact CPBO Director Eve Runyon.  

*denotes a Signatory to the Corporate Pro Bono Challenge^SM

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By Zenneia McLendon

Zenneia McLendon is ACC’s Director of Social Media and is responsible for developing and overseeing the association’s Social Media Strategy across all internal brands, audiences and platforms. Including: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, the In-house ACCess blog, Member-to-Member (eGroups) and YouTube.

The sun was shining at Angel Stadium of Anaheim. The sky was blue, and the thermometer read about 75 degrees. It was a perfect day for a great game of baseball — if only it wasn’t late January and the middle of the offseason. On this day, Angel Stadium and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim played host to a different group of players — in-house counsel.

Last week, the ACC’s Southern California chapter (ACC-SoCal) held their 8^th Annual In-house Counsel Conference. This year marked the first time that the event spanned two days, and as a result, attendance doubled last year’s and reached more than 400 people. Day one was held on Jan. 11, at the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills, I joined attendees on the conference’s second day at Angel Stadium.   

From a social media perspective, and as ACC’s director of social media, this event provided a great opportunity for ACC to use one of our growing social media channels. Through Twitter we were able to highlight a chapter event, share information with our followers, increase our audience and expand our reach by live-tweeting from the event. Not only did each session provide great sound bites perfect for tweeting out, but the SoCal chapter also did an excellent job of planning and strategizing their Twitter activities ahead of time, in preparation of the event. And, of course, I was happy to join those activities as @ACCinhouse.

The conference began promptly at 8 AM PST with “Welcome Remarks” from our Angel Stadium and conference host, David Cohen, director of legal affairs and risk management for Angels Baseball LP. After the remarks, it was all up-hill. Panel topics ranged from privacy of consumer information to intellectual property to social media in the workplace. Attendees were encouraged to follow along with the conference via the conference hashtag, #IHCC12, by either logging onto Twitter or simply viewing the hashtag’s stream as it scrolled along on a screen at the front of the room. As a result of great planning and execution, with a combination of live tweeting, re-tweeting and interactive messages, the Twitter Reach for #IHCC12 was over 11,000. Participants tweeted from 14 states and four countries. If these numbers haven’t convinced you of what an amazing conference this was, visit the SoCal chapter page on the ACC website to check out all of the presentation slides and program materials. Then, come back to this post, and tell us what you think.

Along with the fact that Angel Stadium is absolutely beautiful both inside and out, as one of very few non-lawyers in attendance at the conference, there were several key takeaways that I will put into practice as I continue to progress in my career. My top three include:

• Beware of digital breadcrumbs!
• If you are responsible for social media for your company, remember that your in-house counsel are your greatest ally. Consult with them regularly.
• Who’s on first? A lawyer’s response would most likely be, “According to section 22A of Who’s contract, he will no longer be … No you cannot tweet this, and yes, we deleted his Facebook page this morning.”

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By Maggy Baccinelli

Maggy is the editorial coordinator of the ACC Docket and is responsible for editing the publication, writing monthly articles and creating corresponding multimedia pieces highlighting ACC members' legal expertise and unique personal interests. Follow along as Maggy, shares her insights. The voice, views and stories expressed in this series are of the author and are not ACC's.

On Monday, Jan. 16, seven ACC staff members volunteered at Bruce Monroe Elementary in Washington, DC, for MLK Jr. Service Day. Some of us, myself included, learned more than we expected.

Bruce Monroe’s student population is predominantly Latino, and it is known for its dual-language program. The school leadership’s vision is to make its multicultural students into successful global citizens, by nurturing them in a safe, innovative and academically rigorous bilingual environment. The first step toward global citizenship means knowing about other countries. So, when we arrived, we were instructed to paint flags from around the world, which would be hung in the auditorium. Eventually, we moved on to painting hallways with murals of smiling fruits and vegetables, butterflies and ladybugs, and short phrases in Spanish related to the school motto.

The motto is: “Be safe. Be kind. Be productive.”

It’s a simple and powerful adage that we can all apply to work and home. For elementary school students, being safe means not running in the halls; being kind means using kind words; and being productive means doing homework. In our work as adults, these examples stay the same. As an editor and journalist, slowing down and proofreading carefully; communicating considerately with my interviewees and colleagues; and being thorough in my research while minimizing distractions by delegation and organization, has helped me to be successful. How can being safe, kind and productive, help you as in-house counsel?

Though it made us think, and some of us even quipped about how we should make it the motto of the office, this was not the only lesson we learned at elementary school on Monday. Here are a few others we were reminded of as we got our hands dirty:

• It’s fun to volunteer with coworkers;
• If you turn the Mali flag upside-down, it becomes the Guinea flag; and
• For really detailed painting, it’s easier to use a Sharpie.

Final words of wisdom came from Dr. King, who we were honoring on Monday by participating in the program. Close to where we exited, there is a big mural of him and a quote that reads: “Life's most persistent and urgent question is ‘What are you doing for others?’”

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(January/February 2012)

In the past, I’ve been asked to serve on panels to discuss upcoming trends in the publishing industry for the following year. I always turn them down. Why? Because I dislike it when people try to predict the future. The audience wants facts, and I cannot provide them since I honestly don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I can tell you what I see now. However, I cannot tell you, in concrete terms, what it will mean a year from now. I can only provide a guess based on my knowledge.

The Dec. 21, 2012, Mayan doomsday scenario has a lot of people talking — especially my children. I remind them to focus on the present; do not obsess over the unknown. Plan and prepare for your future like you have one. It’s good advice, especially coming from someone whose job it is to know what the production schedule will be 18 months out.

Since few of us have the time to ponder whether the world will end as the Mayans predicted, we all have to continue to focus on our 2012 work. The January/February 2012 issue of ACC Docket has a few interesting articles to help in-house counsel do just that: Focus on the facts.

• Mining for Conflict: Sourcing Raw Materials from the Congo
   
• All the King’s Horses … Putting the Value Back into Legal
   
• Public Company Disclosure as a Vehicle for Improving Nonprofit Management
   
• What You Need to Know about the Attorney-Client Privilege
   
• So You Want to Be a General Counsel? How to Maximize Your Chances

It’s now 2012; with a new year, you can expect change. The statement itself suggests change: It’s no longer 2011; it’s 2012. Many people will make New Year’s Resolutions in an effort to change their personal lives. Gyms are crowded with people determined to shed those extra pounds. Don’t be too hard on them … I was in the exact same position last January. That’s the type of change that we can influence, because we work to make the change. However, new publishing trends or the Mayan apocalypse are beyond our control. So, instead of worrying about it, you might as well get back to work.

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By Emily Jelich

Emily Jelich is Vice President and Associate General Counsel with the Royal Bank of Canada in Toronto, Canada. Ms. Jelich heads both the Global Capital Markets Legal Team and the Global Dispute Management Legal Team, which include team members in Canada, the US, UK and Hong Kong. Ms. Jelich is a member of the ACC Value Challenge Steering Committee and champions several initiatives within the RBC General Counsel Team aimed at working more efficiently with business partners and external counsel.

The voice, views and stories expressed in this posting are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions, strategies or opinions of the author’s employer or ACC.

While there has been a great deal of discussion in the legal community on the topic of value-based fee arrangements (VBFs), I find it surprising that the vast majority of law firms still seem to try to avoid these arrangements in hopes that they will disappear. I do not mean to disparage those law firms that are trying, but I am continuously bewildered by the fact that they are the minority. I’m not here to define VBFs— the Value Challenge material does that much better than I could — but I will say that VBFs are not discounts. They are not even discounts of annual fees.

As part of their reticence, I am struck by some law firms’ responses to requests for VBFs. Particularly, when I ask a firm for a VBF in litigation or regular transactional work, the firm will often respond that it can only propose a VBF if I “promise” the firm all of our work in that specific area for a period of time. Why are firms not sufficiently interested in developing and marketing skills to provide cost certainty and case management through VBFs unless there is a promised stream of work? Why is this promise so useful to the firm? Work in these areas can always end.  

In my mind, the process should be the exact opposite of what I am experiencing. Firms should actively enhance their understanding of cost structure, and then develop and market VBF models. This way, the firm would create an expertise across clients, and would create a valuable differentiator for itself in the market. The few firms that are doing this are gaining the fame they deserve, but the vast majority continue to resist and ignore this trend.

I don’t pretend that VBF capability is easy — presumably, that’s one reason that firms have struggled with, or avoided, it. However, it does surprise me that firms don’t seem to realize the power behind this opportunity. As a client, the firm that understands what may increase or decrease overall costs in a matter, and provides a VBF by assessing which of those factors are within its control, will be a firm I want to retain. This firm would further assist me by identifying which factors I control as the client, and what actions I may take to change the assumptions behind the VBF. This knowledge is very valuable because it helps me to consider where to spend my money and time. 

VBFs are most often discussed in terms of cost management, but they also address a long-heard request from both clients and law firms: they necessitate a conversation about goals and expectations at the beginning of a matter. They also continue discussions, which become based on actual experience instead of assumptions. VBFs may emerge as a simple way to ensure that important communications occur throughout a matter, in addition to their function as a cost management tool.

I believe that the firm that pursues the goal of becoming systemically better at VBFs for its own sake will at the same time become more attractive to clients and will be more likely to develop strong, on-going relationships as a result.

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By June Casalmir 

June Casalmir is Counsel for Consumer & Marketing Practices at Sprint Nextel, where she advises on a wide variety of marketing, advertising, and consumer-related issues. In her role, June supports the company’s social media, business marketing, and sports marketing efforts.   

I am a curious person by nature, and notwithstanding my liberal arts background, I confess to having a secret desire to be an applications coder. When I’m working with my client social media teams, this has the unfortunate result of me probably spending a little too much time reading applications protocol interface (API) requirements. Yet is there actually a job-related reason to cram my brain full of technology tidbits? 

My curiosity got the best of me, and so I turned to some other in-house attorneys who also work with their companies’ social media teams for their assistance. Could they help me justify my curiosity? And what other odd predilections have they developed while supporting their companies’ social media teams?

I had a great time speaking with attorneys from large companies, sports teams and digital agencies, and learned quite a bit about their experiences. I didn’t get any closer to realizing my secret dream of coding the next Facebook, but I learned that we share the following views on how to best support our social media clients:

• We want to understand the unique business needs associated with social media;
• We hope to educate our clients on legal issues
• We are social media participants ourselves.
  

Be on the business side

The phrase “support the business” is one that constantly guides the work of in-house attorneys. We need to insure that the clients do the right thing, but we also need to work with internal clients to find practical, palatable business solutions. When it comes to working with social media teams, the needs can be unique and may differ from even those that apply to traditional communications, marketing or sales efforts. 

Social media teams — and particularly PR social media teams — often need to respond quickly, because bad press spreads rapidly and easily on Twitter, Facebook and online forums. If you access the same technologies as the clients, you get an immediate, front-seat view of what is being said about your company on social media sites. If your company policies allow it, take advantage of this opportunity by downloading an application like TweetDeck, which pushes tweets to your desktop in real time.  

In her role as associate general counsel at Rockfish, Ryane Ward handles many legal facets of the digital agency’s work, but makes sure her social media teams know that she is available to advise when they need to quickly launch services or make program changes. “Being flexible and understanding the tight timelines faced by my internal teams and our clients is just part of my job as a legal advisor,” says Ward.

Integrating the legal function into social media strategy discussions is another way to help support business needs. However, in speaking with my in-house peers, it dawned on me that strategy integration can take different forms. While I am lucky that my Sprint clients invite me to attend their weekly social media leadership team meetings, that isn’t the only way to foster close client alignment. “The technologies and the legal issues are constantly evolving,” says Cameron Westcott, legal counsel at Kia Motors of America. “As a result, I find myself learning about the different social media platforms and legal developments along with my clients.” Scaling the learning curve together with his clients gives Westcott the ability to understand their business challenges first-hand and simultaneously discuss potential legal issues.  

Educate your clients 

I have an arguably selfish motive for training my social media clients in legal issues: Arming them with knowledge of the relevant legal concepts simply makes my job easier. 

For example, if my marketing clients are aware that a method requiring purchase or considerable effort can’t be the only way for a consumer to enter a sweepstakes, they’ll structure their tweet-to-win giveaway appropriately. Who doesn’t need their already-busy worklife to be a little easier? I certainly do, and educating my social media clients has paid huge dividends in that regard.

My clients seemed to enjoy our past training sessions, asking perceptive legal questions about IP, employment and privacy. At this especially busy time of year though, formalized training sessions have fallen to the wayside. As a result, I try to spend a few more minutes   explaining my analysis so that my clients have a practical understanding of the legal parameters for other projects.    

My company’s suburban campus is fairly large, and most of my social clients are a cold, December walk away in different buildings, so I don’t get to visit them as much this time of year. Nevertheless, I should consider visiting my clients more often — not only to foster better relationships with them, but for client education purposes, too.  David Cohen, director of legal affairs for the L.A. Angels of Anaheim, calls this “internal rainmaking.” He says, “It really helps to stop by and see internal clients' offices and take advantage of the casual, spontaneous discussions to provide a more detailed explanation or provide a point-of-view.”    

Walk the walk 

 Every in-house attorney interviewed stressed the need to be a social media user in order to be a good social media lawyer. Using Twitter and Facebook and learning how to “check-in” on Foursquare gives us a realistic picture of the user interfaces and platform norms that consumers encounter. This, in turn, gives us the ability to provide business-centric advice. “Subtle differences matter,” says Michael McSunas, senior counsel – Advertising, Marketing & Promotions at Chrysler. “Linking to a video stream of a concert versus streaming the concert yourself has different legal implications, and the clients like to understand those differences.” In addition to standard marketing and promotional matters, McSunas also counts music licensing and international matters as areas where social media know-how makes a critical difference.

If the thought of signing up for a Twitter account and having nothing to tweet but pictures of your breakfast is a major hurdle to your social media participation, you may want to reconsider. Twitter is characterized on its site as a place where you can “follow your interests,” and its own web copy doesn’t exhort you to tweet anything. For that reason, attorneys are turning to Twitter as a primary way to receive legal updates or network with other legal professionals. If you find the right people or accounts to follow, you can get relevant news quickly. In fact, agencies like the FCC and the FTC use social media to both send out updates from their agencies and receive input from consumers. For example, the FTC will regularly sponsor privacy-related Twitter chats using the #FTCpriv hashtag. Notably, the ACC team is particularly adept at using social media. Along with the @ACCinhouse account, ACC Docket Editor in Chief Kim Howard (@KimHowardDC) tops my “must follow” Twitter list.  

After speaking with some of my colleagues in other companies, I felt better about my secret desire to be an app developer. They may not harbor the same coder envy as me, but we all acknowledge the need to educate ourselves on what our social media clients experience daily. Moreover, we recognize the need to be “in it” ourselves — both as integrated team members and as participants.   

Hey, do you know of any app-development courses I can take? Maybe if I tweet that question, I’ll get some good recommendations …

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 Follow along as our new ACC President and CEO, Veta T. Richardson, chronicles her first year at ACC, with this monthly blog series. The voice, views and stories expressed in this series are of the author and are not ACC's. To read the first installment of this series, click here.

On the Importance of Mentoring

Short of educational preparedness, having a mentor is probably the single most important factor separating those who succeed versus those who stumble or fail. That, or a rich parent! 

While so many successful people like to tell stories of how they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, going from rags to riches, the truth is that everyone has help along the way. There are no truly “self made” successful people. And at various junctures in our professional lives, we will be in the position of seeking a mentor or serving as a mentor to others.

So, where does one find a mentor to help guide and develop her career path? Potential mentors are all around you –– they are members of professional associations or alumni networks to which you belong, they are in your workplace, they are family members, friends or friends of friends. The possibilities are as endless as the many avenues you have to meet and connect with others. However, finding the right mentor first requires a little self-analysis: What are you looking for in the relationship? What types of advice are you seeking?

Once you have clear objectives, it will become easier to identify people who have the knowledge and perspectives that you are seeking. Your next step is putting yourself in the right place to initiate an opening conversation with your potential mentor. Once you have that opportunity, be honest and genuine about your desire for their help, which should not include asking them to help you find a job. That’s not the best way to start a relationship with a mentor. A better approach would be to ask for advice about how to best present yourself, learn more about a topic of interest, or identify the knowledge and skills gaps between where you are and where you want to go.

On the flip side, being a good mentor to others will teach you a lot about how to best utilize and develop your relationship with your own mentor. You will grow by seeing the world through another’s experience, and hone your problem solving skills as you listen to their challenges and offer advice.

In this first year as ACC president, I am experiencing mentorship first hand through my relationship with Fred Krebs, ACC's former president. Even when I was executive director of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA), Fred was an experienced bar association leader to whom I turned for advice as I navigated unfamiliar situations. These days, I feel especially lucky to have him as a resource. He understands the nuances of ACC’s governance framework, and shares the history that underlies how things are now done and the lessons he learned over 20 successful years in this role. We get together pretty regularly, and Fred remains a trusted advisor. 

In this role, I am also sought out by others who are mid-career or just getting started. Last month, I met a wonderful group of law students at the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) Annual Meeting, which took place in Atlanta. Law students from all over the country, the vast majority of whom were of Asian heritage, were invited to participate in a program called “8 Minute Mentoring,” hosted by my former colleagues at MCCA. Although I am not Asian American, the group made me feel fully included and welcomed. If you aren't involved with NAPABA, you should really check them out. The students asked some tough questions about how to navigate their way through a very difficult time when job opportunities are scarce. I did my very best to offer them good advice. But imagine how gratifying it was to return to my office and receive a number of handwritten notes and emails to let me know that my time with them was valuable and appreciated.  

So, I am a big believer in the power of mentoring and invite you to experience it first-hand with the support of ACC, whether you are seeking a mentor or wish to offer to be a mentor to someone else. 

Fortunately, ACC is able to help with both needs –– the opportunity to be a mentor as well as to connect with a mentor.  ACC’s new mentoring program –– a peer-to-peer initiative designed to help you grow your career, while helping others advance theirs –– is has no formal requirements for participation. We only ask that mentors and mentees who are located in the same city meet for lunch three times a year, and that mentors be available to provide advice via phone when needed. Beyond this, mentors and mentees are free to contact each other as often as they like.

It’s easy to get started: Just login to the community platform and select the “Enroll as a Mentee” or “Enroll as a Mentor” tab to the left. Once you enroll, you can find mentors or mentees based on geographic location, industry or discipline!

To learn more about this program, visit http://community.acc.com/mentoring. Still have questions? Email membership@acc.com.

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By Maggy Baccinelli

Maggy is the editorial coordinator of the ACC Docket and is responsible for editing the publication, writing monthly articles and creating corresponding multimedia pieces highlighting ACC members' legal expertise and unique personal interests. Follow along as Maggy, shares her insights. The voice, views and stories expressed in this series are of the author and are not ACC's.

Last week, as I walked into Acadiana restaurant for an event celebrating the newly published Courageous Counsel, I felt a twinge of nervousness. The book, written by Allstate Insurance’s GC Michele Coleman Mayes and SNR Denton Partner Kara Baysinger, documents in-depth, candid interviews with 50 current and former women general counsel at Fortune 500 companies. Some of them would be inside. But before I could think too hard, I was escorted straight to Michele and her group of colleagues. They welcomed me warmly into their discussion about dietary habits as we each passed on different samples of New Orleans-inspired hors d’oeuvres: Who eats fish but not meat; who eats meat but not dairy; and what’s this gluten-free thing all about anyway? I felt included. It was effortless.

It wasn’t until after the event that I realized how my brief experience showcased these women walking their talk. The event’s panel was similar to the lunch program at ACC’s Annual Meeting, featuring Kara as the moderator and Michele, but also included AIG General Counsel Stasia Kelly, who is the most quoted general counsel in the book. The women talked about Courageous Counsel, but they also touched on their own experiences. Many focused on using human interaction and inclusion to build business partner and colleague trust.

The women recalled interactions they learned most from. Michele drove home the importance of honesty and admitting when you don’t know it all. When she was hired from the outside for a former position over a non-lawyer who had been at the company for 15 years, Michele said: “I bee-lined it to her office. I said ‘I understand you should have gotten this job, but that wasn’t my decision, and I need your help to do this right’… We’ve been the best of friends for 25 years.”

Stasia said she’s built relationships by figuring out what people need, helping them get it, and then giving them all the credit. “It’s often unspoken; just understood,” she said. She learned the value of human interactions from her dad, a Boston cop. “He was a wise man and had the best people skills of anyone I’ve ever known. He’d talk and talk and talk about his day, and I’d sit there and listen. … I didn’t realize how much had rubbed off until later.”

Listening is the key to learning, but it’s not always easy. In fact, when asked to offer the more than 50 audience members one piece of advice each, Stasia said: “Keep your ears open, because you never know what you’re going to miss. Listen and be receptive.”

“Right,” Michele added. “You know when someone is telling you something, but instead of listening you’re playing that record in your head, like, ‘When is this person going to be quiet and let me tell them what’s right?’ Well there’s a quote I like that says, ‘We pretend to be listening when what we’re really doing is rearranging our prejudices.’”

Michele’s one piece of advice was that growth and comfort are incompatible. It’s a central theme of Courageous Counsel, because the only thing all the interviewed women have in common is their willingness to take risks, said Kara. “The other major lesson we learned is that there is no one path. We wondered if we would find a secret sauce, or a recipe for success, and there isn’t one.”

Before leaving Michele and Kara gave me a gracious goodbye, remembering my name and thanking me for coming while signing my book. They wrote: “Maggy, make your own path.” 

Click here to take home the lessons learned from some of the top women general counsel at this year's ACC annual meeting program. This program was moderated by Courageous Counsel co-author and partner at SNR Denton, Kara Sophia Baysinger.

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