Bonus Episode: PLAC Women’s Forum Live Panel Discussion
A live Women’s History Month Panel with the Product Liability Advisory Council Women's Forum
01:02:17
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Show Notes
A live Women's History Month podcast panel with the Product Liability Advisory Council Women's Forum held at Hyundai Motor America Headquarters, featuring Orange County Superior Court Presiding Judge Maria Hernandez, Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley, Jennifer Keller of Keller Anderle, General Counsel of Origence Erin Wilson, and Trellis Legal Research co-founder Nicole Clark.
Relevant episode links:
Product Liability Advisory Council's Women's Forum, Orange County Superior Court, Fifth District, Katrina Foley - Previous episode, Erin Wilson - Previous episode, Jennifer Keller - Previous episode, Nicole Clark - Previous episode, Trellis Legal Research
Panelists:
Maria Hernandez
Katrina Foley
Jennifer Keller
Erin Wilson
Nicole Clark
Transcript
Welcome to a special edition, a live panel in conjunction with the Product Liability Advisory Council's Women's Forum. We're excited to have an array of women lawyers and leaders in Orange County, California in celebration of Women's History Month. We have on this panel the Presiding Judge at the Orange County Superior Court, Maria Hernandez, Orange County Supervisor of the Fifth District, Katrina Foley, Erin Wilson who is General Counsel at or Origence, Jennifer Keller, a Founding Partner of Keller Anderle and a kickass trial lawyer, and Nicole Clark, also a Founder of Trellis Legal Research, one of the few women who have founded legal tech companies, doing great work in a very male-dominated part of the business.
I'm glad to have this opportunity to have all of you together for this because many of you have had individual episodes talking about your journey and your successes but there's something about having you all together and the synergy from that which I hope will have a whole different energy to it. The first question I would pose to each of you would be this. How did you decide to become a lawyer? How did you decide what kind of lawyer you wanted to be and what you wanted to practice? I'm going to start with Judge Hernandez first.
Thanks, MC. First of all, thanks for having me back. It truly is an honor to sit on a panel with such esteemed colleagues and some kickass and powerful ladies. I'm inspired by each and every one of you. Most of you I know well. Going back to me, from the time I was a little girl, I thought I was going to be a lawyer. People told me I was going to be a lawyer. Once they told me that, I was going to become a physical therapist, and then I met Organic Chemistry in college.
There are limits.
Quickly, we were to be back to the world of social ecology at UCI, which was a cross-disciplinary approach to legal studies. It was something that fascinated me and brought me back to public service and where I knew I wanted to be. That's where it started. I was working through and doing internships, externships, and whatever I can get my hands on. Off to law school, I went, knowing I was going to be in public service at some point in my life.
Social ecology is a neat program that's specific to UC Irvine. It's a treasure in Orange County. Supervisor Foley, I want to ask you this question because you are elected but you're also a lawyer.
I had a different path. It's in my high schoolbook that I'm going to be a lawyer. It also says I'm going to be a dancer. I like to dance but those days are over. I found a niche to want to become a lawyer because I was in a home that was very dysfunctional. My mom and my evil stepfather were getting a divorce. He was taking everything away from my mom, including my baby sister. I was twelve years old sitting in the courtroom and feeling like my mom had bad representation. I didn't know that word at the time but that's what it was. I decided that day that I was going to be a lawyer so that I could represent other women and save their families.
I first went to UCLA and got involved on campus writing for the women's journal there. I went to law school with the sole purpose of defending women who were domestic violence victims in criminal cases where they had been accused of murdering their husbands. That was my reason to go to law school. I don't do that, and I didn't end up in that field but I ended up working for Michelle Reinglass out of law school. The rest was history. She taught me a lot about employment law.
That's how I met MC. I sent her a letter after law school asking for her to go to coffee to talk about working on gender issues in Orange County. We have been friends ever since. That's my path. I ended up using my legal skills and my legal ties to my law firm to serve my community. I got service in eighth grade. I love public service. I used that to become a city council member, school board member, and mayor. I'm the county supervisor. I get to work with Judge Hernandez on important social issues. I get to use my legal skills in a completely different way. I truly love it. It's the best job I've ever had.
I can see that. She's glowing even though she's so busy with everything. She serves in amazing ways and is one of the few I see truly and deeply committed to lifting others and making life better for her constituents all around. That's from the heart. It's true.
Jennifer Keller, what about you becoming a lawyer?
Like Judge Hernandez, I wanted to be a lawyer from the time I was a little girl but unlike Judge Hernandez, I was not encouraged because I was a couple of decades at least before Judge Hernandez. When your age starts with a seven at the front, at any rate, I used to get, "You could marry a lawyer and you could be a legal secretary." The combination of Nancy Drew and Perry Mason had me thinking I could do it. My parents were very supportive. My dad thought I was crazy because he wanted me to follow him into surgery but he was nevertheless supportive that I was supposed to do something and be someone.
I never varied from that path. I always saw myself in a courtroom. I always wanted to be a trial lawyer, and here I am now. I've been doing this for many years. I'm still trying cases and still enjoying it. I started as a deputy public defender. Like Judge Hernandez, I got 1 million trials under my belt. It has been a great decision for me. I still love doing it. I try all kinds of crazy cases, business cases mostly. I represented the city of Costa Mesa at that time helmed by Mayor Katrina Foley.
I was defending the city's ordinance trying to regulate unlicensed sober living homes. It was the first city in the country to take it to the mat. Everybody else got either scared off or lost early in litigation. The unlicensed sober living homes took the position that because people in recovery are classified as disabled under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Fair Housing Act, you could not regulate them at all in any way. This was devastating to Costa Mesa's neighborhood. I defended Costa Mesa's well-drawn, thought-out, and non-discriminatory ordinance. Twelve good people in true in Federal court agreed.
Also, three judges on the Ninth Circuit.
Guess who did the appeal? There's nobody I would rather have involved in any of my cases that are going to be hitting the appellate courts than MC. MC also helped me defend Costa Mesa later when the federal government wanted to, at the very beginning of COVID when no one knew anything about it, take all these COVID patients and stick them at Fairview with no provision whatsoever for anything.
We asked, "What happens if one of these people has to go to the hospital?" "We will call an ambulance." "Are you going to train our first responders?" "No." "What about housekeeping? Are people going to come to do housekeeping for them? Are they going to go home at night to their families?" "Yeah." "Are they going to be provided with any personal protective equipment or training?" "No." Mayor Foley said, "Not on my watch."
The title was, "The City of Costa Mesa and Katrina Foley against the United States."
It's very cool to stand up and say, "Jennifer Keller on behalf of Costa Mesa against the United States." We were told we had no chance, "You're not going to get an injunction. The government has broad plenary powers. It's always going to win in this situation." They were wrong. We didn't think so. We thought we had it nailed. It was a real groundbreaking effort. At that point, the government finally broke down and agreed to cooperate with Costa Mesa, its first responders, and its emergency team to work together to try to create something reasonable, which is all the city ever wanted.
We bought Orange County time. We all know what happened over the last few years.
No one knew right at that time what it was but we were pretty proud of that. We loved Costa Mesa. We loved it more when you were mayor but John Stephens is a great mayor too.
That was a great example of different women coming together to stand up and protect the citizens of Orange County.
I have to add one thing. It was all women. We were sitting at the table in this big room at the county, and it was all women who were leading. Our judge was a woman. It was great.
Judge Josephine Staton was terrific.
Erin Wilson, you and law school. How did that happen?
Mine wasn't quite so noble. I did not want to be a lawyer when I was growing up. My dad and my grandfather were lawyers. My dad was a longtime LA and Orange County lawyer. He started the Orange County Bar Association. I was like, "I don't want to be a lawyer. I don't have anything to do with that." I was a singer and a dancer. I was a dance major in college. I got run over by a car. It was a bad one. I ended up in a coma. I ended up being paralyzed. I ended up in the hospital for a very long time. When I could get back up, I went back to college in a wheelchair and a walker.
It was a long journey. I couldn't dance anymore. I was hurting hard but then I met a guy. He wanted to get serious. I'm like, "I can't be this crazy entertainer person, especially because he wants to have kids. What can I do?” I do know the law a little bit from dad. I've been in business. At this point, I was 31 years old. I decided to go to law school. I took the LSAT in July. I got into law school in August, started at the end of August, and went. I worked for medical malpractice for my clerk there. I realized I wasn't a big fan of law firms. It wasn't my cup of tea. I worked for the LA City Attorney's office. I didn't like that either. That was weird. There weren't good businesspeople there. They came and went.
I decided to try in-house. That was the perfect fit. It was like Goldilocks. That middle chair was awesome. It's because I had been in business already. I worked in aerospace for eight years and advertising. I worked for a private company as the executive assistant to the CEO. We went through an IPO. I had a lot of business knowledge already in my head. That worked well in-house. I came up through the ranks. When I was at a Fortune 500 company, that's when I met MC. She was working with our chief navigator. She and I hit it off talking on the sides. Eventually, I branched off and took a general counsel position with a tech company, which has been fabulous. It's not quite the traditional route but I got there.
Everybody has a different path. Particularly for in-house, that business experience is helpful because that's always the question of being a good counselor and a good advisor to the business side as well as the legal side. You already had that background.
It was helpful.
Nicole, what's your story of the law and then leaving the law?
I did not grow up thinking that I was going to be an attorney. I graduated from my undergrad. I got my degree in Journalism. I wanted to be a writer and then realized it was hard to make money doing that. I decided that I was going to take the LSAT and then quickly went to law school after. It turned out to be something that I loved. That was lucky for me. From there, I was seeking law school as the ability to be financially stable. I graduated into the recession. The third years were taking jobs that would have gone to the first years. Everyone was getting deferred.
It was a difficult market at that time for sure. I initially started more litigation in bankruptcy and foreclosure work, not where my heart lies. Ultimately, I continued in litigation and focused on employment defense. I did a couple of months of corporate transactions. I was not good at it. It was not for me. I liked the strategy of litigation. That was a better fit for me.
I worked as a litigator for nearly ten years and finally had an idea for a business that I believed needed to be built. It took me a lot of time. I continued to practice for a number of years, building up the courage to jump but ultimately, I did. It's funny talking about the lawyer's perspective and then the business perspective. Being on both sides now, they're vastly different. It's helpful to have the business context to be able to counsel a business and understand what the goals and objectives are there.
There's such a difference in that. It's truly entrepreneurial to start something, not just going, "I'm not pursuing law. I'm starting my company with my technology." That's a whole other level of guts.
We have all been trained to be risk-averse. Our entire education is how we avoid risk. Here I was deciding to do the ultimate risk and put it all on the line.
You were good from the very beginning.
Thank you. We met very early on. MC has been a great support.
You're a special person. You've done amazing things. Trellis Legal Research is one of the foundational legal research startups in grabbing all of the state law, tentative decisions, and things like that around the country. Federal decisions could be reached more easily. There were databases for that but not for states. Seeing that there was an opening for that where people couldn't get access to things, creating that, working to create the tech to make that possible, and then working to access all of the different courts is a whole other level. There are lots of different things going on there instead of saying, "I'm not going to be practicing law anymore." It's like, "I'm reimagining a whole different way of getting information that would be helpful for litigators." That's a special person.
Judge Hernandez, I want to start with you. Some people have some sense of what it means. Everybody knows, "Presiding Judge sounds cool." You get extra work from it. We know that. What is your day like? What does it mean to be the presiding judge? That's for a short time elected by your peers. How do you utilize that time in executing some vision that you might have?
A lot of people don't know what a presiding judge is. Quite honestly, I don't think when I was a lawyer, I paid a whole lot of attention to it. I look at Jennifer. Speaking of being risk-averse, we jump right into the Public Defender's Office for many years and go, "We're going to be jumping into risks and loving doing it," which I did. Herding cats is a common term we all talk about. That is generally a day every day. What you expect your day to be is not what is going to be on the calendar or the agenda.
From a presiding judge's position, we have 15,000 employees. I have 144 judges and commissioners. We have a $250 million budget and seven different justice centers. The beauty of it is Orange County Superior Court, and Jennifer will tell me if I'm wrong or any of the other lawyers, does it better than any other county in the state quite honestly, especially when we talk about what happened during COVID in the country. We collectively came together from all of our partners, whether that was law firms, the bench and the bar, nonprofits, or our general stakeholders that work within the courts to be able to operationalize and stay operationalized to provide access to justice.
What I'm doing is maintaining the daily workload and striking that balance with all of the needs to make sure that our doors are open and that we're providing the best absolute service for those who come in, whether they're personally coming in or virtually coming in. We're making sure that they have their day in court, that they can be heard, and that everybody has the opportunities that they need to have and do it fairly and with dignity. That's a day-to-day operation.
The big issue comes with those circumstances out of our control. We all know. We're talking with Supervisor Foley. The state is going to do what? The governor wants to take how much money from us? We're talking about vulnerable populations, serving the most vulnerable, making sure that we have those opportunities, and trying to make sure we're balancing and networking with all of those folks to optimize what we can.
It's so different from what you're used to saying, "I'm working with my cases and my court and managing those." It's the system at large.
There's a part of me that so truly misses having my courtroom, my calendar, my trials, and my programs because there's a lot of work that I see that we can do. The bigger global, looking at what we can do as a court community with our legal community to provide better service is inspiring. I'm listening to all of the ladies here. How powerful. I'm going to go back to it.
It is a kickass opportunity to listen to your history and what you are accomplishing. We need to continue moving it forward. There are days when sometimes I would like to go back and say, "Can I call my tribe?" This will be for a period for me as well. I'll go back to that. I do have goals that I want to continue to work on. Supervisor Foley and I work a lot on a lot of those social needs and what we're doing within the court system as well.
Make the most of the time you're there doing that. Back to Supervisor Foley, what does that mean that you're the Orange County Supervisor? What do you do? What does your day look like? You're nodding your head. Judge Hernandez is like, "I have no idea. I'm herding cats. All these different things are happening." You're everywhere. A day in the life of Katrina is probably one person's week as far as I can tell on your schedule in a month. We're glad that you're here. Maybe you can explain what that is because people go, "Supervisor of Orange County."
That's fair. Judge Hernandez is being very modest. She has been a trailblazer. She's transformative in our juvenile justice system, creating opportunities for young people who make mistakes or leaning in to try to rehabilitate and allow people to have a second chance, especially young people. I appreciate all her work. I'm honored to be able to serve with her. She also forgot to mention that she has to manage the budget and make sure that the courthouse has security and that the clerks show up.
Those are all my cats.
It's not just the judges.
Most people when I introduce myself, "I'm your county supervisor," say, "Who do you supervise?" It's an important job. Each district has about 660,000 residents we oversee. Each office has, depending on the year, somewhere between a $5 million to $10 million budget. In 2022, we had a $12 million budget. In each district office, there are five of us who serve on the county bar as supervisors. There are 3.2 million people in Orange County.
District 5 is the best district. I have assets that are incredible. We've got the airport, the entire coast, 32 miles of coastline, two harbors, massive open spaces, parks, wilderness centers, the new Banning Ranch that's turned into the Randall Preserve, lots of rail systems, Fashion Island, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Soka University, UCI, and the community colleges. It's an incredible district.
It's each of our jobs to manage the nearly $9 billion budget that the county has and make sure that we're protecting the health and safety of the community. That's our number one job. We oversee public health, the court system, the sheriff's department, the public defender, the DA, and all of the eligibility workers who make sure that people get fed and that they can make medical appointments. It's important work that we do. There's the transportation and our Orange County Fire Authority. I sit on that board as a director. I'm now the new chair. I had one meeting. I'm now the chair of the legislation committee. It's a big shocker.
It's our job to manage the nearly $9 billion budget the county has and ensure that we’re protecting the health and safety of the community. That’s our number one job.
For 26 years, I was an employee rights litigator. I loved going into the courtroom. I loved practicing law. I loved the fact that every single day in the employment arena, every case is different. You get to learn about all the different businesses and become a subject matter expert for that case. You move on to the next. I thought, "I'm going to miss this." I don't miss the grant of discovery. I don't miss all the battles. I do miss the time that I had to research an issue and write up the brief.
That sounds weird to think that you would miss that but I do because now, we have to depend on the twelve people that work in my office to do the research and the writing and send it over to me. I try to download it and regurgitate it back out. Sometimes it's not me. Every day is different. I love that part of it. The only consistency I can say in my day is I'm going to have a meeting.
I was in Newport Beach because the hillside is falling. I was trying to get an emergency declaration written, it helps to be a lawyer because you know what to do. I know how to do that quickly. I know how to work efficiently, get something on the agenda, contact the governor's office, get that approved, and get the federal government coming in time because now in San Clemente, the hillside is falling.
I'm getting the resources to people, helping them connect, and understanding that there are tax laws that might be beneficial to them and their property. Every day is different. I was in Sacramento advocating for paying our funding to support our system of care to reduce homelessness and provide for people. I had a meeting with the Chamber of Commerce on how we promote businesses in Orange County. I had meetings with our public health department, and now I'm here.
There are lots of meetings. There's one thing about how you do all of this. You're partially conscious of it but I don't think you are totally. I'm watching you build consensus and build up people also. I'm thinking about your award, the Women Making a Difference Award you had as well for women in the county in all different ways of storytelling. I thought that you implemented that so well in terms of highlighting some of the smaller places, theaters, or newspapers in the county and putting the spotlight on them to raise their profile and have people recognize the treasures that they are.
We recognize MC as an amazing storyteller in the show.
Here we are.
Finding where someone can help someone else is why I always love getting out and meeting people and the work that they're doing. I meet so many people. Every day I can find somebody to connect to someone.
You see the connections, too, in a way that can benefit the people in your constituency. That's the connection and then connecting it to your role. It was neat to see. Jennifer, let's talk about you founding your firm and transitioning from criminal defense to big-ticket cases of all kinds. Tell me about that. What made you want to start your firm? How did you transition from the criminal cases to pretty much every big case Jennifer has been involved in? She's an amazing trial lawyer.
For openers, I never thought that the skillset was any different, whether you're trying a criminal case or a civil case. It's about storytelling, persuasion, and selecting a jury who is going to like you, your client, and your case. After 22 years of criminal defense, I had seen everything. I had tried eighteen murder cases to jury verdict. I had tried a couple of capital cases. I had tried the first case involving what was then known as the Battered Woman's Defense in Orange County, which the public defenders wags if they are used to call me, “You’re needed, killing in defense.” We did but we had a good result on that.
Whether you’re trying a criminal or civil case, it's about storytelling, persuasion, and selecting a jury who will like you, your client, and your case.
I thought that if I could persuade Orange County juries to walk somebody out the back door on a murder case, I probably could try a civil case. You're walking in, and the jurors are looking up instead of, "Why are you sitting next to that horrible person and digging out of a hole?" The jurors look up happily, "I wonder what this case is about. She seems like a nice person." I thought this is a cool opportunity.
I got a lucky break because of the Founding Dean at Chapman University School of Law. The school was sued by students in their inaugural class claiming that the school had lied to them when they applied. They didn't get accreditation the very first time around but they did in their third year if they stuck it out. A lot of them didn't. They were emotionally distressed and whatnot. They filed a suit.
Quinn Emanuel was representing them with their usual somewhat scorched-Earth tactics. The dean didn't trust the people who were representing the school and therefore, him. He was named individually. He kept saying, "They're going to throw me under the bus." I would say, "They can't throw you under the bus without themselves being thrown under the bus. You're their agent. That's not going to happen." "I don't care. I want you. I've seen you in a trial." I said, "I'm a criminal defense lawyer. Come on."
He said, "I don't care." I said, "If this thing ever goes to trial, I'll come in and represent you." I was thinking it never would. It went to trial for four and a half months in front of Judge Ikola but at the last second, I persuaded Quinn Emanuel to dismiss my client. I said, "He's worth $250,000 dripping wet. He founded the school because he wanted to found a kinder and gentler law school. I'm going to kill you if you go after him or if you harm a hair on his head."
They dismissed him. To my surprise, after a mock trial where I played the role of one of the lawyers, Chapman decided they wanted to hire me. I came in at the last second as Lead Counsel for Chapman. The big law firm that had been representing was very gracious about it and gave me a lot of support. I took every witness in that four-and-a-half-month trial.
We had a great result. The jurors found that the school had made some misrepresentations and that the damages would be zero. I understand it later caused a major revision to Quinn Emmanuel's contingent fee policy, which I heard from John Quinn himself as he wagged his finger in my face when I tried a case against him later, the Mattel versus MGA case and the retrial of that.
I got my feet wet and thought, "This isn't any different. It's the same stuff." I'm the jury trial consultant on that. There was another last-minute case where somebody's attorney had a cardiac event, which was maybe more that he didn't want to try that case. He fell ill apparently and couldn't try it. The client who was an outside-the-box venture capitalist called the trial consultant and said, "Who do you know who could come in at the last second, master this complicated case, try it, and win it?"
She said, "There's this criminal defense lawyer in Orange County." He said, "I'm going to hire her." He did. That turned out pretty well. We had an $8 million settlement offer pre-trial. We got $350 million. We only collected $129 million in the bankruptcy court because the defendant BK-ed after that but that was still a pretty good payday. That public defendant didn't pay that but I did well on that.
A couple of years later, I tried the retrial of Mattel versus MGA Entertainment, popularly known as Barbie versus Bratz. I came to that one twelve days before the trial. Is there a pattern developing here? I've been saying lately, "I do not want to be parachuting in anymore." This takes years off your life. Trust me. No matter how much fun it is, it takes years of your life but that had a happy ending, too, because my client had lost the first trial. It almost destroyed their company. On retrial, they won.
Ultimately, the Ninth reversed it a second time. There was a currency award of $139 million to my client. I didn't get that, and that didn't even make him whole. Mattel had spent $450 million in attorney suites. You can imagine what the battle was like. I tried that against John Quinn. He's a wonderful lawyer at Quinn Emanuel. I second-chaired cases with him but that was another four-month blood and guts craziness in front of Judge David Carter who never sleeps.
He said this at one point during the trial. It was 10:00 at night. We had started at 7:00. I was falling apart. He looked down and said, "Counsel, I don't need to eat. I don't need to sleep. I don't need to go to the bathroom." I said, "Your Honor, I'm a middle-aged woman. I need to do all of those things. I need to do one of them right now, or there's going to be a problem." It was pretty crazy but it happened.
I assembled a team around me of some of the most wonderful lawyers. I deliberately set it up with my partner, Kay Anderle, who had been my opponent in the DA's office. We liked each other and respected each other but we did not like cases against each other. I invited her to join me. We deliberately set it up where we hired people from the criminal justice system and the best young federal public defender that you will ever see who is now my co-lead council a lot of the time, including Kevin Spacey's defense in Southern District of New York where the judge loved him so much.
They said at one point, "We consider Chase one of our own." He had been a Federal Public Defender in the Eastern District. Another person would have been the Head of the Federal Public Defender in the Southern District, Reuben Camper Cahn, who's a brilliant lawyer. We have another person, Anand Sambhwani, who was with the Department of Justice. He's also a fantastic lawyer.
On the other side, we have people who are all big-firm refugees. We have one person who was with Gibson Dunn for eight years in New York and eight years in LA. We've got people from Cleary Gottlieb, Munger Tolles, and every great firm you can imagine. We have melded those two types of people. We don't have up-or-out. We're not a big firm. We battled big firms successfully.
We had a huge legal malpractice case. Munger Tolles was on the other side. It was involving an Am Law 100 firm, Katten Muchin. We litigated that hammer and tongs for about four years and settled down on the eve of trial. I wish I could tell you how much we settled before but I can't. I'm confident it was the largest in American history. We had about $1 billion in damages. It worked out for us. We've got intellectual property cases and patent cases. I was hired by Snap. I'm going to defend Tower Semiconductor but then we will do Kevin Spacey or the big bad-faith case we did for AIG.
I'm like Mikey in the old cereal commercial, "Give it to Mikey. He'll eat anything." I'm the lawyer equivalent of that. My day is meeting with my teams and talking, "Should we take a new case?" We may do our first plaintiff class action. It's a very interesting case because there are a lot of junky class actions out there. This is not. This is a bad one. I successfully defended MassMutual Insurance Company in a big case that led to the collapse of a nationwide class. Not too many class action cases go to a jury trial.
Downtown LA is not the favorite place to try those but I had a good outcome. Jurors came through for us. It's the most fun. I'm surrounded by these brilliant young lawyers. They're so smart. I always want people smarter than I am to be around me. They love what they're doing. I don't have to do all that horrible discovery stuff because they do it. We try to where we can establish a different type of playing field. We try to have our opposing council bring that temperature down a little bit. It doesn't always work but we try.
If anybody has a chance to watch Jennifer in her trial, I would highly recommend it. I've been in watching. We learned so much watching her work.
We've got one young woman who was with the State Department for ten years after she was with Davis Polk in New York. She went off and became a diplomat for ten years. Nahal Kazemi is fabulous. It's fun for me. I got to pick all these people. Kay and I always say that we had to kiss a lot of frogs before we found the princes and princesses we have now because not everybody could do the work.
We had to kiss many frogs before we found the princes and princesses because not everybody could do the work.
I do remember being in complete entropy in some of these cases with Jennifer. That's exactly what she says as things are crumbling around you, "We have to rush in and do X." She goes, "Isn't this fun?" At the same time that she is enjoying it, I'm thinking she's masterful with people because she's relaxing me. She could tell. I was like, "Appellate lawyers don't do this. It's chaos." She wants me to relax and move on. She's great with people.
Maria will tell you that when you've been a deputy defender, you've had all sorts of terrible cases. You're standing between your client and the abyss. Sometimes you can't help them because the facts are so bad. You're trying to keep people from getting the death penalty or life without parole, "It's only about money." That's what I've told them, "It's a lot of money." It is a very liberating thing to step over to that other side.
You've had many terrible cases when you've been a deputy defender. You're standing between your client and the abyss.
You do enjoy what you do. That's all I could say. Nicole, we know tech founders. We have a vision of that but I'm curious about what that means. What does it look like? How is your work is executed?
The interesting part is probably similar for many of the women on this panel. Every day, you're solving a new problem that you have never solved before. You have to learn and figure it out every single day all day.
Isn't that fun?
It is fun.
It keeps it interesting, whether it's finance, leading meetings, talking to the investors, or board meetings. There are so many different things every day. For founders, it is learning all of those things for the first time because you are expected in some way to be an expert in every area. You have to learn or hire various people, which is also a skill. It's a wild amount of different activities all day and too many meetings.
We know in the law that there are more of us now in different positions as Katrina was saying. There were a lot of us including the judge in one of our cases who are all women but I don't think that's the case yet in your arena.
When you look at law firms underneath the partner level, there's a good mix. It starts to slim out as you get higher. Legal is one industry that still at least at a leadership level can be male-dominated. Technology and then the intersection of the two are entirely male-dominated. I am used to being the only woman in the room all the time. It's very common. You go into it knowing that. It can be lonely but there's a change happening. There's a shift happening. I'm excited to be a part of that shift that I see coming.
There is a lot in your era who are starting to produce more founders who are relatively early in their careers, leaving law to do startups and tech startups. It's exciting to see the connection that all of you have in supporting each other. Nicole, like Katrina, is very good at being a concrete or tangible supporter of women and their ventures in business or otherwise. You know how to do it.
I appreciate that. An important part is to help to sponsor women. Mentoring is great. Giving advice is great and seeing where you can help and connect people. It will be helpful for them. You can see it. Where can you put your social capital on the line to make introductions to other women? Those are the things that matter. I try to put my actions where my mouth is and try to do it.
Do you have support from women giving you capital for investing in your business?
Our investor base and our venture capitals are all male. We have to change that. When I was first raising angel capital early investment, there was so much talk from the women investors about how they were supporting women-led businesses. We ended up not getting a single female investor. It's so hard to hear about the support but then when it comes down to it, you don't see it.
It happens in campaigns also. We have to get women more comfortable with taking risks. Women aren't as comfortable taking risks because they don't know if they're going to get returns on their investments.
We have to get women more comfortable with taking risks. Women aren't as comfortable taking risks because they don't know if they will get returns on their investments.
It's very true. Often you can hear the questions are posed differently. The male VCs will ask questions, "How big can this be?" The women ask questions, "What are you going to do if this happens? What are you going to do if this big risk happens?"
Our managing partner is always, "What if the phone never rings again? If we make this higher, what if this case settles? What if this? What if that?" I always say, "The phone always rings. We always have work. We always turn down work. Come on." She's the one who runs the firm, pays the payroll, keeps it going, and does the deals with the vendors. She's a great business owner. If it weren't for her, we wouldn't have our doors open. She's super like that. I said, "You have to stop catastrophizing. Life has been good to us as long as you're helpful."
You need both wives in a partnership too. That's true.
You can't get to the next level without doing a loan. You have to put yourself out there and make yourself vulnerable. I remember when we first opened our firm. We couldn't get a women business owner loan. I had to put everything on the credit card. I hope that has changed. I've always loved the saying, "Jump, and the net will appear." You have to take the first step. You can watch, learn, and let the universe help you grow.
Maybe women's risk aversion may come from the fact that we are after all the people who produce the children. If we weren't risk-averse, the human race would die out although even having a child as I recall is a risk.
That's true. I want to say something specifically to Nicole. She walks the walk and doesn't talk about this. I can tell we have both invested in each other and our projects. Nicole or her company was one of the founding sponsors of this show of supporting and lifting other women. We have collaborated, introduced, and supported other women in legal tech to raise their prominence and help them get more funding. Before the VC rounds, I was helping to support Nicole's company.
There's something about that is beautiful. I said, "I'm going to take this risk and start this crazy thing that hasn't even started yet. Do you want to support it?" She was, "Yes, because you did that for me." It was no thought. This is how we all advance and support each other in very tangible ways, "If I don't have this seed funding, this isn't going to happen." There are a lot of good things that could happen from it. She's very matter-of-fact about it but that's how she is. I knew you wouldn't say that.
Thank you. I'm super excited when women that I know and love are starting projects that they're excited about.
I remember that you had a list of the other women legal tech founders. You were like, "Who would be into this would be these folks." It was amazing. It was very cool. That's who you are also in terms of naturally doing that and being what you want to see in the world. Erin, let's talk about GC. What does that look like? What are you doing every day? It sounds like lots of meetings and phone calls too probably.
It's funny sitting here and listening to all these amazing women speak. I see so many common threads in storytelling. As a litigator, you have to tell the story to win the case. There's collaboration in politics. You've got to be a good collaborator. No matter what leadership position you're in, you're herding cats. Your cats can be anybody. Like you with your company and starting to take risks, these are all things that I'm hearing here. They're all common to the position of the general counsel.
It's what they say in general. You have to have a generalist view. You have to have enough background in certain areas to be able to troubleshoot. It's funny you said Mikey because I always refer to myself as a garbage disposal. Anything that didn't fit would come to me. By doing that, I learned to deal with all kinds of stuff. I do lots of contracts, whether I'm reviewing someone else's contract or drafting and updating the contracts that we give out to people.
I deal with employment quite a bit. Our HR director and I are joined at the hip pretty much. We talk daily. I do a lot of M&As. I've worked on so many projects over the years in joint ventures. Those are almost like a little surgery. You have to tie off every capillary. You separate. You have to let the blood flow back in and make sure that you get caught in everything. Otherwise, there's going to be a problem.
One of my favorite sayings in those when we're doing M&As is, "It's not clear here what your intent is. We want to make sure." "We all know what it means." You could be fired, and nobody is going to know what it means. My favorite phrase too that I use is, "If I have to put this piece of paper in front of a judge or a jury, are they going to know what it says? If you can't read this and know what it is, they're not going to know what it is. It's not going to help you." It's a double-edged sword.
Storytelling is very important with the board of directors and how you frame it. If you have disclosed enough, make sure they understand the risks involved or where you're headed. There's so much to that as well. You can think of every aspect of a business lawyerly too. In litigation, we're always involved. There's always litigation going no matter what. I do love working with litigators.
Storytelling is important with the board of directors and how you frame it. If you have disclosed enough, ensure they understand the risks or where you're heading.
That is one of my favorite things because every lawyer is transactional. You gravitate to the excitement of the courtroom even though most of it is not that exciting except for the final big hurrah but it's fascinating. When you go through the discovery, you realize how much electronic data in paper a company has and even stuff you didn't know you had, which is the fun part of the discovery.
You have to know about all these things and understand them. You have to take risks as a general counsel. You can't be too risk-averse because that slows a business down. I tell businesspeople all the time, "If you're not making money, I'm not going to be paid. You have to keep those lines open." I'm not by nature a risk-averse person. I like taking risks. In some ways, I'm an adrenaline junkie.
I remember when I bought my first by myself. I had a salaried position. I bought this house before I even made my first payment. I quit that job and took a commission-only real estate sales position. Everybody I knew said, "Are you insane? How are you going to pay a mortgage?" Sometimes you have to roll the dice. It's true. Big reward, big risk. You can live a very conservative life.
Are you going to have those super highs? You're not. That's fine if that's not what you want but in business, that is what you want. They want those big wins. That's what we always hear in the executive room, "What's our win?" They say to you every week, "What was your win this week? What was the company's win?" You have to be able to answer that too. It's interesting.
One of my favorite things is I'm the executive sponsor of Diversity and Inclusion. I'm also the sponsor of the Women in Leadership Development group, which we call WILD. They keep wanting to do WILD in Vegas. I'm still working on it. That is empowering other women, lifting them up, and giving them opportunities. My company does take that very seriously, which is wonderful for me. We do mentorship programs and offer career pathing.
I have a very open-door policy with people, men, and women. It doesn't matter. I'm always happy to talk to people about how they can grow, learn, and change their positions. If you don't like being a scrum master anymore, what do you like? What do you want to do? That's how you learn and grow but you do have to take a risk when you do those things. Every day is different. It's an adventure. I love the win. I love that my comms director is here, Stephanie.
When you said that, I was like, "Katrina is on board. That's happening. That's getting added."
We have an end date.
Whatever employees can't join, they try to tell us their business wins. Their personal win would be like, "I had an awesome sandwich." It's awesome to share in the gratitude of everyone recognizing that they did something business-forward and learning more about people as well.
It's that synergy I about when we started the panel. It's the synergy here. That synergistic effect will help raise people.
It's positivity in general. I have never seen an unhappy bunch of lawyers who were very good at what they did and productive. You see a law firm where everybody is miserable. It's not a law firm that's winning. That's going to be a law firm where everybody is looking for the door. They're unhappy. They may self-sabotage. It's also important to share the credit no matter what sphere you're in. When somebody around you is great, you need to tell them they're great and tell the world they're great.
Here are two quick things. One has to do with, "It's only money." I have a daughter who is an ICU nurse. She was in the heat of COVID. She was having people die holding her hand every day because there was no one in hospitals to visit them. She would stay after her shift. Somebody at work would say something, "The coffee machine doesn't have the right pods." The CEO would get sad about the time. Nobody would die here right now. It's not like the clients that you worked for aren't a big deal when you're dealing with life-or-death situations. It is only money. That's a lot of money. It matters.
The other is being the only woman in the room. Here's a quick aside. I was singing in rock bands in the '80s. The Hollywood Strip is exactly what you saw in the movie The Dirt with Mötley Crüe. I was the only woman in the room. There were times backstage. I'm the lead singer for goodness’ sake. I'm the front person but they would come in and say, "No girlfriends backstage. You're going to have to leave." I'm like, "That's good because my girlfriend is not here."
The comments from people were ridiculous, "If you're upset about something, I don't think I want to hear it." You do learn to deal with that and navigate. I use humor a lot. It's a big one. Every little experience in life scares you or gives you another tool in your tool belt. That did nourish me because when I walked into a company or a board room, and I was the only woman, I knew that feeling. I was ready for it. All of us have had that experience of being the only woman.
I'm the only woman on the board. Even though I'm a person who's an advocate by training, and I like to talk, I sometimes feel conditioned to not talk too long and get my words out quickly because I know that there are some of my colleagues who think I talk too much but it's hard to overcome that. You want to make sure you're still being a strong advocate or advisor.
Erin, are you still singing?
I'm singing in Long Beach. I can't wait. It's exciting.
That's very cool.
What's the name of the band?
I have a band called Barstool Confession. I'm singing at a jam at a club with a bunch of musicians, which is super fun. It keeps me grounded and also helps alleviate stress.
It shows. You continue to be very well-known, especially given the very traumatic experience you mentioned that caused you to do a career switch there. That's still part of you.
It helps me to work too. I'm pretty down to Earth for the job I have and the way people feel you should conduct yourself. I'm very professional when I'm doing my thing there but I'm also reachable. I don't like the distance. I had a general counsel who was distant. He did not talk to people. He issued edicts.
It's good to see what's your style and what isn't your style and then adapt that. As far as risks for the company, people are going to talk to you. You will know about things sooner.
Collaboration is what I'm about.
It's good for the company too. I wanted to close with a quick question for each of you. It sounds like we have covered some of this in the last discussion but boiling it down, what one piece of advice would you give to your newly graduated self from law school? Going back in time, what would you say? Let's start with Katrina.
What I would say is to take a chance and learn different practice areas. I'm listening, especially to all of you. If you can work for a firm practicing in employment law, and then maybe you're going to go on the defense side and learn about business litigation or transactional law, take the time either as a clerk in your first couple of years to find the practice area that is true to you and your fit. Don't be afraid. If you're unhappy in an area of law and miserable, then do something else.
I feel like a lot of my colleagues over the years who are unhappy lawyers, which I've never been, are not practicing the kind of law that fits with them, or maybe they shouldn't be lawyers even. They are afraid to take different routes. Find what you love, and the money will always come. I truly believe this. I tell my two sons this all the time because this generation is all focused on, "I have to make money." I always say, "If you're doing what you love, if you are passionate about it, if you're prepared, and if you do good work, the money will flow." Don't be afraid to do something you love because you think you're not going to make any money.
Erin?
That's very similar. There are so many different things you can do out there. It's interesting. With a law degree, you can go anywhere. You can do anything. Don't pigeonhole yourself. It's the same thing there. Work hard. Be nice. It's very simple.
That sums you up.
To quickly piggyback off of that, when I first was practicing law, I had those blinders on that there weren't a lot of options for me. I could maybe change firms. In jumping into the business, the options that are out there for career paths are incredible. I hire lawyers all the time in different areas of my business. They're not always counsel. Sometimes they're operations or sales. There are so many different ways with a law degree that you can do something that might interest you.
That has been a powerful recognition. This goes back to the true value that I got out of law school which has helped me throughout. I remember when I had a securities litigation class. My eyes glossed over. I was like, "I'm never going to be able to do this," but I sat down and applied myself. At the end of that course, what I recognized was that I can learn anything. That is the true power. It's recognizing that you don't have to believe in yourself and that you're great at that. You have to believe in yourself that you can learn that. That will take you far.
That's true. Jennifer?
The number one thing I would tell my young self if I could go back in time is, "Do not forget to moisturize your neck. You're not going to be shut out. You're going to have to keep working hard. Try to be the best. You're going to have to be twice as good. It will get better. We will see as the decades roll on. There are going to be more opportunities." Even when we made the switch in business, there were people saying, "That's not the path." Maybe.
That's very pragmatic. You forget that. It's true.
I'll follow up with a lot of what the others said, especially that old saying, "Love what you do." I loved everything I've done. There have been challenging days. There's no doubt about that but I look back to myself and also piggyback off what some of the others have said. Don't put stereotypes. Don't let them decide what you are and second-guess yourself. I did some of that too. It was such a warm honor to be able to start with, "It's okay to be that trial lawyer or that supervising judge. You're not supposed to be there." Don't let others dictate your path. Follow your dreams. Break the ceilings.
Keep your sense of humor. Rick Toohey called me back in the chambers with the DA who now himself is a judge. He started by telling me, "Young lady, I want you to know something. I don't believe in lady lawyers." It was pretty shocking to hear the way he phrased it. I said, "We exist. Here I am." The next thing he said was, "I want you to know that if you bat your eyelashes at that jury, I'm going to step in."
I said, "Your Honor, I want to thank you. This is the first time I've even been accused of having feminine eyelashes." When he got infuriated, he threw us out. On the way out, I said, "I appreciate it." I was mad. Inside, I was infuriated. I went down and vented to my then-boss. He said, "Those were good answers. Get back in the ring." I was completely infuriated. You had to as a public defender have constant gallows humor.
At least there are 45 women now on the bench.
Change doesn't happen overnight either. We're not going to flip the switch. Those comments were from years ago and probably a couple of decades.
You would never hear those comments now.
Not so long ago, probably in the last few years, I was in a judge's elevator. It was me. I was with my clerk and a court reporter. We're all females. It was the judge's elevator going to lunch. You do know this is a judge's elevator. I would be one. That's the humor again. That's the answer.
It moves sadly not quickly enough for us but the other thing is perseverance.
That's certainly true for all of you. You've accomplished quite a bit and are bringing a lot of people up with you. You are great examples of what women are doing in the law. You're particularly great examples in Orange County. I appreciate the PLAC Women's Forum for collaborating with the show on this event, all of you in the room for joining us, and all of those who are reading. Each of the guests here also has their individual episode on the show. I would invite you to go back, read those, and enjoy the journeys of these amazing women. Thank you so much.