Episode 134: Stacy D. Phillips
Legendary family law attorney
00:43:30
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Show Notes
Legendary family law attorney Stacy D. Phillips talks with host M.C. Sungaila about being intentional in your career choices but also being open to new opportunities, giving back, moving from her own highly successful law firm to the executive committee of BigLaw firm Blank Rome, and what she learned from her lawyer father.
Relevant episode link:
Blank Rome , Moore Marsden Calculator , Focus Features , Second Half , Rebecca Forster
About Stacy D. Phillips:
Stacy D. Phillips is one of the country’s most well-known and respected family law practitioners, handling primarily high-net-worth and high-profile divorce cases. Chambers High Net Worth Band 1 ranked and selected multiple times by the Los Angeles Business Journal as one of LA’s “500 Most Influential People,” she is an author, philanthropist, mentor, and sought-after speaker and commentator on family law and other issues in the news.
Transcript
In this episode, I'm pleased to have Stacy Phillips join me on the show. She is a partner at Blank Rome. She is an amazing Family Law attorney and supporter of women in the profession. Welcome, Stacy.
Thank you for having me. This is wonderful. I especially love the name of your show.
Thank you for understanding and appreciating it. Sometimes people aren't quite sure, but the Shakespearean reference is always welcome. Thank you for recognizing that. I'm excited to have you for a number of reasons because you have a varied experience within the law itself, having your law firm and now being part of a large firm. I haven't had anyone on the show whose focus is Family Law. I'm glad to have you talk about that and what that looks like practicing.
You practice at a high level in that area, and we put you in the celebrity category of Family Law and divorce. People are interested in hearing that to the extent you're discreet about things. You have an interesting practice. People would be curious about it and wonder how it is that you developed such a practice. The first thing that I wanted to find out is this. How is it that you decided to go into the law at all? What inspired you to become a lawyer?
I came from a family of lawyers. When you and I were growing up, what could women do professionally? It could be a teacher, nurse, doctor, or social worker. My mom was a travel agent and a buyer. That's what I knew. Needles terrify me. There's a psychologist or a social worker, but there weren't that many options. I saw my father, and I learned about my grandfather who passed away two weeks before my first birthday, but my parents bless them and made him very much alive during my childhood.
I saw my dad with his legal sides, pads on the bed, writing his briefs, and my mother telling him to clean it up. My father would always discuss legal issues and current events and political issues with us. That's what I felt, learned, and experienced. I was hell-bent on not becoming a lawyer because that was what I knew or what was expected of me. I had jobs in law firms and the federal government. I worked for Senator Javits. I worked for the state government and the equivalent of HUD or city government in New York City to prove to myself that I liked the practice of law.
I was a paralegal in two different law firms, and it fits into the way I think, spends my time, and give back to society. If you looked at my resume before I chose to be a Family Law attorney, I went to Dartmouth. I went to Columbia Law School. I had good jobs. I have a nice resume. It screamed big law firms, big corporate law, litigation, or Corporate Law. The story of how I ended up being a Family Law attorney is a good story. Why don't you ask me that question and I'll answer it?
I am curious about the turn to Family Law. How did that happen?
I wish I could say it was thought out. If it was thought out, it was about the person upstairs who thought it out. I was at Columbia Law School. In the second year, they gave us one choice of elective. They could have called it the Red Jacket Law. You're wearing a red jacket. I didn't care what it was. It was something to get out of the classroom. The class that I gravitated to was a Family Law class, and it was a big lecture taught by a regular professor, a tax professor, a social worker, and a psychiatrist. It had a companion workshop that you could or could not take. You had to take the big lecture class to be in the workshop, but you didn't have to take the workshop.
In the workshop, you got to negotiate and draft. I went through a mock trial with a real judge in the trial court in New York. I took that because I wanted to have hands-on work. Fast forward to the big lecture class, the exam was the following, "Here are twelve questions. We're going to ask for six on them. You can bring notes into the class." It was designed to make you think. I'm in the library, which we called the Stacks. I've asked young people now what they know what the stacks are, and they have no clue.
That's true.
I was in the stacks, preparing my answers, and I needed to take a break. I was wandering around, and it's not like there was Vogue Magazine or the LA Times, the New York Times, or the Wall Street Journal lying around. I pulled off the shell. I happened to be in the California section by chance, the advance sheets for published decisions that had come out that quarter. I'll never forget this. In a butter yellow, softback, I start flipping through it, sitting down like you would read a short storybook. I start reading this case, which ultimately turns out to be what I do for a living, what Miranda is, to what criminal lawyers do.
There were two cases, Moore and Marsden. We now called them Moore Marsden Calculator, and it's codified now. I'm reading this, and it talks about how you allocate one person's separate property, joint property, community property, or marital property, depending on what state you're in. It's one person is on the title but joint money is used for a property, or both people are on the title and one person uses his or her money. That was one of the questions of the 12th. The reason, as I figured out, is the main professor in the class had been an associate at a Los Angeles law firm. He was very connected to California cases.
The questions on an exam were pending cases or newly decided cases from around the country. This particular case did a whole analysis of what you do in situations like that, and that ended up being one of the questions on the exam. I had this whole analysis from the opinion, not from my brain, from this case.
I ended up with the highest grade in the class because I pulled the book off the shelf. As a result of that, at Columbia at the time, if you had the highest grade on the exam or in the class, the professor would write you a note. This is before computers. I had four professors in this big class and got this fat envelope. I thought I was getting kicked out of school, but it turned out there were 4 notes from the 4 professors. I ended up then being asked to work on a task force and doing research for a professor. I realized that I would then have a client who had a heartbeat, not just a litigation budget, which would be nice to have a litigation budget, and I could make a difference.
Everybody knows somebody's going through a divorce, and it would be easier to develop a clientele. Even though I clerked for a federal judge and started in a big firm, I went to a big firm to do Family Law. They thought it was interesting. Eventually, I left because I wanted to be trained and was training myself. I went to a boutique Family Law firm and started my firm. A couple of years ago, I merged my firm into Blank Rome, which is an international law firm. I get to do what I do and love. We have 30-something Family Law in our firm around the country.
That's unusual in terms of larger firms not embracing that practice.
That is very different. When I was thinking of moving my firm into a big firm, one of the things that resonated with me about Blank Rome was we had 27 matrimonial partners in New York, and they understood what we did. I have to tell you. We are one of the jewels of the firm. We are the most fun at firm events because we have great stories.
I had already been working with a lot of the lawyers in the New York office. One of them who first called me to say, "We opened in LA. Would you consider joining us?" had been to my dad's firm. I had known her most of my life, and her desk secretary knew me as a little girl. There's a family connection that meant the world to me. It changed my life.
When that happens, too, you think, "I need to pay attention to this because this is special. This person is reaching out and asking me about this."
I had gotten calls from many big law firms and always said thank you, but no thank you. This was the first time out of respect for her. I said, "Okay, I'll explore it." That was in 2009. Eventually, some of my partners didn't want to do it, and I thought it was not the right place at the right time. The chair of the firm then said, "Phillips, we're not going to forget you." In 2015 and 2016, when I decided I was done worrying about the malpractice insurance, the copier, and the light bulbs, I talked to a bunch of first, and I never forgot what Alan Hoffman told me. The rest is history, and I’m grateful.
I never knew about that move. That's cool.
I'm going to tell you a story because it made me think of it. We met if you recall because we were both selected and used to be top litigators and women lawyers. The first time I was included was the first year it started. I called the then-editor to pitch for two of my friends, Harriet Posner and Carole Handler. I was on the phone and pitching them. Katrina Dewey, at the time, said, "You're included." I'm talking about Harriet and Carole. She said, "Phillips, did you hear me?"
I said, "Hear you say what?" She said, "You're included." I went, "You're going to include a Family Law attorney?" I got very emotional. It never occurred to me that anybody other than big firm lawyers, government lawyers, or nonprofit lawyers who were making their mark on our community would be included. I'm grateful, and I got to meet great other women lawyers like you. That's where it happened.
That's true. I remember seeing on the list that there were a few people who I knew about it. I wonder if they know each other and other people too. That was the start of our lunches, group networking, and meeting through the list.
You were smart. As we talked offline, we knew to do it again, and COVID did not get the best of us.
We are going to jump right back in and do that. It serves an important purpose for everyone. There's so much in what you talked about in there that's interesting. One is when you said some of your moves, I think about that. Sometimes people aren't as intentional about where they go, why they go there, and what they're trying to do in their overall career.
What you said resonated with me, "I wanted to learn the craft. I went to a boutique firm where a lot of people did that." I had the same idea. When I went from a big firm to Harvard, I like what I'm doing, but I'm the one that does the most of this here and I’m a newbie. I need to work with people who have a lot of experience, get a lot of different styles, and choose my style. A lot of people don't think about long-term skill-building in their careers. That's an important thing, especially for newer lawyers to consider.
You have to be intentional but also have to be open to opportunities. Being a Family Law attorney, when I was growing up, I said, "I will never do that." Emotion is involved. I don't want that responsibility. When I pulled that book off the shelf, it spoke to me. It said something to me. Doing well in a class, I'd have to be a fool not to take that seriously, that somebody up there is saying, "Phillips, this is the way you should go." Being in a big firm, which I did, and a boutique, then my firm, and back to a big firm. At this stage of my life, part of my job as I see it is to pay it forward, help younger lawyers across the country, mentor them, and have their support. It's cool when you go to work and people hug you.
You have to be intentional, but you also have to be open to opportunities.
That is cool.
That’s the beauty of my law firm. It wasn't so in my boutique firm in the end, but people in my firm appreciate each other, working together, helping each other, and pitching together. I bring in work that's not just Family Law. People trust me. Trusted advisors appraise what's developed over our careers, and that’s important. I have great partners who can serve as clients for all things they need for things I've never heard of or never learned about. It's fascinating.
As you said about choosing your area of the law, sometimes you don't have any idea. You have an impression of what it is to work in a particular subject matter or part of the law. It's not until you get exposure to it or be open to having that exposure to it that you realize, "I never thought about that, but I like it. There's something about the way that law is put together. I have some intuition for it, or there's something that works and speaks to me. That's what I think of as being my highest and best use. Where is my highest and best use in the profession?"
I try to counsel younger lawyers and younger people when opportunities present themselves. You're a young lawyer in a firm. You're working with this litigator or this corporate lawyer. Maybe you're assigned to litigation and you work with a lawyer who does copyright. You like the lawyer, and it becomes fascinating. The lawyer likes you, and you get the next copy.
Soon you become an IP lawyer or you do tax. You never know what you're going to resonate with or who ends up being your mentor if you're lucky enough to have a mentor. I wasn't quite lucky. Several people helped guide me to a certain extent, but one of the reasons I'm so passionate about being a mentor is that I never had a mentor other than my dad.
That's interesting that you say that because you are quite intentional about mentoring and recognize the value of that. I wouldn't say I've had one long-standing mentor either in my career, but there are certainly people who have, in retrospect, realized that somebody and somebody I'll never know about must have stood up in the room and said something in support of me in some way. That's how you make a partner. That's how you get different opportunities. There are probably a lot of people I will never be able to identify who helped at certain points.
There's a different name for that, and I'm blanking. It's not a mentor.
Sponsorship?
Yes. Often, it's behind closed doors. For me to highlight the three women who open doors for me in their way would be Patty Glaser, Christina Snyder, and Lisa Specht. They say, "I think you should be on this board." You say yes to Patty because I worked with her and certain men. I remember going through a trial, and I shared a wall. He was Dennis Wasser. He is one of the best Family Law attorneys, and he gave me my report card.
I was a young lawyer after the trial. He made a comment, and I said, "I don't have any real role models in our field." I named some women. I said, "I'm not like them. I have to pave my way and see what other people do. Pick and choose." He looked at me and said, "You're right. You are different, and you have to find your way."
I'm glad now that's less the case for women in different parts of the profession. There's also something that comes from having to do that that you're able to pass on or share with others. You have to be gritty in that circumstance.
At our age, you had to be banging your head against the glass ceiling. Not as hard as the generation before us because it gets easier as each generation comes about, but there was a challenge to that, too, so that was fun.
One of the things that surprised me in doing the interviews was how close we were to that the experience of the earlier generation. The difference between being in law school, even in the early 1980s and the mid or late 1980s is vastly different from the stories that I've heard. Along with Justice O'Connor joining the US Supreme Court, there were a lot of changes, including more women in law schools. That was true in the mid to late 1980s, but prior to that, it was not true. I think about how close that was. It was a year or two difference. My experience in law school would have been completely different, even though later on it had its challenges.
I went to two schools, college and law school, where being a woman was way in the minority. That was a challenge. It also gave me certain bonds, and I love hanging out with guys.
You're comfortable in many venues. That works out too.
It's good training because even with the profession now, my law firm has far more male partners. That's the way of the world.
What about it when you first found those cases and said, "This is interesting. I'm going to apply this to my exam questions."
It was the exact thing.
Was there something also about law itself and the way thing things were analyzed that you said, "I have a knack for this?" What is it that interests you about the law itself in that area?
Solving a problem. Although sometimes the right solution is not necessarily what the court thinks is right. Sometimes the result in "justice" is not the same. You're always arguing, "You should be a lawyer." Always arguing does not mean you should be a lawyer. You might need to know the time and place and when to zip it because you could offend a judge. When I was growing up, my brother or I wanted something new that was costly. I remember I wanted a Texas instrument calculator. It cost $0.5 to get a calculator. Now, they're built into your phone. This was expensive.
Sometimes the right solution is not necessarily what the court thinks is right.
Yes, that was a special one.
We had to research it. We had to do a memo explaining why we wanted to buy this, what it costs, and why this particular brand. Similarly, I wanted to join the Columbia Record Club and had to write a memo to my dad explaining why. He was already training us. When I did term papers, it was harder for me to have my dad read them than have a teacher read them. My father taught us to draft after draft. You can always make it better. My secretaries, to this day, are like, "Enough with the correcting." That's what I learned. I learned with him on the bed with his legal pads. That's why I adore my father. He's deceased, but I still adore him.
It's interesting thinking back about all of those things. This is what he was doing. He was training you in critical thinking and persuasion which are good skills, whether you're going to become a lawyer or not. They're helpful in life and not only in litigation but negotiation, which is an important part of what you do too.
It was what he trained us to do. We were negotiating with him. We had to advocate, draft, and negotiate. My brother is an Executive at Focus Features. He told me that he had critiqued a movie script, and I had to deal with the budget. The director and producer said, "We've never gotten notes like this in our lives." That comes from my dad. That's how we were trained.
That has come across the folks who have been on the show who maybe never practiced law after law school or turned to do something else, whether it's running a museum or doing anything where they have used that training, negotiation, persuasion, critical thinking, analysis, focus on editing, and getting the writing to its best. All of that is useful, as your brother found, in a lot of other settings.
The training my dad gave us, which we thought was fun at the time, although I didn't think it was fun the first time we went to Washington DC and had to do a term paper to my father about our trip. I didn't think that was fun. It was more than that because we took my best friend from our building. We had three families who lived together and took one of their daughters who was a year older than me and had already had experience in school writing a term paper. She won the competition, and I won something else, and we each got a present. I, to this day, remember what the present was. It was a gold chain belt. I was nine years old. That's the impact of what my parents did to us as children.
It's good to recognize that. I don't know if we recognize it at the time, but certainly afterward you go, "That was impactful. It shaped the way I work and think."
I did that with my kids. Every Thanksgiving, I would take them to a food shelter or deliver meals on wheels. Anytime I was on a board and there was an event where I spoke, I would bring them so they could see how important it was that if you did well, you have to do good. My daughter works for a nonprofit that does incredible great work. Both my kids are passionate about politics and the community. They put me to shame. They lecture me all the time, "You don't do enough, mom."
You do a lot. You have always had that component, which you and I both share in terms of serving the community and bringing people together to support nonprofits or a variety of ways that you give back.
It's important. When I'm accommodating my kids, my daughter sent an email. She lives in New York City, looking to find a new apartment. How does she reconcile when she's looking for an apartment if it's in an area where people who lived there were displaced because she has in accordance with that and does not choose to live there of what was done to the community? I have to say I had not thought about that. I've lived in places that have been like that residential community from the get-go. I'm incredibly proud of her for walking the talk, talking the walk, and thinking about things.
In all different arenas, a lot of the next generation thinks in a very broad way about those issues. Not just what they're advocating in their work, but in their lives too. What kind of advice would you give to someone who might be considering going into Family Law, starting their firm, or joining a big firm? What advice would you have for newer people in the law?
Family Law is not for the thin-skinned. It is hard. I believe it's far more rewarding because you can help shape people's lives and make a difference. They're going through the worst time of their lives. They're in a fugue state, being compelled to make important decisions, and need somebody in their corner who's going to support them, not railroad and scream at them. Some people can't, and that's fine. I started in a big firm, and I always thought I would be in a big firm, not a monster-size firm, but a big firm. At the time, I wanted to learn my craft from folks who did it every day. It had never occurred to me before that I would leave a big firm environment.
You have to be willing in a big firm to let certain policies control and other people make decisions, and some people can't do that. My former boss in the boutique firm I went to told my parents one day that he had a discussion with me. I said, "They're employers and employees. I'm an employer." I don't remember saying that, but I can appreciate that. I don't like being controlled by others. I like other people being in charge. I am grateful that I don't have to worry about the malpractice insurance and the copier. Sometimes I wish I had more control over certain things.
My firm does a good job of taking care of business so that I can do what I do best, which is be a lawyer, Family Law attorney, bring in business, and help set policy. That's what I do in my firm. They're smart enough because I told them when I joined, "Please do not ask me to do anything on a committee that's boots on the ground. I want to be on committees that are setting policies."
I'm on the partner board. I'm on the committee that allocates the compensation for 359 partners. I spent 25 hours figuring out how to do that and have it zero out at the bottom. There are 27 of us who do that and discuss it for multiple days with multiple people and come out with compensation for all of our partners.
That is so much work, those compensation committees.
I love it. It is important. The interaction I have with that small group of partners is my favorite time in the firm, and it is the most exhausting time, but it's God's work and I'm grateful for the opportunity and to have been selected to participate.
That's a lot of trust from your partners and you as well.
I am in a great firm and have great partners, terrific leadership, and good people.
Ultimately, that matters so much that the people who are in the positions who are making the decisions and their character matters.
You asked me about starting a firm. You have to be gutsy and willing to fail. My philosophy of life is I am willing to fail, but I am not willing not to take the risk for fear that I will fail. That's how I lead my firm and how I went from a federal clerkship to a big firm, to a boutique firm, to my firm, and a big firm again. It comes full circle. I was willing to take those chances.
When I was interviewing at big firms, the firm would say, "After 26 years, how are you expecting to let other people make decisions for you, where you can be able to do it?" My response was, "I won't know until I try, but I'm ready for that. I'm ready for a change." It was a great change. I loved having my firm with partners and associates for 26 years, but it got old. Thank God I was at a big firm during COVID because I would have to worry about that.
That would've been a whole different experience. You’re right. It's recognizing the evolution not only in your career but where you are personally and professionally and what the next challenge looks like to you. To the people coming out of law school, first, they're told there's one particular path that equals success, like a clerkship or a big firm. That's it. There are a lot of other paths, and you may take all of them throughout your career. It's not once you've chosen one, that's it. You have to look for other opportunities. As you said, be open to them and they might be very unexpected, but be open to them.
I remember in 2009 when I first talked to Blank Rome. I turned them down, and in 2016, I ended up bringing my firm there. When I was thinking about that in 2009, I sat down with one of my favorite judges. I still have the notes from that meeting. He encouraged me to do it for the very reasons that have played out.
He was a very wise person. I love him. Thomas Trent Lewis, God bless you. He was telling me the story that he had his practice and became a judge. Since then, he has become a privately compensated judge. He told me to read a book called Second Half. I bought a bunch of them and gave them out as gifts. Each one of us has 3 or 4 careers in us. For him, it was private practice, being on the bench, and being a privately compensated neutral. For me, it was a federal clerkship, a big firm, a small firm, my own firm, and back to a big firm.
You need to do that to be re-energized and also bring something special to the next phase, whether it's having a big firm experience or a boutique experience where I could start my firm and grow it better, and come back to a big firm. Otherwise, I'd be bored. The challenges and the support in a big firm are different. Also, the challenges and the support in your own company are different. It's nice to have that smorgasbord of opportunities during one's life.
That comes out in different ways. As you said, continue to challenge and continue to grow. If you're too comfortable and get complacent, you don't reach your full potential.
At Blank Rome, what struck me is we have partners who are older than I am. A number of the big firms have mandatory retirement. I love the fact that many of my partners are older, joined the firm as laterals, and got reinvigorated and excited about what they do. That's infectious to be around, and they're great at giving hugs.
They reinvigorated, and the firm is reinvigorated as a result of that. It's a good feedback loop. I'm excited that you're happy in your next career phase. It sounds like the right time.
It feels like yesterday and feels like forever. Your career follows similar paths. You've been bouncing between boutique firms and large firms as you grow and have different experiences.
What you bring to each place is some of your experiences, so that's different too. I'm sure being in a large firm now, as opposed to earlier in your career, is a different experience.
I like it much better now. I like being a seasoned lawyer, a leader, and a mentor. It's much better than a baby lawyer. That was pretty hard. There is more pressure now. I look at my job as helping those who are younger to have an easier time growing in the profession. The effect of COVID on younger lawyers who are not necessarily around mentors has an effect. In our group, we've done a good job of connecting with the younger lawyers, but it's different.
It's had an impact on training for the newer lawyers during COVID. That's been more challenging for them.
I've read about 359 memos from partners, and one of the questions they had to answer was about being back in the office and participating in firm events. Every single partner who didn't have to stay home for health reasons for themselves or a spouse said, "It's important to be there for the younger lawyers to mentor and lead there." I take them out to lunch and coffee. I had one partner who said, "I'm fine being in the office, but my wife is immune compromised and I have to be in quarantine at home." Think about what happened to our world in the past few years.
I suppose the good thing is that circumstance allowed people to recognize how important it is to be there and all those informal ways of mentoring and training newer lawyers and how important that is to the continuity of the firm too.
One of the things that we're fearful of as a firm is if our younger lawyers don't feel connected, they can be poached in two seconds. How do you make them feel connected? The younger lawyers generally are the ones who don't want to come back on-site. It's a struggle. Many of us become even more efficient at home.
That's not true for all my partners because I've read memos saying, "I'm much more efficient in the office." More people have found that they've learned how to be efficient at home. When you take the time to commute, it impacts that when you could be spending time at home and billing hours, which is what we do. It's a balance. Every company and law firm is struggling with that, from Amazon to Google to law firms.
Everyone's trying to find their way, and it might be different for each company or firm, depending on their culture and what works for them too. It's working our way through and figuring out what that looks like.
You had switched law firms in the middle of semi-COVID.
There's that too. You've got to make your decisions. You can't let a pandemic make them for you, so you have to make them.
You got to live your life.
Thank you so much for sharing all of this and your journey. It was even more than I thought you would say about your journey to different places and platforms for your career and what you've learned from those too.
I hope people reading are willing to take risks, pivot, be diverse, and seize opportunities. Otherwise, life is so boring.
Be willing to take risks and pivot, be diverse, and seize opportunities. Otherwise, life is so boring.
The opportunity part is an important thing that I'll take away from our discussion.
You got to make your opportunity.
You have to make them but also recognize them. Sometimes you're so focused on one thing, which is what I tend to do. I'm so focused on going in this direction. Meanwhile, somebody will be waving off to the side with some great opportunity that you're like, "I'm not doing that, I'm doing this." Being more open to other things that may not be on your direct immediate plan is helpful.
Thank you for the opportunity. What you're doing is terrific.
Thank you so much. Usually, we end with a few lightning-round questions. I'm going to ask you a couple to close. One is, who are your favorite writers?
Rebecca Forster, who is not as well-known is good as any of the other mystery writers. She happens to be married to Stephen Czuleger, who is a LA Superior Court judge. I love Rebecca's books and all of the series. I can visualize it. I love historical novels. I love a good romance novel, but I don't even remember half the names of those. There's Danielle Steel, Scott Turow, and Richard North Patterson. I've said a lot and I love books.
That's why I had to ask you that question because some would come out, for sure. I leave the recommendations from the different guests. I have a whole separate page on the website for book recommendations so you can go through and see if there's one that sounds like you didn't hear about but might be of interest to you that folks have recommended.
I love to escape in a book, and some people read books to learn something. I end up learning things, but I want to escape.
I read for different reasons. That's one of them. It depends on the moment. There are other things that I just like. I want to learn different things. I don't know anything about this. I'll learn that and end up resonating in other ways. I learned that principle there, and maybe I can use it somewhere else.
I do a lot of my learning. I get down rabbit holes on my phone or my computer. I'm searching for things.
Everybody has their place where they do that. Who is your hero in real life?
My father. Sorry mom, but my dad. Both my parents are being good role models and good people. I certainly have the people I admire who are presidents, who saved our country and saved the world, but in my day-to-day life, my dad.
I could tell that in the stories you were telling too. If you were going to have a dinner party and had the choice of anyone in the world to invite, who would you invite? It could be more than one person.
I'm Jewish, but Jesus, Mohammad, Moses Abe Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, George Washington, and Eleanor Roosevelt. If I were having a dinner party, there would have to be more than one because I curate them.
I thought, "This is a tough question for Stacy." For others, it might not be. Stacy's like, "Wait. Let me curate the list and put this together. I would have this one and that one." I'm glad you said that.
I would have somebody from fashion, politics, and somebody who would be connected to somebody in the nonprofit world and seat them next to each other to learn something. It is difficult for me. There are Winston Churchills, Franklin Delano Roosevelts, and Abe Lincolns of the world. Gandhi and Eleanor Roosevelt are people who are incredible for what they did, what they stood for, and what they accomplished.
I wanted to know what you would say about that one because you're so good at that. Last question. What is your motto, if you have one?
I have several. Pigs get fat, and hogs get slaughtered. If you don't ask, you don't get. They have to go together. There's a balance there. I speak in threes. That's another one. When I organize my thoughts, it's generally in threes, and one of my partners teases me, "You can do 3, 6, and 9, but you can't do 4 or 5." If you do well, you have to do good. That completely runs my life, so I just hit three. Pigs get bad, and hogs get slaughtered. If you do well, you have to do good. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Those are the three. It's all good together. They cover a lot. Thank you so much. Thanks for sharing that, and thanks for being here.
It's been wonderful. Congratulations on this.
Thank you so much. I appreciate it.