Episode 150: Michelle Banks
From BigLaw to General Counsel to Executive Coach
00:57:59
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Show Notes
Michelle Banks is a champion of women lawyers and their careers. Her own career trajectory – from BigLaw to General Counsel to Executive Coach – is also inspiring. Michelle sits down with host M.C. Sungaila to share her career journey. She dives deep into the meaning she gets from helping others succeed and her work with Ms. JD and DirectWomen. Michelle also shares her contribution to a book on the many ways women lawyers define success and then offers some guidance for in-house counsel about their roles. Tune in to this episode to learn more about Michelle’s inspiring journey.
Get a copy of her book here: Women in Law: Discovering the True Meaning of Success
Relevant episode links:
Gap, Ms. JD, Women LEAD, Women in Law: Discovering the True Meaning of Success, Bookshop.org, DirectWomen, American Bar Association Commission on Women, Catalyst, BarkerGilmore, Speaking While Female, Sheila Murphy – Past Episode, Lisa Lang – Past Episode
About Michelle Banks:
Michelle Banks
Michelle Banks is a Senior Advisor at BarkerGilmore specializing in providing executive coaching to women general counsel. She also leads professional development workshops and gives keynote speeches. For ten years, Michelle was Executive Vice President, Global Gen-eral Counsel, Corporate Secretary and Chief Compliance Officer of apparel retailer Gap Inc. (Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Athleta).
Before joining Gap Inc., Michelle worked as legal counsel for the Golden State Warriors NBA team and in Tokyo as American counsel for Itochu Corporation. Her prior law firm practice with Sheppard Mullin and Morrison & Foerster in Cali-fornia and New York focused on corporate finance and international commercial transactions.
In 2019, Michelle received the American Bar Association’s Margaret Brent Woman Lawyer of Achievement award for her professional accomplishments and her dedication to enhancing the careers of other women lawyers. In 2022, Michelle and 22 co-authors published a best-selling anthology Women in Law Discovering the True Meaning of Success.
Transcript
In this episode, I'm so pleased to have someone who is amazing in so many respects, in terms of her long-term support for women in the profession and ongoing support in that regard and her own amazing career. Michelle Banks, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much. It's my pleasure to be with you.
Thank you, Michelle, for being here. You have so much to share and to give people ideas of things they can do both with their careers and how they can lift up other women in the profession and pay it forward in some intentional ways. One part of your resume would be amazing enough. Serving as the Chief Legal Officer for the Gap for many years, then now in your executive coaching role but also, all the other things that you do through Ms. JD, through UCLA law school in some very organized programs to support women in gaining skills and moving forward in the profession.
Any one of those would be a full-time job but you somehow have combined them all in your career? Before we get to all of that, I wanted to ask you, how did you decide to go into the law, to begin with? What interested you in going to law school? Did you have an idea that you wanted to be a general counsel or chief legal officer early on like when you went to law school or did that come later?
It came later. In fact, I don't think I knew what a general counsel was.
That's why I was asking. I was like, “Most people don't,” right?
I don't think I knew what a general counsel was until I started working in-house, to be honest. I decided in elementary school to become a lawyer. It was because a teacher assigned a project to us as elementary school students, to interview someone who had a career about their career. It was a school project and I lived in a fairly blue-collar neighborhood and there weren't a lot of professionals in my neighborhood.
The exception was my next-door neighbor who was a lawyer. I didn't realize at the time he was an insurance defense litigator. I didn't end up doing anything at all similar to what he did but he was nice and very cooperative with the project. He sounded so excited and passionate about what he did. He talked a lot about, reading, writing, and speaking. I thought, “Those are three things that I like.” I like to read, write, and speak. It sounded like being a lawyer might be for me but no one in my family or my universe other than this one, neighbor was a lawyer.
When I tend to get an idea or set a goal, I tend to stick with it. Throughout the years, I did consider other things now and then but I had in my mind for a long time that I would enjoy law school and becoming a lawyer and so I did. I was the first person in my family to go to a four-year university then the first person to go to graduate school. My parents were supportive of that. My next-door neighbor might have inspired them too.
You never know where it could go. Sometimes that's good for those who are a bit younger who might be reading and thinking like, “There is value in being open to you considering opportunities you might never have considered and asking people what it is that they do.” You know the title but you may not know what's involved in that particular job, especially with being a lawyer. There are so many different roles you can play.
For example, I was very interested in corporate law and never was a litigator in my career. Even though Dan, the person who inspired me to become a lawyer was a litigator, a lot of the skills are the same and the process of going to law school is similar. I liked school, so I was happy to keep going in school.
You've done so much to support UCLA law school, our common school, but also helping women graduate from UCLA law school through Women LEAD, which is a great program.
I enjoyed it. LEAD is amazing. I was so honored to cofound lead with the then Dean of UCLA Law School, Rachel Moran, and Nancy Abell, a litigation partner at Paul Hastings. It's amazing to me. This is the ninth year of LEAD’s existence, and it has grown to thousands of members. To think back to the very first board meeting when twenty of us were dreaming about an organization focused on women that would help women across generations, I respected Dean Moran's vision of the project as being one that would benefit law students and women mid-career as well as women later in their careers. For me, as someone who was nearing my retirement, it was the perfect vehicle to give back and to help others and I've enjoyed it.
It's unique in that regard in terms of the intergenerational aspect of it, supporting students and alumni from across the time span of the law school. It's great in that regard. There are not many that bring that all together in the same way. I know there was an international meeting or something. There were international aspects to Women LEAD as well, at least getting together internationally. It's expanding even further. Tell me about how you got into being an in-house counsel then. I know you're interested in, as you said, not the litigation but the corporate work. Is that what led you to the in-house role?
I worked in-house for three companies, but before that, I worked in three law firms. My second law firm, Morrison and Foerster, asked me if I would accept a secondment, which is an assignment in a client's in-house office. For one full year, I moved to Tokyo, Japan, and worked in-house at ITOCHU Corporation. That was my first exposure to being a lawyer inside a company.
I had been a corporate lawyer straight out of law school. I had worked at Sheppard Mullin and then at Morrison Foerster. When MoFo loaned me to a company for a year, it was when I got a sense of what it would be like to work in-house, and I liked it even though I was in a very foreign place, moving from Southern California to Tokyo and working at a Japanese company, which was a very different experience.
At the time, I hadn't worked internationally before but I liked being closer to the business and working very much as a part of a team with the people in the business and the people in the law department, and having always been interested in the corporate side and business. I easily felt like it was a positive transition for me. I stayed to get a few more years of training but ever since then, I was pretty inspired and knew that I might go in-house. I did eventually take another assignment. I changed firms to a more boutique law firm, and I had agreed that I would work for their client, the Golden State Warriors MBA team on a part-time to full-time basis.
I was affiliated with the law firm but I was, again, being loaned to a client. That was supposed to be a one-year project, but the project grew. They weren't sure in the beginning if it was going to be part-time or full-time for a year. It ended up being full-time for three and a half years. During the time that I was at the Warriors because I knew that the job was temporary, I started talking to other companies in the San Francisco Bay Area who had in-house opportunities on a longer-term basis.
I ended up, after three and a half years, joining the Gap legal team in a more permanent way and ended up staying there for the rest of my career. I was the general counsel only for a decade. I started there as an individual contributor, a fairly junior lawyer in the legal department, then worked my way up and grew my responsibilities over time. It wasn't some grand plan.
Although, it's interesting that that secondment path, that's one that a few people I know have followed and got the taste for being in-house and recognized that that's, “I like this.” I can think of Sandra Phillips who said Toyota is one of those. She also was on secondment from her firm to Toyota then ended up being where she is now. That's a good thing. Maybe you can describe what a secondment is or how that comes about because that's a great opportunity. Maybe people might not know, “If this comes up, this would be something I should raise my hand and pursue at a firm.”
It comes up most of the time because someone is on leave would be typical. Maybe someone's taking maternity leave or some other type of leave from a company, or a company finds itself unexpectedly with a Gap to fill on the legal team. They will ask their outside counsel, “Could you provide someone who's a privacy expert or someone who could fill this six-month leave?”
In ITOCHU’s case, they had an actual program where they rotated foreign counsels who were trained and fluent in law and English. They would take 1 to 2 people a year on a rotating basis on 1 to 2-year assignments. The year that I was there, there were two other American lawyers from different law firms. They had a whole program, and there are a number of Japanese trading companies who have that, is my understanding.
At Gap, for example, we did secondments now and then. We typically did them to cover an unexpected Gap or to cover leave. It's a great way to get a taste in-house and I would highly recommend it if a client asks you to spend time with them or if a partner in a law firm asks you to consider going to a client that you consider trying because you'll learn the other side, even if you end up going back to a firm long-term.
I went back to a firm to continue my training for a few years, and I was a better outside counsel having had the ability to sit in the inside seat. You learn a lot and you see the other perspective and you can service your clients well after you've had that experience. Whether you want to see what it's like to work in-house or you want to learn what it's like to be the client, it's a good experience.
That's what I was thinking, and I had this flashback too. It's like if you're a litigator being a law clerk for a judge because once you come out of that clerkship, you have this visceral, intuitive understanding of how all of that works. When you're submitting your briefs and making arguments to the court or going to trial, you've been on that other side, and you approach it differently. It's great insight for when you go into practice. Also, it could be a great way to explore what it feels like to be in-house, to be part of a team with one client, and how that all work. Do I like that?
As you said, even if that's the only time you do it if it's for the six months or whatever. That you bring that with you back into practice, and it's valuable. Also, valuable for both the client and the law firm to have that connection because as the firm continues to work with the client, you have someone now who has a more holistic view of how things work and how to be most responsive and helpful to how the teams work within the company. It has a lot of hidden benefits. I don't know that many people know about that. Sometimes, those opportunities come up, and maybe people might not offer themselves up for it, especially going to Japan. That's a whole other sense of adventure, Michelle.
It was, but it was a great adventure. Japan has become one of my favorite companies. In fact, the first countries. The first thing I did when I retired in 2016 from Gap is, I took my family, my parents, my husband, and my son to Japan and China. We reunited with my former colleagues at ITOCHU and that was a wonderful experience.
That's wonderful that you kept those relationships and were able to do that. That's a special person. Not everybody does that.
They're great.
I would think you're going into a thoroughly new environment and a new country, so it'd probably be more likely to be a bonding experience in a number of different ways with your colleagues. I could see where that would happen. It sounds like you're saying to some degree, “Some of these things happened. I don't think I had this grand intentional plan necessarily,” but you were being conscious of building your skills.
You mentioned that when you said, “I went back into law firm practice to get more skill building that I could bring in-house.” Especially now that you're doing coaching and things like that, what are some good ways, maybe to think about skill building and career transitions and all of that, so it could be more intentional about that?
One of the things to do is to be open-minded about opportunities. You mentioned not everyone knows that secondment exists, and if they get asked, they should consider taking advantage of the opportunity, even if it wasn't something they had planned. That's a great way to be. I have so many friends, mentees, and coaching clients now who can cite back to something that they did in their career that wasn't necessarily intentional but that it helped them build new skills or to provide them a door opening to an opportunity.
For example, Gap hired me largely because of my international experience and my experience working at ITOCHU. I not only worked in Japan, but I worked on global transactions for them, and so because of that experience, it led to helping me get the job at the Warriors. I had a year of experience in-house. It led to helping me get the job at Gap because I had international experience.
Again, not something that I planned but that I took advantage of when the opportunity presented itself. Especially if people think they may want to end up in-house, it's a good idea to be open-minded about broadening your skills. A lot of times, especially if we start out in big law, we start out specializing, which is important. Especially if we stay at a law firm practice, we want to be highly competent in our area of expertise and develop deep technical expertise.
If the goal is to go in-house or in-house is one of the considerations, it's also important to build a broader skillset and so to have different experiences. For example, at my first firm, I did mostly domestic corporate work. At my second firm, I did more international corporate work then I moved beyond doing corporate and doing some commercial work. Those things all helped me be more attractive as an in-house candidate because I had corporate and commercial experience and domestic and international experience.
That's a great way of encapsulating it because I think about my friends and colleagues who are in-house, and so much you can see in the grooming process within the company is a lot of lateral moves and a broad understanding of the different aspects of the business and different legal aspects that the business deals with. What you were saying, it’s more of a broadening of experience, and that's valuable in-house. Whereas, in firms that are more specialized in a niche, you could be the only person that does this particular thing. It tends to go in that direction instead of the broader approach.
That's right, and there are different ways to broaden your skills. You can do it by accepting a stretch assignment. You can do it by attending various training or other education programs. You can listen to podcasts, read books, and study things on your own. There are lots of ways to learn and broaden your areas of potential expertise and your skillsets. Part of it is being open as these opportunities may come up.
For example, I originally joined the international and the corporate teams when I joined Gap but I took a stretch assignment to do a project related to Gap’s code of business conduct. That ended up helping me move into management at Gap because I took on a role to lead a newly formed team in compliance and governance.
They largely picked me because I had some corporate governance expertise but also because I had done the stretch assignment related to the code of business conduct. I had some familiarity with the ethics program, which I had no expertise in until then. I do think being open to lots of different ways of learning and broadening skills is helpful, especially if you're in an in-house environment or you think you might want to land there.
That’s a way to continue just being interested in your career, whether it's in a firm or in-house or what have you. It’s constantly connecting maybe seemingly disparate areas and bringing that together. What you were saying is that there's this mosaic to the career. There are different pieces that in retrospect.
All of those things fit together nicely for the next opportunity, but when you're doing them, you don't necessarily see that or think that they'll fit together but it always does. Sometimes usually, you find your sweet spot where only you could do it. All the different pieces of your career, experience, and skills come together. You're able to contribute in a meaningful way, and everybody enjoys that.
That brings up one of the messages that I've been trying to get out. I think you know, MC, that I helped write. I didn't write a book. I provided a chapter to an anthology book that was published for Women's Month in March of 2022. I joined together with 22 other women lawyers who wrote the book, Women in Law: Discovering the True Meaning of Success.
One of the key themes and messages of that book that we've been trying to promote for the year since the book has been out is the idea that success is individual and personal. There's not one way that the profession, our law firm, or law schools should tell us what success looks like. Each person has to decide what success looks like for them. Many people, 22 or 23 of us, in fact, went to law school, and we all ended up in very different places. About half of us are no longer practicing and about half are still practicing.
We had people in big firms, small firms, in-house, in government, and in all kinds of different careers, including myself, that's moved on to executive coaching. There are a few other coaches who helped write the book. We were trying to tell people that only you can define what success looks like for yourself, and your definition of success can change over time. There's not one formula for what a successful lawyer looks like. For women, in particular, the diversity of thought and being able to create a vision of success for yourself that works for you is important. Hopefully, our book is helping get that message out.
I love the message of the book and the dual message of it that there's an evolution and that's okay because you evolve as well, and what is meaningful and fulfilling at one point could be different at another point. Also, there is no one definition that dovetails a little bit with my interest in the show, having such a wide variety of women leading in so many different ways to provide that insight early for people who are in law school or considering law school or very early in their careers.
First, here are some great examples of women who have led in a variety of ways, and you can too. Second of all that to think about all the different things that you could do and how their careers have evolved over time also. In retrospect, it looks perfect. It makes sense that I ended up here, but if you asked that person years earlier though, I never would've imagined where I ended up going. I hope that the show does a little bit of that. You have some great co-authors and contributors to that book. A lot of women are very active on LinkedIn. It's so neat to see that collaboration and that message.
We're all fans of LinkedIn and connecting through it.
In that book, does it benefit Ms. JD?
It does. Thank you for mentioning that. I should have mentioned it. In case anyone's inspired to buy the book, you can get it on Amazon or lots of other websites, including Bookshop.org. All of the proceeds go to benefit Ms. JD, a nonprofit that I know we are both fans of.
As we spoke about before, Jesse Kornberg, who we both greatly admire was instrumental in founding MS. JD and leading it early on and accelerating its great work. You continued to do work with Ms. JD as well. Maybe you can talk about the LaddHer Up program and what that is and your role in that.
One of the reasons why I find Ms. JD so inspiring is because they are a group of young women. I feel old at this point, but I'm so inspired by younger women. Ms. JD is focused on encouraging women to go to law school, helping them through law school, and helping them in particularly the first six years of their career before they become partners in law firms, general counsel, or whatever their goal as a judge.
We have a program that I cofounded with Jan Kang, who is another general counsel. She and I worked together at our very first law firm, Sheppard Mullin. Jan and I helped Ms. JD start the LaddHer Up Program, which was their vision because they had some women in their first five years of practice who wanted to understand what it means to be a woman general counsel. What are the opportunities if I might be interested in being a general counsel someday? Also, if I want to be a successful equity partner in a law firm, I am going to need general counsels who are willing to give me business.
If you want to be a successful equity partner in a law firm, you are going to need general counsels who are willing to give you business.
We founded this program. It's an annual three-day program where we bring together a cohort of women who are in their first six years of practice in a law firm together with women general counsel. We have about 50 women general counsels and about 100 women law firm associates. We do a lot of things together.
We have great speakers, mentoring and coaching, bonding opportunities, and business development opportunities. We have an amazing keynote speaker and you mentioned Sandra Phillips Rogers of Toyota, and she was kind enough to be our speaker years ago. In 2023, we have April Miller Boise, the Chief Legal Officer of Intel, coming to speak. We meet in the Fall of 2023. The meeting will be in September.
It's always in the wine country, so it's a fun, relaxing, casual place to get together and retreat. As women, we hike, drink wine, and talk business. It's an incredible program and I will be attending for my fifth year. I am now co-chairing the program with Megan Belcher, the Chief Legal Officer of the Scoular Company in the Midwest. People come from all around the country, both general counsels who are interested in giving back and supporting younger women and the women who are interested in connecting with those women general counsels.
That's so great because it's also creating the community amongst the general counsel with themselves also in addition to the next generation, which is always nice to foster those relationships also. California women lawyers had an in-house counsel program that was largely focused on mentoring and getting that collegiality with in-house counsel. Also, there were integrations with a few law firms and associates and partners to also go on a retreat in Sonoma and Napa. The same idea to just have a good, natural relationship-building situation also. It's nice to have that. I know I saw Lisa Lang also participate in the LaddHer Up. She was there.
She was there. She's going to speak. I recruited her to speak.
She's tremendous. She was an early guest on the show as well. She's an inspiring person and very down-to-earth.
She is great because she is a university general counsel, so I feel like she has a lot of advice. She's closer to the women of a younger age than some of us who haven't. Now that I work with UCLA, I'm a little more familiar too, but for some general counsel, it's been many years since they've worked with people in their first 5 or 6 years of practice. Whereas, Lisa being a University General counsel is around younger women all the time. I feel she's shared lots of insights.
That's a great point. She'll be more easily able to meet them where they are.
She had some great comments and I was like, “I'm getting you to be a speaker,” because she was contributing and one of the workshops. I was like, “You would be a good speaker.”
She's one of those quiet contributor types. She's quiet and when she starts giving the ideas, you're like, “You need to contribute more.” She has substance, so that's very cool. That’s an amazing program. Any of these things, as I said earlier, would be a full-time gig. Tell me also about your coaching because I know it's coaching in-house counsel. Also, I know you had some work with maybe direct women and board training women for boards too.
It's for nonprofits. We talked about Ms. JD and UCLA Law Women Lead. Another one that I work with is DirectWomen. I sit on the board of DirectWomen, which is a nonprofit that is looking to increase the number of women lawyers serving on corporate boards. I was the Corporate Secretary while I was at Gap Inc. One of the things I worked on was diversifying our board and getting four women on it. That's something I've been passionate about for a while.
I'm rolling off the DirectWomen board in October 2023 because I've hit my term limits of eight years. Over the years that I've been on that board, I have been working to put in place their webinar program, which has been running since the beginning of the pandemic. I serve on their compensation and personnel committee, so working with the staff. I am on their class committee, which recruits members of their annual board institute.
They do a number of things, from running an awards program to recognize women who are corporate directors to running a pipeline program, to inspire women, to know about what it means to be a corporate director and to even know that's a job they might want someday in the future later in their career.
Also, the board at Institute is a respected three-day program. That is a very competitive process to get in but about 15 to 20 women per year join this program and learn soup to nuts what it's like to get on a corporate board and to be on a corporate board. That's in New York City annually in October. I will go for the last time this October 2023. I'm just getting used to the idea that I will have finished my eight years. It's a great organization, and it's very well run.
It was started by a joint venture between the American Bar Association Commission on Women and Catalyst, a nonprofit that supports women in all aspects of business and has had a program for a while encouraging women to serve on corporate boards and promoting the idea of diversity in the boardroom. It is now well-documented in research that boards are more effective if they are more diverse.
You also mentioned my coaching business. To answer that question, when I retired, I was a general counsel and thought about what would I do next. I considered potentially joining corporate boards myself because my two predecessors did that, but I decided that I'd rather help other women do that. I got the opportunity through the firm, BarkerGilmore to become an executive leadership coach. I love helping people.
When I thought about what I would want to keep doing that I got the benefit of doing as a general counsel, it was working with people and helping people from a leadership perspective. I have been doing that for years and I enjoy it. I have a pretty niche specialty over the years. I've refined what I do. What I do specifically is work with women general counsel, usually people who are newer in rural or who are undergoing some transition in their careers.
It's a lot of fun. I'm usually working with about 5 to 10 women across industries and across the country or across North America. I enjoy it. I feel like I have found my calling. Not that I didn't like being a lawyer because there were a lot of great things about it. As I said, I like to read, write and speak, so it all makes sense to go to law school and be a lawyer. Being a coach is something that I truly love and find very rewarding. Every time one of my clients has a victory, I feel like it's my victory.
That seems very fitting with all of the other projects that you're working on. The common thread amongst all of them is supporting and growing others and that you get joy out of that. It reminds me of my friend, Sheila Murphy, who was also on the show earlier, coming from in-house to coaching. She said, “What I love the most about being in-house was talent development. I enjoyed having people blossom and helping them in that regard.”
Sheila is terrific. I should acknowledge it's coming to lead 1 of our 3 professional development workshops that LaddHer Up this 2023. I'm very grateful for that. There are so many incredibly accomplished women who donate their time to Ms. JD, so we get to hear from her too.
She has some great no-nonsense advice. She's very pragmatic. That doesn't surprise me that you asked her to participate as well. That's neat to discover. Getting back to the book question, what makes you happy? What gives you meaning? You're like, “I have this niche where I can provide the most value. I love seeing people get their wings and move forward.” It's neat to be part of that in helping someone grow.
I have the best clients. I like all my clients. They're terrific, and I love watching them grow. Hopefully, I'm inspiring them to grow and supporting them in that growth. As you said, talent development is a fun part of the job. When you're trying to be a lawyer and develop talent, you're always torn and juggling so many different things. In my semi-retirement, it is easier to balance. It becomes extra fun because I can focus on it and spend a lot more time thinking about it than I could when I was juggling many different balls in the air.
When you're trying to be a lawyer and develop talent, you're always torn and juggling so many different things.
I've always felt torn by that. I enjoy that. I enjoy training, mentoring, and helping people put their pieces of the puzzle of their career together. It's very hard to do that alongside all the other things that we're doing. It's nice to be able to enjoy that part of it and focus on that. I have a question for you. Maybe somebody might be thinking this, which is, how do these various general counsels know to come to you? If they're for coaching, how do they know or how would someone know, “This would be a great coaching opportunity. How do I find that coach that would be a good fit?”
Sometimes it comes about because the company has a coaching program. There are companies, and Gap is one for example, that when you join the C-Suite or become a vice president, getting an executive coach is part of the human resources and talent development process. There are other times when the individual will say, “I would like to work on something. I've heard of coaches that can help you do that. Could I do that?” Sometimes human resources at a company will recommend it for someone because they're newly enrolled or promoted or making some other transition.
I work with people when their company is going global. I work with people when their company is either going public or going private or they're increasing the size of their team. Maybe they've been used to leading 10 people, and they're suddenly going to be leading 50 people or something. Most of my business comes either because some individual thinks they want to hire a coach, maybe a friend, or a colleague has recommended it or because the company has a process where new promotes or new hires receive coaching at a certain level of the company, especially at the more senior levels that I tend to work with.
Sometimes you can get into a program that involves coaching, so LaddHer Up has the opportunity to work with a coach or mentor. There are other programs, especially some of the fellowship programs that may come with them. There are even some for-service programs that will come with coaching. It's not unusual. I should say that recruiting firms like BarkerGilmore will sometimes offer not only search and placement services but also coaching and mentoring and advising services.
Many of the large recruiting firms also have coaches and advisors because that goes together if you think about it. The reason why BarkerGilmore started this business was that they were doing a lot of placements of general counsels, chief compliance officers, and others in senior leadership roles. Clients start to ask them, “Do you do anything beyond placing the person in the job?” This is a way to continue the relationship and to keep supporting the people who you've helped to get the job.
It's rewarding. My favorite thing to do is to work with people in their first year as a first-time new general counsel because that's a pretty overwhelming new job. It's a very exciting new job but it's a pretty overwhelming new job. It feels good to support those people through the first six months or first year of that transition.
I It's much more common to have that coaching support from the corporate side. I don't see as many law firms doing that for new partners or new board members of the firm. Although, it seems like it would be as helpful as in-house.
There are lots of coaches that work with law firms. More and more, I agree with you. It's more standard human resources practice in the corporate world, especially the larger corporations but especially at the larger firms that it is becoming more common. A number of my coaching friends and colleagues do both corporate in-house coaching as well as law firm coaching. I particularly focus on another area but there are a number of law firm coaches.
More and more of that's becoming common, especially because people see the results that working with a coach is a great way to be inspired. It's a great way to stay accountable. We all have goals and things that we want to achieve. It's like we all have New Year's resolutions at the beginning of the year but can we stick with them?
Coaching is becoming more and more common, especially because people see the results. It is a great way to be inspired and stay accountable.
If you're trying to learn something or change something or develop or grow in some way, one of the ways that you can help do it is to have someone to help you stay accountable, help you stay on track, and help you stay inspired for whatever you're trying to do. That's what a coach does. My managing partner at BarkerGilmore likes to say, “Even Olympians, everybody, senior athletic levels have a coach. Why shouldn't everyone have a coach, somebody who's going to help them achieve their goals and help them stay on track?”
What I was leaning towards was thinking, “It's good to know about this as an option and to consider even outside of a general counsel or in-house counsel environment.” If you think it would be helpful to you, even if your firm doesn't do that, consider making your own arrangements, hiring your own coach, and investing in yourself.
Lots of coaches work with individual people and individuals who are in lots of different stages. As I said, I'm a company-sponsored executive leadership coach but there are lots of different types of coaches. There are career coaches, transition coaches, and life coaches. There are lots of different types of coaches and why wouldn't everyone want someone extra in their corner?
Food for thought, if someone thinks that would be helpful. Sometimes it's helpful at certain junctures as you said for transitional junctures, new roles, or new responsibilities. It could be helpful to have someone who's accountable and, as you said, you're accountable too and who's in your corner. How do you think your skills, legal training, and work in-house have informed your coaching work now?
How do you think those have translated? One of the things we're exploring on the show is the very many things that you can do with your law degree and, as you said, different things at different points in time. Sometimes practicing law and other times not. How do you think the skills from the legal training come out in the coaching?
Lawyers do research and I do a fair amount of research related to talent development, skills, and success factors for being a successful general counsel or senior in-house leader. I would say that I use my research skills. I think that the client relationship is not that different. It's a little bit different. You don't have privilege and things like that but as a lawyer, you are in the business of servicing a client in some way. As a coach, it's similar. You're in the business of servicing a client. They're a fair amount of similarities between being a lawyer and being a coach.
There are some differences too. You tend to work on much softer skills than you do when you're a lawyer. Coaches don't do a lot of technical work. You tend to do more emotional intelligence type of work with people. It's different but similar. I have about a dozen colleagues at BarkerGilmore that are former general counsels or chief compliance officers who are now coaching. I have probably another six friends that have made that transition as well from being former lawyers to now doing coaching.
I would say it's more now because of the book. I probably have like ten friends who were lawyers who are now coaches. It's more common and people are finding it to be a pretty easy transition. Maybe the only hard part of the transition is in the very beginning. Most of us are very identified with being a lawyer. It's a little bit strange to start identifying yourself as a coach as opposed to a lawyer because for 10, 15, 20, or 30 years, however long it's been, when someone asks you, “What do you do?” you say you're a lawyer, then suddenly, you're like, “I used to be a lawyer. I'm not a lawyer anymore.”
That's true in our profession, that there's a lot of self-identity built into that, the lawyer role. That can be a little hard to shake in a transition but that's a change. You seem eminently comfortable in your new role now and very fulfilled by it. It's further proof that as you said in the book, what success and meaning look like to you at different points can be different. I want to ask one thing that came to me which would be, what do you think someone who is new in a general counsel role like the top bit of advice for that transition?
I have 15 pieces of advice I typically give but if I had to pick 1, I would say it's to view the job broadly. In other words, as a general counsel, you have a team to lead. Hopefully, you at least have 1 lawyer working for you and you may have 120 like I did a Gap. You can't view your job as only a team leader, but being a team leader is an important part of the job. It's also an important part of the job as a new general counsel that you get to know, work with, and support the business of your company.
You need to get to know the C-Suite, understand your business partners, and develop relationships with them. Most likely, if you're the general counsel of a company of significant size and certainly, if you're at a public company like I was at Gap, you will work with the board of directors. One of the most important things and the biggest transitions to make as a new first-time general counsel is to realize that you have at least three constituencies.
One of the most important things and the biggest transitions to make as a new first-time general counsel is to realize that you have at least three constituencies.
Depending on what your business is, you may also have shareholders, regulators, or some other external body. On a daily basis, if you are accountable for those 4 different constituencies and you're overemphasizing 1, it's going to be hard to be successful, so try to achieve some balance between those 3 to 6 constituencies that you may have. It is one of the more important and determining factors of success.
I hadn't thought of it that way before but the art of balancing all of those. First, recognize that you have different constituencies and then balance those. If you're too focused on one and not focused on the others, that can create its own imbalances down the line as well.
It's like work-life balance. You're never going to have every day as perfectly balanced between my three or my five constituencies. As you said, it's being aware that you are working with these different groups and you need to develop relationships across and you need to engage across. On a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis, trying to make sure that you're focusing appropriately on them. Not overemphasize that it has to be perfect balance every day because we all know that that doesn't work with work-life balance or balancing within your work.
Recognizing that there are all of these different things to balance. That explains a lot when I think about some of my friends who are in-house. I'm like, “I see them doing that but I hadn't crystallized.” Now I can see what they're doing through that lens. It's very helpful to hear that to understand all the different things that you need to think about in making decisions.
Sometimes when you work in a firm, you think, “The in-house counsel has business considerations,” but that's only one part of the whole dimensions that you're talking about. Thank you. I'm glad I asked that question because I didn't think you were going to say that but it opened my eyes to thinking about what general counsels are working with day-to-day as well, being a little more empathetic to certain things, and thinking about those things as a counselor also.
Thank you so much, Michelle, for taking the time to do this and lend some of your advice there. For general counsels or new general counsels who might be reading, I hope they get some good takeaways from that and some general inspiration from your career but also the ways in which you're continuing to give back in a very intentional way. That was one of the things that we talked about before, which is encouraging women to support women in intangible and intentional ways and you exemplify that.
Thank you for what you do, MC. This is an amazing project. I'm glad we've met through UCLA Law and Women LEAD. I appreciate you continuing to support that program. We have our shared common bond across women supporting women and it is very rewarding. You can make a big difference by mentoring women and I get a lot of joy out of doing it.
I was going to say I can see that in you. Not just meaning but the joy that you get from doing that and seeing others propelled forward and becoming the best that they can be. It's a neat thing to do and to know that the next generation of the profession is being led well. We'll continue to have strong women leading within the profession. Many of whom you've helped get to that level of strength. It's a good legacy. for you. Usually, I close with a few lightning-round questions. The first question I have for you is which talent would you most like to have but don't?
There are two. I can't sing, and I've always wanted to fly. I started dreaming about it as a kid. Both of those are out there, and I don't think I'm going to get either of them in my lifetime. If I could pick two things, if I was forced to pick one, it would probably be singing because that would be more practical.
You're not going to get your pilot's license or anything like that anytime soon. That's fine. You’re doing a lot of travel still, it sounds like. At least you're in the airplane, if not piloting it. Who are some of your favorite writers?
I read a lot of books, but I wouldn't say I follow a particular author or authors. I read all different kinds of things, whatever a friend tells me they liked or what I might see on LinkedIn. I'm in a bunch of different book clubs. I read all different kinds of things. I'm pretty excited about a book I'm reading now. It's by Dana Rubin, and it's about women speakers. It's the history of women's speaking. I should look at it and make sure I can tell you the actual name of this book because it's good. I'm excited about it because there are so many instances of women being overlooked in history and not acknowledged. She is chronicling the history of famous women's speeches that should be recognized and not lost.
She did a crowdfunding online for the book. I helped to support it. That's what I'm reading now and I'm loving it. Since I do lots of speaking, I'm finding it inspiring for me too. I know you said this was going to be a lightning round. The book title is Speaking While Female, and the secondary title is 75 Extraordinary Speeches by American Women. The author again is Dana Rubin.
I had not heard of that book, so I'm very excited to hear about it. I will often feature some of the book recommendations of guests so others can find them. We'll put the book that you contributed to on there and also this one, which sounds great.
Thank you.
Who is your hero in real life?
My mom is one of my huge heroes. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is, unfortunately, no longer with us but she's my legal shero.
For many women lawyers, that is true. Given the choice of anyone in the world, who would you invite as a dinner guest or to a dinner party?
Michelle Obama would be one of the people I would be excited to meet someday. I've had the honor of meeting Hillary Clinton and a number of other women in the political sphere, but Michelle Obama is incredible. I watched her in awe while her husband was president. I read her first book and was excited about it. I gave it to everybody for Christmas that year. I was thinking if I could cheat, I would invite the Obamas as a couple to my dinner party.
It's your dinner party. You can invite whomever you want. That would be quite the guest list there, Michelle. Last question, what is your motto, if you have one?
Probably to help people. Give generously. Those two would be maybe vying. Giving generously or helping people mean the same thing, just different phrasing.
Either way, it's very fitting. Given what you've given back and how you've helped others. That very well encapsulates how you are and what you've contributed to so many. It’s very good and appropriate, Michelle. You're not just saying that, but that's how you are. That's how you act. Things, words, and deeds are in alignment. Great motto. I hope that by learning about your story, people will be inspired to do the same, to help others, and to give others opportunities to blossom in themselves and in the profession. Thank you so much for joining the show, Michelle.
Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.