Episode 42: Joanne Caruso
EVP and Chief Legal and Administrative Officer of Jacobs Engineering
00:59:31
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Show Notes
Joanne Caruso, EVP and Chief Legal and Administrative Officer of Jacobs Engineering, describes her journey from BigLaw to in-house leadership. She explains how she leads and builds teams and fosters collaboration. Tune in to gain valuable insights from a high-profile litigator and trusted legal and business advisor.
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Joanne Caruso
Joanne Caruso is EVP, Chief Legal and Administrative Officer at Jacobs, a 55,000-employee, $14B Dallas-based firm providing consulting, technical, scientific and project delivery services to clients worldwide. In this role she leads global functions that work together to align to the overall business plan and strategic direction of the Company. She is also the Executive Sponsor for Prism, Jacobs’ employee network for LGBTQI+ people and their allies. Joanne joined Jacobs in 2012 in the role of Vice President, Global Litigation.
Prior to joining Jacobs in 2012, Joanne was a partner in Howrey LLP and Baker & Hostetler. She was named one of the top 100 attorneys in California and was repeatedly named as one of California’s Top 75 Women Litigators. Throughout her career, she has been involved in many professional, non-profit and civic organizations, including serving as the Vice-Chair of California’s Access to Justice Commission, a statewide Commission dedicated to exploring ways to improve access to civil justice for those living on low and moderate incomes. She is a graduate of Boston College and Boston College Law School. Joanne is based in Jacobs’ Dallas, Texas headquarters.
Transcript
I'm very pleased to invite to the show and have as our guest, Joanne Caruso, who is the Chief Legal Officer and Administrator at Jacobs Engineering. Welcome, Joanne. I'm so pleased to have you here and to have folks know your career journey, wisdom, and advice that you can provide to others navigating their careers. I wanted to cover both your time in a big law firm and management position there and your time in-house. First, I want to start with the basics, which is how did you come to consider being a lawyer, to begin with?
I've always remembered wanting to be a lawyer ever since certainly middle school and high school, which is interesting because I didn't have any lawyers in my family, but I thought it was something that I could do where I could make some meaningful impact. I am very competitive. I like to be successful when I argue a point. It seemed like that would be a great career saying that without knowing what that meant.
Did you see movies with lawyers or read books? I’m wondering if you know how you put that together.
I don't because I don't remember. I wasn't a Perry Mason fan or anything like that. It was lawyers are people that can contribute meaningfully to society. That was something that was important to me.
Certainly, we can make a difference, which is good. You had that idea. Did you have an idea in law school or soon after? Was there a certain law that you wanted to practice or were interested in pursuing?
I only ever wanted to be a litigator, never thought about anything else, never even pursued anything else. It was always about litigation and just litigation. When I was in law school, that's why I ended up at the firm I ended up at, which was Howrey & Simon at the time. This is now back in 1984 and 1985. They just did litigation. When I remember reading their firm resume, I thought this would be the perfect firm for me.
I'm right about this. There were ads that said in court all the time and pictures of different courthouses and things like that. That was an effective campaign. I still remember it to this day. I hadn't realized that. You were at Howrey for a long time then.
I joined Howrey as a summer associate in 1984. I was there through 2011 when the firm, unfortunately like many firms did in that time period, the partners voted to dissolve the firm.
You thought you only wanted to do litigation from the beginning. Was it what you thought it would be? What did you enjoy about being a litigator?
Primarily, I loved being in court. I loved arguing, whether it was to a jury or a judge. When I was younger, the partners put together their arguments. I loved putting together the case, figuring things out, putting the pieces together, and figuring out the most persuasive arguments. I also thought that I was able to, especially in jury trials, understand how to simplify things. Maybe that's my own indication of I am not as bright as a lot of the lawyers I worked with, but I was able to bring, “This is the way that we can present it in a simple message,” especially with persuade juries.
That's a distinct skill in terms of boiling down complicated legal issues. Putting them into a persuasive story or narrative and with a theme that's effective and being able to share that in a way that's meaningful to non-lawyers and the jury.
That's important. A lot of lawyers, we live our cases so deeply night and day. We know all of the details. Sometimes it's easy to get lost in those details as opposed to what are the most persuasive themes. What is at the core that is going to be persuasive to a jury or an incredibly busy judge?
As an appellate lawyer, that's where the skill and art particularly of trial lawyers, is we do the same thing on appeal, but it's a different set of tools and judges, but you're working through the facts, creating and molding that narrative from the facts. Whereas we're stuck with what was put in the record already. It's a different skill. In addition to litigation, you had management responsibilities at Howrey, which is still relatively rare at that time for women to have those positions. What was that like? What did you like about it? What didn't you like about it?
It was a great experience because you get to see things from a different perspective than just working on your matters and get to see different leaders that you're working with and what can and can't be effective, and how to navigate a law firm and while from partnerships. It presents its own challenges. It was nice to be at the table to see how decisions were made.
It takes a lot of time. That took time away from a lot of other things. It was a great experience. I look back now and think about different things that I did when I was in a law firm and involved in leadership. I've learned a lot in a company about leadership. We spend a lot of time at Jacobs talking about leadership. I wish I had known more because I think I might have been more effective than I had been.
It seems like your experience with that in the law firm could at least help inform your decision about whether you'd be interested in that role in an in-house or business position. From my perspective, if you hadn't had that experience, you wouldn't have brought that to where you are now in-house. We all grow and beyond that, but it is very different to be in management and on the business side of the business in addition to practicing law. There’s such a business strategy role for a general counsel that is important to learn and that you have in your role. It seems to dovetail a little bit with what are some of the issues you might've dealt with in the firm.
I was involved in the recruiting and compensation committee in the firm, a lot of different things. All of those things have been a great and good experience as I transitioned into a company where all of that is important, not only within the legal department but even more generally within the company. It was a great experience. I'm glad that I had it because I think it has been useful as I've even gone further in my career.
I wanted to talk about that leadership aspect a little bit. I don't know if you characterize your particular style of leadership in a certain way, but what are some of your more important leadership lessons or advice to people who might be finding themselves in a management or an in-house role where they do have an opportunity to serve through leadership? Are there any good nuggets of advice that people might benefit from or things that you're like, “I wish I had thought about this before I got here?”
It's important if somebody is in a leadership role or thinking about it to think about it and what it means. Being a leader is not just about the position that you have. Typically, you would become in that position because you have certain expertise in whatever you're doing, but it's so much broader than that. You're leading people that may report to you, but you're also leading across an organization or a firm by influence as well. One of the most important things is to understand and be authentic to what your style is. You're going to notice a lot of different leaders. Some will be incredibly outgoing and extroverted, have big personalities, and be wonderful leaders. Some will not be. I am not like that.
You can still be effective leaders, whatever your style is. You do need to be authentic to yourself. It's important that you are transparent as a leader. You're not going to be able to divulge all of the information you have because it may be confidential. The more transparent that you can be and honest with people that you're leading, whether it's about their performance and things they need to approve upon, that's going to be important.
Think of something that you would love to do that could make some meaningful impact.
You want to develop trust as a leader. That's one of the most important things. We talk a lot about leadership and inspirational leadership. We have those conversations about what is important. Leadership can be great. If you're in a position to have that role, the lives and the careers that you can impact are immense. It's a great privilege and huge responsibility.
I know you, but I also hear in what you've said as well that leadership is about others as well. It's not about you. It's about others and the team working together, but also growing others and allowing them to blossom to their utmost.
I love quotes. There's a quote that you may have heard that Teddy Roosevelt said, “People don't care what you know until they know that you care.” That’s true for leadership. The most important thing that a leader can do is show what the direction is because people want to know that. You have to be able to communicate that, but you have to also show people that you do care about them and their own development as well and help them to reach their potential.
In some cases, it may be that they're not in the right position, whatever it may be. Maybe that there's another position, whether it's in a firm or the company, but to be able to communicate that as well because that may be the best thing, not only for them but for the company as well. You have to be able to have those honest discussions with people and not shy away from them.
Sometimes you can see talents or skills in people that you say, “You're good at this. That would be applied very well over here.” You might consider that. If that's not the case, sharing that somebody might need more experience in a certain area and saying, “I'm doing and recommending this because I care about you. I want you to get that experience and to grow rather than have you been down about it.”
It's more like, “No, I see this. You're good in these areas. There are these other areas that if you had this too, it would fill things in.” I sometimes find myself doing that with people in my group, especially the newer associates, where I'm saying, “I know you probably think I'm being tough on you, but I'm only doing this because I care about you. I want you to grow. This is a stretch thing for you. It's challenging, but that's why I want you to do it.”
A lot of times, people will say, “The best leaders are like their coaches.” I didn’t play organized sports, but you see that their coaches push people to even go beyond what they think they can do. When they achieve it, you have this wonderful feeling and feel so empowered. You know you can even do more. A great leader is much like a coach. You can provide the direction, but people can meet even higher goals than they thought.
Another thing that's important for leaders is to hold people accountable. When you say something as a leader, you do it. Your actions show that what you're saying is true because people watch leaders. They see everything that they do. If it's not consistent with their words, you lose that trust there. You’ve broken an important bond with others.
Being in alignment, people recognize that when you are.
You look at a lot of leaders in a lot of different areas in society. You can see when that trust is broken. People are either saying things and their actions are not consistent with that, or there are other things. When there's that breakdown in trust, it is so damaging to everything, not only to the leader's ability to lead but even beyond that into the organization's ability to get things done.
The other point that I heard you mentioned also is that titles are helpful for this in an organizational setting, but that you can exercise leadership and take responsibility for leadership without the title or before the title. That's a way of proceeding in your career as well, taking ownership and leadership.
That's a great point. I do believe that. Everybody should see themselves as a leader because whatever you're doing, you're going to have ideas. It's not just a matter of experience or age, but you have the ability to influence. You should understand and embrace that. They're pretty hierarchical in a lot of big law firms with associates. You should try and break out of that because there are those opportunities there. More opportunities will come to people who do embrace that and say, “How can I contribute more to this? I have an idea. Let me express that idea.”
I also think that there's a sense of ownership of whatever you're working on. If you're given a piece of something, do this legal research on this particular topic, that's going to be added to some larger legal discussion in a brief or something like that. If you're the associate doing that to understand the bigger picture and you have something to contribute beyond that, say, “I have some ideas about how we could also make this argument.”
Think of it as like your widget part of the project to look at all of it and say, “I want to contribute to the team prevailing for the client. I'm going to look at this in a broader way. I know I was able to do this, but I also see how it could fit in with this. We might consider another approach to the arguments.” I always appreciate and value that and feel like that's someone who's showing they want to be doing more.
Sometimes people are hesitant because they may feel that the person that they're working for knows it all. Sometimes it's hard to understand that's not the case. There are so many different things that people are thinking about and you could very well miss something that may be obvious as somebody bringing that is welcome. You're going to be the person that people are going to go to because they recognize that you're always even thinking broader and bigger picture than maybe the one question that you've been asked to answer.
I always appreciate that too, because I think, “Do you care?” If you're doing the one thing, I specifically asked, I wonder whether you’re caring about the client in a bigger way. It can be intimidating. Sometimes you can think, “I'm sure somebody's already thought of this.” If they do, they'll tell you, “I already thought of that. I don't think that's an issue.” It's not going to be a problem. They'll still appreciate that you thought about broader issues. That's helpful guidance or advice, especially for newer attorneys to think about.
One of the ways to demonstrate an interest in the broader picture or obtain leadership opportunities as a newer attorney, in particular, is through community service. Whether it's a board service, pro bono work, or looking outside of your particular arena to take ownership of things and demonstrate an interest in serving more broadly.
That's been something that's been near and dear to my heart. There are so many wonderful causes out there and whatever your passion may be. One of the things that I wish I had done earlier in my career than I did is get involved with, whether it's nonprofit organizations or bar and professional associations. Whatever your profession, but certainly in the law, it's knowing and meeting other people and hearing about their careers or their experiences or learning from them. It's wonderful because you do have those networks.
It's not like networking in a bad way. The more people that you know, what they do, what their interests are, that’s something that's good for somebody's career. People are so interesting. I'm sure you're finding this out with your show. People have such interesting backgrounds. Many interesting things that they are involved in. It's fascinating to learn about the differences that people have and their backgrounds. It's very inspiring. Knowing that enriches you not only in your profession but enriches you in your whole life as well.
Any level, but as a newer attorney, it can be confidence-building to serve on a board and have that input. Especially if you're on a board where it's not a bar association board, there aren't that many lawyers on the board. You recognize that you can provide value in your analysis and how you look at issues that you have something to contribute as a lawyer, as opposed to a business person or an accountant or something like that. It can be encouraging and maybe give you more impetus to speak up in your firm and work on cases.
When we served on a nonprofit board together, there were more lawyers involved, but still, it was nice to be able to contribute to a meaningful cause. In our case, break the cycle for a teen dating violence organization, the first one in the country. To have an impact through the work of the organization, but also to work with an amazing array of board members and learn a lot from them. When Howrey ends, did you think, “What should I do with my life?” Did you think, “I've always looked and thought that maybe being an in-house lawyer would be of interest?”
You can still be very effective leaders, whatever your style is. You just really need to be authentic to yourself.
When Howrey ended, there were seventeen of us that went to the firm, BakerHostetler. It’s a great firm and great people. I was there for a year. The role at Jacobs opened up and that role was their head of global litigation. It’s in my sweet spot again in terms of litigation. At that point, Jacobs was headquartered in Pasadena, California. I was living in California at the time. It was a perfect match.
I was on this question like, “How did people find opportunities too?” How did you find out that there was this opportunity at Jacobs? Did somebody approach you? Had you done work with the company before? I'm always curious about this.
I had not done work for Jacobs. I knew of Jacobs because it was in Southern California. It was the Association of Corporate Counsel website that has a careers link. I would occasionally go on it and saw the job posted. They were working through a legal recruiter. I got it to the legal recruiter and then to Jacobs. I would occasionally look at this website. I had always been interested in going in-house or at least thinking about it. By that point in my career, I've been practicing for almost 30 years. Senior-level positions in companies are rare, especially in litigation. It happened to be a great fit and opportunity.
The sphere of influence and responsibility is right in your sweet spot. That's perfect.
It's been a great move, especially at that point in my career. I had a great experience at Howrey and Baker, and had done a lot of things. This was a nice shift from a whole different angle, which has been so energizing. It's been wonderful.
That's the point in one's career where you might be saying, “I've accomplished all of this. What else is there to do? What else can I do that would keep me still challenged in a different way?”
It's done that. It's invigorating, challenging, great opportunities, and been terrific.
Do you have any advice for lawyers going in-house, but also women lawyers in particular, in terms of advancing within the legal department or how-to tips that will help women succeed in-house?
It's probably a lot the same in terms of law firms. It's always doing good work, meeting your deadlines, and being accountable. In-house, you have one client, which is the company. It's thinking outside of being a lawyer. It's trying to learn as much about the business as possible. What are the drivers of the business? How the business makes money? You are a trusted advisor in-house. It is looking even beyond being a lawyer. Whether they're outside or in-house lawyers, businesspeople get the reputation of being blockers and you telling me all the problems.
It's recognizing the risks, but going with solutions, finding solutions, and understanding the business. That's probably the most important thing if you're going to be in-house. It's great if you love the business, if you enjoy doing business because you are going to be being a lawyer, but you have to understand. It helps if you enjoyed it as well.
That's what I was alluding to earlier in terms of your role at Howrey being in a management role within the firm. It's different from leading a business, but at least it's similar. You're looking beyond your practice to a larger organization and figuring out from a business and a human standpoint for those who work there, how to organize things and motivate people, things like that.
That would be the part that would translate a little bit more than just practicing law instead of looking at other management responsibilities. You are so good at building consensus and listening to people. That seems like it’s an important skill in-house. Listening to things that you can understand what the concerns of all the different stakeholders there, how can you reach some consensus in moving forward.
That’s important. There are a lot of different considerations for a particular problem, whether it's a legal problem or even when you're talking about strategy or how to deal with a particular thing. Being able to get consensus and alignment and go forward with everybody on the same page is important.
That's also something that even if you're in a law firm, you're working and managing a bunch of lawyers. There's a commonality, but once you're in a company, they're all different interests and training, everybody contributing their perspective on a problem or a product or how to move forward. You've got to navigate that.
You may have expertise in the law. You may have business expertise in certain areas, but you're not going to be an expert in everything. You're not going to be necessarily the tax expert. It's taking that all in and being able to assess the information and then provide input. It may be that you're not the decision-maker, but you're there to understand as much as you can. Give your opinion and understand what the direction is and move forward.
If you're leading a law department, or even if you're not the leader of the law department, to be able to explain it to the particular stakeholders. It is important that if it's a company strategy that everybody understands what the strategy is and how they fit into it. You see this a lot in discussions now about what drives people is feeling that they have a purpose in their organization. Frankly, their organization is a purpose-led company as well. Being able to understand where you fit in, whatever it might be, what the purpose is, how that's contributing to the strategy of the organization and the purpose of the organization is important.
Everybody wants to have a meaning to what they're doing overall and how they contribute to it.
We talk a lot about purpose here and we do talk a lot about that with respect to leadership and ask ourselves. We talk about big P purpose and little P purpose, and what is the purpose of say, for instance, the legal department within Jacobs? How does that fit? What is your individual purpose as well? What gets you up in the morning? Why are you excited to be able to come to this particular job?
To be able to think about that, which a lot of people don't, I never get a lot. It's always there, but to be able to think about it and think about how you would articulate that is important and useful as we go about our lives and our jobs. Frankly, there are going to be things in your job that are going to be not as exciting as other things. Sometimes to do the things that you like, want, and are important to do, you have to do things that you may not like very much or want to do or drudgery. It’s like a document review that you need to do to be able to go into court to be successful.
You may not be loving that particular task, but it's a larger thing that you do care about. You can get through it even if it isn't your favorite task. In whatever career you have, if you enjoy what you're doing, maybe 70% to 80% of the time, that's pretty good. There's always some percentage that is not fun. You try to minimize that, but sometimes it can't be.
I think about the purpose thing too. It reminds me of Simon Sinek and what's your why. Why are you doing particular things? What's motivating you? It’s the same thing with the company. That's a good observation in terms of maybe it's helpful to ask yourself that individually and whatever organization you're in, in terms of purpose.
It's very important. You have that as your guiding light. Sometimes you may be in an organization where it doesn't mesh. That's important to understand as well.
In doing that, you could discover basically, “It isn't matching.” That may be like a fundamental issue, which is not going to be bridged. Maybe I should think about some other opportunity, but at least you'd have a sense of what's going on. Why do I feel uncomfortable in this situation? It doesn't seem like it's a good fit. It isn't at this core level.
You move on, which is fine too. When I started practicing law, there was a lot of movement in everything. When I started practicing law in the early ‘80s, there was very little movement. Law firms didn't hire laterally. It’s out of law school and most people stayed for their whole career. In many senses, that was a positive, but now there are so many different opportunities. Another great thing that your show is doing is showing these different opportunities. It's such a great profession. Legal education is terrific for any number of reasons. There is so much that you can do with a Law degree.
Understanding that and knowing that there's not just one right path. Even though in law school, sometimes you get caught up as in anything, like, “You've got to do this. To be successful, you've got to go in a big firm, or go clerk, or do this.” The fact of the matter is it's going to be different for everybody. Having the confidence to figure out what is best for you, even if it's going against what a lot of people may be saying, that's one of the most important things you could do for yourself in law or any profession, frankly.
Tweet: It's important that you are transparent as a leader, that you're not going to divulge all of the information you have because it may be just confidential.
Sometimes that can take a little bit of time to grow that inner confidence that will enable you to do that. It's challenging in the legal profession itself because there are only certain paths that this is the good path. Once you start on this path, you don't have to keep going this one way. It's very set in that way, but there are so many other things to do. During our time, that's for sure that things changed. I remember in the ‘80s, even in the early ‘90s, you join a firm and you are at that firm for your entire career generally. That started to change later in the ‘90s. It's gone the other way now. Lateral movement. People reading this might even say, “What are they talking about?”
When I started as well, the concept of part-time was not something that was even talked about. I remember at Howrey, the first person who brought it up and suggested for her after she had her first child, it was a big deal. That's also been a great progression as well. The positive of COVID is that people realize they don't have to be in an office to be working and productive.
That gives more flexibility to lawyers and everybody, which I think is important as people go through their careers. They have different obligations in their personal life or whatever that they need to attend to. It does show that you can have the flexibility to do those and attend to other things while still meeting your obligations at work.
It's definitely created a whole new perspective on remote work and in terms of alternate work arrangements. It’s very different. It takes long usually for change to happen in the legal profession. This is relatively quick for us to change a perspective so quickly. It's pretty rare. That's a good thing. There are a lot of silver linings from COVID, challenges but silver linings. I keep looking for those.
We were hoping that we wouldn't have to keep talking about silver linings, but yet here we are again. I know what you said about in-house is true in terms of learning the business. That's important to understand the organization and the business. What are some of the good ways to do that if you're in-house as a practical matter?
If you're with a public company, there will be public reports that you can read. You shouldn't learn about the competitors in your business. People love to talk about what they do. I was going to say go down the hall, but now it's this remote won't work. Ask people for half-hour of their time and people love to talk about it. You have to get on their schedule and be respectful of all of that. It's talking to people who have obviously industry publications. There are a lot of professional organizations as well. There are a lot of different ways that you can do it.
Companies have their internal and public websites. You have to take the time to do it and understand the public reporting and the financials so you can understand what the language of the business is and spend the time doing that. Maybe something, if you're in-house, go to your supervisor or make a suggestion to the general counsel that you have sessions on it. That's important as well. We had a legal conference of our lawyers in Jacobs a couple of years ago.
We had somebody come in and talk to us about business acumen. It was a group that took the time to learn about our particular business. They took us through and asked us questions. We had a three-hour discussion on it. There's an opportunity there. That's an opportunity to make a suggestion because if you're in that position, likewise, other people in the department are also in that same situation.
I was thinking you would say that. I was hoping you would say in terms of initiative basically. Of your examples, my favorite one, because I don't think that people would think about it necessarily, is going out, getting to know the people in the different roles, what they do, and how they do it. I would imagine that would be helpful down the line when their issues come up or you need to work with those stakeholders that will be helpful towards that relationship. You’ve learned about them, met them prior to needing to talk to them about something.
That would be something that I don't know. Sometimes we're used to our little legal pod. It's getting outside of that and having the initiative to get outside of that is an important mindset change being in-house. That's a great way to affect that change in terms of I'm not going to be in my legal arena. I’m going to go out and ask and get to know people.
That's important. One of the other things that I learned is people are busy. Everywhere, people are busy. If you're in-house or even if you're outside dealing with clients who work in-house is that it’s succinct to the point and gets to the answer. That's important because there are so many different things that are going on and different demands on time. That's going to be important. If you're talking to non-lawyers to think about the legalese or the use of legalese and to get the advice in the short, sweet, and in language that people understand. They're not lawyers and you have to understand that you're communicating with a non-lawyer.
That's helpful too, in terms of outside lawyers understanding how they can help in-house counsel as well. That might be one way that, instead of producing some legal memo type analysis, something that you can flip and forward to someone without having to do that over, retranslate it. I was going to ask you if there were things that you recommended best practices for outside counsel, how to make your lives easier and be the most helpful. That seems like a practical thing to do.
I was busy in a law firm. It's a different busy, but there are so many different things coming at you in-house from all different directions. If you have a problem that you need to go outside or answers relatively quickly for the most part, and to be able to get to the answer and a ten-page single space memo. There may be reasons for that at some point, but it's hard to get through something like that and to have the time to do that.
The more succinct and quick that people can get the advice and to give advice. I know that there's always an, “It depends.” There's rarely, “This is how it needs to be done.” You are looking for the pros and the cons, but to come to help get us to a conclusion that we can then go give advice to our businesspeople.
That's ultimately what you need to be doing, coming to some recommendation or conclusion and discussing the pros and cons of each. “It could be this or that. We recommend acts for the following reasons, but it depends on what your risk appetite is for this.” Giving you the information so that the decision can be made and proposing something is helpful. It's not our first instinct to give an answer because it depends. We like to give options, but if we're wrong about this person or a person, that's a chance that it's this, but it might be something different. You got to train yourself to come to a decision or a conclusion about that.
Sometimes what I'll do is, depending on the client, I'll provide the backup. “Here's the legal memo and the deep analysis, if you're interested in looking at it, but then here's the cover email. Here’s what we recommend and the basic overview if you need a short overview, something you can pass on, and a recommendation and the various pros and cons. If you want a further backup, here's the backup of that analysis.” If you internally in the legal department want to look at it, sometimes that can be a helpful combination.
That's great advice in terms of how to do it. I know I would take that and try and read everything to understand it. Sometimes people are saying, “Why isn't it like this?”
You're going to get questions that are deeper than that short analysis. I understand myself why this is so. They say that, but why? The case law is not good or something that you can understand from a legal perspective and that you might want, so you can get more nuanced advice to the business. I personally appreciate that too.
If I have people working in my firm with me, I'm like, “Yes, give me the backup analysis, but tell me what you think.” I'll look at the rest, read the cases and do all of that. I might disagree with you, but I want to know what the bottom line is from your perspective. I tried to extrapolate that out. If I had even more than what I'm doing, why would I want something else?
That's a great way to go.
I have a confirmation about that approach. I appreciate it. Everywhere you've been, you've excelled and grown with the organization and the company. How did you prepare yourself for the CLO position coming in charge of global litigation, which is a significant responsibility? How did you prepare yourself to become CLO?
Be transparent and honest. You really want to develop trust as a leader.
I don't know if there was one thing. In the position I was in with litigation, I had the opportunity to work with a lot of the senior executives in the company. Having the opportunity to get to know them and to meet their expectations hopefully. That led to being asked by our CEO to take on more responsibilities even outside of the legal department. It’s meeting the expectations and the other executive leadership team had. I got a lot of experience in front of the board, which was also very helpful, and a great board of directors and getting that experience. When they created this position of the CLO, they asked me to step in, which was fantastic. It's a great legal department and company. To have the ability to work with the other senior executives, I learned so much every single day.
It's different in a corporate environment in terms of you want a breadth of experience and touching many different aspects of the business so that you can look above all of that and have a broader perspective when you're in the C-Suite role. It turns out that your portfolio allowed for those opportunities to learn more and have exposure to a number of decision-makers in the company. That sounds about right in terms of how to navigate within a corporate environment and law firms were discrete silos of different types of groups that practice together and have exposure to another group. It isn't the same thing.
It's fascinating to work with these amazing people who are doing these incredible things. Jacobs is a global company. To have the experience of working with people around the world, getting that experience and learning about the differences, not only in the legal systems around the world and having to navigate that, but even culturally in the business. It's been an amazing experience.
It’s looking for new types of challenges. There have definitely been new types of challenges at each role in the company. That's always good too. You want to keep growing and learning.
That's a great point you make. Another great piece of advice is that you're always learning. If you have that love for learning, whatever it might be, I'm not talking about book learning but learning about other people and cultures. In this age, we're going into even more of a digital age. You can be learning different skills that you may not have known or thought you would ever use. It's that constant quest for learning that I think is critical, important and a good quality to have wherever you want to be and advance in any organization.
When you maximize that learning, it's a good opportunity. Maybe I should look somewhere else or find some other way to remain challenged, whether that's taking courses online or learning something new or constantly evolving. That's one of the benefits. Another silver lining of COVID is so many things are available online now.
There are some independent courses by professors who are starting their own online independent schools. There are so many different things that I've learned during COVID that the class wouldn't have been available online to do it all. There are so many opportunities to do that, whether within the organization you're in or outside, if you're curious about different things.
During COVID, I took a series of philosophy classes, a class on complexity, which is an important principle in the scientific realm, but I think more important in our world about having to navigate aspects of complexity and what that means in terms of decision-making. New space and old space business taught by a Harvard business professor. Those are things that wouldn't probably have been available online. That's another avenue.
There are great podcasts, but there are also these courses that you can take online if you're curious about expanding what you know. I would think that'd be another way to make yourself more valuable for the company if you’re in-house taking courses that way about the business that the company is in or other business classes.
There is everything from business classes to being a good mentor or leader, using Excel to whatever it might be. You can find anything online, as all the readers probably know. You grow from it. It's personally enriching as well.
Thank you so much, Joanne. I appreciate you joining us and talking about your experiences. Before we close, I wanted to make sure that we cover at least a few questions from the lightning round of questions. Which talent would you most like to have that you don't?
I would love to be a great singer and dancer for that matter.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself and others?
I don't know if there's something that I deplore about myself. I try not to be hard on myself, which is always a challenge because I always know I can do pretty much everything better than I do. I don't know that I have anything for that. In others, it’s dishonesty.
Sometimes people are like, “I don't know or there's a couple of things.” I haven't done the work to have clarity. That's important. Who are your favorite writers?
I love to read, but I don't know if I have a favorite. I read as much as I could. I've been very interested in World War II. London is one of my favorite cities in the world. I'm reading a book about the period of May 1940 to 1941 in London, the great Battle of Britain, and what it was like in London through all of the bombings. I don't know if I have a particularly favorite author. I know I should, but I feel bad about that.
Voracious readers of all types read all different kinds of things, and are interested in different types of books for different reasons. I fall in that category. I get interested in a particular area and read everything I can about that, and then I move to something else. Who is your hero in real life?
That would be a former partner of mine, Joanne Leishman. She is my hero. The way she has lived her life, the challenges that she's come through, and the type of person and the character that she is. She's one of the best, smartest, and most creative lawyers I know. I'm privileged that she's my friend, but she is also my hero in real life.
Does she know that? Is this the first time she's going to know that?
This may be. I don't know that I've told her that.
What a blessing to have someone that was your colleague and to be your friend in that role as your hero too, that’s a blessing.
I am blessed.
You're not going to be an expert in everything. Being a leader is just taking all things in, assessing the information, and then providing input.
For what in your life do you feel most grateful?
That would be my family. Certainly, my immediate family, my husband, my two daughters, but I'm thinking of my extended family. My siblings, my parents are amazing, but my cousins, my extended family is a very close-knit, big, old Italian family that I can always be myself with. We always have fun together when we do get together, which is not as much as I would like, but they have been supportive through everything. I'm blessed with them.
Not everyone can have such a significant extended family and have such a warm relationship amongst all of these. That's great. Two questions, the first one is given the choice of anyone in the world, who would you invite as a dinner guest?
I thought about this one. I would want three at a dinner party. They're friends. It would be Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and Maria Shriver. I'd love to have them for dinner, although I would not cook. I'd have to order it because I am a terrible cook.
I like not just one guest, but a group because I think sometimes the group has an interesting take on things. Having all of their relationships, they have different perspectives. That was a good way to go. I’m expanding the opportunities from that question. The last question is, what is your motto if you have one?
I have a couple, but the one that I am going to say is the one on my cup that I look at, which is, “Keep calm and carry on.” I got this cup when I was over in London, but I’m involved in a very difficult, contentious case that was challenging for any number of reasons. I love looking at this because it is I think the motto that I try and live by is to keep calm and carry on.
In your case, you have a particular context for that too. It’s like, “I'm thinking about this particular case.” It’s a personalization of that motto. I did keep calm, and I carried on in that particular case. Next time, I know I can do that too. There's something about that. A personal victory aspect that you can carry forward with yourself on that. Thank you so much again, Joanne Caruso, for joining us. It’s such a great discussion and good insights into leadership in so many different settings, law firms, and in-house. Thank you very much.
Thank you so much. It’s great to talk to you and to be here.