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Leadership, Simply Smarter Episode 4: Inside and Outside Counsel Perspectives with Effie D. Silva and Maria Fracassa Dwyer · Leadership, Simply Smarter

0:00
SPEAKER_00: This podcast is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or a solicitation to provide legal services.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: The information in this podcast is not intended to create, and receipt of it does not constitute a lawyer-client relationship.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: Listeners should not act upon this information without seeking professional legal counsel.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: The views and opinions expressed in the podcast represent those of the individual speaker only and are not necessarily the views of Clark Hill PLC.
0:24
SPEAKER_02: Welcome everyone.
0:25
SPEAKER_02: Today's guest is someone who understands something fundamental.
0:28
SPEAKER_02: The moment an attorney stops advising the table and transitions into a leader at that table, everything changes.
0:36
SPEAKER_02: At some point, I would love to have a deep dive with this guest on her journey to the table.
0:41
SPEAKER_02: But today the focus is not whether you can sit at that table and how you get there, but instead, what do you do when you're there?
0:49
SPEAKER_02: So please meet Effie DeSilva.
0:52
SPEAKER_02: She's the senior vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary of the Del Monte Corporation, which of course is one of the world's largest vertically integrated producers, distributors, and marketers of fresh fruits and vegetables.
1:06
SPEAKER_02: The company generates$4.3 billion in revenue and employs 45,000 people across the globe.
1:14
SPEAKER_02: Effie is an experienced leader at this public company and has a stellar record of advising the board of directors and senior management on the most pressing issues, including transactional litigation, corporate governance, compliance, and other matters.
1:30
SPEAKER_02: And prior to her in-house experience, she focused her career on complex business law at several global law firms, including Dwayne Morris, Baker McKenzie, and McDermott, Will and Emery.
1:43
SPEAKER_02: In addition to her role at Del Monte, Epi serves as an international arbitrator and is a passionate mentor for women, especially Latina women, rising in the legal profession.
1:54
SPEAKER_02: Epi is bilingual, a fellow of the Chartered Institute of International Arbitration, a qualified arbitrator for the AAA, FINRA, and conflict prevention resolution.
2:07
SPEAKER_02: Epi has global experience across Latin America, Asia Pacific, and Europe.
2:12
SPEAKER_02: Effie, welcome to Leadership Simply Smarter.
2:16
SPEAKER_02: I'm so happy to be here.
2:17
SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much for the invitation.
2:18
SPEAKER_03: I'm very humbled by it.
2:21
SPEAKER_02: Oh, we're thrilled to have you here.
2:23
SPEAKER_02: And joining us today is Maria Furcassa Dwyer.
2:27
SPEAKER_02: She's coming in from a slightly different angle as the outside counsel, but she's also someone who grew up in the food, beverage, and hospitality field.
2:36
SPEAKER_02: I am pleased to introduce you all to my partner, Maria Dwyer, and she is a chambers-ranked employment attorney.
2:44
SPEAKER_02: She's the member in charge of Clark Hill's Detroit office, which is our largest and headquarters office.
2:51
SPEAKER_02: She's also a member of Clark Hill's Executive Committee, and she's an attorney who represents some of the most important businesses in the food and agricultural sector: growers, distributors, food producers, the people who feed our country.
3:06
SPEAKER_02: But Maria's perspective on leadership and business comes from somewhere very specific.
3:11
SPEAKER_02: She grew up in her family's catering business.
3:13
SPEAKER_02: So she has literally seen from the ground up what it takes to build a culture where everybody understands the mission and values.
3:21
SPEAKER_02: Now, from her position as outside counsel, she advises senior leadership at some of the country's largest agricultural and food companies on complex labor, compliance, and workplace challenges.
3:34
SPEAKER_02: She is a deeply experienced outside counsel in the sector.
3:38
SPEAKER_02: And Effie is leading from inside.
3:40
SPEAKER_02: So what a great idea to bring these two powerful women together.
3:44
SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna just dive right in.
3:47
SPEAKER_02: If it's okay with you, Effie, I'm gonna start with you.
3:52
SPEAKER_03: I think you should introduce yourself too.
3:53
SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's you're you're one of our powerful people too in this conversation.
3:59
SPEAKER_02: I'm Vanessa Kelly.
4:00
SPEAKER_02: I'm an employment lawyer at Clark Hill and the host of this podcast.
4:04
SPEAKER_02: I'm very passionate about leadership.
4:07
SPEAKER_02: I think that truly wonderful leaders are the make or break to any organization, whether it's a law firm or whether it's you know a company or a not-for-profit.
4:17
SPEAKER_02: It really starts from the top and they set the tone, and that's where we derive our culture, our community, and of course, business results.
4:26
SPEAKER_02: So I'm very passionate about it.
4:28
SPEAKER_02: That's why I'm doing this podcast and get wonderful people like Maria and Effie to join.
4:33
SPEAKER_02: All right, Epi, you've had this incredible arc.
4:37
SPEAKER_02: You know, you're a partner at Big Law, then you're in-house at Tyson and Cargill, and now you're general counsel at Del Monte Corporation, which is just global and everyone knows Del Monte.
4:50
SPEAKER_02: It's easy for me to just rattle off the basics of this amazing career, but what was it like to live it?
4:56
SPEAKER_02: And and how did you make these choices that led you to where you are today?
5:01
SPEAKER_03: I would say, you know, honestly, living it felt far less linear than it sounds when you list it off.
5:08
SPEAKER_03: Right.
5:09
SPEAKER_03: But I think like every question, every move came back to the same thought process, which was where can I have the most impact while I can keep learning?
5:20
SPEAKER_03: And it's really a wonderful profession being lawyers, because that curiosity we can take until we're older and understand the underbelly of various things.
5:32
SPEAKER_03: And mine just happens to be I started out in private practice, and that gave me the rigor, really.
5:40
SPEAKER_03: It really taught me to think under pressure.
5:42
SPEAKER_03: And honestly, I don't hire any lawyers that haven't had that law firm rigor.
5:47
SPEAKER_03: You're seeing a lot of students come out of law school, they want to go straight in-house.
5:52
SPEAKER_03: But I think that there's something special about law firm life that you cannot learn when you're in-house.
5:58
SPEAKER_03: And that's really making sure your captions are right, making sure you understand how courts work, how the business pressures interact with regulations, things like that.
6:09
SPEAKER_03: And then, you know, going in-house really taught me building ethics and compliance, taught me about how to use the law most useful for business.
6:19
SPEAKER_03: You know, how does the business actually use it?
6:22
SPEAKER_03: And these two things really coincided.
6:25
SPEAKER_03: You know, I've never chased title.
6:26
SPEAKER_03: Really, what I've chased is being a better decision maker, being a better lawyer in the end, and just growing as a leader, really.
6:35
SPEAKER_03: I come from a sports background.
6:37
SPEAKER_03: I was a collegiate athlete at Wellesley College and I played three sports.
6:42
SPEAKER_03: I can't imagine doing that now, but it really helped just ground me in college.
6:47
SPEAKER_03: And that same mentality that I had back then, you know, 30 years ago, is the same thing that I bring into leadership now.
6:56
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's so interesting you say that because some of the other guests on this podcast also point to their roots in sports and collegiate sports as sort of a way to build those blocks of leadership.
7:08
SPEAKER_02: So I think that's really kind of fascinating.
7:11
SPEAKER_02: So we'll have to take a dive on that at some point.
7:13
SPEAKER_01: Well, Vanessa, we have to ask, what sports did you play?
7:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
7:17
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I played that soccer, lacrosse, which I picked up in college, and then basketball.
7:24
SPEAKER_03: So it was it was quite a few different sports, but I think it just gives you the resilience.
7:30
SPEAKER_03: You just learn to fail and you learn to pick up the pieces and move on.
7:34
SPEAKER_03: And you learn not only to do that yourself and grow more confident in that, but you learn that everybody can do it for one single goal.
7:42
SPEAKER_03: And I think that's an everlasting impact.
7:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and you know, I think that learning to fail, you're onto something there because we see it with our new lawyers.
7:53
SPEAKER_02: I mean, they're used to being the top of their class, getting amazing grades, really excelling at everything that they do, and then they start themselves in the work world and it's different.
8:04
SPEAKER_02: It's not, you know, esoteric exercises.
8:07
SPEAKER_02: This is real problems.
8:08
SPEAKER_02: And I don't know, Maria, most of our clients they don't have anything easy.
8:12
SPEAKER_02: If they did, they wouldn't be calling us, you know.
8:14
SPEAKER_02: It's always it's always the grace, it's always okay, let's what is it that you want to accomplish?
8:20
SPEAKER_02: Let's see if we can do it.
8:21
SPEAKER_02: So I think learning how to fail, I mean, you do um learn so much from anything that you have been challenged at.
8:30
SPEAKER_02: And nobody likes to fail, but you do take lessons learned.
8:33
SPEAKER_02: And I always tell people, hey, look at the best batters in baseball.
8:38
SPEAKER_02: If they get a hit a third of the time, they're like at the top of their game.
8:43
SPEAKER_02: So exactly, you know, you're gonna have some strikeouts, but then, but that's really interesting.
8:48
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
8:49
SPEAKER_02: You know, I feel like we're just at a very different point in this world from a legal perspective.
8:55
SPEAKER_02: It's a very complex world that we're facing.
8:57
SPEAKER_02: The law is changing lightning fast.
8:59
SPEAKER_02: Some of the standards and guidelines that we've relied on sometimes for years, they're changing.
9:05
SPEAKER_02: So, what are you seeing from inside?
9:08
SPEAKER_02: Does that pair up with what I'm seeing from like an employment outside council perspective?
9:13
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
9:13
SPEAKER_03: What's different right now is the pace of uncertainty, right?
9:17
SPEAKER_03: The ground keeps shifting.
9:20
SPEAKER_03: This is regulatory, political, social, right?
9:23
SPEAKER_03: All these frameworks that we've relied on for clear answers are far less stable than they were.
9:29
SPEAKER_03: From the inside, that means that my team is looking at, you know, the business actually is like pushing us forward, not just telling them what the law is, but how do we make a sound decision?
9:40
SPEAKER_03: You know, when the law itself is moving, how do we make a sound judgment?
9:44
SPEAKER_03: Take the most risk as possible, but within clear guidelines.
9:49
SPEAKER_03: So it's actually formed a different muscle.
9:51
SPEAKER_03: That's the way I would describe it, going back to my athletic background, trying to lead with more transparency now, being honest with some of the answers that you're giving, you know, it depends, is more like a how do we navigate this?
10:05
SPEAKER_03: And to be really steady.
10:07
SPEAKER_03: I think that's what with this chaotic world and the different regulations, it's how do we be steady and lead with judgment in a world with less certainty?
10:19
SPEAKER_02: I definitely have been hearing that from clients.
10:21
SPEAKER_02: Maria, I'm sure you have too.
10:23
SPEAKER_02: What challenges are you seeing from clients and how has that impacted how you serve clients in an outside counsel role?
10:32
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Vanessa.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: To Effie's point, I think, uh, and I wrote down what you said, it's an it's it depends now, right?
10:39
SPEAKER_01: As lawyers, we rarely tell our clients with 100% certainty that if you take this path, you will avoid all risk, right?
10:47
SPEAKER_01: Every path has some risk on it and comes with that path.
10:51
SPEAKER_01: And so our role as counsel is to do a risk assessment, right?
10:56
SPEAKER_01: What are your options?
10:58
SPEAKER_01: Where do you want to end up?
10:59
SPEAKER_01: And how can I get you there?
11:01
SPEAKER_01: And so that's really, I think, the starting point in why we consider ourselves to be, you know, outside trusted advisors to our clients, because we're walking down this path with them, uh, seeing the risks associated with each avenue they take, and with the laws ever changing, which is what we're talking about in this question.
11:21
SPEAKER_01: And uh, we see fragmented laws, accelerated laws.
11:24
SPEAKER_01: We're seeing across the US state regulation, in particular, as Effie's aware, in the food industry with different labeling laws popping up constantly, different leave laws from an employment perspective.
11:38
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, ensuring that we're staying up to date on the ever-changing landscape in which we're advising our clients.
11:45
SPEAKER_01: I think it's critical.
11:47
SPEAKER_01: And that these state regulations and rules that are popping up regularly have caused a lot of challenges.
11:53
SPEAKER_01: I think years ago we knew we had to follow federal law as it related to the FDA, for example, and now we have to manage and balance that with all the state differences that we're seeing.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: So it is becoming increasingly difficult to advise clients and to ensure that we're assessing risks from a number of different avenues.
12:13
SPEAKER_02: Right.
12:14
SPEAKER_02: No, I think the key difference is Maria, you and I do all these things and lay out options and lay out the risk assessment.
12:21
SPEAKER_02: But Epi, you sit in the hot seat.
12:25
SPEAKER_02: You know, at some point they're gonna say, Well, what should we do?
12:28
SPEAKER_02: Um, so it's a little bit different.
12:30
SPEAKER_02: So, how do you manage that?
12:33
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so there's two parts of being in the hot seat in-house, being the general counsel of the company.
12:39
SPEAKER_03: One is, yes, you're right, you know, Maria, like your points about just the regulations and the changing and walking the walk with your client and understanding their risk and really understanding their business is critical.
12:53
SPEAKER_03: But the other point that is so much of a pressure point in-house is the cost, right?
13:00
SPEAKER_03: The better you know the client, the better you know us, the more efficient you can be, and the less we have to pay for the cost of that knowledge of us.
13:10
SPEAKER_03: And it needs to be spoken about because I think it's becoming more and more with interest rates rising and the cost of doing business around the world, it's becoming and the rise of AI, where you have in-house counsel now having access to Harveys and the UDIAs of the world and and so on and so forth, where they can get the answers and work with you on specialized questions, cost is becoming one of those factors that hopefully you can become a PL center and not just a cost center to your business.
13:43
SPEAKER_02: Good point.
13:43
SPEAKER_02: Good point.
13:44
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
13:46
SPEAKER_01: So the the next question I had for you, Effie, is coming really at it from the food industry.
13:52
SPEAKER_01: I like you advise a lot of growers, distributors, food companies across the sector.
13:58
SPEAKER_01: And the one thing I hear is the difficulty that these large companies have in managing and establishing a good culture within the company.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: Um a lot of these industries have a large hourly workforce with a lot of turnover.
14:14
SPEAKER_01: So managing that climate and ensuring a good culture and ensuring your people are happy and healthy has become increasingly difficult in this day of turnover.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: So, how do you manage culture in your company?
14:29
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's a great question.
14:31
SPEAKER_03: Uh I think, you know, it really comes down to compliance and putting in guardrails and values.
14:38
SPEAKER_03: I try to make compliance about the the why we're doing things as opposed to the what.
14:45
SPEAKER_03: And culture happens, I think, when people see the rules as something not done to them, but they're actually part of the rulemaking of the organization.
14:55
SPEAKER_03: So it's like how we protect our each other, our customers, and the food that we put on the table.
15:01
SPEAKER_03: I think that's where it really starts for me and for the company.
15:05
SPEAKER_03: So having a value identity from like this compliance foundational base, where it's food safety, like you were saying, worker safety, integrity in the field, right?
15:17
SPEAKER_03: Where people are actually culling the fruit.
15:19
SPEAKER_03: It's to connect all those dots and trying to be reasonable in judgment.
15:25
SPEAKER_03: And so you build a culture based on everybody having the same goal, just like I was saying in athletics.
15:31
SPEAKER_03: It's why are we doing this?
15:33
SPEAKER_03: Like we're trying to score a goal here, we're trying to get food on the table that's safe, and we're trying to protect the organization and the folks that we serve.
15:41
SPEAKER_03: And I think it comes from that simple premise.
15:46
SPEAKER_02: It sounds simple, but I'm sure it's not.
15:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
15:50
SPEAKER_03: It's not, it's not.
15:51
SPEAKER_03: And it takes not just the lawyers, the legal group, obviously, it's cross-functional, right?
15:56
SPEAKER_03: You all have to come to this value proposition of why are we doing this?
16:00
SPEAKER_03: Why are we all deciding to row in the same direction?
16:06
SPEAKER_01: Certainly, yeah.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: And as a leader in your organization, a female leader in your organization, as a female attorney here at Clark Hill, I deal with a lot of HR folks.
16:15
SPEAKER_01: That's what we do, Vanessa and I.
16:17
SPEAKER_01: We're labor and employment.
16:18
SPEAKER_01: We deal with general counsel as well.
16:20
SPEAKER_01: But primarily, we in our day-to-day advice and counsel, we're dealing with senior vice presidents of human resources, who are often seen, unfortunately, within their companies as the compliance monster, right?
16:34
SPEAKER_01: The person that sells business and sales, and you can't do that because there is that balance of compliance and then the culture.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: So, how do you deal with that when your HR team, for example, comes to you?
16:45
SPEAKER_01: And how do you ensure, going back to the culture, that they're not viewed as the stop, the folks that uh halt all of these great ideas, but really as a business partner helping to ensure compliance as well as business needs being met with that good culture that you've created?
17:03
SPEAKER_03: It's an issue of trust.
17:06
SPEAKER_03: Um what I found is the better trust you can build in-house with your cross-functional leaders, the more you get things done that are not a pullback, or let's have a meeting about X, or let's come to a let's align about Y, especially when things are moving so quickly.
17:29
SPEAKER_03: So to hit the ground running on how do you build this culture of compliance and not become the department of no, I think is you got to go with judgment and trust.
17:41
SPEAKER_03: And you got to build those things when you first get in-house and hit the ground running.
17:45
SPEAKER_03: Same thing with the relationship with outside counsel, right?
17:49
SPEAKER_03: It is such a trust relationship.
17:51
SPEAKER_03: The more trust you have, the the better the work product's gonna be, the better the relationship, the better you're gonna know me as at El Mounting Corporation.
18:02
SPEAKER_02: I had a recent call with a chief HR officer, and she was talking about unfortunately wanting to either put one of her juniors on a PIP or to several the relationship.
18:15
SPEAKER_02: And you know, the junior was having a lot of frustration because the operations managers, the line managers who she was serving as the, you know, a partner, they don't listen to me.
18:25
SPEAKER_02: And so she just couldn't get across to her that they don't listen to you because they don't know you.
18:30
SPEAKER_02: You haven't taken the time to build the relationship and the trust and all that other that goes with it.
18:35
SPEAKER_02: I think it's very important to build those relationships no matter what you're doing.
18:40
SPEAKER_02: So, Maria, you have a background that not a lot of corporate leaders have and not a lot of attorneys have, but you and I, and we've spoken about this, that you grew up in your family's catering business, and everybody on your on your family's team understood the mission because you were all living it together.
19:02
SPEAKER_02: So, what do you take from those early, that early business relationship and the early education that you got as you counsel both our outside clients and then as you lead in our Detroit office as well as in the executive committee?
19:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think two main concepts kind of ring through for me.
19:24
SPEAKER_01: One, Effie talked about a bit with her athletic background.
19:28
SPEAKER_01: I think it's teamwork.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: Understanding that as leaders, um, while we sit at the top, we're there because we're supported by this amazing team that helps us to be successful, right?
19:40
SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't be able to do everything I do without my team of associates, my team of senior attorneys.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: So the concept of teamwork is critically important to success.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: And I think that every job matters.
19:53
SPEAKER_01: Growing up in a family business, I had much older brothers who had what I viewed to be more important roles in the company than what I was asked to do.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: And I would say to my parents, you know, why do I always get the small jobs?
20:06
SPEAKER_01: And my father taught me right out of the gate, every job is important.
20:09
SPEAKER_01: The small jobs build to make the bigger job complete and successful.
20:14
SPEAKER_01: And that's true for uh law firm life in-house as well, and you know, leading my office and working for the firm from the executive level.
20:23
SPEAKER_01: It's understanding and appreciating every member of our team.
20:26
SPEAKER_01: I think that's critically important to the concept we talked about earlier about culture.
20:30
SPEAKER_01: Everyone matters, every job is important to the success of the whole.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: So for me, those are the two big ones.
20:36
SPEAKER_01: What about you, Effie?
20:37
SPEAKER_01: What are some things you learned from it?
20:39
SPEAKER_01: You shared with us early on the boardwork that you do.
20:43
SPEAKER_01: So, from that board work that you do, has have has though have those experiences contributed to the culture that you sustain and build within your company.
20:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I would say, Maria, your description of trust and teamwork are essentially my anchor points in everything, like whether it be board work or being at Del Monte.
21:08
SPEAKER_03: And you're only as strong as your weakest link.
21:12
SPEAKER_03: And that's really the truth.
21:14
SPEAKER_03: And I've come to realize that it's not just me that's looking for a career that's satisfying and gets me where I want, but we're leading a group of lawyers.
21:24
SPEAKER_03: I mean, these are ambitious folks that are um, you know, ready to make an impact and ready to find an organization where they can make an impact.
21:36
SPEAKER_03: And as long as you can kindle that fire and keep them with you on your team for accomplishing the objectives that you have laid out for the organization, the better for you.
21:49
SPEAKER_03: It's been difficult at times, right?
21:50
SPEAKER_03: Like there are competing resources, you know, there are law firms that pay three times as much.
21:56
SPEAKER_03: I'm sure your firm compared to big law, same thing with.
22:00
SPEAKER_03: In-house, right?
22:00
SPEAKER_03: Like there are other organizations that pay more than we do.
22:04
SPEAKER_03: And so really what it comes down to is can you provide the value or the environment where young, talented lawyers can really make an impact not only with the company, but in their careers, can they learn from you?
22:20
SPEAKER_03: And that's really what drives me.
22:22
SPEAKER_02: I always tell the associates that I mentor and work with, hey, my job is to prepare you to be an incredible lawyer.
22:31
SPEAKER_02: And my success is when you succeed and surpass whatever I did.
22:35
SPEAKER_02: That's how I look at it.
22:36
SPEAKER_02: So it's great.
22:38
SPEAKER_02: Now, in addition to your board work, which I think is just great, you also are an arbitrator.
22:46
SPEAKER_02: Um, I recently started arbitrating cases with the AAA on their employment panel.
22:52
SPEAKER_02: Congrats.
22:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so far so good.
22:55
SPEAKER_02: I haven't had a hearing yet, but I've you know gotten close.
22:58
SPEAKER_02: But you know, for an in-house attorney as general counsel, how does that fit into your corporate role?
23:06
SPEAKER_03: Well, actually, you think of it like this.
23:09
SPEAKER_03: Um you're a subject matter expert.
23:12
SPEAKER_03: You happen to be uh an international arbitrator, certified in all different ways, and that is a real advantage to a company working multinationally, right, internationally, understanding different jurisdictions, how the law plays.
23:30
SPEAKER_03: And also the most critical is formulating contracts because you only get into arbitration because there's an arbitration clause.
23:37
SPEAKER_03: And so if you can draft that clause in the best interests of your client or if you're in-house as to the organization, the better success you're gonna have down the road in five or ten years when that joint venture or whatever goes wrong.
23:54
SPEAKER_03: So I think of it as a double, a double sword.
23:58
SPEAKER_03: The reason I actually became an international arbitrator was one, I had a specialty skill growing up in Florida.
24:04
SPEAKER_03: I had done a ton of that work.
24:06
SPEAKER_03: But I think the second part of it is that for international business, it's absolutely a critical know-how for deal making and for litigating after the fact.
24:19
SPEAKER_03: But it's also a great plan B, especially for women lawyers, right?
24:23
SPEAKER_03: If you have the thought of continuing on and doing something that's really good for your brain and for the skills that you've learned all along, being an arbitrator, there's nothing like it.
24:36
SPEAKER_03: It's absolutely fun.
24:38
SPEAKER_03: It's you you get to be a judge for the first time in your life.
24:41
SPEAKER_03: Maybe if you have a judge at a you know, traffic ticket clinic or something like that.
24:46
SPEAKER_03: You get to be the judge, you get to be impartial, you're not an advocate, and you can really look at things in a different light.
24:53
SPEAKER_03: It's just a growing, it's a growth, it's a growth muscle that I think everyone should be exposed to.
24:59
SPEAKER_02: I agree.
25:00
SPEAKER_02: It must be really reassuring to corporate parties to have someone who's a neutral who actually sat in their seat, um, knows what's going on, so that you're not trying to educate someone about how it really works in your in your company, since you you've got that.
25:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it may be reassuring to my fellow partners in-house, but I think that and to the business like the C-suite, but I think for outside counsel, when I pair up with them, it's actually really fun.
25:29
SPEAKER_03: You know, I get really tactical.
25:31
SPEAKER_03: We get a lot done.
25:32
SPEAKER_03: But you know, I encourage most attorneys, whether you're a corporate attorney doing transactional work or you're a trial attorney or a litigator, everyone should take a mediation class.
25:45
SPEAKER_03: You know, not necessarily arbitration, but take mediation because I think it helps you with the negotiation skills to really understand the other side.
25:53
SPEAKER_03: These are skill sets, and even our introduction to arbitration, these are skill sets that make you look at things differently.
26:00
SPEAKER_03: And we all want to grow as lawyers, you know, and and that's really part of the reason I went in-house in the first part, is like my North Star is to be a better lawyer.
26:10
SPEAKER_03: Learning how a business works is completely different from being in a private company and a private law firm.
26:18
SPEAKER_03: And it's just another opportunity to see how business is done from all different angles.
26:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure.
26:25
SPEAKER_02: That's really good advice because, as outside counsel, both Maria and I do litigate as well as providing advice and counsel.
26:33
SPEAKER_02: And so sometimes you get in this role of just being an advocate and really strenuously arguing your position.
26:41
SPEAKER_02: So to learn the mediation skills where banging somebody over the head with your advocacy isn't gonna work, it's it does expand your perspective.
26:52
SPEAKER_02: Don't you think, Maria?
26:55
SPEAKER_01: Oh, definitely, I agree.
26:56
SPEAKER_01: And I appreciate Effie's point that each thing we do as leaders in our companies just broadens our perspective, right?
27:04
SPEAKER_01: I took on the job here as the member in charge right after COVID, like when people were, it was actually like right before March of 2020.
27:13
SPEAKER_01: And so um dealing with ensuring people were able to get their work done every day from the law firm, that they had the paper that they need to print their brief out at home, whatever it was that they needed, ensuring that they had what they needed, and then dealing with COVID shots and bringing people back to work.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: As someone who was dealing with it with my own team, I was able to better advise my clients to say to them, this is what worked for me.
27:39
SPEAKER_01: Hey, what are you doing in this space?
27:41
SPEAKER_01: Are you aware that in uh Colorado, the governor has said A instead of B, which is what we're hearing here in Michigan?
27:49
SPEAKER_01: So it just gave me another way to connect with my client because I'm walking the talk with them, right?
27:55
SPEAKER_01: I'm sharing with them my best practices, what's worked for me here and what hasn't worked for me here.
28:00
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's true with every experience that we have.
28:03
SPEAKER_01: We bring that to our practice.
28:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
28:07
SPEAKER_02: Good point.
28:09
SPEAKER_02: So, Effie, I have to ask you this question.
28:11
SPEAKER_02: And I'm sure our listeners are probably wondering at this.
28:16
SPEAKER_02: You're running legal at a multi-billion dollar company, public company.
28:21
SPEAKER_02: You're an international arbitrator, you sit on not-for-profit boards and do incredible work there.
28:26
SPEAKER_02: You mentor, you're deeply committed to advancing women and Latina women in the legal profession.
28:32
SPEAKER_02: So, how do you do all this?
28:35
SPEAKER_02: And then more, maybe more importantly, why?
28:39
SPEAKER_02: How is this connected?
28:40
SPEAKER_02: Because to me, it doesn't seem that it's random.
28:43
SPEAKER_02: It seems very purposeful.
28:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, this is a very good question.
28:49
SPEAKER_03: And I've had a lot of people ask me the same thing, and I don't do it perfectly, but I think what's really important is I don't do it alone, right?
28:56
SPEAKER_03: I think of myself as one in a line of a lot of women lawyers that really support each other.
29:04
SPEAKER_03: I would say a couple of things.
29:06
SPEAKER_03: I'm pretty ruthless about my priorities and what I want to have at the forefront.
29:12
SPEAKER_03: I make sure that I'm never comfortable.
29:14
SPEAKER_03: Honestly, if I feel any sense of comfort in what I'm doing, I know it's a trigger point for me that I am I'm stagnating.
29:23
SPEAKER_03: And so I need to make sure that I'm always moving and learning the next new thing so that I can better advise some of the people that are coming to me for some really heavy issues about their career and things.
29:37
SPEAKER_03: But I think it all comes from the same place in the end.
29:40
SPEAKER_03: So my college is really infamous.
29:42
SPEAKER_03: We have that slogan in Latin that it's not to be served, but to serve.
29:48
SPEAKER_03: And if you think about like leadership, it's really about service.
29:51
SPEAKER_03: And whether I'm advisoring a board or smithing as an arbitrator or mentoring a lawyer or sponsoring a lawyer, I'm doing that.
30:00
SPEAKER_03: You know, I'm keeping an open door, making sure that I'm servicing, I'm putting into service because that's why we're here on earth, right?
30:07
SPEAKER_03: Really is to connect and be a community and help others get what they want out of this life.
30:14
SPEAKER_02: That's amazing.
30:15
SPEAKER_02: I was going to ask you about your leadership style, but I think you just told us all it was a service leadership style and very purposeful driven.
30:23
SPEAKER_02: So, Maria, what is your leadership style?
30:28
SPEAKER_01: I would agree.
30:29
SPEAKER_01: As Effie was talking, I have a note on my board if serving is below you, then leadership is beyond you, right?
30:36
SPEAKER_01: And I live by that.
30:38
SPEAKER_01: I think that we wear different hats, right?
30:41
SPEAKER_01: And and I give myself grace in each day.
30:43
SPEAKER_01: Some days I'm an excellent lawyer for my clients and not so great internally dealing with internal issues.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: Some days it's all about the open door and I'm a rotating door with just my associates and senior attorneys who need to bounce something off of me.
30:58
SPEAKER_01: So it's not uh I'm not 100% at each role each day, uh, but I think I do a good job of balancing that.
31:05
SPEAKER_01: The clients call me for my opinions and advice, and I work with them so that they can make well-advised decisions, which is different than what I do internally, where I'm making those decisions.
31:16
SPEAKER_01: Again, it's it's just it broadens my the lens within which I work and live so that I can best serve everyone.
31:23
SPEAKER_01: I think having these different roles gives you some humility, right?
31:28
SPEAKER_01: Serving on nonprofit boards or able to stay connected to our communities.
31:32
SPEAKER_01: I think that's very important.
31:34
SPEAKER_01: Understanding the community in which you live and work helps you to be a better lawyer for your own company and your clients.
31:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
31:46
SPEAKER_02: I want to ask both you and Maria something.
31:49
SPEAKER_02: I, of course, was privileged to have both of you talk about different aspects of leadership and inside and outside counsel.
31:57
SPEAKER_02: But Eppie, is there anything that you picked up from our conversation today, and particularly from Maria's style, that gave you further insight into outside counsel or something you might take with you going forward?
32:13
SPEAKER_03: Well, one is I wanted to tell you, Vanessa, specifically that I think you're doing a real big service for your company and for your firm in bringing together.
32:23
SPEAKER_03: And more conversations like this should happen and from different perspectives, right?
32:27
SPEAKER_03: I'm just one of many of a sea of women GCs, public company GCs, but there's a lot to learn, and folks like me are eager to talk about it.
32:38
SPEAKER_03: That's another thing.
32:40
SPEAKER_03: And we want to get our heads together with two brilliant lawyers like you both on this call, and I'm sure the brilliant lawyers that you have in your firm to move ahead and heady and tackle the heady issues, including the difficulty in raising the new generation of lawyers that are coming on board and the things that they're tackling.
33:01
SPEAKER_03: So I think what I've taken away from this conversation and you, you know, initiating it, frankly, is that it's a hard job for everybody, whether you're starting out in the profession or whether you're a leader in the profession.
33:16
SPEAKER_03: And the best thing that we can do is um just keep a North Star, making sure that everybody recognizes that failure is inevitable and that's actually it helps, it leads to growth and being resilient with our advocacy for not only you know our clients, but for ourselves.
33:41
SPEAKER_03: I think that that's really important.
33:44
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
33:45
SPEAKER_02: All right, Maria, you're in the hot seat again.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: Well, Effie made so many great points.
33:50
SPEAKER_01: Two things that resonated with me.
33:52
SPEAKER_01: First, right out of the gate, you said that you ask yourself, where can I have the most impact?
33:58
SPEAKER_01: Right.
33:58
SPEAKER_01: And I love that because I think I bring that to board service when I join a board, so many different roles, right?
34:05
SPEAKER_01: Finance, internal culture, governance.
34:08
SPEAKER_01: So I walk into a room and ask, okay, where can I have the most impact?
34:12
SPEAKER_01: Where can I help?
34:13
SPEAKER_01: And I heard you say that as well.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: So I love that.
34:16
SPEAKER_01: Where can you have the most impact?
34:17
SPEAKER_01: Where can how can we use the skills that we have to improve someone else's life, right?
34:23
SPEAKER_01: Or some and help someone in their career path.
34:26
SPEAKER_01: And then I appreciate just generally Effie's balance of it all.
34:30
SPEAKER_01: The fact that she is serving on boards, she's serving as the general counsel to a multi-billion dollar corporation and doing all kinds of wonderful things in her community, coming up as a team player on all these sports, just the balance of it all is impressive.
34:47
SPEAKER_01: And you know, it gives me the drive to just keep going and keep trying to do that balance as well.
34:52
SPEAKER_01: So thank you for leading the way and showing us that it is achievable.
34:56
SPEAKER_03: We're in it together.
34:57
SPEAKER_03: We're in it together.
34:58
SPEAKER_03: That's what I say.
34:59
SPEAKER_02: It's very inspiring for me.
35:02
SPEAKER_02: Um, and maybe this is a difficult one for me to swallow.
35:05
SPEAKER_02: When you said, whenever I get comfortable, I know I'm stagnating because there's so many things I'm not 100% comfortable doing, and I talk myself into doing it, but I sort of like that comfort, feeling like, oh my God, I can just rest for a minute.
35:21
SPEAKER_02: But now you've challenged me to rethink what comfort means and is there a better growth opportunity to be staying a little uncomfortable?
35:30
SPEAKER_02: And really I love that about our leadership and having these discussions because you do get different perspectives, you're constantly learning, and you you also said really early on about curiosity, and I think that does serve us all really well to be curious and to keep going forward.
35:48
SPEAKER_02: So, last question Do you think that strong leadership is a preventative legal strategy?
35:56
SPEAKER_03: It's funny.
35:57
SPEAKER_03: Um there is this concept in arbitration that's called early dispute resolution.
36:05
SPEAKER_03: It's heading off before you get into a dispute, having some an advocate, not necessarily in-house, but outside counsel that knows your company really well, speaking to the other side about the issue to stave off even triggering that clause.
36:24
SPEAKER_03: And it's interesting because in theory, it's exactly what the company wants, right?
36:30
SPEAKER_03: The company doesn't want to stop business because of a dispute.
36:33
SPEAKER_03: They want to continue to make revenue, continue the case, shipping the product, and not have to compromise or or waste away for um something that maybe could be a bump in the road.
36:47
SPEAKER_03: When you're talking about, like, is there something in leadership or it's pre-existing, is something you can do early on.
36:55
SPEAKER_03: I think it's being self-aware, right?
36:58
SPEAKER_03: Having the emotional intelligence in this day of AI coming on board, I think the more emotional intelligence that you can have about the issues, the leadership, what's really behind the decision making, as opposed to thinking everything very uh for face value and getting around issues and understanding the pushes and pulls, the better you are to stave off any sort of conflicts or erosion of confidence or other issues that we face as lawyers, right?
37:34
SPEAKER_03: You really can teach emotional intelligence and goes back to like the mediation comment I made earlier is that it's a skill set.
37:42
SPEAKER_03: I mean, honestly, frankly, when I first took my mediation class, I wasn't commended by the teachers.
37:48
SPEAKER_03: I was expecting to be like the greatest mediator of all time at taking the training class, but it was a point where you know my empathy or understanding the other side's shoes wasn't as clear as it should have been.
38:01
SPEAKER_03: And maybe that had been being an advocate for so long and seeing only things one-sided.
38:07
SPEAKER_03: You think that you're in this profession for 25 years and that you know the gaps in your argument and you know how the other side's seeing things, but that's not true.
38:17
SPEAKER_03: And you actually see that a lot, you're faced with that a lot more in-house than you are at a law firm because you're not living with the client, and you can see the political gaps that are that exist.
38:30
SPEAKER_03: So I think that is one way to sort of get ahead of it, like a pre-sort of leadership requirement, is this emotional intelligence, see the gaps and ferret that out because it will change the way that you approach different matters.
38:48
SPEAKER_02: That's a great answer.
38:50
SPEAKER_01: Great answer.
38:51
SPEAKER_01: That is great.
38:52
SPEAKER_01: I don't think I can do any better than that, but I do love the emotional intelligence.
38:56
SPEAKER_01: Vanessa is the queen of training on emotional intelligence.
39:02
SPEAKER_01: Whenever we have a training session here internally, or we're doing a training for clients, I lean on Vanessa because that is her language, self-awareness, emotional intelligence.
39:13
SPEAKER_01: How do we help people to get there?
39:14
SPEAKER_01: So I hope it's a trait that can be taught and learned because we have a wonderful person in Vanessa to keep us on, keep us moving forward doing it.
39:24
SPEAKER_03: Honestly, besides besides cost, bit emotional intelligence with my outside counsel, if they've got it, I'm gonna give them more business because you start to trust people, you know?
39:35
unknown: Yeah.
39:36
SPEAKER_03: If you're understanding, if you're reading between the lines of what I'm trying to tell you, that's gold.
39:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think at its core is a lot of self-awareness and a lot of active listening rather than listening to do that.
39:51
SPEAKER_02: But we have a bespoke leadership program for our up-and-coming senior attorneys in the firm.
39:58
SPEAKER_02: And so for two years, and as Maria said, I handled the EQ and so at the end of the last session, like when we were saying goodbye to everybody, I said to them, okay, you know it it wouldn't be a session with Vanessa unless you got your positive affirmations.
40:13
SPEAKER_02: So they're all sitting there looking at me.
40:15
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, remember, the voice we hear the most in this world is our own.
40:19
SPEAKER_02: So be kind to yourself.
40:20
SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, all yourself all you're doing is filling yourself with negativity.
40:24
SPEAKER_02: And they all walk out.
40:25
SPEAKER_02: And I went in and they're going, I wonder if they all think I'm like, this is what I could do.
40:29
SPEAKER_02: One lawyer talks like this.
40:31
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, um, to me, it's it's something I'm very passionate about.
40:34
SPEAKER_03: So Vanessa, let me tell you, um, I had lunch with a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist I've known for years.
40:43
SPEAKER_03: She's not doing that, she's not a journalist anymore, but she's working for a cybersecurity company.
40:48
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
40:48
SPEAKER_03: And just sitting with her for an hour for lunch, I realized my listening skills need to be refined because I have never been so uh, I don't know, I I would say it was such a like a force of nature.
41:05
SPEAKER_03: The way she was listening, really, you know, not disrupted, stayed on track, was really inherently interested.
41:13
SPEAKER_03: There is nothing like being the subject of a really good listener.
41:18
SPEAKER_03: And if we can all improve those skills and make and make the other person feel like they were heard, the sky's the limit in terms of business development.
41:30
SPEAKER_03: That that's it.
41:32
SPEAKER_02: Right, that's wonderful.
41:34
SPEAKER_02: All right, folks, you all got amazing tips today, so we're gonna wrap.
41:38
SPEAKER_02: But a huge thank you to my two guests today, Evie again.
41:43
SPEAKER_02: It was great to have you.
41:45
SPEAKER_02: You are an amazing inspiration.
41:47
SPEAKER_02: And Maria, you too.
41:49
SPEAKER_02: It was wonderful to have you and to hear your perspectives.
41:52
SPEAKER_02: And I get the privilege of working with you quite frequently, and I think our listeners are really going to love this episode.
41:59
SPEAKER_02: So thank you again.
42:01
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
42:01
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: This podcast is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or a solicitation to provide legal services.
42:10
SPEAKER_00: The information in this podcast is not intended to create and receipt of it does not constitute a lawyer client relationship.
42:16
SPEAKER_00: Listeners should not act upon this information without seeking professional legal counsel.
42:20
SPEAKER_00: The views and opinions expressed in the podcast represent those of the individual speaker only and are not necessarily the views of Clark Hill PLC.