#23 - Engagement as a GC Superpower with Lisa Gilley at Higher Logic

What does it take to run a high performing business? Strategy, finesse and a lot of advice from people who've been there, done that before. I'm Mary o'. Carroll. Join me on my Pearls on Gloves off podcast to hear from the leaders building some of the most innovative companies today. We'll take a high value, no holds barred approach to find out what works. See you there.

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of our show. Lisa, hi. It's so great to see you as always.

Great to see you, Mary. I'm so happy to be here.

Thank you for being here. I thought maybe we could start by talking a little bit about Higher Logic, which I was familiar with just because in the history of building clock, Higher Logic is the platform that we chose to build the clock community on and we use and it's been great, but we'd love for everyone else's education, it probably is not a household name. So tell us a little bit about what your company does.

That's right, exactly. As we're the leading provider of online community, community and engagement platform for both the association and the corporate market. So we are really all about enablement and connection and driving business results for our customers through online community. And what we're finding is more and more over time that is becoming the key driver, especially in a more challenging economy. It's getting those engaged customer relationships and member relationships and all of the synergies that can be driven from that, including all of the hard business goals like revenue and retention and customer engagement. So yeah, we're thrilled that we can be part of that for our customers.

Awesome. Well, obviously community is really important to us. At Ironclad, I have a C level role with Community in the title. We really believe it's a force multiplier of a function as well. Are you seeing that grow in just generally in corporations but also in kind of the SaaS world, as I feel like even in our legal communities we're seeing so much focus on community.

Think force multiplier is exactly right. Right now what we're finding is that for our customers, turning to community and finding ways to engage their customer base, to engage their member base is really key to driving that business. It's all about enablement. It's about everything from ideation and the sharing of ideas. Q and A self serve, something that we want in the legal ops world. How do we get customers to engage with one another and engage with the business? We have a feedback loop and we have a very engaged customer community ourselves. We have gain, grow, retain, which is A wonderful community that our customers engage with. And it's really about creating engagement, creating a feedback loop, creating support for our customers, places for them to go to engage. And then that in turn, of course drives the business, results in everything from what we say is an engaged customer is a retained customer. And that's true for our businesses, for ourselves. And it's really about enabling the entire customer experience from beginning to end.

That's so right. And the way that I always say it is we're sort of doubling down on our customer success. And the engagement that you mentioned with the customer community is so important. A lot of folks see kind of the external view of what our community is. We have me and Alex sue out there and they're like, oh, it's kind of just having a social following. And I'm very vocal about the fact that a following is not the same as a community. Those are very different things.

Absolutely. And of course that level of engagement is maybe the spark. Right. That we've all seen some of those videos. We love them in this legal community. But for any community, there may be something that ignites the community and it brings the members together. But then it's what happens once that community is established that's the real driver and that's the true engagement. And that's the idea sharing. And it's really about ideas, it's about innovation, it's about how can we make one another better. And that's really what we see and what I think is one of the most exciting things that we see within our communities. And that's particularly true what we're finding in the corporate market. We've long been in the association market and now we're a leader in the corporate market as well. And the goals are the same, which is engagement. And they look slightly different in each vertical, but they're really. It's all about engagement and it's all about driving the business to whatever its success model may actually be. And it's always around engagement. That of everything.

I find it to be so fascinating, the rise of the community function, the way that I've seen the early days of the rise of legal ops, there's so many parallels where people are like, what is it that you do? And then I really believe that if we fast forward a few years from now, every company is going to have this function, everyone's going to understand what this is. So, yeah, it's an evolution.

Yes. And you're exactly right. The parallels are there across the board and it's really always come back to the word enablement, it's really all about enablement. It's just as our communities help our customers and our member customers out there in the association and corporate markets. It's very similar to the way that legal ops and legal departments now are enabling our businesses. It's all the same. It's the feedback loop, it's the enablement, it's the making teams better, it's the repeatable solutions, it's the how do I get my hands on information quickly to enable me to make better, quicker, more impactful, more value based decisions. Right, right there.

Yeah. And so much of the innovation, the creativity, the like, how are you doing stuff is going to come from your peers and not necessarily from the corporation or the service provider that you have. I'm curious, in your professional role, do you leverage GC communities or in house legal communities yourself? And have those been useful to you?

Yes. In fact, it's so interesting that you say this and I know we did not plan this question, but it's very timely. So we actually had an off site last week within our portfolio of companies and it was in a roundtable that a variety of BGCs from throughout the portfolio company engaged in as part of a larger community. This is on design.

Sorry, you're a private equity parent.

Exactly. And so we have an off site where we were engaging ideas and in particular we were talking about AI and we were talking about how different companies were leveraging that or looking at that. And that is a very valuable tool for us. And in addition to that, I think that just as you've seen in your community, GCs are really growing in terms of influence and the types of issues that we're involved in, I would say in all of our businesses. And so LinkedIn has been a tremendous community for just connection among those GCs. There are so many GCs who are really engaged in conversation these days who are engaged in the sharing of ideas. And one of the things that I think is very interesting and perhaps unique about our community is that it's a very supportive community. I think there's a general sense that we're all trying to enable our businesses to the best of our ability. And if someone has encountered an issue or has a vendor, for example, we love to share that. In fact, I often say that I'm an unofficial salesperson for Ironclad, because in almost any discussion that I have with other GCs, one of the, one of the key topics that I talk about is the importance of tools, the importance of technology, the importance of leveraging Legal Ops and all the different tools that are out there. We obviously use ironclad and really that is a game changer for the GC community. And I think that a couple of years ago that felt very novel. And right now it feels like it's table stakes to be an effective gc.

Yeah. So much has changed. You're absolutely right. And this theme of this conversation, I love it, it's come full circle because if you recall, you and I actually met through the LinkedIn community. I think.

Exactly.

You reached out to me. Right. And said, I've been following some of your stuff. I want to learn more about. I'm a solo gc. I want to learn more about how to do this legal operations and scaling.

Right.

And then we met.

That's exactly right. And it's so interesting because I have very recently been talking to other solo GCs who were talking about should they bring on a Legal Ops person, should it be maybe a more junior lawyer? All of the same conversations that I think we had at the beginning when I was looking to bring on a tool and expand that department. And it's interesting to me because that really is a perfect example about how the entire ecosystem, whether it's gcs, whether it's tools, whether it's legal ops, it's all about putting the pieces together to create a very efficient and very effective legal department. And I think back to those early conversations that we had. And I remember after talking to you in particular, being more certain than ever that we really needed legal operations. And we did. And we wound up turbocharging ahead with that because we had acquired a new company and really Legal Apps was the perfect tool that we needed to really make sure that we were integrating those companies effectively and efficiently. And it really, that was two years ago and now we've really seen it grow and blossom. And I can't imagine being able to scale and grow with the speed of business without that function in place.

Yeah. And so how big is your legal function now at Higher Logic?

So right now we are still small and mighty, so we just brought on a legal ops director. But the way that we really operate is cross functionally. So we do a lot of cross functional teams that are involved in everything from true legal operations. We've got data privacy, information security, we've got it, We've got a lot of synergy with teams like engineering and all of the other ops teams, revenue ops, et cetera, finance. So we really operate very, very much in a cross functional way. And we influence and touch really Every department of the business. And I don't think that we would be able to do do that quite as cross functionally and effectively as we are able to if not forward the tools and being moved to legal ops.

Yeah, I was going to say that that sounds really lean for the size and scale of a company, the size of yours.

It's very lean. Yeah, no, it's very lean. It is. It's interesting because I've talked to other GCs and I get that feedback quite a bit of how is this possible with such a lean team. But to me it really comes down to really comes kind of full circle back to the idea of community. When the business operates as its own supportive collaborative community, then no one is an island, right? We are all constantly learning and collaborating and sharing ideas. Again, I think the baseline is without legal apps and not sure we could scale as efficiently as we've been able to. But even within that we're still very lean. And so I think to me it all comes down to community and the kind type of teamwork that inherently must be at play when we're growing as quickly as we are. We're lucky to have a great team and then also to be able to layer on tools on top of that.

And well, I think they're very lucky to have you to have someone who has that sort of mindset of are there different ways for me to scale myself as a small legal department? Rather than just let me hire tons of outside counsel, let me hire tons of head coaches, account internally, you came in with a very different mindset and an approach. Where did that come from? Do you think that's just something like innate in you or was it, did you come from a different legal department where you saw tech and tooling and ops be helpful? Like where did that idea come from?

Yeah, no, it's a great question. It's interesting. I always like to say that I had and the reason I think I gravitated to an in house practice is I have an entrepreneurial spirit. I have a real appreciation for growing a business. I love working with salespeople, I love working with our business people. And there is something I think inherent in my appreciation for what they do and my desire to be entrepreneurial in my role as well. And I always sort of say you need to be the CEO of your role, whatever role that is. And so for me, I worked in the business from the beginning. I always tell people that my first job out of law school was at the Discovery Channel in the legal department. So I really cut my teeth and learned the profession from a perspective that was uniquely in house. And I know that's really unusual. In fact, recently I saw a statistic that said I think 20 or 22% of in house attorneys, only 20 or 22% did not begin their career in a law firm. And so for me, my law firm was a business. Yeah, I learned from the best and I learned really early on that there was no legal success in house if there wasn't also business success. And I think that mindset changed everything for me. And I think it really is just something that it connected with me early on. And I've just seen that. And there's nothing that I like more than to be our team succeed and see the group win and all of those kinds of things. So for me, I think that's probably just sprinkled into my approach and everything that I do in this role. And my goal has never been to occupy more real estate in the business with bodies or technology or tools. It's really to how can we do the most in the most efficient way possible? And I like to model that. I like to think that I model that in the business. And I think that one of the things that's really great about being in a small, nimble legal department is you have a sphere of influence that spans the entire business. And it's up to you to figure out the best way to prioritize your time, your expertise, so that you can really amplify knowledge, you can share knowledge, and you can really train and mentor your teams well.

And that's what I. Yeah, that's the fun part, right? Job working cross functionally, helping the business grow and get things done, rather than just being the team that churns through the volume of repeat work.

Exactly. And this is where the tools come, right? So I think that really for me, early on I thought, wow, okay, A lawyer could spend their entire day on red lines. Right? We've all been there and what can happen. And there will always be another NDA, there will always be another red line, There will always be that work. So how do you figure out a way to create efficiencies within that work? Because we know what that looks like. We all know. If you could ask any in house lawyer, what are the top five issues they see on their top three agreements? And they could tell you cold what those issues are. If you really want to create efficiency, it's not that difficult even manually, right. To figure out, okay, well, what are the talking points? How can I help my team? How can I do playbooks. So we've been doing that. I've been doing that in this role because I've been a GC three times. So I've been doing that since before technology kind of existed. Since before. Before technology existed. Before Lealox existed. But you can figure out ways to do it. But then it's all about scale. With the advent of this kind of new technology, you can really just scale what you're doing. We have a lot of really fun things, actually repeatable playbooks and language, and we can move things around. And here, try this. And here's the fallback. And when you can engage with your teams like that, it just really moves the lawyer from be. Yes, you can use this language. No, you can't. You very kind of can lead to that department of no that we've all heard about before. When legal doesn't quite work that well with the business, moves you out of that space and into the solutioning space. Here are some ideas. Think about how that feels to a salesperson or a business person, right? Instead of, no, you can't do this. You can only do that instead. When you really engage with your team, here are the variety of options we have. What do you think? How about this? And in those conversations, one of the things that I love most is that people are learning all the time. I'm learning from our salespeople. Oh, I didn't know that was an issue. Let me think about that. Salespeople are learning from me or now from my team. And to me, one of the biggest compliments I can get is when one of our business people says, wow, I feel like I'm an honorary member of the legal department. And I love it. I love it when I hear that, because to me, we're doing our job well. If our business people feel empowered and feel like they understand the why behind the decisions that we're making. And to me, that all feeds right back into that loop of technology. Right. It's like these are exactly the same things that we can do by building out legal tech and legal ops, because we're just taking our expertise and sharing it in a new way. Tools are different. Goal is exactly the same.

Well, and I love your perspective there, because I know that a lot of folks feel like, oh, God, if I put more power into the hands of my business users or my sales folks, they'll be going rogue or they'll lose that touch. Like, we are a service provider. As a legal department, we wanted to have a high touch with our internal clients. And if we make it all self service for them, we'll sort of lose that relationship. But what you're telling me is it's actually quite the opposite. They value you more. You're empowering them.

You're so deeply. Yeah, no, absolutely. In fact, I think about the first sales kickoff that I did in this role at Higher Logic. And I remember at the time and I was new, people didn't know me, they didn't really know my approach yet. And I remember saying very clearly in that meeting, if I do my job well, I will make myself obsolete. Kind of a quiet in the room. What is she talking about? What does that mean? And I really, I think back to that a lot. I repeat that quite a bit because I think it's really true. I think you have to have the confidence and that's where it comes from. I think it's, you have to have the confidence in your ability to teach and mentor and train people and collaborate with people, such that the job that you're doing, day one, really does become obsolete. You as a lawyer don't become obsolete. You as a person don't become obsolete. But you're no longer doing that role. You've actually launched yourself into some new exciting role. And I hope that's true every step of the way. And that's a mantra that I want our Legal Ops team to be thinking about. What are the things you can do to make yourself obsolete right now and have the confidence that there will be a greater goal for you in the next step and the next step and the next step. Because like you said before, that's where it gets fun. Let's do the repeatable things and then onward to the collaboration and the fun and the real partnership.

I couldn't agree more. I the saying that I used to have in Legal Ops is our job is to optimize ourselves out of a job. So if we don't need this anymore, it's a win.

It's a win, but it takes it. You really have to believe it. Because one of the things, I think that legal departments that don't operate from that mindset are really at risk, especially now with the advent of AI and all of these new tools and technology. If you think that your value is based on a scarcity model, that you're the person, you're the point of failure or the point of success, or you have the information back here behind the curtain, that's just an outdated mentality. And I just don't think that works. It's not scalable. And I don't think it serves the business or the people. Part of what we really have the ability to do in these roles, I think, is in addition to creating efficiencies and doing all this interesting work based on our expertise, we also have the ability to really influence and grow our teams. And we can't do that if we're not operating from kind of a place of abundance. To say, here's what I know. Let me capture it in a variety of ways that's very useful to you. Employee, customer, et cetera. How do I share that out and know that there is a bigger goal in the next stage and the next stage? And I think that's exciting. I really do.

Did you struggle as a smaller legal department to get the resources to dedicate ahead to legal ops to get budget for technology? And how did you make that case? Because I know a lot struggle with that.

Yeah, I'm happy to say that I did not have that issue. And again, I'd take this back to collaboration and leadership. I'm very lucky. I should, knock on wood, very lucky that we have a wonderful, engaged, supportive, collaborative team. So for me, I probably had a unique experience where it was our leadership who came to me when we were expanding and we're about to acquire a business, basically said, you're doing a lot. We think we need another headcount for you. And it was actually, that's the way it came out. So to me, it's really been a really wonderful collaboration. I think that I'm a big believer that you show you don't tell, and I think you show your value and you show your willingness to do all that needs to be done for a business. And when you have a wonderful team and collaborative partners, people say, hey, we like what you're doing, and we want to amplify that. And luckily, that's what happened. And then, coincidentally, I was looking at ironclad during that period. And really, at that point, we did have this inflection point with an acquisition, and so everything did get turbocharged. But I was working with one of your sales reps who I'd been engaged with, and he was demoing the tool and everything, and all the pieces came together in just the right order. And I can remember being on a call with some of our senior leadership and demoing the product and talking it through and really being excited about being able to share with our team essentially what was my vision of what our legal department could be. And it was so aligned with the tool that it really worked well. And I think that when you're making the business case for a business team, and you've built up trust and credibility in your expertise already. They'll basically say, we've vetted it, we feel comfortable with it. And if you feel comfortable with it and this is the tool you want to take and we'll trust you, then that kind of trust just opens the doors. And pretty soon we implemented Ironclad and we were off to races and yeah, great.

That's great to hear. But I think 100% echoing the idea that you have to kind of establish that trust and credibility first. And then when you go to ask for that headcount or that budget.

That's right.

You have the conviction and the confidence and you're not kind of wavering and saying, I'm not sure I really need it. That you're making a case that this will absolutely make us better for these 10 reasons.

Absolutely. And I also think that there's probably a cautionary tale in there too. Right. For teams that don't go through that particular process of really, I would say understanding the business use case, understanding how the tool aligns with that business use case, and basically asking the introspective and kind of difficult questions of do you understand enough what the goal is and what your starting point is so that you can be confident that's the right tool? Because no tool is magic. Right. And none of us are magic. Right. All we're doing is taking our expertise and trying to apply the right tools and the right process to create the efficiency that we need in the business. But the starting point has to be that expertise. And that's in a legal department, is the legal expertise. But it's also understand your business. What does your business need? How do they operate? What are the gaps you're looking to fill? Because some of them cannot be filled by a tool there. Some of the things really have to be, do you have the right foundation in place so that the tool can be successful? If you don't right size your tool and you have a tool that is not really going to be workable for your team, they won't use it. And if they don't use it and you have low adoption, then you're just going to have frustrating cycles. So, and we say this with our community customers, I'd say the same is that part of what's amazing is when you really understand your customers and this is where community comes back in and you have that communication channel, you have that engagement, you are constantly aware of what the customer needs. Well, in house, our Customers are the business team. So when we know what their needs are, we can direct them to the right tool, or we can say, this tool's gonna work for 90% of the business. The other 10%, we'll deal with this separately. But you just have to use your expertise and listen to what their needs are. And then. Then you trust and you make the next best decision you can. And when you have a supportive team, that's pretty easy to do. Yeah.

Listening to you talk and how you really want to understand your client, your customers. So many GC silos in house counsel ask the dreaded question of how do you demonstrate value as a legal department? How do you demonstrate value as a gdc? And my guess is you probably don't get that question a lot. But I think you're working on so much of the strategic thought process and understanding the business and understanding where you can add value to the business, to the process, to empower, to enable. Is that it is. Are there other tricks of the trade to show the value that your legal department brings and as a result get the rewards of more investment and trust?

Yeah. No. It's a great question, and it is interesting because that is a common question that you hear when you're talking to other GCs. How do you demonstrate your value? And I always do take a step back from that, because I think, again, if you were operating from that position, that these are your customers. So you are here to deliver value for customers that should be ingrained in everything we're doing all day long. Now, it doesn't mean they're in the legal department. There are also bird rails. There are all of those other things that we know go along with the business. It doesn't mean just saying yes. That certainly does not provide value. It's providing wise counsel and all of those things that go with it. But, yeah, to me, if you're asking, how do I show my value? If you're in a role and you're asking that, I would say that's a moment to step back and think, how am I showing up in that role? How am I showing up in that role? Because in a role like the GC role, you have an opportunity to show your value every day. Yeah. Every interactions, every conversation, it is. Every time there's a customer call, okay, it may be 6:30 your time because the customer is traveling, you show up for that call because that demonstrates something that is unspoken to your sales team. It says, I will be there. If it's an international customer and it's late at Night sometime, you show up on that call, you show up and you deliver. If somebody, in our case, we use Slack, if somebody pings you on Slack with a quick question, you try to be responsive and it's all the little things. I believe the big ticket things will take care of themselves. You will close the deals, you will make the deal happen, you will give the good advice, you will do all of those things. But if you can show up in those smaller moments, because you've got teams across the business that anything they're reaching out to Legal for is likely to be one of the most important things on their list. Even if, candidly, it may not be the most important thing on the legal list that day, it is undoubtedly going to be the most important thing on that business person's list for the day. So I think when you lead with that kind of empathy, you take the call. Even if you say, here's my quick analysis of that. Let me get back to you later. It's those little things. It's the EQ of the job is really what I would say is that if you're leading with that eq, you are demonstrating value second nature every day. Now, that's on the one hand. On the other hand, I think it's also great to talk and speak the language of the business. And we do is the legal department, as all other departments do in our business, we provide a quarterly update and we track some key metrics and we track some key wins and things like that. And I always tell other GCs, don't be afraid of that. I think early in my career I was afraid of that. Right. It was tooting our own horn or we're here for the business. We shouldn't take credit this, that the other. I think it's important to. Just as any other business unit does, headlines, here are wins. Look at what we were able to do. Look what we're involved in. Because oftentimes in legal departments, the win for legal may show up as a win for another department. And that's the beauty of it. That's the collaboration. Right. But it's also okay to demonstrate, oh, here were the different projects we were involved in because Legal may not be quite as visible in that. So I think if you keep track of those kind of important KPIs, but then also you're delivering value for individual people in their roles. And what you have is the beauty of the shout out. I feel very lucky to have a supportive team, but they're very appreciative. Wow. Legal helped us do this or that or whatever. And it's those small moments that build the value and trust.

Are there any key metrics or KPIs that have been really useful or the regular things that you look at a GC and or report up with?

Yeah, well, it's more to me what I find the unhelpful KPIs that I think sometimes people get stuck on turn times are useful, but they're not everything. For example, depending on the nature of the customer, that days to close and all of that in terms of drafts of red lines is not typically that useful. It's nice to know. I do like that. It's nice to know. But again, if people know that you're responsive, then it becomes second nature. Oh, that deal is a little bit slow. They know it's not slow on our legal department side. They know that there's maybe an issue that's being worked through or there's a draft that's taken longer in the outside or something like that. To me, one of the key metrics that I like more than turn times and SLAs and things like that for legal, because I just don't think they work so effectively. I really like percentage on standard paper. That's a huge one. Yummy. If we can drive up that percentage of standard paper, then I know we're in a good place. Not just because that's fantastic news for the business, but it means that again, we've closed that feedback loop. We're taking the lessons of, hey, which we've done this for a few years now quarterly. What are the big ticket issues we're seeing in our standard agreements? Is there something there that we need to be addressing? Is the market telling us something? If a high percentage of customers are taking issue with something, then either it means there's something happening around that topic that's worth digging into, or maybe we're not explaining our position correctly or accurately. Let's take a look at a talking point. Do we need a training? What can we do? How can we address it? So I think that the more customers adopt standard paper, that becomes a real reflection that, okay, we have a living, breathing document here that is reflective of the market that is all about a win win because we all need to protect ourselves. But it only works if both sides are comfortable with the agreement. And yeah, I'm very pleased. That's a measure for us of success. And that's a KPI that I look at very closely because I think it speaks again to what is happening with our customers. What's happening in the market, how can we be responsive?

I think that's a great one. The way you explain it is also fantastic because yes, being on your standard paper also accelerates the deals, makes things go faster on your own. But also you're mentioning it like a living, breathing document. It is not your standard paper. That's set in stone. You're constantly looking at what's changing, what's being negotiated, what's getting pushed back and why, and can we get better over time.

So that's right.

That's really important.

Exactly right. And I think that's the key. It's all a living, breathing document and it's all about the nature of the relationship. And to me, I really do believe it all ties together with everything we've been talking about. Because it's all about what are we engaged in? Are we enabling our business? Because our contracts are a tool, right? They're a tool for our business to close their deals. That's a tool. So what are we doing with the tools available to us to accelerate our business and to close the best deals that we can? And to begin, what I think is the partnership with that customer right then and there, I think about that whenever we have a negotiation with a customer, even if we some, we can't always agree to everything that people ask for. But as long as you have a rational basis and a customer centric, we'll take the time, we'll explain it, we'll talk it through. Here's why we do this, here's the way other customers have handled this, or here's what we've seen in the market. If you're willing to engage like that, then you've created a really great jumping off point for a partnership. And again, if you have the tools to take care of that repeatable stuff that's a little bit more high volume, low risk, then you in your role as GC can have those conversations. And you're free to do that because you've got bandwidth to do it right.

Then you actually have the time to build a relationship.

That's right. Because if you can't get out from underneath the weeds, then you can't even engage in those things. And so to me, it's a little bit like you've got to tend to those foundational items. And sometimes that does meet. You have to get into all the weeds. There's no way around that. And that's not a bad thing. I think that sometimes we hear the weeds and that happens in legal, but those weeds matter. And so Those smaller issues can be very significant. So we address those things. But we figure out a way to be efficient and we figure out a way to create repeatable solutions so that those small issues don't escalate and become big issues. Right. We're just ignoring them, we're just handling them in a different way. And then like you say, we then have the bandwidth and the time to really engage with our customers that are external and most importantly our business teams as well. And it's all that feedback loop and trust loop. Yeah, well.

And getting a leader that gets in the weeds and keeps their pencil sharp I think is the type of leader that everybody wants to work for anyway. So gotta, you know, know what's going on up and down.

Yeah. And it's so interesting because I think that's true. I'm a big believer in that too. That I think the idea of. Sometimes you'll hear folks talk about I wanna work on strategic things and all of that. And I have a line that I use occasionally that is sometimes the tactical is strategic. Right. Like sometimes like getting into the weeds. Like I spent. Oh my gosh, I. Well, of course I loved doing it, but ripped apart some of our agreements in early days and looked at them from every different angle and what pressure tested variety of different things. And of course I loved doing that. Cause I like to do that. But that was time well spent. That was very much in the weeds. But that was really time well spent because the output of that, the result of that was something much more efficient. And it enabled me to feel very comfortable from the early days in this role that I knew all of the issues inside and out. And I don't think you can apply technology or tools or even really strategy before you put that solid foundation into place. And once it's there, then the sky is the limit. Then you've got all of that. But yeah, I think for a lawyer you got to keep the pencil sharpened. You got to get into the red line sometimes and just really hash it out because keeps you sharp and keeps you on top of things and it keeps you engaged. What really is happening in the market. Because the red lines tell the story.

Yeah, yeah. As someone like you, who's very open to technology and embracing it, with all kind of the rapid recent advancements in AI and even just regular technology and what it can do and the usability of it, how has it affected the GC role in recent years and what are some of the challenges and opportunities and maybe even with AI that you're thinking about?

Yeah. I think to me, I've been thinking about this a lot recently and to me it's really about eq. I keep coming back to that is AI is the latest. Obviously it's on everyone's mind, it's in every conversation, but it really is to some degree, they all are revolutionary. No doubt about that. It's another tool. So it's just another tool. So I think the GC role is really about how do you assess the situation, how do you assess, be it new technology, a new problem that crosses your desk, how do you solution that, how do you provide context and understanding for your teams to help them guide through something new? And it happens to be AI, but it's really probably on any GC's desk, any of 10 things that might come flying in the door on any given day. The GC really spends their day adjusting to incoming information, perhaps surprising information. You kind of keep calm and carry on, assess the situation, understand what the key issues are, pinpoint the problems, understand the right way to solve it. Maybe not have all the answers nobody can, especially if it's something new and revolutionary, but begin to make sure that you're asking the right questions. And I think key challenge that I would see in this new stage for GCS is frankly, how do you use the tools and technology and things like LEO Ops so that you do have the bandwidth to handle these new and incoming, challenging, thorny and thrilling issues that are going to be confronting us when we look at AI. So how do you make sure that you are in the conversation, that you can be heard, that you have a seat at the table? I think it's a really interesting time to be a gc because I do think that our voice needs to be heard in these conversations and it can't be heard if we're viewed as a department of no. So I think all that groundwork that folks have been doing all of these years leading up to this, it really prepares you well for this next stage because it's the same dynamic. It's just on a bigger stage in something that is transformative and revolutionary, but it's the same thing.

It's a great way to think about it.

Your team.

Yeah, and we've been talking about the GC role, but of course we know, Lisa, that you recently, within the last year, got promoted, so you're now a clo, Chief Legal Officer. And that role and the GC role and the CLO role, there's even more kind of change in transformation and responsibilities happening in our industry around even what falls under the umbrella of these roles, have you felt a difference in the change in role title? What does it mean for you?

No. That's really interesting. And again, I feel like in any of these roles, it's really, you are the CEO of your role. So a title role, all of it. If you lead in what you're doing, from your first job out of law school all the way through to wherever you may go, be the CEO, be the leader of that role. So I like to think that I'm always approached a role, regardless of title, with that same approach. What I do think has shifted for me personally is I just feel an even greater sense of service to each and every part of the company. I really do feel like it's given me an even greater sense that of how all the parts fit together and how everything really is connected. And that's particularly true, I would say, first and foremost, in terms of the mentoring and the teaching role that I like to take on, which I do think is probably the most fun and rewarding part of the work. But to me, I really, in this new stage, have taken on much more of a personal responsibility for mentoring and teaching teams and really wanting people to grow in their roles and get to the why behind the what of what we do and really help understand and drive one of the values that we have. It was just continual learning and constant communication and improvement. And we have a variety of core values around everything from casual approachability to energetic excellence. And all of these things that are really wonderful about how you show up as a leader. And to me, that's probably been the biggest issue, is we're all responsible for one another in the business. And I think that's true across the board. But I certainly, I feel that even more deeply recently, that sense of stewardship of the business, as always, but also personal responsibility for. We're here to make our teams thrive. We're here to make our teams the best they can be. And I aspire anyway to lead with that approach every day.

Fantastic. Just a final question is we're sort of running short on time here. You're a mentor to many, and I know there's a lot of solo GCs or small legal departments out there that are thinking, how do I know when should I be investing in more scale, more operations, more technology? Don't you think it's a little too early? I'm just one person. What kind of advice would you give to folks like that? Because that's a common question.

It is. I got that question recently, too. And what I Said is get in there early with the technology because you will never regret it. You will never regret it. And the technology can scale as your department scales. But for me, in fact, a GC recently asked me if I only had a budget for a tool or a legal ops person, which would you pick? Yeah, okay. I thought, oh, wow, the pressure is on. But my answer was I would pick the tool first because I think you will never regret having the tool in place. And some of the technology is very intuitive and it is so helpful. And again, it's about as the leader in that role, it is absolutely a good use of your time. It's the tactical, as strategic to learn the tool, to get into the tool, to understand what the potential of that technology is. And I think when you're in there, that can really help the solo GC a tremendous amount. And then you know a lot more about what you need in your first hire. Now, I would say the first hire these days should almost always be a legal ops hire. I think that's just. I'm more convinced of that all the time. But I think if you had to pick, I think you pick the tool, then you can beef up the legal ops operation. But what the tool will allow you to do is maximize your own personal efficiency so you're not burning out as the solo gc, because that's no good for anybody. And it enables you to start something that is really key for scaling, which is again, making yourself somewhat obsolete. Right. Which is you don't want to be that single point of failure or success. So, right, you get the tool and now the tool becomes the amplifier of your influence as the solo gc. When that happens, you then can elevate yourself and be involved in more of the conversations because you're not just running from red line to redline. So it really enhances your ability to do your job well and it sets you up for the scale and success that you're going to need to have as your company grow. And I think you'll never regret embracing technology as a gc. Scared as it may seem, if you're. It's one person and you have to approve budget for that, but it's big deal.

It's very true. And as I've asked other solo GCs who have adopted technology, they say the same thing, except they don't say that I don't regret it. They actually say, I only wish I did it earlier.

Exactly. That's right. Exactly. Exactly.

If only they know I would have done this earlier on.

What I know today that's exactly right. It's a game changer. It allows legal to really, I think, and this will only increase. It allows legal to have a place at the business table. And you have to engage with technology and you have to embrace it in order for that to happen. There's just no other way to do it. And once you jump in, you ever would want to go back because it's amazing. It's just amazing, the technology and what it can do. And it really, it's just a real game changer.

And we have the ability to outsource support now in legal Ops, which you can do through different ways. As much as I believe in a dedicated Legal ops person or function, there's a lot of different ways to get around it now that weren't available before.

Options. Exactly.

Well, Lisa, such a pleasure. It's always good to see you and to talk to you and I think that your approach and your point of view is so refreshing. So thank you for sharing that with all of us today.

I am thrilled that we were able to talk and as always, it's a pleasure to talk to you. And I love what you're doing in Community and it's such an amplifier of what we're all trying to do in this space. So I really appreciate you appreciate what you do as well.

Thanks so much. Thanks so much. And to all our listeners, thanks for tuning in. We'll see you soon.

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