#79 - In House Career Growth: Being a Great Lawyer Isn't Enough

Sometimes you take a step sideways or you take a step backwards to take two steps forwards. We're looking at how we can work with the firms to make sure that it's kind of value based billing versus this billable hour. And does that incent the right behaviors? A lot of the input that I give in leadership meetings is not necessarily purely legal advice. It's based on.

Hello everyone and welcome to Pearls on Gloves Off. I am your host, Mary o', Carroll, Chief Operating Officer at Goodwin. My guest today is another old friend, Rachel St. Peter, general counsel for Nestle Health Sciences in the U.S. rachel leads the U.S. legal and Compliance team partnering with the business to, in her words, empower healthier lives through nutrition. What I love about Rachel's journey is how intentional it is, or at least that's how it appears from the outside, as we'll learn in this episode. Before taking the role of gc, Rachel moved to Switzerland as the global Head of Functional Excellence and Legal Operations for Nestle. And there she built a world class legal ops team, modernized processes, leveled up technology, and smartly used shared services to lift up the entire global function. She originally joined nestle back in 2017 as Divisional General Counsel on the beverage and bakery sweets business. Think Nestle Coffee Mate, Toll House, Carnation, Libby's. And she ran the privacy program for Nestle usa. Before that, she led the commercial legal team at Under Armour. Today we get into a few things in this episode. We talk about how an ops detour can rocket fuel executive presence and set you up for the GC role. We talk about what a GC with legal ops DNA looks like when you're driving strategy across a complex business. And of course, yes, we touch on the law firm pricing conversation that we all need to keep having. Rachel bridges legal ops, tech and business in a way that's refreshingly candid and super actionable. Leg. Let's dive right in.

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Hi Rachel, how are you doing?

Good, how are you? Mary, Great to see you.

It's always good to see you. Thanks so much for being here.

Thank you for having me. It's an honor.

It's an honor for me. I always think of you as one of these people who are like the very few unapologetically ambitious people. And I'm so proud of you. And congratulations on the recent promotion. So excited to talk to you about that.

Thank you.

And I say that because when we first met, you were in a legal ops role, a new one, but you had already had a very successful career as a lawyer at a firm. And then you went in house, and you had even risen up to be, I believe, the division general counsel. Right. Of a Fortune Global 100 company. Then you took on this legal ops role, and you said that you did it because you wanted to become a general counsel one day, and that was your goal. And so first. I love that. But I guess back then you had told me you thought you needed to get into legal ops so that you could become a better gc. And I thought that was such a unique perspective. So, like, what did you see that others didn't? Tell me about that thought process.

Yes. And if I may, Mary, I'd love to tell a little story about how we met, because I had just moved to Switzerland and you had sent me a LinkedIn request saying, I love to meet people in the legal ops field. And I had been in the legal ops field for all of about a week.

So I took you up on your offer and said, hey, would you mind talking? And you did. And it was a very helpful conversation for me given your experience in the legal ops field. So I really appreciated that. And then you were also gracious enough to speak with Nestle a couple different times about some of the journeys that you've been on. So, again, it's a real pleasure to be here today. Kind of on the flip side, as far as your question about legal operations, it's true, I think that being a good lawyer is table stakes now. And so it was what would make me a good candidate for a general counsel position, should it open up. How could I best position myself to have a shot at that? And the legal ops role came open, and I thought about it and talked with my manager at the time, Dan Nugent, who, you know, hugely supportive. I talked with some legal recruiters, too, and said, hey, how would this look on a resume? Does it seem strange to a CEO? And it was really no. Which I think speaks a lot to how legal operations has come such a long way. And there were three things, I think, that really stood out to me about this position in particular. A large part of it was a transformational journey, and so a big project cross functionally that I was able to lead, which was great. Two, it was the skill set both as far as substantive skills like a deeper understanding of finance. We had communications, knowledge management, I think it which what a great time to be in legal ops. The last few years with the explosion of legal tech, including in the AI area. I didn't really know that when I took the role, but there is dedicated IT team for legal and compliance at Nestle and they're small but mighty and just fantastic. So that was great. And then there's also the soft skills. So for me, I've been told in my career take up more oxygen in the room and really need to command the room. And through this experience I think I got that opportunity. I. I don't know how you felt when you were at Google or some of your other roles. I've never presented more than I have in my entire career probably in those last three years. It was both to the global legal and compliance team. It was two different functions, like the overall IT group got the opportunity to present to different markets like the Indian leadership team. So it was a really neat experience. And I think that the last thing was it was an international experience which I was up for.

Yeah. And was there someone in the role before? Was this like a newly created role that you stepped into?

It was different. I think that Nestle has had the building blocks for legal ops. It just wasn't all put together. And our global general counsel came from a previous company with a very robust and developed legal ops team. And so she was hugely supportive and I think that's why this particular role opened up and it evolved over, over time into something different than I thought when I first got there.

Yeah. And so it's a very different role, I think than a practicing lawyer role. And was that exciting, intimidating as you stepped into it? I mean, pretty different, right?

It was very different. I had worked on some things that are traditionally thought of as being in the legal ops space, whether it was contract lifecycle management or E billing, but not the whole continuum. And there's a lot more there, including becoming a real strategic partner with the general counsel, which is hugely important. So it was intimidating and that's why I really I reached out to you got involved in block right away, did a lot of research and I did keep. Because my long term, I was wanting to have an opportunity to be a general counsel so kept my eye on the US legal market, kept in touch with the team there as well. So yeah, intimidating. And it was also I was living in French speaking Switzerland, never taken a French lesson.

So Many like, so many great new experiences to, like, expand your horizon, what you brought to the table. But I think it's great that, again, just the vulnerability to admit, you know, that there was an area that you wanted to improve on, taking up more space in the room. I think you've called it executive executive presence. And it is true, I think, because you have to work so cross functionally in a legal ops role, and you're trying to influence the different stakeholders to come together, especially the transformational role. There's change management, which is a lot of getting people to the answer that you want to get them to. And so there is a lot of opportunity to do presentations, and I feel like the lawyers did that as well. Do you think it was a different type of presentation or a different audience? Is that what was special about it?

Yeah, I think so. For my particular role, it was much more geographically diverse. Right. So if we were working on an initiative, it needed to work across the international markets. So really, taking a view of that lens with that lens, I think was important. Yeah. I wasn't 100% with everyone getting on board, but I do think it also helped me realize, okay, identify who your ambassadors are who can help you spread this message and get others on board.

Yeah. So it was executive presence, but also kind of like getting people around telling your story. I think that's one of the skills that you can build from practice.

Right.

It's like one of these things that you're not. You don't have to be born with this extroversion or this, like, desire to do public speaking and to do that executive presence. But the more that you are exposed to it and the more opportunities you have to just kind of practice telling the story and getting people aligned and getting up in front of a room, I guess you just get more comfortable with it. I've had to do it so much in my career that it comes very easily to me now. But I remember the days where, you know, I had scripts and had to, like, practice. And there's a comfort that also comes along with a lot of reps. Did you find that as well?

I think so. And it was also a new area, so you had to be comfortable being uncomfortable. If I was presenting a legal argument and a litigation, that might have been a lot easier for me than this space. Interesting. And I think it's really that storytelling element, because you rightfully said lawyers do a lot of presentations, but this was. This was a little bit different. And it's interesting that you said at the beginning, you saw me as someone that was ambitious, I think as going through my career, no one would have said that. So I think that shows kind of the shift in my thinking as I went through this journey with the legal ops role.

Very cool. And so now that you are a GC again, congratulations. Do you think that stint made you a better gc? And if so, like, how did it make you different compared to if you didn't do that piece of it?

For me, I think that on the soft skill side of things, it is the self confidence and that executive presence and taking up more oxygen in the room. Comfortable doing that before. I think also it's made me. I'll give an example. My team meetings, we now have incorporated a tech tip of the month and so different people volunteer and we show how we're using technology to make us more efficient. I don't think I ever would have done that had I not had this experience. And I think a better understanding of how to work with law firms better and scope the very important work that they're helping us with and really building that partnership, because I do believe it's a partnership. Communications. There was a communications role within legal operations and that was fantastic. So I think all of those things too have translated well into this role.

Yeah, I know when I was at Google, there were some teams that the legal ops group worked with a lot and they had a lot of exposure to how we thought about outside council management, budget, financial management, technology, right. Sourcing, so on, so forth. And then there was always the deputy general counsels who were sort of like fighting to own, own our team because the more you got exposed to us, they often went off and became general counsel of other tech companies in the Valley. So, like, it was really good exposure for how getting exposed to how the rest of the company functions and how does legal liaise with the rest of the organization. And you know, we talk a lot in our space on this podcast about how the role of the general counsel is changing over time. The role of legal ops has been changing. Definitely more strategic, as you mentioned, but for one thing, I think GCs are just more sophisticated now in general when it comes to tech and tooling because of so much pressure about, you know, how are you using AI in your department, Getting more sophisticated about strategic planning, about metrics, because I feel like they sort of have to. Right, like that's the. Yes, legal skills are the table stakes, but now CEOs are sort of expecting the GC to have come in with some business experience and to run their departments like a business so someone like you, who's actually not just kind of worked closely with Legal Ops but done the work is you're probably the most experienced in that area. And so I think that the role of the general counsel, or just, I guess what they come with starts to shift so much. And I'm curious what you think the profile of the person who you work with in Legal Ops starts to shift and like how does it all now work together, given that? I guess let me back up, like the GCs used to hire someone to do all this stuff because they didn't necessarily have background and, or interest in it. And now they have a lot of interest in it and they're hiring someone to do it. So does it, does that dynamic change?

It does, Mary. And recently we had someone join our legal and compliance team and she joined because she was interested in the legal work. But the plus factor was that she wanted to get experience in legal operations that was attractive to her for coming to our company. And we had a need for some help in that area. I do think, think that now the general counsel needs to know the business so well. And that's what I, you know, tell folks on my team. Really get to know your business inside and out because you are a strategic advisor. And I'd say a lot of the input that I give in leadership meetings, other forums is not necessarily purely legal advice. It's based on knowing the business and seeing it through the legal lens. And I think too now I think the role of the general counsel has a much stronger leadership role as well. I think it's the strategic role that you talked about. And I also think really need to be agile because of everything geopolitical, everything else going on. We kind of joke that if there was a spirit animal for legal, it'd be an owl because they're wise and their head is on a swivel.

Yeah, I like that.

So, yeah, I think it has changed. I think it's more. Right there's the, of course you're going to be a good lawyer. It's what else, what are the plus factors when you're looking at a general counsel role, which I think is really exciting.

Yeah. I think GCs and legal ops people are becoming much more wayfinders, like sort of broad purviews of data driven, they're technology driven and you know, you're living that.

Yeah. And to go back to your question, Mary, I think that the CEOs and the CFOs are expecting legal to make the data driven decisions. And so you need Legal ops. And you need that analytic muscle to be able to do that.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. And like, let's back up a minute because I don't think we mentioned the scope and complexity of your role. I mean, yes, you were in Switzerland, now you're the US Nestle. As you know, we all think of it as chocolate, but I know from having spent a lot of time with you and others in your department, it's a pretty wide spectrum of consumer offerings that you have. So give us a flavor of that.

Yeah, it's a really. Nestle has broad product offerings across the family of Nestle brands. I work for the Nestle health science business and I don't think most people know Nestle in this context. So we go across the continuum. My particular part of the Nestle business, from pharma to medical nutrition, so tube feeding products to vitamins, minerals and supplements to traditional food and beverage. So it really runs the gamut. And this is only part of Nestle and I think it's a great part of Nestle to be a part of.

And how much background did you have in those areas and do you have to learn that and how important is it to be immersed in, I don't know, pharma, which maybe is very different from bottled water and chocolate. Right?

Yes. I didn't have a background in that at all before I came to Nestle. I worked for an athletic apparel and footwear company. And so pivoting into my previous role was more traditional food and beverage. And so that was a big switch. It's much more heavily regulated, different industry within consumer products. And so having done that, you know, doing it again here and really relying on a great team. So relying on the team to help me get up to speed, learning again, the business, immersing myself in it, listening and reading as much as I can. But I do want to say that the team has been fantastic in helping me get up to speed.

Yeah, that's awesome. And do you. Did you have to build a team around you or did you inherit a team and have they, you know, already had sort of like expert skills in all the areas that you want to surround yourself with?

There's been some minor changes, but overall it was in place and it's a really strong team. Very excited. And that goes to my predecessor, who is the general counsel in this role, did really an excellent job and she's now in the general counsel role for a different part of Nestle.

Nice. So people you knew and were sort of already working with and exposed to in your different role, which is great. I want to ask you a little bit about technology again because you've had a legal ops background, you're maybe a little bit more comfortable with looking at what's out there and staying on top of it. And as you said, the last few years have been very interesting, to say the least, about legal, tech and AI. How are you guys thinking about it in your organization? You know, are you first movers? Are you kind of watch and wait? Are you experimenting? What's going on?

I am really excited about the opportunities that are at our doorstep in legal and compliance. So we are embracing technology and I think our role is twofold. Right. To enable and to protect. So there is the role with making sure that we're using AI responsibly, but we also want to use it with the appropriate guardrails and watch outs. And I'm really, really proud that our team, the legal and compliance function within Nestle was the first function that used that chatbot functionality over our knowledge management repository. So I think it's a time where legal doesn't always lead in the technology space. And I think this is an opportunity to do that, to make us more efficient. And so starting small, looking at, you know, discrete use cases and testing and learning and going from there.

What is your knowledge repository and what do you, what did you put on it?

It's our global Nestle legal and compliance repository. So every market is contributing materials that we think would benefit the greater legal and compliance function. Okay, so if I look for I need a X, Y or Z, I can use that to find it in the repository.

Awesome. So it's definitely making you guys more efficient. And are you guys using it for like drafting for contracts for research or like anything else right now? Have you tried that?

Yes, to some extent. But we're also looking at a true contract lifecycle management tool.

And then you guys, I know you're using like Copilot within just your, like day to day efficiency as well.

Yes, Copilot. And then other, you know, tech tools, we have a E billing tool that we roll out, rolled out globally, an RFP tool for external counsel and some other tools as well.

Yeah. Okay. And then on the external council piece, given that AI is here and I know you're doing competitive bidding for some of your RFPs, how are you thinking about, you know, what are you asking your firms to do? I'm on the firm side now and it's interesting because having been on the client side for most of my career and doing the asking of firms and, you know, asking them what they're doing and how they're thinking about things and then seeing it from this side, I'm just curious, you know, does Nestle or does your, do you have a position on kind of what you expect from your firms, both from AI adoption? Do you want them using AI, do you not? And then also for the pricing structures.

I think as far as wanting the firms to use AI, I think yes. And I think being transparent about it is important. And so learning from each other, again, law firms are so important to the overall functioning of the legal and compliance function that it should be a partnership. Yeah. And so I think we tended to share. So we would have law firms come in and show what they were doing and we'd show what we were doing and learn from each other. So I think that's important. And as far as, you know, billing, I think, okay, if it goes faster, then that should be helpful in more efficient billing. I think transparency, though, is really the key, Mary. For me, I think we're looking at how we can work with the firms to make sure that it's kind of value based billing versus this billable hour and does that incent the right behaviors? Yeah.

So I think that's so important. And I still find clients reluctant to adopt value based billing and still, you know, sort of go back to the billable hour, but then say, you know, bigger discount, more caps. Why value based? And why is that important to you?

For me, I think it, it benefits both sides of the equation, the law firms and us. And it's really working together to develop the strategy early on and giving more rigor to that. Giving more rigor to kind of that early case assessment and structuring how the work should go in a more efficient way to come up with a better result in maybe a quicker time period.

Mary, you guys are in favor of that kind of arrangement versus the billable hour? Or do you find. Do folks on your team then just kind of say, oh, I can't figure out what the right price should be. Let's just go back to the bill bar. Is that common or are you pushing for firms to adopt it more? How do we get there?

I thought you might have the answer to that, Mary. I don't know. I think this is me and I'm not speaking for everyone. Yeah, of course I do like to focus on value based billing.

Is it a hundred percent of the time for every matter that we have? It's not.

And because there's some that just are not conducive to that we're learning in this space and again, partnering with firms and I'm seeing more leaning in because it is, I think it benefits both sides and it's a better relationship.

Yeah, so I'm hearing. I mean, I'm. What I'll share with you. What I'm thinking a lot about is a lot of clients are coming and saying, hey, are you using AI? You need to be using AI. And I want to see where it's going to save me money. And I mean, totally honestly, we are using. Yay. We're one of the few firms that have deployed it firm wide. But look, it's still early days in terms of like totally changing the way legal services are delivered. It's helping around the edges, you know, 5% efficiency here and there, just like you're seeing in every other legal department. Because I look them in the eye and go, well, are you able to, you know, get rid of headcount or change the way your departments look? And they're like, no, like, okay, well, we're all in this together. We're kind of having the same experience where it's helpful here and there. But that said, you know, we really do want to have more adoption and we think the tech is going to get better and better and to the point where something that took eight hours will very realistically take one. And there and there already are those use cases. They're just like a few of them, not a ton.

Right.

And I think about like the Uber versus taxi model of pricing and if you're an old school taxi company and you know, now there's GPS and there's live traffic updates and you're still working on this meter that goes by time, you're not going to want to invest in that. Or even if you do, you're not going to be encouraged to use that if you're still being incentivized by the meter. Because the longer it takes, I'll drive you around town. You're a tourist, you don't know where you're going. And that's okay with me. I make more money. But that's a horrible experience with a passenger. Right? Because you're immediately like, well, I don't know if I was taken for a ride. I mean, I got where I needed to go, but I didn't love that experience. Right. And so now the client comes and says, well, I want you to use this GPS and this traffic and so I can get there faster. And we say, great. And the reason that Uber works is because now It's a fixed fee and it's transparent. And you see it up front and both sides agree that's the right fee. And you say, I accept. And you know, the driver accepts and off you go. And sometimes there's no traffic at all and they found a shortcut and the driver got there a lot faster and probably made a little bit more money and took the next ride sooner than he or she thought. And in other cases, there's an accident on the freeway and you are stuck there for two extra hours, you know, and they lose. But that's what a fixed fee is, right? You win some, you lose some, but you both have skin in the game and you agree up front. That's, that's, you know, the right price point. And that incentivizes the taxi drivers to use technology and then even add value, added technology and say, hey, there's a platform, you can call us using this app and you can see how far away we are now. And that doesn't make us come faster, but hey, that's value add. So when you start to move all things to a new model, I feel like everybody wins. But until you get there, it's, you know, if it's, what benefit are we getting from AI? And by the way, I want you to bill by the hour. So I only pay for that one hour now instead of nine. That's not really risk sharing and that's not really, you know, incentivize alignment.

Yeah, no, that's a great example, Mary. I think that's a great illustration.

It's just, it's, there's so many pieces that have to move at the same time. And why it's so hard for the firms is the firms are the taxi companies and you've got newcomers, like the Ubers will just come in and be like, from the beginning, we've got all this tech and we've got fixed fees and we're transparent. And so, you know, taxi companies have to either get there as soon as possible or. We saw what happened to taxis. Everyone's going to wrap their ticket.

Uber. Yeah. Mary, I'm curious, do you have any just kind of high level clients that are reluctant to have the firm use AI?

Yes. Oh, absolutely. Yes.

Okay. A.

Fewer and fewer nowadays, I think, you know, like probably a year ago you had some who would say, I don't want you using AI at all on my stuff. Reminds me of like the early days of cloud, you know, when cloud computing came out and there was certainly clients saying to law firms, I don't Want you putting any of my data in the cloud. And as people get more educated on the safety and you know, how it all works, they get more comfortable with it. And now we hear that very seldom.

The learning manager at Nestle in Switzerland is fantastic. And he did a nice analogy too of like an iceberg and there's the explicit knowledge that AI is really good at, but within an organization like Nestle or a good one, it's below the water. That implicit knowledge, that's a little bit harder. So if you're a newer attorney or a newer professional, not knowing what you don't know is kind of the danger. You know, it's really how do we capture that implicit knowledge below. Below the waterline.

Yeah, that's the hard well. And that's why, you know, the whole fear that lawyers will go away. They will not go away. There's so much value and so much importance that the lawyers bring, even with AI as tools, I guess. How are you thinking about it as an in house team? Like, you know, is it going to change the way you staff in the future, you train in the future, that the way you hire is it. Has it already changed kind of the talent mix that you have on your team?

Good questions. And I think right now we would definitely be asking questions during the interview process of digital savviness and we focus on digital upskilling. Can I say we focus changed, you know, headcount or anything like that? Not yet. But I think what is the benefit of it is that in an organization that may be flat and you're looking for development opportunities, if you can do this area quicker, you're able to take on additional, more strategic projects. And I think that is a huge benefit. So I think it's shaping the type of work and what we can use legal tech tools for to increase the employee, you know, their experience and what they get to work. Work on.

Yeah, I mean, I know that even when I was still in house, we started to get questions from candidates about what technology platforms do you have in house? Because as an attorney, you know, I want to be exposed to that, I want to learn that. And exactly to your point, it makes the professional development better and faster. I think we get those questions as a firm. Are, do people ask your attorneys that as they're interviewing and considering Nestle as an employer?

Yes, they do. They have asked what tools we have and it's been a positive. Right. That we've come this far.

I think that it's a competitive advantage now to be, you know, to have A legal ops team to have someone thinking about technology and deploying it through your department.

I agree, I agree. And that's why it was. I was really excited when we had a candidate that joined. The plus factor was she was going to have some Legal Ops projects, which is fantastic.

Nice. And what do you think the evolution of Legal Ops is? So many people are getting involved in technology now beyond just the Legal Ops team. I'm sure if you're in Legal Ops now that all the attorneys are saying, have you heard of this tech? Have you heard of this? Have you heard of this tool? You know, we were seeing it, but I can't even imagine what it's like now with the explosion of technology. So everyone's kind of starting to dabble, you know, in Legal Ops, if you will, and maybe even building things, you know, with some of the models and agents. Yeah. Does that start to change the role of Legal Ops? Are you seeing or what do you think about that?

I haven't seen it change, Mary, because I think that the Legal ops professionals are better suited to vet those tools. But certainly every attorney's like, I saw a demo on this and can you check it out? And if you looked at it and it's good because you are constantly looking at the landscape is evolving. So I think, think it's great that they do that. But sometimes it's like. But I think that the Legal ops professionals are better situated to vet them, to understand the technology, to understand what the implementation would be like. How heavy a lift is it? Does it translate, you know, from the US to Europe to South America. I think that they still have that skill set. I'm not seeing it, but I don't know if you are, Mary.

It's become so much more of a tech focused role. Right. Than it was.

I don't.

When I started it was all about like, like financial management outside, outside council management and budget, you know, management. But now it's like all. Even when it comes to those things, it's like, what tools can we use in those areas?

What data do you have? What you know, what are your trends? Absolutely.

I also wanted to ask you because I love to ask every gc, the whole managing up thing, where we. The role of the gcs change, we talked about how much more strategic, how much more business oriented you are. But there's always that question of like, like how do we deliver value or how do we show the value that we're delivering to the organization? And I don't know if that's metrics reporting. Do you do quarterly updates and annual review. You know, how do you get in front of your CEOs or leadership teams and kind of showcase your team or you know, check in.

Our global general counsel calls that the holy grail. Right. It's. I don't know anyone that has fully cracked that totally kind of all of the above. Mary. I think showcasing both, both within the department and outside of the department where legal played a key role in an initiative. Not just something that's solely focused on legal necessarily, but if there was a new marketing campaign launched or a new commercial and it was marketing and it was legal and it was regulatory and they all worked together on this, I think highlighting that and how we can add value is important. And so really it's more of that business partnering rather than some other things. Now I think that there, there are metrics that we look at. I think traditionally people have looked at like number of contracts and the turnaround time and things like that. So certainly looking at that, we do quarterly updates in various forums and highlight different projects that we've worked on. But always really kind of that cross functional business partnership is what we try to highlight.

Mary, that's so interesting because it's what you're showcasing again is more storytelling how you are. Right.

Yes.

Enabling big strategic business initiatives to come to fruition and making them more smooth rather than, or in addition to, I suppose the here's how many contracts we executed.

This is how many, you know, X, Y or Z we vetted or we, we share those. Yeah. But I think we get more impact and more reaction, honestly from showcasing those business projects that have moved the needle for the business. Yeah.

And the partnership that you mentioned because the storytelling is how it's totally different from, you know, the old days of the office of no. And like we mitigated risk and we stopped this from happening. And it's so much more about making things happen instead of making things not happen.

It is, it's how can we make this happen? And it might not be the exact way that it first was discussed, but how can we make it happen?

Yeah. And so do you see the rest of the company still as clients or more partners?

I think that's right. I mean, yes, they're our business partners. We're part of that relationship. And since when I started in house to now, it's really changed in that in my experience I had to fight to be on those leadership teams or in some key meetings. And now it's again, were welcomed there because of all the good work that, that everyone's done. And so it's viewed more as a partnership versus this almost adversarial relationship, even if you're working at the same company. So I've really seen that evolution and I think it's made the practice of law a lot more enjoyable and so.

Much more impactful because there at least I remember the days where you sort of struggled with your clients because they didn't loop you in until the very end or until it was too late. And you're like, well, now I have to fix and you should have called us in when you were ideating and not, you know, when you're like about to launch something. But it sounds like if you have that strong relationship, you're a welcome thought partner and not like now it's the end and I gotta deal with legal.

Right, right. I hated that early on, like I felt like, you know, and it didn't go over well. A school teacher like you should have, like, it didn't work. Didn't work well.

Yeah. What advice do you have for folks who I guess are as wonderfully ambitious as you want to get into the general counsel suite and are in either a law firm or an in house attorney role? Would you recommend that they do the path that you did or is there a different, you know, I guess looking.

Back, you know, I think it's different for everyone in different circumstances. This worked out well for me. I'm thankful for, but I don't know that there's a hundred other ways you could get here. I will say probably the one takeaway is sometimes you take a step sideways or you take a step step backwards to take two steps forwards. The legal ops role in Switzerland for me was a lateral move and I knew that eyes wide open and was glad for the opportunity. And it's resulted in, I don't know, that role in and of itself is why I'm in the GC role now. But I think the way I showed up in the interview certainly was impacted in a positive way by the experience in the legal ops role. And I think ultimately for the reasons we talked about earlier, it made me better in this position.

Yeah. Did you when you were going through kind of all the moves in your career path, I always say when you look backwards, you know, the moving sideways, back up and down, it all makes sense. Like I feel like if I tell my career story, it's like, of course, you know, it led you to this because it like you're able to tell that story, but when you're in it, it's not Always that clear. It's like, let me take this leap of faith and see where it goes. Was that the case for you? Although I feel like you were maybe a lot more intentional than a lot of others with, you know, I'm going to do this because it's going to get me this skill that I'm lacking, and I'm going to get this exposure because I need this next.

You know, I wasn't intentional early on in my career. It's, I think by doing, working hard and doing good work, it takes you so far, and then I think it doesn't take you to the next step. And so I really stopped to think about it and did I really want to be a general counsel? I wasn't sure. Like, that wasn't always my career ambition, but I got to the point where it was yes. And this is one path that might work out. But you're right, there was no kind of safety net. I didn't know that it was going to work out, but I thought the experience, regardless would be a positive one. And it really was. I can't say enough about the support that I received from colleagues both in Switzerland, back in the US Market. It was remarkable. And I think that the legal ops profession, honestly, most people are very helpful, like you were when I was. And I think about that and wanting to pay it forward. I think it's a nice community of professionals.

It's so, so open and so sharing and so welcoming.

I agree.

It's kind of always been that way. How important was, like, your network and mentors along this path? Because I know you've reached out to many people and they've helped you along the way. But, you know, how critical was that in kind of getting to where, opening doors?

I suppose hugely helpful across the board, whether in mostly informal mentoring. I would say I have had great support and I think too, with the leaders that I worked for. One thing that they have in common was they valued creativity and they didn't kind of put you in a box. It was, you can figure it out whatever way you want. And I had room to fail fast, which I think in the legal ops area is super important to have that flexibility and then be agile. Right. If it doesn't work, let's move on quickly and go on to the next. But I think that is something that they all had in common. And again, the openness of people to share, I think was hugely beneficial for me.

Yeah, I always say I have like this informal. I call them like a board of directors or people you go to for advice and mentorship. It is totally informal, right. There was no ever a mentorship program that like matched me with anyone that I would consider, you know, a mentor, a person I go to advice for. I assume you have those people in your life and there's. They're so important. How do you find them? Because that's often a question I get is like, how do you get a mentor? I'm like, I don't know, I just stumbled upon them or I just found people and I, I latched onto them and kept going for more advice. Right?

I think that's right. I can't recall that I've ever had a formal mentor either. And I mentioned, I spoke on a mentoring panel and I said I've never really had a formal mentor. Kind of an interesting way where I've found mentors is through speaking engagement. So for instance, like at clock, being on a panel or other organizations, being on a panel and finding someone that you really connected with. And then I wasn't always so good about this, but, but following up, keeping in touch is important to maintain that relationship. And I do think it needs to be a two way street too. So that you're giving too, as the mentor might need advice or help or can you talk to this person? I think it's really important to do that.

Yeah. I just think as we've done, I've done so many episodes of this podcast now how important that informal network has been to everyone. You know, know, showing your good work and then having people that you stay in touch with and they open doors for you. So when you're need that opportunity or you're not even looking, you know, it comes and lands in your lap.

I think that's right. I think that's right, Mary.

All right, Rachel. Well, this has been amazing. Is there anything we didn't touch on or any advice you'd like to offer to our lovely listeners?

No, I think be curious and continue to learn is, I think, also a way to, to navigate things.

Mary, it's such an exciting time to be doing what you're doing in your field. And yeah, I wonder what the next five years will bring in terms of opportunities and challenges to try new things and be curious.

If you look back five years, would you think we'd be where we are now? I certainly wouldn't. So I can't even imagine what five years from now is going to be. I think it's going to be exciting. I think we need to buckle up because it's going to be a wild ride Mary.

Things are moving faster and faster, aren't they? Hope to be able to check in with you soon and hear how the new job is going. But again, so happy for you. Congrats again.

Thank you so much, Mary, for having me today. It's been a pleasure.

It's been a pleasure, everyone. Thanks so much for listening. We'll catch you on next time.