CLOC Institute 2019 - Opening Session with Mary O'Carroll

Hello and welcome to this year's Clock Institute.

Welcome to 2019 Clock.

I want to welcome all of you to Las Vegas and to the Clock Annual Institute. Hello and welcome to Clock 2019.

Legal Operations is critical to us and it's dramatically improved how we do our work at Juniper Networks. Our operations team is by far the largest growing in our legal department.

Our legal operations team allows us to be far more efficient and effective as a legal team.

In an environment where global operating environments are continuing to gain complexity.

The value that legal and legal operations.

Teams can bring to their organizations is crystal clear.

How do you build, maintain, run, operate, manage, develop? All of the folks that are managing the legal function, they've all got to be connected in some way to manage the function effectively.

This is a critical function for the legal department that helps us manage our budgets, implement key systems and tools, and establish processes and procedures that help maximize the effectiveness of our department.

But what I love most about our global legal operations team is that because we're dedicated and focused, we have unleashed power, creativity and collaboration of this team to really develop and strategically think about the future of our organization.

The members of Legal Services must be indispensable business partners. And Legal Ops is really playing a key role in driving that strategic priority.

Having real professionals to come in and do this for us and to basically streamline operations, put all the different work processes, place, and more importantly, getting data now, which is so important to how we look at things.

In order to stay ahead of change, we have to think about how to do things differently and enhance our value. The legal operations function is key to this objective.

CLOCK is an organization dedicated to making sure that there are best practices developed and to give our team the tools it needs in order to provide all of the support that it does. We're very proud that our team was at the very founding of CLOCK and look forward to working closely for the next generation of legal services and legal operations. I encourage you to reach out to each other. Take advantage of the many presentations, discussions and offline conversations among your peers and your colleagues that will take place.

I have no doubt our team will represent us well at the KLOC Institute this year and I wish you all an outstanding meeting. Thank you very much.

I am so excited to be welcoming you as president for the first time. And that video gives me chills. That was about you. Those were some of the biggest named GCs in the world, taking the time to welcome you here and to sing your praises at this moment in time. There is so much, there is so much Energy, excitement and belief in the work we are all doing. And as I look out here into this room filled with innovators and leaders who believe in this thing called Legal Ops, I'm reminded of a time not too long ago that it wasn't always like this.

A few years ago, a law firm partner said to me, legal Ops is just a fad. It'll pass. Everyone's talking about it now, but everyone will soon forget that it was ever even a thing.

I knew then that he was wrong and that this thing that we're so focused on would only get bigger and better. But it still hurt. And he was far from the only one who saw no future in Legal Ops. I remember back in 2014 trying to build my team and we had so many such a hard time hiring into LegalOps roles. I had a recruiter and she would post jobs and then we'd get no relevant hits. We reached out to these other recruiters and they fed us resumes from people who applied to different jobs at Google. And then we'd approach these individuals and we'd beg them to consider a role in Legal Ops. Most of them said no. And then those of them who did come in for an interview would always ask some version of the same question. So how long do I have to stay in leagues before I can transfer out into a different job at Google?

There was one candidate in particular who I knew was going to be perfect for the team because I'd known him from previous roles, but he just wasn't sure that a career in LegalOps was for him. So it literally took me years of reaching out to him periodically. And during this time he had a couple other roles.

And how far was I willing to go? At one point I ended up talking to his dad and telling him how perfect I thought he was. I'm telling you I was desperate.

But things are drastically different today. Today I'm afraid to even post a role too publicly because I get inundated with interest. And I've got this LinkedIn email box that gets flooded with emails that fall into two categories. The first from gcs desperate to hire qualified candidates into Legal Ops roles. The second from individuals desperate to break into Legal Ops with questions about where to begin. So we really have come so so far from those early days where it felt like we were pushing a boulder up a hill when people didn't believe in legal opinion. And the best way to see that progress is to look at clock and its amazing growth. We've gone from zero to 2,300 members in just three and a half years. And we haven't slowed down at all. In fact, our fastest quarter of growth to date was just first quarter 2019.

And here we are today at the Bellagio with over 2,000 attendees. And I've seen over 100 new jobs posted to the clock website in the last year. So there's really no denying it. Legal Ops has gone from this unknown term to the hottest buzzword in the industry.

And I've always said Clock is not an organization. It is a movement. It is a community.

So while those numbers are impressive, what strikes me the most are the individual stories. The true nature and power of this organization become crystal clear when you look at the exceptional people within it. People like Kami Vasaghan from NBCUniversal, a former general counsel and senior vice president practicing law. When we first met, she was just starting to dabble in Legal Ops. So I invited her to our New York regional group meeting, and she was so taken by the sense of community. And she says to me, mary, the best part of your presentation was finding out that Google has no idea what they're doing.

Which we still don't, but we certainly didn't in those early days. But I also remember her being totally overwhelmed by how much there was to do. And she joked with me that she should lead a session at the institute and call it Help me God. I'm the new Legal Ops head. Funnily enough, we actually ended up doing a session like this last year, but we called it Perseverance and Grit. But fast forward just a couple short years from when we first met, and Cammie's built out her entire function and is back here for the second year in a row sharing her wisdom.

Or take Scott Fuller from Applied Materials, who's held roles in software development and engineering. We actually met at the first Clock Institute in San Francisco, the first Clock Institute ever. And he knew nothing about Legal Ops, like many of us, kind of found himself in this role. And he was so deeply impressed by all the sharing and openness and collaboration. And he told me that with the CLAW community's help, he's been able to embrace this philosophy known as learn, apply, give back, something that an executive told him about early on in his career. And what that means is when you're new to your role, you're in the learning phase. Then you start to apply those learnings and really help your company. The third phase, which is the give back or pay it forward phase, is when you purposefully invest your time in helping others. And now Scott has Traveled all around the globe attending CLOCK institutes and sharing what he's learned from projects he's implemented.

I have many stories like this, stories about people who've accomplished amazing things on their career journeys. People who tell me it's because of clock, people who tell me they have to get involved in CLOCK because they have to pay it forward. That is what this community is all about. It is for you and about you.

So I said earlier, this is my first time addressing you as president, and I want to talk a little bit about that. As you may know, we've gone through some recent leadership team changes. I said, this is a movement and one that is growing very quickly. And anytime you have a big community, one that's evolving and shifting and changing, you're going to have different ideas and philosophies. Not everyone sees the world exactly the same way. And as we explored this as a leadership team, we found that we saw priorities in different ways. And those divides in perspectives and priorities only grew over time to the point where it just made sense for us to go in different directions.

But as your president and speaking for the board, we are more committed than ever to taking this organization and its mission forward. We believe deeply in this movement, and we are excited to take it further, faster.

So let me take a moment to share with you what we see for the year ahead, what we see coming from this amazing organization.

Our first priority is going back to our roots, returning the emphasis to what we believe makes this organization the community. We started this whole thing to help you do your jobs better, to share and create best practices. We know that the true innovation and power of this group is you.

I used to come to these institutes and events thinking I have a very mature function. I've been doing this a long time. I. I'm here to more teach than I am to learn. But I've seen these presentations, these incredible ideas and practices on display, and I am immediately humbled. I know that we are very behind in a lot of areas, and I'm so impressed with the work that you're all doing and grateful to you, really, to all of you, for sharing.

So we're really focused this year on making it easier for you to interact. We're excited to announce the launch of a new membership platform that makes it easier for you to share and find information. It will allow us to have sub communities, things like industry groups, or topical discussion forums where you can really dive in deep.

We're also focused on creating useful content when you're interested in a topic. We're now Starting to facilitate membership calls, we're looking for experts who can lead webinars and trainings. When you have a question and everyone says they're interested, we want to make sure that you get an answer. We've also launched a blog and are reaching out across the entire ecosystem for people to share their ideas and thoughts. We've taken all these steps to make it easier for you to learn and participate. So that's where we need you to have the courage to share. That's why we created this whole thing. And I know it's easy to think you don't have anything to contribute. I spent a lot of time with brand new regional groups who tell me they don't have anything worthy to share with one another. But know that someone else has that same challenge. So whatever you're working on is worthy. Know that someone else out there is getting started for the first time. So just share whatever you're working on, whatever stage it's in, and share your struggles too, because people will help you.

The second principle we're focused on this year is engaging across the ecosystem. We've progressed so far from who the hell are you? To what are you guys talking about? To wow, that's something we all need to be doing.

And so now there's more interest and belief than ever from players all across the ecosystem, including law firms, law schools, et cetera.

I stood up here a couple years ago and I referred to us as rebels, as troublemakers. But today, today we're perceived as change makers in a positive way. People are listening. People want our input.

We're getting more comfortable with some of those conversations that were so uncomfortable. We're past the point of convincing people that things need to change. And so now, now we have more interest and belief than ever, and that's huge.

But we're still not connecting, not really. We're still speaking different languages. The divides across the ecosystem are still so great between law firms, law schools, technology providers, legal departments.

We're all coming at this with different perspectives, and that's why we believe CLOCK has a huge role to play in bridging that divide and driving change at scale. And so right now, we're really actively working on getting law firms more engaged in the CLOCK community.

When I say we're not connecting, what I mean is this. CLOCK members, clients generally. We've been calling for industry change. Law firms have been investing and innovating, and yet clients will still tell you they're not seeing any of the change that they want to hear. There is a disconnect so right now CLOCK has partnered with a couple law firms and some other organizations. And here at the Institute we're launching a multi part study. A study that will help us better articulate and understand the changing needs and expectations that legal departments have for their law firms and how legal services are generally delivered. We've set up a booth in our membership lounge for you to learn more about this and we'll be reaching out to you because we want you to participate. Your voice being heard is very important.

The second thing we're doing to engage with law firms is something I'm really excited to announce.

So while we will be keeping the current in house CLOCK membership completely intact and untouched, in a couple months we're going to be beta testing a new membership type 1 for law firms and creating a separate community where law firms can interact with our CLOCK members. This will include the opportunity to network, to share practices, to actively communicate across the dividend.

We foresee.

Topical forums where individuals interested in things like pricing or alternative fee arrangements can get together and share and solve problems. Similarly, we hope they'll work together on things like diversity and inclusion, or knowledge management or data and analytics. We believe that including the voice of our law firms in these discussions is critical to better alignment and movement across this industry.

But for any of this to be useful or successful depends a lot on how willing you are to collaborate and to share with each other. Law firms. This all comes down to one simple.

Can you embrace the CLOCK culture?

I have spoken to a lot of law firms about this in the past, about working with each other, about working with their clients to solve these problems. And law firms have told me that they don't want to admit that they don't know what they should be doing. They're used to being advisors, the experts to all things to their clients. And so it's very uncomfortable to say that they don't have it all figured out, that they don't know what to do next.

None of us knows what we're doing.

We have learned a lot. But there's still far, far to go. And we all need to have the humility and self awareness to know that when it comes to legal operations, there are no experts. We are all at the beginning stages of a massive transformation. None of us can see around the corner and know what is coming. And so we need you to have the courage to be vulnerable. We know you don't know. We don't know either. But we're in this together. In order for any of this to be successful, we need you to have the courage to be imperfect, to have the courage to try things that have no guarantees, and to have the courage to deliver the impossible.

The next few days here are going to be incredible. So there's not a lot of sure things in this town, but this I'm certain of. We have gathered together an incredible lineup of speakers and sessions. We've brought together people with the same energy and passion, people from different backgrounds, people from different industries, people from all over the world, people from different experience levels, some of us industry veterans, others just getting started. But we share this common bond.

So treat these next few days as a gift. Meet each other, learn from each other. I've heard so many stories about people meeting at Pass Clock institutes and having those connections turn into job offers, turn into company acquisitions, turn into business partnerships, and turn into great friendships.

It's been said that the most important part of any meeting is actually the 10 minutes after the meeting when you're letting your guard down, when you're making connections and being authentic. So keep these conversations going past the Institute. Make these connections last. You will need each other.

As I wrap up, I'd like to go back to that individual I talked about earlier, that promising candidate that I chased, sort of stalked to convince that a career in legal ops really was possible. Well, the good news is that he did take the job. And so I checked in with him a few months into it and asked how things were going. Great, he said, I love it.

I also asked him, was there anything surprising about the role. And that's when he said, yes. It's so hard.

He's right, of course. Everything about legal operations is so, so hard every step of the way. And even though we've come so far, everywhere we turn we're faced with headwinds and resistance. And that's when he said something perfect, something I want to leave you with today. So he quoted the movie A League of Their Own. You remember this movie about women's baseball? So it was a scene that I had completely forgotten about. And in this scene, Tom Hanks character, who's the head coach, is chasing after Geena Davis character, who's the star player, and she's just quit the team. And so he's chasing her and yelling, where are you going? You can't quit now. And she turns around and explains, it's just got to be too hard.

And so I'll end with his response, because he sums it up so perfectly. He says to her, it's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would be doing it. The hard is what makes it great. Thank you.