Episodes
14
Latest episode
Jun 2026
Language
EN
In each episode, we’ll ask our guest, a Reed Smith alum, to share their career story, how their time at Reed Smith contributed to their success, and their advice for early-career lawyers. Our goal is to surface insights from these inspiring professionals’ careers that will help you find your way to professional success, however you define that.
Founder of non-profit The Legal Mentor Network, Chrystal Mauro talks mentoring, bankruptcy law and the ongoing importance of stepping outside your comfort zone as she describes a career spanning over 20 years, taking in clerking, life as a Reed Smith associate and more recently work as an in-house counsel.
As the sole UK counsel of Stockholm based Acast, the world's largest independent podcast marketplace, Sam Hill faces novel legal and business issues with confidence in his ability to deliver practical outcomes and solutions. In this episode of Career Footprints, he shares his lifelong passion for media which began growing up and carried through to his career as paralegal, associate, in-house secondment, and now in-house counsel. In every role, he has focused on developing close working relationships with senior lawyers, embracing work projects that broadened and deepened his expertise, and not shied away from offering a fresh take in strategic discussions.
As the CEO and co-founder of Kuberno, an innovative corporate governance technology solutions company, Zoe Bucknell has thought deeply about leadership and trust-building with stakeholders, customers, and her team. In this episode, she shares insights from her career path, from law firm associate to general counsel and corporate secretary, and now as the CEO of a rapidly growing company where she has applied all her learnings. As a British lawyer and entrepreneur who has worked extensively “across the pond” with Americans, she also shares observations on UK and U.S. legal and business cultural nuances.
Throughout his career, Yoni Tammam has cultivated a unique skill set and strategically applied it to drive success for both teams and clients. In this episode of Career Footprints, Yoni traces his journey from undergrad business major, to tax associate at Reed Smith, to vice president at the tax insurance practice at CAC Group where he advises clients on managing tax risks in high-stakes transactions. Yoni focuses his practice on using tax insurance to accrete value to his clients. In the episode, he offers practical advice for law firm associates – especially those aspiring to move in to business roles – on making the most of their law firm experiences, building a marketable skill set, and asking the right questions when exploring their first business opportunity after Big Law. ----more---- Transcript: Intro: Welcome to the Reed Smith podcast, Career Footprints. In each episode of Career Footprints, we'll ask our guest, a Reed Smith alum, to share their career story, how their time at Reed Smith set them up for success, and their advice for early career lawyers. Our goal is to surface insights from the careers of these inspiring professionals that will help you find professional success, however you define that. Lauren: Greetings, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Reed Smith's alumni Career Footprints podcast. This is your host, Lauren Hakala, Reed Smith's Global Director of Learning and Development. Today, I'm excited to be speaking with Reed Smith alum Yoni Tammam. A lawyer by training, Yoni currently works in a business role, serving as vice president, tax and insurance practice at insurance broker and advisory firm CAC Group. He started his career as a tax associate in Reed Smith's Global Corporate Group, based right here in our New York office, where I also sit. Yoni, welcome. How are you today? Yoni: I’m doing well. Thanks for having me on, Lauren. Lauren: Thanks for being here. So if it's okay with you, we'll jump right in because there's a lot to cover. Yoni: That sounds great. Lauren: Okay, so you currently work in a specialized area of the transaction insurance industry. How would you describe what you do and the product you sell to like a total layperson? Yoni: Sure. So I work as a tax insurance broker for a company called CAC Group. CAC Group itself is a leading insurance broker and advisor that provides expertise and placement capabilities across the spectrum of insurance. Within CAC Group, I work for one of the entities called CAC Specialty, which is an industry-leading specialty broker dealing a lot with transactional insurance. And the subset that I deal with is tax insurance. So at a high level, what I do is help clients, again, protect against tax risk in high stakes transactions. The product is now actually evolving such that you don't need a transaction for tax insurance anymore. You can use it in a whole bunch of different variety of ways. And basically what it does is it protects a position that a taxpayer is putting on a tax return. So for example, if a company is undergoing a merger and they structure it to be a tax-free merger, and there's a question as to whether or not the analysis will be respected by the IRS, me and my team will work to help our clients come up with a insurance solution to mitigate that risk and allocate that risk amongst the transaction parties. Lauren: Got it. So you mentioned that your customers are companies engaged in transactions. How do you spend most of your days with them? Yoni: Sure. So tax insurance really comes down to high level three buckets. There's our tax credit insurance, there's M&A transactional insurance, and then there's call it ordinary course of business, which is really helping companies protect their balance sheet when taking on certain tax positions in the ordinary course of business with internal restructurings and things like that. Most of my time is spent talking with clients and or underwriters, our trading partners, and or their advisors. What we're doing initially is we're getting the intake and figuring out what the issue is that's either coming from the client's lawyers or coming from the client themselves. Discussing the risk with them, getting an understanding of it, using our tax technical expertise from our prior careers to really understand what the issue is and whether or not it's insurable and what that would look like. From there, internally, we're talking about how to best present the risk to the tax insurance market, put together that risk profile, submit a request for terms to the underwriters. And then we're on the phone with the underwriters talking about the risk and coming up with terms and negotiating what that would look like for our client. We're dealing with it in a lot of different ways, coming up with clever structures or just general down the middle tax and understanding of what the transaction parties are looking to accomplish by virtue of obtaining an insurance policy. Lauren: So it sounds like it sounds like a having been a tax lawyer must be super useful for what you're doing now. And the work you're doing is similar in some ways to to the work of a tax lawyer. So I'm wondering, what do you like the most about now being on kind of the business side of things? Yoni: Yeah, what I love most about my role is it allows me to wear multiple hats. I'm not just practicing law in the traditional sense anymore, but I still get to dive into legal and tax analysis and lean on that tax technical background. I'm still sharpening my skills, still taking the tax CLEs and those types of things. And I really get to enjoy that because the way I describe it sometimes is I'm in the solution-oriented world of tax law. And really what we're doing is helping clients find a solution for an issue that could be impacting their business, preventing them from taking the next step in their business, or otherwise just increasing their stakeholder and shareholder value. So really, I get to be entrepreneurial in a sense that I'm getting to deal with clients, go out and source and build a book of business. I get to be working in a tax technical space, utilizing the years of tax law practice and my specialized education. And also, I get to deal with people a lot and not just documents. And so it really is really rewarding for me to be able to help a client with their business and come up with solutions similar to how I would do it as a lawyer. Lauren: Got it. No, it sounds like you're using a lot of different aspects of your background. So on that note, I want to rewind to the very beginning of your career, because I noticed that you studied business undergrad, and that's a really valuable degree. So I'm wondering, when you graduated, what made you decide to go on to law school? Yoni: Yeah, I had always had an idea that I wanted to go to law school from a young age, you know, probably for the traditional reasons that kids growing up think they want to be a lawyer. I was good at arguing. I liked negotiating, those types of things. But I also knew I really liked being on the transaction side of things. And I felt I was a little bit more analytical in that sense than just the number crunching on some of the finance stuff. And quite candidly, I graduated from college right after the 2008 recession. So going to law school for a few years while the job market sorted itself out was also not a bad option. And I was very fortunate enough to have a full scholarship to law school so that it really just became kind of an easy decision for me. I was able to come back to school in New York City and really come back, be closer to my family and get to explore a whole bunch of different areas. When you're dealing as a business major, sometimes you're kind of stuck with finance or you're in one marketing or you're in one particular area. Law, I think, kind of gave me the ability to see all the different areas of business and finance, but from a different analytical standpoint and kind of looking at the building blocks of them and not just the numbers. Lauren: That's really interesting. So how did you then decide to concentrate in tax law and then go on to get your LLM and taxation? Yoni: Yeah. So tax, if you had told me I was going to be a tax lawyer when I started law school, I probably would have called you crazy. Having said that, it ended up being that perfect mix for me of where I thought business and law mixed. I was able to kind of understand my tax law classes. From the early onset because of my finance major, where there was certain financial and accounting type of concepts put into tax law that kind of made sense to me. It was the first time I had a study group that I was the leader of the study group because I seemed to know the most. So it just kind of came naturally to me in that sense. And similar to what I was talking about before, in terms of breadth of industry, I said, everyone pays taxes and nobody wants to pay taxes. So there's a lot of value in being the person who can help people with those taxes. It does not matter the industry you're in. And frankly, I kind of had always thought that I wanted to go into sports and be in that industry. And during law school, I actually worked for the Minnesota Vikings at one point. And one of the pieces of career advice that somebody gave me was, go be an industry expert. Go be a technical expert on something and your skillset will be marketable no matter what the industry is. And tax seemed to me the place where I could best build that skillset. I had a phenomenal professors in law school, Laura Cunningham, who's one of the masterminds of the tax world. And she really gave me a lot of really strong, good career advice and really kind of guided me towards the tax industry. And to me, it's the perfect combination of analytical rigor and real world impact. Lauren: So I think you kind of foreshadowed what my next question was going to be by mentioning your industry focus and your interest in sports. And I want to ask, how did you come to take a job here at Reed Smith? Yoni: Yeah, so I kind of always knew I wanted to go in the big law to get that experience working on those high-end transactions and sophisticated issues. And when I was looking at the landscape of big law firms, one of the ones that stuck out to me was Reed Smith, particularly because it did have a sports and entertainment group. But also, when I applied, it was small tax practice. And I felt that getting that one-on-one level with the partners was really going to help me advance my career and my skill set. So, you know, Reed Smith gave me an opportunity to work on complex transactions across a broad range of industries, even one in particular that I was interested in. But the exposure to all of the different types of work that I was doing in tax, you know, kind of made me realize that really, it's about the tax that I really enjoyed the industry itself that could go here to here and whatnot. I mean, glitz and glamour can fade, but ultimately what you're doing on a day-to-day basis, if you find that it is challenging and thought-provoking and you're working with great people, that to me was what I was looking for. And I found great people with a great practice and a lot of ability to hone my skills. Lauren: Yeah, that was a lot of self-awareness for a law student to think about, you know, having had this great mentor, your professor in law school and then coming to a place where it's a smaller atmosphere and a smaller practice. So that was really, really good thinking. Yoni: Yeah. And, you know, mentorship, as I've said in our conversations before, is really something I very much focus on and really take pride in not just looking for it, but also providing it. And Breed Smith had a culture of mentorship as well, which I thought was really important. And I really hit it off with, you know, the tax practice leaders at the time. And I think it, you know, one thing I will generally advise young lawyers or just young people entering the workforce is the people really do matter. It's not just something that we say, because at the end of the day, you're spending a lot of time with them. And I found from my first interview with the tax practice at Reed Smith that it was going to be a good fit. Lauren: So tell us a little bit more about the work you did at Reed Smith and how it sort of further shaped you as a professional. Yoni: Yeah. So I focused on transactional tax work at Reed Smith. I worked with James Tandler, Angela Ciavarella, Mike Myers, and a handful of other people from the firm doing a lot of M&A, fund formation, cross-border structuring. Did some work in the energy and infrastructure space, but really got to see a whole slew of different issues. But predominantly working on private equity M&A was where I would say I spent most of my time, but got to that broad exposure, which is part of what I was looking for. Lauren: Got it. And then it sounded like you were having a good time at Reed Smith. You practiced here and then at two other large law firms in New York City. When did you decide to move on from big law practice? Yoni: Yeah. So I always liked, my time in big law. I really enjoyed the people. I enjoyed the work. I found it to be challenging. But in the end, I just never saw myself as a partner at a law firm. As far as what I was seeing, it just wasn't necessarily where I saw my career going. And I knew I wanted to be entrepreneurial. I knew I really liked tax. I really did want to stay involved in transactions because I really enjoyed that intensity, the pace and everything like that. And so I decided to explore the transactional insurance space after talking with a friend of mine who had made a similar career move. I had seen how the rep and warranty insurance product had taken off since when I first started practicing. And I thought tax insurance was at a similar space to where rep and warranty insurance was where I started practicing with a lot of room to grow and the ability to be entrepreneurial while also still being in that technical side and leaning on the tax knowledge. So it gave me a chance to still be involved with these deals and transactions that I'm very familiar with, but also to figure out a different way of how to monetize that skill set. Lauren: Yeah, no, I'm definitely hearing that opportunity to build a full new business line and to be a part of putting that together. I'm someone who transitioned from working at a law firm to working at a brand new legal know-how product. And I just remember how satisfying that feeling was to make something new. So that resonates. So I want to ask you more about that. So for associates who are listening to this now and think they might want to do something entrepreneurial, but also business focused, what advice would you give them about trying to find a role like that? Yoni: So I think my general piece of advice is even before starting to find that role is find your skill set. You know, find the thing that sets you apart, figure out what it is that you're good at and how you can make that your competitive advantage, because that's the thing that's going to carry you. You know, I realized I was very good at tax, but I was also good at understanding the issues and communicating with people. And I really felt that those skill sets of taking, I focused on taking technical tax and simplifying it. And that's a large part of what it is I do with this. And that to me was very important in a lot of ways. I think, you need to build that foundation and then you're able to look for opportunity. Because I think a lot of times people just go, I just want to go in-house or I don't want to work in big law anymore. Or similar to me, they just didn't think they ever wanted to be a partner, but wanted the law firm experience. So it's about maximizing that law firm experience because your skills are going to be the thing that carries you into success in no matter what your next job is, be it something more entrepreneurial, business focused, like what I'm doing in the transactional insurance space, or more of a traditional in-house role as counsel for a firm or something along those lines. So I think that is the first thing that you need to do. Then the next thing is learn how businesses make decision, how they're sold and how value is created and where you would be fitting into that chain within your organization or the organization that you're looking to join. That is really where you got to be thinking about it because it's very easy to just say, oh, a real estate company is looking for an in-house lawyer. I practice real estate law. That makes sense to me. Well, what are they looking for you to do as counsel? Because it might not be as much of a driving value or business generating role, or it could be something different. But having that understanding of what the company does and where you would fit in is super important. Lauren: Yeah, no, it sounds like once again, you were very thoughtful and very self-aware because you started from this idea of what's my value proposition? What are the skills that I'm good at? And then you mapped that on to roles and thought about how you would be leveraged in your new role. Yoni: Yeah, exactly. That's exactly right. And, the other little bit of advice I would say is make sure you're ready. You sometimes are going to lose the partner parachute, as I say, or you might not be fully understanding or accepting of what your role now is within your organization because you are used to being the main revenue generator at your old firm. You might just still need more time before where you're ready to make that kind of transition. I think it's super important for people to make sure that they are ready not just to leave big law. It's not just the you only get one bite at the apple argument, but are you ready for this new role? Lauren: Yeah. No, I remember when I was a young lawyer being told you only leave big law once, right, for the first time. And it's an important steps. So I think that's good advice to make sure that you are ready to be to be where the buck stops, right? Because there's not necessarily going to be a partner who you can ask if you're, you know, unsure. Yoni: Yeah, yeah. And again, it's, it's very important to just know what it is, how your function is advancing your organization. Because if you don't fully understand that, it's sometimes harder for lawyers to transition into that role when they're very much used to here's the work i do the work and that's how we make money it's sometimes tougher to figure out where your role within an organization is when the work you're doing isn't necessarily generating the revenue, Lauren: Got it. So sounds like some some good questions to ask as you're exploring roles and and deciding what's right for you. Yoni: Yeah. Yeah. How, you know, how does the company make money? How do the lawyers help the company make money? Is the is the mission statement of the company to make money? Right. It could be some sort of nonprofit or something else like that. But either way, what is the organization's goals and how do you fit into that and how does your role fit into that, I think is super important and something people need to think about heavily before making the jump. Lauren: Okay, so I have to let you go soon. But last question, as someone who practiced law for eight years at a firm and then moved in-house, what advice would you give to an associate about what to make the most of while they're still in big law? What is not to be missed, even if you know you don't want to be a partner and will be moving on? Yoni: You know, I said it in the beginning, and I still believe it. It's that training. That training and that skill set is something that you do not get elsewhere. We joke that sometimes it's learning by osmosis, but it really is. It shows you how to carry yourself. You show how to interact with clients, interact with your coworkers and colleagues. Law firms are an extremely professional and intellectual environment that you get to be involved in, particularly when you're dealing with it at the level of a Reed Smith and the other big law. Take advantage of that opportunity being in the room with people like that. Learn from them on the technical side and on the soft skills side. Learn how to write concise emails. Learn how to manage your time accordingly. You're dealing with a lot of different projects at a lot of different times. And as we all know, life only gets more complicated as you get older. So learning those skills and the time management and learning from those who have come before you, I think is one of the most important things that you can do with time and big law. And particularly at a place like Reed Smith that really does focus on that mentorship and giving you those resources to excel and take your technical skills to that next level. So that is my full response. My cheeky response is summer associate lunches. You don't get them elsewhere. Lauren: Well, I think that that is a great note to end on. Really excellent advice for folks at the law firm, regardless of what their sort of career goals are. Let's make the most of that training the mentorship when you're around so many professionals who are there to work with you. Yoni: That will carry you no matter what you do. It can be law adjacent, can be not law adjacent, but how to think through a situation and how to interact with your clients or other stakeholders, that is something that you can't really replicate elsewhere. Lauren: Well, Yoni, thank you so much for talking to us. Your role is super interesting and I think we all enjoyed hearing about it and also your advice and how you got there. And thank you so much to our listeners for joining us for another episode of Reed Smith's alumni Career Footprints podcast. Thanks so much for listening, and we hope you tune in to future episodes. Outro: Career Footprints is a Reed Smith production. Our producers are Ali McCardell and Shannon Ryan. You can find our podcast on podcast streaming platforms, reedsmith.com, and our social media accounts at Reed Smith LLP. To learn more about Reed Smith's alumni network, or if you are an alum of the firm who wants to share your career story, contact Laura Karmatz, Reed Smith's Global Senior Director of Alumni Relations at alumni@reedsmith.com. Disclaimer: This podcast is provided for educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice and is not intended to establish an attorney-client relationship, nor is it intended to suggest or establish standards of care applicable to particular lawyers in any given situation. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Any views, opinions, or comments made by any external guest speaker are not to be attributed. All rights reserved. Transcript is auto-generated.
The power of personal relationships has been transformative at every stage of Jamie Welborn Knauer’s career – from law school student, to global commercial disputes litigator at Reed Smith, to his current role as senior counsel, Product & Regulatory at DoorDash. Jamie discusses how people’s investments in his career and in him, as a person, have been invaluable. Whether it was the gift of feedback as a means to improve his core legal skills or informational interviews as a catalyst to explore new career opportunities, Jamie explains how this people-first mindset translates to aligning himself with the mission of his DoorDash colleagues and customers and how the power of personal relationships influences how he hires and works with outside counsel. ----more---- Transcript: Intro: Welcome to the Reed Smith podcast, Career Footprints. In each episode of Career Footprints, we'll ask our guest, a Reed Smith alum, to share their career story, how their time at Reed Smith set them up for success, and their advice for early career lawyers. Our goal is to surface insights from the careers of these inspiring professionals that will help you find professional success, however you define that. Lauren: Greetings, and welcome to another episode of Reed Smith's alumni Career Footprints podcast. This is your host, Lauren Hakala, and I'm Reed Smith's Global Director of Learning and Development. Today, I'm excited to be speaking with Reed Smith alum, Jamie Welborn Knauer. Jamie currently serves as senior counsel, Product and Regulatory at DoorDash, based in San Francisco. Jamie joined DoorDash from Reed Smith's San Francisco office, where he practiced for about four years as an associate in our Global Commercial Disputes group. Jamie, welcome. How are you today? Jamie: Doing great. How are you? Lauren: Awesome. Excited for this conversation. So let's jump in because there's a lot to cover. So I'd like to just start by asking you a little bit about what you currently do at DoorDash. Jamie: Yeah, so I'm what's called a product counsel. It is a role that is very specific to tech companies. Essentially, what it is, is I work with product teams. So with the business, with software engineers, with product managers, it's a highly cross-functional role. And I get to have the fun of building the products that you interact with and millions of people interact with on a daily basis. Ensuring regulatory compliance, making sure everything is crystal clear to the consumer, marketing, you know, the Dasher side as well, ensuring that the delivery is safe and compliant and the best possible product we can provide. So it's a lot of fun. Lauren: That sounds fun. And a product that pretty much all of our listeners will be familiar with. But what's the best part of it, like being in-house at a company like that? Jamie: I would say no two days are the same. I really like being in a dynamic role. I will never be bored in this job, which is probably one of the best things about it. I get to cover a pretty wide swath of areas too. So I cover, I'm on the new verticals team, which is essentially fancy tech jargon for all of our newer business lines that are non-restaurant. So grocery delivery, pharmacy, alcohol, all of those are new verticals. And I specifically get to cover retail, so everything from Sephora to Best Buy to Home Depot to PetSmart. I cover our whole convenience business, so that's pharmacies and convenience stores, as well as everything health-related, including prescription delivery. And I also get to cover SNAP, which is Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. It's a government benefit, food benefit for low-income individuals and families. And it's a way that folks can order groceries on our platform using their benefits. So you can tell even from just my description of my job, all of those things are very different, which makes it a lot of fun. So that's one. And then I think the second thing is I like that I get to build. You know, I feel like I am aligned with the mission of the company in the sense that I'm working to help it succeed as opposed to more of the litigation past I was in where I'm trying to resolve disputes. You know, it's a lot more proactive rather than reactive, which is exciting. And yeah, I like contributing to the success of the company. That really is invigorating. Lauren: Yeah, that sounds really rewarding to be building new product lines with the business people. Jamie: Yeah, absolutely. Lauren: Okay, so I want to rewind and just figure out how you've gotten to such an engaging role. So let's go all the way back to college and you're deciding to go to law school. So I see that you majored in poli-sci undergrad at USC. And I'm wondering, did you always know that you wanted to be a lawyer? Was that the plan or did that kind of come in time? Jamie: Yeah. So no is the short answer. I always had an inkling that law might be for me, but I wasn't sure. So when I went to college, I was actually in journalism and communication school at first because I figured being a good writer would help me no matter what field I chose. Those courses did not appeal to me. And I ended up taking a constitutional law class in undergrad that was actually taught by a law school professor in the style of a law school class. So we actually read court opinions. Our tests were just like law school, issue spotting. And it was all the like sexy con law stuff that, you know, is in the news. Freedom of speech issues and equal protection. And I was totally drawn to it. I had a great professor too, but that really solidified for me that this was something I was passionate about. And I switched my major to poli-sci, loved those classes. I got to take everything from the more political side to legal classes to also philosophy, which was really kind of neat to think about how societies are built and our norms and. It just really aligned with, I think, my natural way of thinking. I think I am a critical thinker by nature. And so I think I realized there was alignment in the legal field and how lawyers have to work with kind of my natural way of looking at the world and approaching problems. Lauren: That's really interesting because I feel like I talked to so many people who, when they got to law school, the way law school is taught was so alienating to them. And they really felt almost kind of traumatized by it. But it sounds like I felt the same way I loved law school and that, you know, the approach to problem solving really kind of drew you in. Jamie: Yeah, I loved law school. And I, you know, it was like, it felt like a lot of work at the time. But now when you're in a 40 plus hour a week job, it seems like a joke that we thought that was hard. But it was, I mean, I went to UC Davis also, which was a very collegial environment. I think not everybody has that in law school, but that was really a lovely place to be. And I actually miss, we had so many lunchtime talks with professors, like opining about things going on in the news and the Supreme Court and, It was cool to have that at my fingertips and people who are really engaged with, you know, significant happenings in the world and having a forum to just hear her perspectives and also have like, you know, brown bag discussions. I miss that. Like some of the things going on today, I wonder what some of my professors would say and would love to have those conversations. So, yeah, there was never a point where I questioned what I was doing. I think before I decided to go to law school, a lot of people tried to talk me out of it because of the debt, you know, possibilities. And I'm very glad I didn't listen to them. Lauren: Well, so it sounds like you had a great experience at Davis for law school. And then you came to Reed Smith. So can you talk about how you decided to go from law school? And it sounds like a very kind of like academic, calm, law-focused thing to being a big law litigator. Jamie: Yeah, I had no idea what I wanted to do when I went to law school. And listeners will probably know this term, but we had something called OCI, which stands for on-campus interviewing, where law firms and regulatory agencies and other organizations, nonprofits to come to campus and actually interview Davis law students. And this is common at schools across the country. And I and a lot of big law firms come every year and I wasn't even going to put my hat in the ring I just had heard horror stories about like selling your soul and having no free time and it just being pretty miserable and I'm very grateful for a classmate who said don't limit yourself just throw your hat in the ring and you don't have to say yes and just see what you think. And that was a passing comment that changed my life because it was really good advice. And so I applied and you really get a sense interviewing of the personality of a law firm. I think if law firm, some of the law firms who I interviewed with, whoever decided to send those lawyers should be re-evaluated because they, as the face of the law firm, made me certain I didn't want to work there. And the reverse was true. I had interviews where I just got a really good feel. Reed Smith was one of those firms in fact I actually had a really positive impression of Reed Smith going in because Reed Smith had come to Davis and done a lunchtime talk and I’ll give a shout out to Jessica Sisco who's the recruiter and SF for a long time. She is one of a kind so charismatic and charming and she led like a myth busters panel with a few a current Reed Smith attorney is, and it was funny and relaxed, and everybody seemed to genuinely be happy. These things sound obvious, but they are appealing, especially for folks who've heard horror stories about big law. And so, yeah, I remember interviewing at Reed Smith. I loved the people I met, and I chose it because of the feel. Lauren: No, and you are so smart. I mean, I feel like a lot of law students going into the interview process might lose sight of the fact that you're interviewing them too, right? Like you are being interviewed and you need to take that aspect of it seriously. But I think that you getting to know the people, seeing how they related to each other. And it sounds like having a professional staff person too, who was, you know, really owning the process and bringing the best of the firm to you showed how much kind of the firm cared about getting the people. Jamie: I have a vivid memory of walking into a partner's office, not a Reed Smith, at another firm while I was in a final round interview. And they were writing emails while I was talking to them, like totally not paying attention to me. Just so rude. And it's like, if this is the type of people you guys want and want to be the face of your firm, then great somebody else can work here I'm out so I definitely got the reverse with Reed Smith people who just genuinely wanted to learn about me went to my interest line on my resume and asked me about like improv comedy which I had down there and just wanted to get to know me as a person instead of you know seeing it as something they had to get through so that was really refreshing. Lauren: Yeah good tip for interviewers too then you know some of the best law students are really taking note of how much you're engaging with them as a person and giving them your undivided attention during the interview. All right. So you were very thoughtful about choosing a law firm. And I'm curious that once you landed at Reed Smith, first couple of years, was it what you expected? What did you think? Jamie: That's a good question. I'd probably say no, it wasn't what I expected. I think the biggest surprise that I wish somebody had told me was, you're kind of an independent contractor as an associate. I think I had an impression that I would show up and there would be work that needed to be done and somebody would put the work on my desk and I would do the work. And instead, the first few months were like almost like business development within the firm of having to go to a million lunches and have people get to know me and talk about their practice areas and actively seek out work which I mean thankfully I'm an extrovert so it was less difficult for me But I remember feeling empathy for some of the more introverted peers of mine who, it's a challenge, you know, especially when you're at a law school, you don't feel like you know anything that you're trying to sell yourself. Like, that's tough. Lauren: It is. But I'm obliged to say that there are ways to build business as an introvert, but it looks different, right? Jamie: Yeah, I'm sure that's true because obviously the law firms are not just filled with extroverts, but it was kind of exhausting. Lauren: Even for an extrovert. Jamie: Yeah, even for me. And you have an hours requirement and you're trying to do a good job and there's pressure there. So I think that was a surprise. Lauren: Yeah. Thank you for saying that. I think that a lot of people, especially when you are a top law student, you've been going to class, doing what's expected, getting A's, and there can be a tendency to think it'll be more of the same at the law firm. But you do have to be entrepreneurial and find the work that you want to do. Even if there's a ton of work coming at you, you still need to be strategic. Jamie: Right and you don't even know what exists so a lot of the exercise is figuring out what kind of work exists in that office because you know there there may not be people practicing your interest first choice interest area in that office they may be in DC or New York and so you you are already kind of limited initially and just figuring out like what the heck does this kind of work look like? Or what does it mean? Am I going to like it? Do I want to sell myself to this person and get involved in this work? You know? So it was a lot of like feeling around in the dark is kind of how it felt. Lauren: Yeah. And you were, so you were in our global commercial disputes group, which is one of our largest groups. And I'm curious to know how you approach that. There are so many different practices within that practice group. Did you specialize immediately or did you do a variety of work and how did that work out? Jamie: Yeah. So I never specialized ever in my four years and that was intentional. And I will say actually going back to a prior question about why Reed Smith, some of the firms that I interviewed with wanted to know a practice area choice, which is so unrealistic. In law school, you're exposed to a tiny percentage of subject matter. And so to know what I wanted to do is just so unrealistic coming out of law school. And I remember when I interviewed at Reed Smith, there was there was talk about rotating and trying different things. And that really appealed to me. So I joined the global commercial disputes team, because I could kind of be a free agent in that group. The other groups were more specialized. disputes is a very broad category. You can have disputes in dozens of practice areas. And so I really intentionally did not put all my eggs in one basket and did healthcare work, environmental work, general commercial business disputes. I really tried everything to see what I was interested in and also to see who I liked working with. Somebody also told me my first year, it's better to work with your first choice people and maybe your second or third choice practice area than your first choice practice area and your third, fourth choice people, which is so true. You're spending your whole day around these folks and the people issues are what makes or breaks the experience. So I, you know, I basically shopped around and found people I liked and subject matter I liked and I gravitated towards those folks. Lauren: Yeah. And it sounds like given your current role being so broad in terms of areas of law, that was a good decision to prepare you for it. Jamie: Yeah. And, you know, I think the first four years at Reed Smith, what I really learned were my kind of core lawyering skills. I focused on being a good writer, you know, kind of persuasion and again, the like issue spotting, critical thinking aspects of the work. And when I joined DoorDash, it was known that I was going to have a healthcare focus. And I'd done a bunch of healthcare regulatory work at Reed Smith, but I am by no means an expert in that area. There are a lot of people who know a lot more than me. And so I think the core skills, honing those was the best decision I made because it set me up for success in my current role. Like, anybody can learn any subject matter. It's all learnable. But the core skills are what you need. And those are what's really transferable, I would say, job to job. Lauren: Yeah, and finding it sounds like you found people who you really kind of vibed with and invest, they invested in you and helped you to learn those skills, right? Because that's really the only way to learn these things is by doing it. Jamie: Yeah I should give a shout out actually to Phillip Babich. I did a lot of work with him but he more than anyone took the time to really review and critique my writing. And i would it was terrifying at first it looked like a bloodbath on the page which is scary when you're new and you just want to impress people and get a pat on the back but it improved my writing substantially. And I, and him just taking the time to do that, I now know as a more senior attorney, you know, we have summer interns at DoorDash and I have been, supervised a number of them and worked with them and I now know taking the time to really sit with writing and provide fulsome feedback is not a small task and it's something that requires a lot of thought and I try to remember how impactful it was for me to receive that and realize it's worth the time to give and that it really is going to change somebody's skill set and make a difference and I try to remember that now when I'm working with law students because it just takes one person to really A: change your impression about a place but B: help you improve. And I and I so I think my writing improved also tremendously and through working with him so I'm grateful for that. Lauren: Awesome. Yeah, no. And thank you for pointing out that getting a heavy markup from a senior lawyer, it could be jarring that that is really that person investing in you and maybe making like a core difference in your career success. It's an important point. And I think it can be tough, especially if you're someone used to getting straight A's, right? Jamie: Totally. And it takes perspective and time to understand that feedback is a gift. You want to just do a good job, but getting a pat on the back, you're never going to learn anything. And getting a heavily redlined brief or memo doesn't mean you're an idiot and doesn't mean you did a bad job. It just means this could be that much better. And I still sometimes struggle with that. I mean, it takes a lot of self-security to feel comfortable getting a lot of constructive criticism, but it's also hugely beneficial if you are open to it. Lauren: All right. So I want to make sure that we have time to talk about how you landed at your current role. So tell us about when you decided that you wanted to move in-house and how you approached that. Jamie: Yeah. So I did mostly litigation at Reed Smith. And there were things that I really liked about it. I liked arguing in court. I liked the kind of persuasive reasoning side. And there were other things that I really soured on and just the adversarial nature of it. And so I'd always kind of thought I wanted to go in-house. The appeal of working for one company and really helping that company succeed was super appealing to me so I just started looking and it was a long process. It took me probably a year when I started looking and I had actually had I had actually applied for a role at DoorDash 10 months prior to my job posting coming out and they wanted somebody with five to seven years experience. I had only three at the time but I had an informational interview with who's now the director of our entire team and again she took the time to sit with me and talk with me and get to know me and she didn't owe me a thing and she at the end said if you ever need anything or if I can be more helpful like please let me know. And that went such a long way. I was like, I want to work for you. I'll do whatever it takes. So, you know, then I had a number of interviews and job apps. And then my role posting came up and I just shot her an email, hoping she remembered me 10 months later and said, hey, I was thinking about throwing my hat in the ring for this. What do you think? And she actually said, I was actually just going to reach out to you. And here I am almost four years later you know loving my job in a great place work I worked she was my direct manager for two or three years and has now ascended higher in the org but it you know, again it was it was the people and the vibe that brought me to the place and it has not steered me wrong thus far. You like, don't discount your instincts and your gut feeling because it is it has proven to be true for me. And maybe I'm just fortunate. But it's been, yeah, worked out. Lauren: That's awesome. And also good for you applying for a job you were interested in, even though you didn't like tick every box on on the job description, because I imagine many people would have just said, no way. And then this whole relationship with your your eventual manager wouldn't have even started. Jamie: Right, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So it took a lot of patience and a lot of conversations and but it you know it worked out in the end thankfully. Lauren: All right. So you we've talked a lot about you kind of making your way through your career based on like personal relationships, the sense you get about the people and how important people are to your experience, whether it's in law school or in-house or at a law firm. So I want to just ask you a question in your capacity as an in-house counsel who is hiring a lot of lawyers and knowing that you're very astute around these interpersonal relationships. What can law firms do to kind of stay top of mind with you as a client? Jamie: It's an interesting question again you you kind of nailed it on the head of, the people side i'll start by saying what not to do which is, don't treat me as a business opportunity instead of treating me as a person, is what I would say. And I you know and I’ve had people reach out who I didn't really have a relationship with who are pitching me business. And it just feels, look, I know that this is a client-based industry. Their business development is a huge part of it. But it's just, at least for me personally, not effective when I feel like I'm just being seen as like a dollar sign business opportunity. What I would say to do is I actually did, I hired Reed Smith and I used them for some healthcare regular story work. And it was the people I worked with who I knew, knew their stuff were good people were diligent, thoughtful, who had a proven track record with me already. And who also treated me well while I worked there, you know, like you can't just come to the ball game when it's business development time. And win me over kind of a thing. Like the proof is in the pudding. And so the folks I work with at Reed Smith. I don't feel like they're just seeing me as an opportunity. They have expertise in the areas I'm looking for. I know I can depend on them because I've seen their working style. One of the things I really look for in outside counsel is responsiveness. It sounds so basic, but I hate having to follow up with my outside counsel and not knowing whether they're on it or when I can expect something. And so the folks I work with in the healthcare practice at Reed Smith are super communicative. I never have those questions. And if a deadline comes and goes and they need more time, I'm getting very proactive communications about it, which is huge for me, honestly. So yeah, I would say just a lot of it is the people skills. there's expertise in a lot of places and so that's how you differentiate yourself is are you communicative? Are you on top of things? Are you treating me in a way that I want to be treated and maybe proactively thinking about other things we could use if we want, you know, proactively thinking about where our business is headed and coming up with ideas or areas that you, you know, think we might want to take a closer look at those are appealing. Lauren: Yeah. No, I hear, again, I know this is simplifying what you just said so eloquently, but thinking about you as a person, right, who needs to know that the lawyer is working on it, who wants to feel that their lawyer is thinking from their perspective and what's going to be coming up for them in the next few months, years, et cetera. Jamie: Yeah. And asking a lot of questions, I would say. I think sometimes with new business, new attorneys want to prove themselves as experts in the area. And so they want to just opine or analyze before they really have the full picture and are maybe loathe to ask questions because I don't know why. But I think the more questions someone asks, the more engaged they are, the better the work is going to be because they're going to more understand our business and our product and what the ask is. And so really taking the time to obtain a foundational understanding of what's our business model, where do we want to go? It also just saves time in the long run, but it's a signal to me that they are approaching this in the right way. Lauren: Oh, well, well, Jamie, thank you so much. I feel like that is a great note to close on with that word of wisdom for how, you know, even junior lawyers can start to impress you and how they should be thinking about it. So thank you so much for being with us today. Jamie: Thank you. It was fun. Lauren: Yeah, thank you all for listening to this episode of Reed Smith's Career Footprints podcast. We really hope you'll join us in a future episode. Thank you. Outro: Career Footprints is a Reed Smith production. Our producers are Ali McCardell and Shannon Ryan. You can find our podcasts on podcast streaming platforms, reedsmith.com and our social media accounts at Reed Smith LLP. To learn more about Reed Smith's alumni network, or if you are an alum of the firm who wants to share your career story, contact Laura Karmatz, Reed Smith's global senior director of alumni relations at alumni@reedsmith.com. Disclaimer: This podcast is provided for educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice and is not intended to establish an attorney-client relationship, nor is it intended to suggest or establish standards of care applicable to particular lawyers in any given situation. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Any views, opinions, or comments made by any external guest speaker are not to be attributed to Reed Smith LLP or its individual lawyers. All rights reserved. Transcript is auto-generated,
Mentorship – and being a good mentee – has been important to alum Cara DeCataldo since the beginning of her career. Cara shares insights into how mentors and others in her professional network helped her to prepare for and thrive in her first role at a small regional firm, then as a product liability litigator in Reed Smith’s Life Sciences Health Industry Group and more recently in her current position as assistant general counsel at global pharmaceuticals company Eisai Inc. She reflects on some of the important lessons that each of these moves taught her and explores the exciting and liberating idea that your next role might not be the one you first expected. ----more---- Transcript: Intro: Welcome to the Reed Smith podcast, Career Footprints. In each episode of Career Footprints, we'll ask our guest, a Reed Smith alum, to share their career story, how their time at Reed Smith set them up for success, and their advice for early career lawyers. Our goal is to surface insights from the careers of these inspiring professionals that will help you find professional success, however you define that. Lauren: Welcome to another episode of Reed Smith's Alumni Career Footprints podcast. This is Lauren Hakala, Reed Smith's Global Head of Learning and Development. Today, I'm excited to be speaking with Reed Smith alum Cara DeCataldo. Based in New Jersey, Cara currently serves as Assistant General Counsel at Eisai, a global pharmaceutical company headquartered in Japan. Cara joined Eisai eight years ago after practicing as a product liability litigator in Reed Smith's life sciences and health industry group, what we sometimes call LSHI. So I want to start by asking you about just your professional life currently. Can you tell us a little bit about your role at Eisai and what you do and how you spend most of your time there? Cara: Yes, definitely. We are a midsize pharmaceutical company, and we have a pretty lean legal department of about 20 attorneys across the entire company. So I support our commercial side of the business, including our medical affairs colleagues. So mostly marketing, sales, and I have an assigned product, which right now is an Alzheimer's drug, which was approved roughly two years ago. And so I am, you know, I sit on our promotional review committee. We review all the materials that are used for sales and marketing. As you know, the life science industry is so heavily regulated. So, you know, we take special care in how we promote the product. And so I sit on those committees and then just generally advise clients on interactions with HCPs and our customers, market access issues. So anything sort of commercially related to the product that I support is the legal work that I do. Lauren: Wow. So it sounds like you're just really embedded in the day-to-day operations of a large pharma company. Cara: Yeah, absolutely. Lauren: Could you tell us a little bit about what you like the most about that kind of pace and that sort of focus of your work? Cara: Yeah, I really like being part of the team who can sort of think strategically about things to come rather than sometimes when we're in a law firm, we're reacting to things that have already happened. And you're, you know, a ton of strategy involved in preparing for litigation, of course, but it's just sort of different. You're more partnered with your business colleagues and can think about ways to mitigate risk, but doing so in a way that really helps to achieve the business's objectives. I like in the work that I do, I use this term a lot. I'm a bit of a connector because I do see such a variety of questions that are posed to me or materials that are sent to me for my review. And I can really, a lot of times, sometimes our business colleagues are in a silo and they're working. And I kind of see the bigger picture sometimes. I'll say, hey, did you know so-and-so was working on a project that sounds somewhat similar? You know, you might share learnings. And so I really like that part of my job, this connector role that I get to play just by nature of the legal questions and issues that come to me. So I think that's fascinating. And then I really like being part of the pharmaceutical industry. Like I do have deep belief in the science that is achieving remarkable goals to help patients in the field that I mentioned in Alzheimer's disease. It's obviously an incredible unmet need, just a dearth of treatments and just a lack of hope for these patients. And so that's been incredibly exciting to me in my way, in my legal way, my non-scientist contributing way. But contributing to that is really something that I enjoy. Lauren: That's amazing. It sounds like you have that sort of double crown of loving both what you do and then also feeling good about the mission. Cara: Exactly. Lauren: Well, thank you so much for sharing that. So I want to kind of figure out how you ended up in such a great and fulfilling position. And when we spoke the other day, you mentioned to me that you graduated law school back in 2009, which was right in the middle of the global financial crisis. I was a few years ahead of you. I was law school class of 2004. So I remember what a really tough year 2009 was for law school grads. So I'm wondering, can you tell us a little bit about how you landed your first role at a law school in that environment? Cara: Yeah, it was interesting times. Hopefully not like anything the 2025 graduates will be facing. But as we're talking, it's April. So who knows? Hopefully not. But I did have a summer internship at a regionally based New Jersey law firm, and I was lucky enough to secure an offer. And I thought I would be doing, you know, more business litigation. That's sort of what my offer was extended to in that particular group. But, you know, life unfolded and unfortunately a lot of offers were rescinded at that time to my colleagues. But there was one particular partner who was in the product liability litigation practice in a different office of this regional New Jersey firm that I worked for. And he still had, you know, had a need for an associate. And You know, they said, listen, are you willing to go to this other office, which wasn't terribly far away? New Jersey's not a terribly big state as it is. So I said, yes, of course. And so I did get some great experience. I was doing more like automotive, some asbestos litigation. And it was wonderful because when you got, I didn't know much. I knew not much of anything. I had some great, more senior associates that were really friendly, open door. Like I could ask them those really dumb questions of this partner said to do, you know, get the interrogatories. And I just, what does that even mean? Where do I look? You know, those are just very basic questions. So I was just fortunate I was surrounded by good people, willing people, people generous with their time. And so I learned a lot. But even at that time, I just felt that I wasn't busy enough. And I know that sounds silly, but I think even then I recognized it wasn't the type of experience that I wanted to have when I had the time to get more experience to get me where I sort of wanted to go long term. And so I started looking for other jobs, and a friend of mine from law school had ended up at Reed Smith, And at one point, I think we had just talked over the years, I was kind of like, I'm looking, I'm not terribly, I could use more work. I wanted different experiences, more experiences. And she reached out to me and said, oh, the Princeton office is hiring, you know, a litigator in their product liability, their life science group. So it wasn't, you know, exactly, I wasn't as familiar yet with the pharma industry, but I had those general early associate litigation product liability thought processes, certainly understood that. And so we connected and I interviewed with Melissa Geist and I was just fortunate enough to get hired into that group. And that was just such a great experience overall. Lauren: Oh, gosh, that must have been like a big change. I want to kind of ask you about that. So you were at a regional firm, New Jersey-based firm, I understand. And then you made this move to Reed Smith and suddenly you were at a global firm with colleagues all over the world. How was that for you? Cara: Yeah, it was super exciting. And I do always say that I have the best of both worlds work standing in the Princeton office because, you know, it's sort of a smaller office with the resources of a national farm, which was super exciting. So it definitely had the clients and the sophisticated type of work that I knew that I would have ample opportunity to grow my skill set. It also just had, you know, the ability to network with other attorneys of these like great minds and different groups. And they had, you know, different networking events and just seeing the leadership structure, like. You know, the firm chair. And that's really like running more of a business, you know, certainly all law firms are running a business, but at a large scale. And so all of those opportunities to meet people doing such a wide variety of legal work and networking with those people, trying to understand the work that they did, that was really exciting and important because you can never grow your network, you know, big enough to know, because none of us are going to be experts in every area of the law. It's really not possible. It's about, you know, having a network to rely upon. And so that was super exciting to me. And then really just, again, I started with this point, but the focusing on the nature of the work. So at that time, there were some large, you know, multi-district litigations going on at which we were, you know, chief defense counsel. And so the exposure to, you know, drawing up expert reports and helping to develop them in the context with expert witnesses. The ability, at one point, some judge went nuts and ordered all these, you know, hundreds of depositions needs to be done within one month. And so we were kind of dispatched out there to do it. And sometimes actually jumping in, getting your feet wet is, you know, an invaluable learning experience. We certainly had tons of guidance and mentors and people at the partnership level that had prepared us. But the ability to go and start taking depositions, at that point, I was probably a fourth or fifth year attorney out of law school, was important and confidence building and all of those wonderful things that have set me up for later on in my career. Lauren: And you mentioned that you were interviewed by Melissa and worked mostly with her Melissa Geist partner in our Princeton office. What did you like about working with her in particular? Cara: Well, I understand we only have a half hour total. So I cannot say enough nice things about Melissa. She is warm. She is generous with her time. But, you know, she's an excellent attorney. She is a straight shooter. So just really practical advice. You know, she wouldn't tiptoe around saying, like, this is what the client expects. They would want an answer like this. If you just send something like that, that's not sufficient. So clarity in her willingness to provide advice was really important. And I think just feeling like someone had confidence in you and introducing you around the firm and stuff like that was really important to me. And just modeling, you know, on a personal level of someone who had a family at the time, her children were probably the ages that mine are now. And having somebody model that this is indeed possible, not only possible, but that you could thrive. She's someone who if she makes a mistake is not afraid to say I made this mistake but this is how we're going to move forward and and fix it and so all of those things are all the reasons why I love Melissa. We still try to get lunch a couple of times a year and it's probably one of my favorite lunch dates of the year because she's just a really wonderful human being as well as a fantastic lawyer. Lauren: I love that point you made about her willingness or, you know, any good leader's willingness to admit when they've made a mistake. Because as a junior lawyer, you can feel like one mistake is and it's the end of your career. But to see that when you speak up, someone else understands and the whole team will be focused on fixing the mistake. I think that is that was like sort of a breakthrough moment for me in my career when I realized that. Cara: So true, Lauren. And I literally remember losing like hours of sleep over like, you know, a typo in an email or just things that you don't have the perspective yet. And then to see people model that are doing really large scale, important work to model like we are all human beings and mistakes will happen. It's how you're able to catch them, own up to them, address them. I mean, that goes for every facet of life. But it was really important in law when I think, you know, associates tend to be very hard on themselves. It's a big learning curve right out of law school. So, yeah, that someone who models that well was really important to me. Lauren: So last question about your time at Reed Smith before we move forward on your career path. What are some things that you feel like you did as a lateral and as a mentee to cultivate your success and your relationship with Melissa? Cara: Yeah, I do think a couple of things. I think one thing is your willingness to say yes, when it's possible. Yes, I would like to take on this pro bono assignment because it's just something different and a new skill that I might glean. Yes, there's this, you know, our firm is having a happy hour and yes, I want to go and just meet more people. So, you know, I say that with the. You know, when you have the time, you're capable of saying yes. If it's a smart yes, like the willingness to do that, I think is important. I think there's just something to be said about being a team player and all of those good things. I think cliches come from a foundation of truth. And so there's certainly, I was very eager and willing at that time. Part of the reason I lateraled over was I wanted to grow. And so to do that, maybe some things that you wouldn't necessarily even feel comfortable, just jump in and say yes. And so that's part of it. I think, too, I remember pretty early on, maybe we had worked together for about two months. I did ask Melissa, is there anything I could be doing differently? And I think that ability to ask people. And now that I manage people, it's so nice because it makes you as the manager stop and reflect. And so just to ask, to seek feedback, I think is an important thing. And it was so mine. I remember her saying, like, when I send you stuff, you don't respond to my email. Just maybe a couple days will go by and you produce the work product. And so, you know, phew, it's done. That's wonderful. But maybe you could just acknowledge, like, received working on it or I don't have any. And it was just such a quick aha moment of, sure, absolutely. Thank you for sharing that. I will do that. And so obviously that helped our immediate work relationship. But that simple principle can be expounded. And I always do that even now when I, if it's a client request that comes in and, you know, I can, I can gauge that it's not urgent compared to some other things that I'm working on. But I will always say writing to acknowledge receipt, I'll get back to in a few days just because emails do sometimes get lost. And so something minor like that does illustrate that seeking feedback is just important to develop those relationships. Lauren: Yes. That's such a good point, especially as a relatively newer lawyer. You were like a fourth year when you started at the firm working directly with a partner. It's a good reminder that you can ask for feedback whenever you feel like they might have something to say, and it makes it so much easier for them to invest in you. All right. So let's talk about your move in-house. So it sounds like you were kind of loving it at Reed Smith. So I'm curious, what caused you to apply for your role at Eisai? How did you even find out it was open? Tell us more about that. Cara: Yeah. And so I did always think that I would enjoy working for like a business. And, you know, I'm starting to think, I don't know that my long term aspiration is like, is trying a case. I liked a lot about litigation, but in this, the invaluable skills that. Doing that work develops. But I was starting to think, you know, I don't see that as my long-term goal, being lead trial counsel or anything like that. And so I was, you know, just sort of contemplating like long-term goals. I was very, I was drawn into the idea of helping like a business, like working for a pharmaceutical company. And then I did have a friend, that same friend that went to Reed Smith. She had left. We only, it's funny because we probably only overlapped for like a couple of months and then she had gotten this in-house position at Eisai. And so she called me at one point and was just like, oh, there's, you know, this woman, Christine, who supports the commercial side of the business is looking for someone, you know, maybe it'd be interesting. So I'm interested. I know she sent me the job description and I remember saying to her like, oh, this isn't what I do because it wasn't, you know. A direct translation. It wasn't looking for, you know, support someone on multi-justice litigation, like a litigate. And so I thought, oh no. And so I kind of sat on it for a little bit, but they were still, Danielle was like, they're having trouble finding someone. Like, I know that you're super smart and capable. I think you should apply. And so, so that was sort of my foot in the door. And then it was interesting as soon as I did get the interview and there was, you know, I had met with a lot of people. We, to this day, we still do multiple interviews because it's a small department. I think, you know, you want to make sure it's the right fit. So I probably interviewed with, you know, six people in one day, but I remember being struck by a lot of people had a similar background and, you know, just comments picking up throughout the interviewing process of like, we think these are good skill sets and, you know, you can learn some of the advertising and promotional like 101, how to review pieces. But if you have these, you know, the judgment that litigation instills and all of that. So I ended up applying, had a good experience. You know, I, like the people I currently work with, could tell that from the interview process. And so I did accept the position. It was one of the hardest conversations I ever had to have when I resigned, just because I was blessed that I wasn't in like a situation where I was desperate to get out. But it just, it was the right timing. And I will add, I also did have at the time a one-year-old. My husband's in litigation. So the uncertainty and the demand of litigating hours was taking its toll. I will say that. I don't know that I could say that was the primary driver, but it was a contributing factor for sure. Lauren: Yeah, no. And so you mentioned having a lot of conversations about needing to learn when you got there and everyone kind of knew that. But I'm curious, going from being like a trial lawyer to this advisory role, what were the biggest surprises and how did you make that transition so successfully? Cara: Yeah, it was a learning curve. And I will say for about six months, because like you were going from this high stakes, high speed. At that point, I kind of knew what I was doing in my current role to kind of just saying like, oh, my goodness, am I contributing here? And so it took a lot. I used that same feedback model. I would ask a lot, like, am I meeting your expectations? But it did. It was almost like I remember a good six months of being like, oh, am I making any contributions at all? So I will say it's a learning curve. Being willing to be vulnerable and ask a lot of questions, because I asked a lot of questions from basic, like, there's a whole nother language that the pharma community, they're so acronym heavy. And I would be Googling, but I'm like, this one doesn't seem that so. Just from asking basic questions, like you're using this acronym, what does that mean? And nobody thought that was, they were all like, oh, yes, yes. Like, of course, we should say that, you know. So all from asking basic questions, kind of to put, you know, any type of humility, check that a little bit at the door. And then then you started to I think one thing that helped me a lot was relationship building, both, of course, within your department, but but with your business colleagues to start to understand their business, their needs, their pressure points, the things that they need help with. And once that started to happen more, I could understand where my role and where my value add could be. And that was important. Also, coming from litigation, we were kind of developing certain skill sets that are specific. And then we're a lean in-house department, so you kind of see a little bit of everything. So it was learning how to really use that judgment that I had honed through my years at Reed Smith, but use that to say, okay, this is an area where I don't know everything about. So this is an area where it makes sense to reach out, refer to outside counsel, get more expertise. Or this is an area where, okay, what I think logically makes sense probably is enough. It probably does. Like that's probably enough of a risk mitigate. So it was applying, like, learning, and that probably took, you know, I quoted this six-month window, maybe that was more of a year, but just learning that skill was something that, you know, I needed to develop in the transition. Lauren: That's such a powerful point you made about the willingness to be vulnerable and ask questions. Some of the best career advice I ever got, I was starting a new job and had been to a meeting with my boss where I think I did a little bit too much talking and not enough listening. And she said to me, you know, you don't have to add value on the first day. It's OK to just listen. And I really think that that sounds like you did quite a lot. Cara: Yes, I love that. I love that because I really think that's very, very true. Like we're, especially when you're off and running and you were adding so much value for it to the place where you left, you just feel like, oh, this doesn't feel great. Like they're going to realize they made a huge mistake or something like that. And that's, that's not, you know, you're investing in people for the long term and you like certain things about their background and their resume and their interview skills. And so you offered a job for a reason. in. And so I really love that advice that you got. And it took some time to sit in that uncomfortably for a little bit, but it's true. You have to learn the business. You have to learn the silly things from the acronyms to just what's expected of you. And so I do think that's an important realization that you need to do a little more listening when you first get there. And I do tend to be a little more introverted as a personality style. So that part came nice, But it's that fear of, am I adding any value here? And so just giving yourself a little bit of grace in a transition period, for sure. Lauren: I love that. And that's a really good segue to our last topic. So you are now in a position eight years later, you've been very successful, and you're now hiring lawyers to join your department. So knowing that some of our listeners might be people quite a lot like you were a few years ago, law firm associates looking for their first in-house role, what can you tell them about what you as someone who's hiring for those roles are looking for in candidates? Cara: Well, the first thing I would say is go for it, even if word for word, you know, the job description doesn't match necessarily your background. Because I think in hiring, I've learned that that's sort of a unicorn. Because every company, even my role at a different company, they're probably looking for certain like slightly different things because it's so unique to the company and their business needs. So to find one person that ticks the, you know, the eight things that you're saying would be their primary responsibilities is almost never going to happen in my experience. And so you need to have some confidence of like, okay, this isn't quite what I do, but I think what I do would be valuable and would be transferable and just apply anyway. So that's the first thing I'll start off by saying, because I think there's something to job descriptions that it's like, oh, well, you know, this says, let's have, you know, some of your responsibility will be contracting. I don't really do that. So I'm not going to apply to the rest of the job. And so anyways, that's the first thing. I will say we in my department, we all agree that the training that is done at law firms is invaluable. So we personally do look for someone that is coming from not straight out of law school, but is coming from a law firm and that just has experience in the industry. Someone that it's like clear they had done well at the firm. You know, they might have started as the I forget all junior associate and senior associate. So I think, you know, that's kind of clear. The resumes speak for themselves. And then just someone throughout the course of interviewing process. And I did mention we do a lot of rounds and meet with a lot of people. But I think you can start to get a sense of someone in that judgment that I was talking about of because no one's going to know every single thing that, you know, crosses their desk. And so is this a person that's going to be able to say, okay, let me ask you, my manager, this question or let me raise it up to the general counsel or this is an area where I am advocating, I think we need to spend the investment to seek outside counsel, help, or are they going to just try to say, I know all this and shoot all females of like, this is what we should do. And so I do think there's a way to screen for that judgment. But we do look for, and we do think that litigation. You know, any type of like false claim work where you've worked on cases on, you know, whether or not you're the person that's sort of in a government investigation roles or just has crossed over because you're supporting expert witness development. But that's, you know, investigations are certainly its own thing that pharma deals with a lot, companies of both sizes. So, but rarely is there a role dedicated just to, you know, well, at least in a pharma, I will speak to a pharma company our size. We wouldn't have one person whose dedicated role is to deal with that. So the job description may be so much broader, but we do think that's, you know, a great skillset. I'm sure I'm forgetting many things that we look for, but that's some of the top of my mind. We think that training coming from good, solid national firms like Reed Smith is, you guys, law firms have figured it out. Like you guys do a good training program that people who have now in-house, we have less resources to do that. So that background training and judgment are two of the most important things for me. Lauren: No, that's so helpful to know that someone in your position, And that's sort of what what you're looking for as someone comes to interview with with someone in your role. All right. So I have to let you go soon. But just last question, it's a quick one. If you had two pieces of advice that you could give to someone who's looking to kind of be in a position like yours in eight years time, what would they be? Cara: Yeah, I think a good one would be to network with people like me, if you have friends that have gone in-house. Because I don't think it is for everyone. I think people, you know, you might think it might be for you, but maybe it's not. So I honestly think getting the perspective of someone who's currently in a similar position at whatever, not necessarily someone that's hiring, but just reach out. Like LinkedIn is a good resource. I would say if I randomly got a message on LinkedIn of like, hey, I'm, you know, a third year associate at whatever firm. And long term, I'm thinking I'd like to do something, you know, based on what I see you do. Do you have 15? I would probably take that like and say, sure, I'd be happy to talk. I can give you an overview. So, you know, I'm not saying necessarily cold calling on LinkedIn people, but networking within your network, your professional network, people who have left the firm before you and do similar things, people maybe contacts, they know someone who used to work there before you started and they went in-house. So I do think tapping into your network to have conversations and then you never know when people have an open position. It's like, oh, this person's interested. They reached out. Like, you know, maybe a conversation starts right there and then that could lead to something. Second piece of advice, my mind is running through many different things. Everything from continuing to do really good work in your current position, because I think, you know, that's important. You can't, you have to be a high performer. Like that comes across in the, in, in like a lot, often you're hired for your expertise in, in your current role. So continuing to do a really good job. I think that's, I mean, that probably goes without saying. And then I think the other thing I already mentioned, which is broaden your search and don't be, don't limit yourself based on job descriptions. I do think that's important. Lauren: I love, I love the combination of getting to know people, start to learn about roles, think about what you might want to do, but also don't, don't leave your firm before you leave, right? And that, I think that can be really challenging when you're thinking about next steps, but, but it's critical. Cara: It is critical. You have to be in the, like doing, you have to be excellent. People are looking for excellence. And so you have to really continue to prioritize that. And yes, it could be hard if you're in two places, but I do think that you've said it very succinctly, don't leave your job before you've left because you need to do good, need to do good work. Lauren: Well, Cara, thank you so much for being with us today. I learned a ton from this conversation and we're so thankful about you sharing your story and being so open about your career path. And thank you to everyone for joining us today on another episode of Reed Smith Career Footprints. We hope to see you again in a future episode. Outro: Career Footprints is a Reed Smith production. Our producers are Ali McCardell and Shannon Ryan. You can find our podcast on podcast streaming platforms, reedsmith.com and our social media accounts at Reed Smith LLP. To learn more about Reed Smith's alumni network, or if you are an alum of the firm who wants to share your career story, contact Laura Karmatz, Reed Smith's global senior director of alumni relations at alumni at reedsmith.com. Disclaimer: This podcast is provided for educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice and is not intended to establish an attorney-client relationship, nor is it intended to suggest or establish standards of care applicable to particular lawyers in any given situation. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Any views, opinions, or comments made by any external guest speaker are not to be attributed to Reed Smith LLP or its individual lawyers. All rights reserved. Transcript is auto-generated.
Reed Smith alum Stuart Kuntz shares his path from senior M&A associate to associate general counsel of a public company, including what drew him to in-house practice and the mindset and approach to client service that contributed to his success. He shares his insights from two decades of dealmaking on how outside counsel – from partners to junior associates – can make a strong impression, and how junior associates can prepare for a career path that leads to success like his. ----more---- Transcript: Intro: Welcome to the Reed Smith Podcast, Career Footprints. In each episode of Career Footprints, we'll ask our guest, a Reed Smith alum, to share their career story, how their time at Reed Smith set them up for success, and their advice for early career lawyers. Our goal is to surface insights from the careers of these inspiring professionals that will help you find professional success, however you define that. Lauren: Welcome to another episode of Reed Smith's Alumni Career Footprints Podcast. I am your host, Lauren Hakala, Reed Smith's Global Director of Learning and Development. And today, I'm excited to be speaking with Reed Smith alumni, Stuart Kuntz. Stuart is Associate General Counsel, M&A, and Ventures at a company that many of our listeners will be very familiar with, and that's Foot Locker. He joined Footlocker two and a half years ago after spending about 17 years in legal roles of increasing responsibility at Verizon. Earlier in his career, Stuart practiced as a transactional associate here at Reed Smith. Stuart, how are you today? Stuart: Hi, Lauren. I'm doing great. Thanks. Lauren: So I'd like to start by asking you just about your current role at Foot Locker. How do you spend most of your time and who do you mainly interact with during your work days there? Stuart: You know, I spend most of my time, I'm a transactional lawyer, spend most of my time on M&A transactions. I spend some amount of time on international franchising transactions. as well. I also, as part of my role, I support our treasury group. So I do spend some time, not as much, but some time supporting treasury, either with regard to our credit facility or other agreements or questions they have. So that's, you know, that's the bulk of my practice at Foot Locker. There's an occasional, you know, occasional commercial contract I need to help out with, you know, a little this, a little that. But I would say the bulk of it is disposition work, international franchising, and some treasury support. Lauren: So it sounds like you are a real deal lawyer. And I'm curious, how would you describe your style or your approach to helping your clients get transactions done and closed? Stuart: You know, it's a lot of, you know, we talk about style and approach, you somewhat want to mirror your client's style and approach. And it can change from deal to deal. There are transactions that, you know, we got, you know, we have to take one for the team. Essentially, this is something We got to get done and, you know, we're going to have to bite our lip and do it because it's, it's critical and, you know, generally, you know, disposition of business that just isn't strategic, for example, you know, you're going to have to get done. There are others that are more nice to have where you can take stronger negotiation positions. It also depends on the counterparty. There are people who are very easy to deal with commercially reasonable professional people. There are people who, you know, are, it can be very difficult and, you know, everything's a fight and there can be people who, you know, maybe they're not difficult, but they They're not particularly sophisticated, and there's a lot of almost educating the other side when you're doing a deal. So it varies from transaction to transaction, but you try to get a feel for the deal. I try to be collaborative. I try to generally be fairly reasonable. I don't start from where I think I'm going to end up, but I would not necessarily set out an agreement that has every single issue biased in my favor in extreme ways because it's just not productive. So, you know, I would say, you know, try to start, you know, kind of, you know, somewhere near where you think you're going to wind up. You get exceptions here and there, but that's kind of my style, collaborative, approachable. Does that make sense? Lauren: Yeah. No, I'm hearing a lot of almost like situational awareness, right? And being able to read a room and adapt your style. So I definitely want to come back to that later when we talk about your advice for junior lawyers. Stuart: Sure, sure. Lauren: So you started your career as a law firm associate, like I did, and you were including at Reed Smith. Stuart: Yeah. Lauren: So I'm curious, when and why did you decide to move to an in-house role? Stuart: I moved in-house probably about six years into my practice, which I think is fairly typical for associates. I don't think that's particularly unusual. I went originally to MCI, which was a predecessor company of Verizon. They were bought by Verizon fairly shortly after I got there, actually. You know i like the idea of having one client really getting to know your client's business your client's style your client's you know pain points you know even your client's neuroses because you know everyone's got everyone's got neuroses and you know just knowing your clients is helpful i like the idea of being involved very very early on the idea of kind of even giving you know giving and strategic thought to, you know, deals and whether we should do it and how it should be done are things I really enjoy about being in-house and things that, reasons I thought I wanted to go in-house. After six years, I got in a point where I knew how to run a deal. And so, you know, I didn't need hand-holding to actually do the nuts and bolts of running a deal, which is important because in-house, there isn't, you know, that level of support that you get in a law firm from more senior lawyers, you know, who you're doubled up with on a deal, teaching them how to do a deal. It's, you know, this is your transaction, you know, call me when it's done. So, you know, so yeah, I think, you know, a lot of that I liked, I, there are things, you know, I, about the law firm life that I think long-term probably were not going to be for me. You know, I never saw myself as a big rainmaker, being able to bring a lot of business if something's not a concern in-house, obviously, you know, I'd be honest, I don't miss the billable hour. Lauren: I’ve never heard anyone say that they do. Stuart: I know, I know. Look, my time is my time, and I do my work. If I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy. And if I'm not, I don't stress about not making hours. I just, you know, whatever comes, I take care of it, and I'll track it or worry about it or even really pay attention to it. You know, today, you know, after being in-house for 20 years, I have no idea how much I spend on something. I just, you know, just do it however long it takes to take. Lauren: Yeah, no, I like what you said about being a sixth-year and knowing you could run a deal and, you know, being ready to do that at the company. So when you landed at MCI and you had that kind of expectation, was it what you thought? Did anything surprise you about in-house practice? Stuart: It was a lot of what I thought. A couple of things, I guess when you think about surprising, the level of support is not what it is in a law firm. And that took a little bit of adjusting is, you know, there's no word processing department. You know, the level of support staff for the legal department is much, much smaller. You know, so you're a little bit more on your own in those ways, or you somewhat rely on outside counsel in those ways. Learning how you know certain skills i wasn't prepared for learning how to manage outside councils is nothing you experience at a law firm so you kind of learn that on the fly talking to other in-house lawyers how do you kind of keep control of that process how do you know you need to prioritize your outside counsel they're not going to know necessarily so that was a skill that you know i think was new to me and maybe you know something I really hadn't thought about before i came on board as well, if that makes sense. Lauren: Yeah, yeah. And so it sounds like you did have some learning to do about the new role. Stuart: Oh, yeah, sure. Lauren: And fast forward nearly two decades later, you're now Associate GC, so you moved up consistently. What do you think it was that you did right looking back that allowed you to become quite senior now? Stuart: I think it's a number of things. Do good work, right? No matter what you're doing, do good work, you know, be a good deal lawyer. You know, those skills are always valued. Develop good relationships with your internal counterparts, whether it be your clients, which are probably your most important relationships, but with other lawyers in the legal department. As an M&A lawyer, every deal has subject matter expert questions. And, you know, especially at Verizon, which had a huge legal department, you know, I had to be, you know, in tight with the IP lawyer, the tax lawyer, the benefits lawyer, the commercial lawyers, because, you know, I'm creating work for them. You know, I need you to review this. I need you to do this diligence. I need you to get on a call and negotiate this provision, you know, and, you know, people don't always love having work created for them. So, you know, you want to make sure your buddies with them, you know, give them a real skin in the game. They feel like they have a stake in a transaction so that, you know, that you can move them along, you know, communicating up to senior management in the legal department is important. You know, they're very busy people. My general counsel, she's not interested in a 30 page memo on why we don't, we should not be doing a joint venture here. She wants, you know, the quick and dirty as to what's wrong with this thing. And, and, and that's, that's important to learn how to, you know. Law firms, you speak in memos in house, you speak in emails and in, you know, kind of teams chats. And it's important to not overanalyze stuff and not to overcommunicate as well. And I think those are all skills that, you know, as you're in-house and you want to move up, you know, you learn to be a team player. You learn to work the way that, you know, people in businesses, not just lawyers, but people inside corporations and businesses work, which is very different than how they work in law firms. Lauren: Absolutely. And as the in-house lawyer, you don't have a buffer, right, of coming as an associate. Maybe you had a partner to bounce things off of, but you're really independently having to learn how to manage all those internal relationships, it sounds like. Stuart: Yeah, that's right. That's right. Lauren: The next thing I wanted to ask you about is your advice for our lawyers who are serving clients like yourself. And I imagine in your almost 20 years in-house, you have managed hundreds or thousands of outside counsel teams. So tell us a little bit about what the best ones did. Like, what can they do to impress you? Stuart: A couple of things. First is understand your client's business. Okay. You don't need to know it as well as I do. I don't expect you to know as well as I do. I do expect that, you know, there is an article in the journal about your client. You're aware of it. Okay. You ought to have some sense of, don't read the whole K. Read the description of the business. You know, kind of get a feel for what the client does, you know, what the issues are, what they see as kind of risks in the business, things like that. That's important. The more you know your client, understand client, the better lawyer you are for your client. In terms of kind of interpersonal relationships, you know, I, I, when I was very, very junior, I worked, maybe in a summer associate, actually worked for a partner who talked about the three aids, affability, availability, and ability. And he would always say ability is not always the most important, you know, it is, it's important to be a good lawyer and do good work, but you know, availability is critical. I, I'm calling you, I need to talk to you about something, you know, I don't call to chit chat because first of all, you know, these people bill me, you know, $1,000 an I won't have to pay for, you know, idle conversation. So I really need something. So I understand you have other things going on. I don't expect you to answer the phone every time. I do expect you to get back to me in a reasonable amount of time. You know, affability, I expect you to be pleasant. I expect you to be nice. I expect you to follow my lead in terms of, you know, dealing with the other side. If I say, you know, this is a deal, you know, we have a good relationship with these guys. We need to be warm and fuzzy. You need to be warm and fuzzy. That's not your negotiating style. I say, okay, this one's tough. I'm going to try to be the good cop. I really need you to play the bad cop here, which is something I do quite often, actually, with outside counsel. They need to be difficult, even if that's not their personality as well. So that's important. Ask me questions okay if I say something, I need xyz and you're not sure exactly how I want xyz or what xyz is ask me okay. I’m much happier to get on a call and you know go through it and say, you know this is what I’m thinking and you know you know then then give me work product I don't want you should also debate with me if I say I you know on this issue I think we should do x. And you know you think i'm just you know you know out there and we should be doing y instead, tell me. Tell me why. That's that's an important piece. I’m you know I’m paying for your intelligence and your experience and your wisdom and judgment so you know feel free I mean not in front of the other side but feel free you know you know I think we should handle the issue this way, feel free saying no I think you're you're just you know you're smoking dope Stuart and we should be handling it this other way because you know you're creating too much risk for yourself. And I listen I don’t always agree and someone's saying no I want to do it or something say oh I think you're right so you should feel free to push back on me and debate with me that's that's kind of you know important skill set. And no matter who you are it doesn't matter if you're the the senior partner on the deal or the junior associate on a deal you have an opinion you know and i know law firms work to filter the certain ways whatever but you have an opinion you're obviously you're at a firm like Reed Smith, you're smart. And you should be able to, you know, opine if you think I'm heading the wrong way. Lauren: That's a really powerful point that a respectful, you know, desire to thought partner with you is appreciated by you as long as it's done in the right way. And even from an associate, because some associates out there might not realize that that would be valuable to you as the client. Stuart: Absolutely. And if I think, look, I think if If you're a junior associate and I think you're going the wrong way, I'll say, I don't think you're doing it right, and here's why. I'm happy to explain my thinking. That's how they get better. I realize I'm not, as partner it's not my primary role to train associates, but if I'm working on a deal, I'm happy to kind of say, hey, this is why I think about the way I do, and it's something to keep in mind. Lauren: So you mentioned what impresses you. Are there any particular pain points that you would highlight that you've experienced in the past with outside counsel? Stuart: Sure. Overlawyering in terms of overstaffing transactions, calls, whatever. I usually don't need eight attorneys from the law firm on a call. Use the right lawyer for the job. I like a deal team with a strong senior associate because that's the person who really runs the deals and who I like to interact with. I need a partner for certain things, obviously, and I will talk to partners about the things I need to talk to partners about, major deal issues or problems or the like. But on a day-to-day, hey, we need to try to draft a document or work on disclosure schedules or whatnot. I'd much rather deal with a kind of a mid-level associate or senior associate than a partner just because it's more economic and that person is closer to this stuff anyway. So staff the right number of people at the right level is important. And don't overstaff and don't staff the wrong level. Talk to availability. It drives me nuts if I call an attorney and I don't get called back for two days. I know you have other clients. I kind of like to think that you don't. That should be transparent to me. industry as if you don't I understand you do okay meet deadlines I try very hard not to give nonsense fake deadlines either to outside counsel or to internal you know internal lawyers or stakeholders as well so you know I try to be reasonable I try to get people as much time as I can but look things happen and there are it has happened i've made that call four o'clock on a Friday to some poor you know partner or associate at some law firm and ruined somebody's weekend I know I've done that. I try not to, but it happens. Sorry, we're paying a lot of money. We're going to have to deal with it. So be available and make deadlines. Tell me if the deadline's not makeable, too, because I've done that where I've said, I need this tomorrow. I got to talk to tax. I got to talk to, you know, OK, I understand. Let me push back internally. Tell me up front you're not going to make a deadline as opposed to tell me the time the deadline is there. The other thing, and this is a funny one, get rest. I can tell when lawyers have been like on some other transaction up for three nights in a row because the quality of the work, you know, as a client, I can see it diminished significantly. I won't say what law firm it was. He was a great associate. He obviously had some other deal going on. And he sent me a whole bunch of closing documents for our general counsel to sign. And everything was, general counsel at Verizon was mail and everything was she and her. And obviously he didn't look closely at his documents. I'm like, how long have you been up for? He said, about 40 hours. I'm like, go to bed, have a good night's sleep, send me these tomorrow because this isn't working. Okay. You know well I wasn't going to get any useful work product out of him when you know without sleep anyway so you know it may have been kind of maybe my self-interest but you know if you pull it all you know all night or two even as a junior associate I mean I’m 51 now I just you know if I do one of those i'm dead, but you know as even as a junior associate when you can handle a little bit no it's you know the quality of work diminishes and and the clients can see it. You know, so don't, don't do that. You know, other than that, seamless coordination within your law firms is important. You know, especially a Foot Locker where I don't have as many internal expert experts as I do at Verizon. And I'm relying more on the outside counsel for subject matter expertise. That should all kind of come to me, you know, kind of through, through the corporate lawyer in a nice package. I don't want to have to manage your team. That's your job. Kind of think what else kind of, you know, drives me nuts. But that's a good summary of it. Lauren: That's a great list. I want to go back. You mentioned something really important about the, you know, the senior associate being your preferred person who's like the key person, the anchor on the deal running it, you know, escalating stuff to the partner when necessary, delegating to the junior lawyers when necessary. Do you, given that that's your preferred main contact, can you talk a little bit more about junior associates? Our audience is mostly associates in their first three years of practice. Do you even notice them? Do you see their impact? Stuart: I notice them. Okay. I do notice them. They are on the emails. They are on the calls. They do speak up on occasion. I will speak to them about issues at times. I certainly notice them. do they have an impact I assume so it's easier you know it's somewhat opaque to me as a client because the stuff comes over and I’m not always sure who did what over at the law firm I you know if it's quality work it's good it's quality work but you know it's a little hard for me to tell what they have their hands and what they don't sometimes I do have you know look it's I'm talking directly to the juniors. It's usually disclosure schedules and closing documents, things like that. They definitely have an impact there for sure. I hope the law firm, I hope Reed Smith is making sure those juniors are being trained as they go along in the deal. I suspect they are. But on the client side, it's not always easy to tell who's doing what over there, but I suspect it had an impact. Lauren: Yeah. No, thank you for saying that. And just to go back to what you said earlier, that time that you noticed that an associate was tired, not performing well. I just want to echo that, that sometimes taking care of yourself is part of client service because the client is human and they see you as a human. Stuart: There's a law of diminishing returns after all, for sure. Lauren: That's something I had to learn the hard way. So I'm glad that we're telling others. Well, on that note, you mentioned your age. So I don't think that you'll be offended if I can safely observe we're about the same age and it's been a minute since we were both new lawyers. So with that perspective and now being in-house and seeing so many new lawyers working on your matters, could you talk a little bit about what you think the biggest change has been since we were starting out to now. Stuart: You know, there are a few. First of all, everything is online or remote now. Even, look, you still go to the office, but traveling for negotiations is not done nearly as much. I wouldn't say not at all, but not done nearly as much. In-person closings I don't remember the last in-person closing that I had on a deal you know you know I started out they had those you know those big you know those big metal folder holders they stick the folders in there and people you'd be walking around a table and making sure everyone had their signature pages. You know so a lot and I think it's a lot of fortunate I think you know some way not the closings I don't miss closings but the negotiations because you know when you're in the same room with someone I think in some ways it's a little easier to negotiate you know sometimes you would have dinner beforehand you get to know each other a little bit. It makes a little smoother negotiation and I miss that a little bit and so that's a big change. I think the pace has picked up a bit because you know when I first started practicing we weren't doing a lot of we were still you know faxing documents back and forth and signature pages being FedExed and now you know everything is somewhat instantaneous I mean these associates are listening will be like oh my god this guy's old but you know you know so the pace is picked up I'm not sure that's necessarily a good thing. There's no, you know, there are times on deals where I think when I first started, maybe you had an opportunity to catch your breath that you don't necessarily have now, you know, but the nuts and bolts of the practice hasn't changed and the deal issues. You know, have remained the same. I mean, look, I remember when I was a couple of years out, you know, there's a big, big push on what are you doing about Y2K reps and every computer falling apart. Obviously that's not an issue now you know now it's you know how do we make sure that you know our MAE and our operating covenants deal with the fact that it'd be a pandemic. So you know you know issues change too depending what goes on in the world but the practice is similar you know other than some of those you know changes though. You know ask me again in five ten years with the AI coming up who knows. Maybe they'll have huge impacts on it too but I don't it's not at least from an in-house M&A practice I’m not seeing a whole lot of that yet. Lauren: I’m often reminded when people talk about the change in technology and the way we practice of when I was a junior associate, my partner I was working for telling me that he had always appreciated having a break when you had to mail the documents to Europe. And then the fax machine came and it was all over, you didn't get to rest. So in some way, I feel like these are changes, but maybe AI is something that we've never seen. Stuart: Exactly, exactly. Lauren: All right. So I have to let you go. But last question, given that you're in an in-house role that I think many young M&A lawyers in particular would love to aspire to, what's one piece of advice you would give to someone kind of starting out, maybe they're a third year, who wants to end up in a position like yours? Stuart: One thing, become a good lawyer, understand how to do deals, work with more senior lawyers who are good teachers. I worked for a partner at one time who may not have been the warmest, fuzziest guy in the world, but every time I worked with him, instead of just sending me comments to document, he had me come to his office and he sat down and explained what changes he was making. Okay, that's the better person to attach yourself to than a partner who may be a wonderful human being, great guy, always buying the drinks at the bar after work, but just takes your changes, makes what he needs, and sends off the client. You're not going to learn anything. Okay, because when you're in a house, You need to know what you're doing and how to do it and do it well. There's no one there to teach you. So to kind of take advantage of the learning opportunities at the law firm that you're not going to get later, I think is a big piece of it. If there's one thing I would say that would be, that would be the one. Lauren: Oh, that's, that's great advice. Well, thank you so much, Stuart, for spending time with us. I learned a ton from this conversation. Stuart: Sure. Thanks, Lauren. I really appreciate it. Lauren: So thank you all for joining us for another episode of Reed Smith's Alumni Career Footprints podcast. We hope to see you again in a future episode. Thanks so much, everyone. Outro: Career Footprints is a Reed Smith production. Our producers are Ali McCardell and Shannon Ryan. You can find our podcast on podcast streaming platforms, reedsmith.com, and our social media accounts at Reed Smith LLP. To learn more about Reed Smith's Alumni Network, or if you are an alum of the firm who wants to share your career story, contact Laura Karmatz, Reed Smith's Global Senior Director of Alumni Relations, at alumni at reedsmith.com. Disclaimer: This podcast is provided for educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice and is not intended to establish an attorney-client relationship, nor is it intended to suggest or establish standards of care applicable to particular lawyers in any given situation. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Any views, opinions, or comments made by any external guest speaker are not to be attributed to Reed Smith LLP or its individual lawyers. All rights reserved. Transcript is auto-generated.
Reed Smith alum Molly Campbell shares how her passion for learning novel and complex subjects and her powerful interactions with mentors enabled her to excel as a litigation associate and then partner at Reed Smith. She details how careful reflection and strong professional and personal relationships paved her path from trial lawyer to in-house counsel at Astellas Pharma advising on cutting-edge regulatory issues. ----more---- Transcript: Intro: Welcome to the Reed Smith podcast, Career Footprints. In each episode of Career Footprints, we'll ask our guests, a Reed Smith alum, to share their career story, how their time at Reed Smith set them up for success, and their advice for early career lawyers. Our goal is to surface insights from inspiring professionals' careers that will help you find your professional success, however you define that. Lauren: Welcome to another episode of Reed Smith's Alumni Career Footprints podcast. This is Lauren Hakala, Reed Smith's Global Director of Learning and Development. Today, I'm really excited to be speaking with Reed Smith alum Molly Campbell. Molly is currently the Legal Regulatory Lead for Gene Therapy at Astellas Pharma. She joined Astellas from Reed Smith’s Washington, D.C. office, where she most recently was a partner in the Global Commercial Disputes Group. Molly, welcome. How are you today? Molly: Hi, thank you so much. So nice to be here. I'm doing quite well. Lauren: Awesome. So let's dive right in. We've got a lot to cover. So I'd love to start by asking you about your current role. What are your main areas of responsibility at Astellas? Molly: Well, you touched on one. So I am the legal lead for the Astellas Gene Therapy Division, but I actually have quite a diverse role here at Astellas. I also support our government pricing and state transparency teams, and I'm the global social media subject matter expert and serve as the legal representative for the U.S. Specific committee dealing with sort of any novel social media initiative. And finally, I've most recently taken on the role of providing any legal guidance and support necessary for any independent medical education grants. Lauren: That sounds like a very wide area of responsibility. I'm curious, what do you like best about the role? Molly: Well, like you mentioned, I love the variability. I'm never, ever bored. Sometimes I do feel a little bit like whack-a-mole. I'll be thinking in one area of the law and then have to pivot to something completely different. But I think my favorite part is really the relationships I've been able to build since coming to Astellas. It's interesting, of course, I had good relationships with clients when I was at the firm. But as a litigator, you also have some fairly adversarial relationships. And as professional as those may be, you certainly don't want the same thing as your opposing counsel. But in-house, the business partners that I work with every day know that I want the things that they want. And it's really our process together, finding the best solution to balance risks and getting to the great answer and the good outcome that they want. That's been my favorite part of being in-house. I set sort of a goal for myself originally that I would be an attorney that people want to include on the calls and I think based on some of the feedback that I've received to date I've made some very good inroads into developing that reputation because I know it can be so difficult everybody knows right the lawyers are the people that they love to hate and that was something that I just didn't want to have happen in-house. And it's been wonderful to try to make sure that people value what it is I can contribute to the conversation and know that it's my goal to do everything I can to support their, you know, all of the opportunities and all of the desires that they have as a business. Lauren: That's so cool how intentional you were about, I want to be a lawyer that people want to have on calls. Such an important part of building those relationships, I can imagine, especially when you're going from being a litigator to being like a counselor. Molly: Exactly. Totally different. I absolutely did a 180 here. Lauren: Like a big transition. Okay. So I want to now rewind to the very beginning of your career. When we spoke, you shared with me that after law school, you clerked in federal court for two years. And I'd love to hear more about that experience. Molly: What an invaluable experience, I have to say. Anyone who would have the opportunity to clerk, I certainly recommend it. I was very fortunate that my judge was a teacher through and through. In fact, he was a teacher before he came to be a judge and an attorney. And to hear his thoughts about... The case law that we were working with, the facts of the cases that were before us, how we would structure a holding, for instance, whether that be very narrow or whether we try to say more in an opinion and why, was it provided such an incredible value add, particularly at such an early stage in my career that I carry through to today. You know, understanding how to advocate for a particular issue, understanding what kind of arguments to make that will be the most successful in light of the facts of the situation and not dealing necessarily with cases any longer, but always the facts of any situation. And I actually did and I get this question quite often give up a full time position that I was offered after my second year summer to do that the firm that I summered with did not hold offers open and in the moment that created a small amount of panic and in hindsight honestly it it was not something that I ever needed to be concerned about. And so I would absolutely say to anyone in that same position to go for that clerkship because that experience was truly invaluable. Lauren: Sounds amazing. And very glad to hear that that we at that other firm lost the opportunity to hire you because the next thing you did after that that second year of a clerkship is you joined Reed Smith. And it sounds like you had some pretty broad and pretty good experience compared to someone who was going straight from law school into the law firm. So given that you had two years of cooking for an amazing teacher, could you tell us a little bit about how, what was your experience of the first few years of practice? Molly: Absolutely. And I have to say, I did interview at a number of firms before landing on Reed Smith. And one of the reasons I did so was, well, firstly, because the people were so incredible. I felt very enthusiastic about the opportunity to work with every single person who interviewed me. And I know they didn't just give me the good ones because when I came back again for a more sort of substantial second round with additional people, it just seemed like everyone truly had a similar mindset and it was mine, right? It was what I wanted to do. And one of the things that I gathered from that interview process and what proved to be true later was how much real experience I was able to have immediately. And I did work on such a diverse caseload when I first arrived, actually really probably for about five years. Everything from financial services work, the global regulatory work, labor, appeals, commercial litigation. I sort of had my hands in everything. And I was fortunate that because I came in from a clerkship, you know, people really valued my perspective as a writer and an advocate. So I did a lot of writing motions. And then I was very interested in arguing those motions and immediately was encouraged to do so. And of course, with pretty good success, at least initially, I was able to continue doing so. And people really encouraged that. So one of the things that I, again, really value about Reed Smith is that they allowed me to be so adventurous and curious about what I ultimately wanted to do. And really, I pretty much touched every practice group that we had, it's safe for the corporate M&A, which I still have no idea what they do or how they do it. Lauren: So that’s, well, that’s, it's so funny. I feel like I say this in conversation with each of our alumni because so many have said what you just said about the fact that you were able to jump in and, you know, given that you were enthusiastic about the work and you built trust with people, you were permitted to get a lot of substantive real experience straight off the bat. Molly: I think I even did my first deposition that first year that I was at Reed Smith. So just came in and said, oh, I'm interested in doing a deposition and got handed a deposition to you. It was a it was they nobody threw me in the deep end. It was a very reasonable deposition of a very friendly witness. But it what a fantastic opportunity again, straight away. Lauren: That's incredible. OK, so you said that for the first five years, really, you have this opportunity. You took cases in a variety of subject matters. At some point, you got promoted. So can you talk a little bit about how you thought about positioning yourself for promotion and maybe narrowing down and picking a specialty? That's something that associates ask about a lot. So it'd be great to hear how you thought about that as you got more senior. Molly: They're right to be thinking about it. So good for them. I think perhaps I thought I started thinking about that a little bit too late. It still worked out, but I recommend considering all of your options perhaps a bit sooner than I. And so I'll talk about this in two stages. First, I was in the Philadelphia office of Reed Smith for the first two and a half years of my practice and then moved to Washington, D.C. And that was a result of my husband getting a job in Washington, D.C. And this was before the times of remote work and comfort with the technology of doing so. And I recall requesting to move offices and having it be a considerable request. People were hesitant to have me do so because they were a little concerned about my workload, how I would maintain the work that I was doing and keep my hours up. In actuality, I ended up being about 100% utilized as a Philadelphia associate and 100% utilized as a Washington, D.C. associate. This did not help me narrow my practice, but it did help me continue to build relationships with incredible people and still learn so many new areas of the law. So I continued my bank work, the financial services, some of the appeals, even the labor from the Philadelphia office, a few of the commercial litigation cases that I was on, and then coming down to D.C. Started doing a lot of LSHI work, a lot of the health care, a lot of the MDLs that the firm had. I also started working with the government contracts team. They were in the global regulatory group. And I loved all of it. And I started to then, be asked, you are a mid-level now. Do you really want to be in commercial litigation? Because now also keep in mind, there were very, very few commercial litigators in the Washington, D.C. office. In fact, I may have been one of two, perhaps. At one point, I was one of one. And this, so I was having this big, like, crisis of, like, what am I doing? You know, should I be a LSHI associate? Should I be a global regulatory enforcement associate? And I cornered Peter Ellis, who was my practice group leader at the time, the commercial litigation practice group leader at the time, at a firm event. And I walked up to him and I was like, I need things from you. And he backed that so many times, you know, in the course of us working together years later, just like, I remember you like accosted me. Yes, the associate who accosted you. But I said, I think I really want to be in the commercial litigation group, but I'm not getting enough commercial litigation work. It's litigation, what I'm doing, right? But it's not from that group. And that's not going to help me here. And I need your help to make that happen. And he did, right? He connected me with a number of groups across the firm doing commercial litigation work. And one of those groups, my heart, Bryan Webster and Marty Bishop out in Chicago doing the managed care work some of the most amazing work that I did at the firm, learned so much from them, and actually the firm had me do, I don't I’m not certain that they still do this I hope they do but the internal secondments where they send those seats out to other offices to work more closely with the teams that they likely were working with remotely. Lauren: Yeah, we do. We actually do offer that. So it's great to hear that that was part of your success. Molly: So, so much part of my success. I was out in Chicago for a week, and I know that we have a lot of good flexibility now being able to work from various places. But I would just put my statement out there for working in person. The ability to, I mean, and I was in the office at the time. I was just in a different office. the ability to go out to that Chicago office and see those partners in person and have lunch with them and work on the cases in conference rooms with them, meet the other associates that were on the team was incredible. It was one of the best weeks that I had at the firm for building those relationships. And I will absolutely never forget it. So at any rate, so Peter connected me with a lot of good commercial litigators. I started working on a lot more commercial litigation work. And that was sort of part one in my step to promotion, making sure that I was doing the work that I wanted to do in the group that I wanted to be in. Step two was I still had a fairly diverse practice with respect to the commercial litigation that I was doing and what I needed to figure out and what was basically who I needed to be as a partner, as a specialist, and how I wanted to tell my story, how I wanted to show that I was bringing value to the firm and to clients. And that took a lot more refinement and what I did there was a lot of reflection on some of the work that I was doing that made me the most happy the most fulfilled where I felt like I had a good level of expertise already sort of just baseline understanding which of course makes everything much easier when you're prepping for really in-depth things like deposition and strategy to understand just broadly the universe that you're operating in. And for me, I decided that that was healthcare. Again, I just, I loved the managed care work that I was doing with the Chicago team. And at that point, I had done a considerable amount of the MDL work for Bard for the Hernia Mesh litigation with Eric Alexander. And I was working on the opioid team with Bob Nicholas, Shannon McClure, Joe Mahady, Kim Watterson was also on that team for the appellate group. And I really felt like that space was the space I wanted to focus on. And further to that, and this came from, you know, a result of many incredibly deep and thoughtful conversations with leadership, including Melissa Geist, who wasn't in my group, but still was able to help me figure out how to be a commercial litigator. No, she's amazing. And again, Peter Ellis and Janet Kwon and Marty Bishop all really had a lot of meaningful conversations with me about how to strategize my elevator speech as a partner. Who are you? What do you do? And why do you do it in a paragraph? And that's where I sort of honed in on. I do very well in big litigations, managing smaller teams, particularly the expert team on these big litigations, because I'm able to learn complex areas very quickly and manage attorneys and non-attorneys because people sometimes forget experts, they're very smart, but they're not attorneys. And being able to work with non-attorneys in the context of a litigation can be very challenging, especially when you're still dealing with things like attorney deadlines. And so that's where I that's ultimately where I came down as I'm a commercial litigator. I specialize in these large scale health care matters and I excel in the smaller teams, thinking both broadly in the context of the case itself, but also incredibly detailed and narrowly so in the various expert realms as well. Lauren: Thank you so much for sharing that process you went through. It really strikes me how you started, you were thinking about who you were going to be as a partner and you started looking very internally at what you liked and what you already knew about. But then you went and checked that with all of these amazing mentors and got their view and then finally came to a pretty clear elevator pitch, right? A short statement of who you are as a lawyer. Molly: Yeah. And it was it was really essential to make sure that when I was saying who I was and what I wanted to do, that people, number one, understood and number two, identified. I remember the first time I went to talk to Peter Ellis and I was like, here's my thoughts. Here's what I'm thinking. And he's like, yeah, I don't buy it. And, you know, oh, my God, you know, how devastating. But really and truly, I was like, OK, so next Tuesday, I'll schedule something. We'll try again. And it was very valuable because ultimately, I really did come to a deeper understanding of what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be. I wasn't he they weren't going to let me be fluffy about it. That's and that's the case. And you don't want to be right. That's not what you want to ultimately do. So it was essential to make sure you workshop that with people who have gone before you, with people who know and who know you and who know the firm. Lauren: That's really great advice. So I could ask you a lot more about your time at the firm, but I want to move on to your move in-house. So you were obviously very successful at Reed Smith, and you were promoted to partner. So after kind of grabbing that major brass ring and experiencing so much success, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about why you decided to move in-house. Molly: I think I always had an interest in moving in-house. I had done the clerkship. I had been at the firm. This was always something that was at least of interest to me, and many that might not be the case. But for me, it certainly was. Although at some point, I sort of thought perhaps it was not going to happen. I was very senior. I was really happy at the firm. I was doing a lot of what I wanted to do with a lot of wonderfully cool people. But I actually ended up having a medical procedure that resulted in a genetic test and found that I was a carrier for a genetic mutation that created a very, very high risk of cancer for me. And after a lot of reflection, I thought, boy, it's going to be very hard to be a trial attorney going through an awful lot of surgeries over the next few years. And I know a lot about myself. And I know that first as a mother of two young children and second as a partner in a firm and third as a wife, all of those things would take precedent over fourth me as an individual working through a medical diagnosis. And I was concerned that no matter how much grace I would be given, and to be honest, I knew I would be given a lot of grace. I just recently mentioned my two young children, they were the product of IVF. And I let my teams know when I was going through that process. And again, shout out to Bryan Webster and Marty Bishop, who, you know, were at an arbitration when I called to let them know that we had like positive pregnancy test and right. And we all did like a dance together. So yeah. And and so I knew I knew that that team would be supportive. I knew that I could make it happen. But as I also mentioned, I knew that all of the things that I needed to do for myself still would come last on a very long list of responsibilities. And I just happened to mention this crisis to a friend who was at Reed Smith for a very long time, Julia Haywood, and left as an associate to move over to a company. And, you know, Again, I was just simply just talking through a lot of what was going on for me at that time. And a few weeks later, she came back and said, Molly, we have this job opening up and totally different than what you do now. But I think that you would really like it. And, you know, you should apply. And I said, Julia, I do not have time to apply for this job. I am getting ready for a trial. I am getting ready for expert reports in another case. I don't have a resume that is updated. I have no idea how I would even do that. And she said, send me your resume. I'll look at it. So Julia fixed my resume for me. And I'm, I believe my husband uploaded it to the platform. And a few days later, I got a call asking if I'd be interested in interviewing. And, you know, it was fascinating. I felt like this was one of the moments where the stars really aligned for me. Much like, you know, the interview with Reed Smith. I had calls with a number of people from the Astellas team. And each one of them felt so enthusiastic about their job, what they were doing, the patients that they were helping. And it just felt like a group of people that I truly wanted to be able to work with. Everyone also was extremely kind, extremely intelligent. You know, and the description of the things that I would be doing felt really unique and interesting to me, specifically the gene therapy. I mean, talk about cutting edge technology and where health care is headed. And so that felt like something I really couldn't pass up. And the government pricing is a really unique, really challenging area of the law, and also something that I felt like could be a really cool thing to add sort of to my overall skill set as an attorney. So I thought the interviews went great. I thought there are a lot of people that interview for in-house positions. I did everything that I could. And about two days later, I got called and offered the position. It was amazing. I actually learned later that I was one of the only people that they interviewed. And Astellas was the only interview that I also did. So I think that somewhere out in the universe, this position was the right call for everybody. It was something I just couldn't say no to. So to hearken back to your question of why, why would I have left the big law firm after making partner, after doing, you know, the thing? And as you've heard, I think obviously it was a culmination of a lot of reasons, including those personal ones where I felt like being a trial attorney at the level that I wanted to be, where I was traveling to the, you know, the far off trials, doing all of the depositions and witness prep and, you know, anywhere the client would be. I would be on top of the additional business development that I wanted to do to be the kind of partner and participant in the business that I wanted to do. I felt like that was going to be really, really challenging. And then this opportunity just fell into my lap. And let me be clear, there are some serious challenges here. The subject matter, as I've mentioned, is so challenging. The global nature of the business that I'm working in, it's certainly not a nine to five. I've got people on every coast and in Europe. So, you know, I'm pretty much always on call. And not to mention the fact that I don't have this team of associates and paralegals and all of these wonderful helpers that I did when I was a partner. But the challenges that I face in this role are really the ones that I feel like are the right ones for me to tackle now and where I am in my life. And I'm so privileged to be able to do so. Lauren: Thank you so much for sharing, you know, sort of your personal story that led to making that decision. And it sounds like, again, you were just very, very intentional about thinking through, you know, first yourself, right, your needs and the team's needs, and then this happened. But I am curious about your interview process. Like, as you've said, the area of law that you practice in is, right, like gene therapy so rapidly developing, brand new. And you also mentioned that it was very different from what you did at Reed Smith. So kind of looking back, what do you think you better did that, you know, really clinched it and made them say this was the person for this role? Molly: Yeah, so actually, I really think I might even know one of the precise comments that I made because the final interview with one of the most important legal leaders in Astellas, she stopped me and said, well, that's a good answer. And so it was immediately burned into my memory, that answer. And the question was, what on earth makes you think that you're capable, essentially, of getting up to speed in an area like you said, Lauren, that is so incredibly challenging and new and, And my answer was directly related to the work that I did with experts. And I said, I got to tell you, I'm an English major. I worked on and wrote and defended and analyzed a healthcare economics expert report about 20 days ago. You know, and so my work with the experts and the expert teams allowed me to learn incredibly complex areas. Again, English major, healthcare economics, like these two things aren't friends. And I know that about myself because of that work. I know I am capable of understanding extremely complex and challenging areas. I know I can understand them to the point where I can help strategize legal, you know, take those expert reports and turn them into legal strategy, you know, to advance our legal strategies across many, many areas. And healthcare economics is always the one that I use because it's the scariest. But there's plenty, you know, that are far and away outside what we would consider to be a legal issue. And so I said, you know, my plan would be to do the same for gene therapies. And by the way, government pricing, which is also legal, but incredibly difficult and complex area. So anytime you are working on very difficult subject matter, which happens quite frequently in litigation, you become a mini expert, right? You have to become a mini expert in the area. And so I would say to anyone that. Is, you know, in a position like mine, where you're trying to explain to someone why you are capable, why you are smart, this is a really good way to say, I am not just a legal thinker. You know, I think about facts. I think about strategy. And I think about all of those things in and outside the context of the law. And being able to know that about yourself and be confident in your skills. Don't shy away from hard questions. Don't shy away from someone challenging you. Because the ability to learn and understand things, it's always in your back pocket. Lauren: Well, on behalf of English majors everywhere, I thank you for saying that. But no, in all seriousness, that is, you said earlier that your ability to learn complex things is one of your strengths. And I love how that is tied to your confidence, even if you are attacking a new subject matter and you are a liberal arts major. That willingness to dig in and not be intimidated and learn a new thing and become the expert, I think is a really powerful sort of message to our early career lawyers who might be really suffering from imposter syndrome. Well, okay. I want to ask you one final question before we have to let you go, Molly. So throughout this conversation, it's been super clear how much you love your work. You said you kind of knew that from day one of your clerkship and you loved it enough to make partner and to transition to a really complex role. And you also shared, like on a personal note, that you're a parent and you're someone who had to make some consequential health decisions. So I'm wondering, from that perspective, what would you say to a young lawyer who also, like you, loves the work, but is a little bit reticent about going for it, going for partnership, because they also want to have other things in their lives, or they have significant other responsibilities? Molly: Yeah, well, firstly, it's hard, right? There's no one that's ever going to say that trying to have everything isn't hard. It is, and it should be. But I don't think that means that it's not worth doing. so I would say decide that it you know what you really want because ultimately challenging yourself and extending yourself for things that you love and want is rewarding and is something that is worthwhile if you are very unhappy and miserable do not do that that is not helpful that will not make you feel good. But when you know what you want, you can do a lot. And I think, I did put in a lot of work early on before I had, you know, as many responsibilities as I do. I often joke that my, you know, my skin, I preserved my youthful skin because it just never saw the sun for like a decade. I was just working. But as I established my reputation, as I got a good foundation in the law and in my practice and in my skills from doing so. The more complex my life became, because I had children, because I had some medical issues, because life gets in the way oftentimes, I had all of these phenomenal foundational relationships, skill sets, confidence in myself, others having confidence in me that enabled me to to take the time. But one of the things that I think I did well, and sometimes it was really hard, was to be vocal about what it was that I needed. Because if you don't tell people, they aren't going to know. And occasionally you'll have someone who is paying enough attention or has the time to pay attention that you might get a question. And I did. I did get a couple questions along the way. And that was lovely and wonderful of them. But it's not someone's responsibility to guess at what you need. It's your responsibility to let people know. And when you do, and when they value you as a person, as an associate, as a team member, whatever the case may be, they make space for you. But you have to give them the chance. And I was fortunate enough to be working on teams and working with people who absolutely did and would have gone to the ends of the earth to make space for me. And then at the end of the day, I had to know, even with everything that everyone else could do for me, was it going to be enough? And that's the time when you have to ask yourself, what do you need to do for yourself? And that's when I made some pretty hard decisions, some decisions I never contemplated that I would ever make. And so far, I've been really, really happy with all of my results. And I feel like I did everything the right way. But even when mistakes are made, you know, there's always coming back from them when you've when you've communicated, when you've honored how you are feeling and what you need to do for yourself and for your family. And people really respect that. Lauren: Thank you so much. That's really powerful advice, particularly about, you know, when you know you want something, pursuing it and asking for the help you need from people with whom you felt trust. Well, Molly, thank you so much for sharing so much about your career story and how your personal life contributed to it and your success. And thank you all for being with us this episode of Reed Smith's Career Footprints podcast. We hope to see you in a future episode. Thanks, everyone. Outro: Career Footprints is a Reed Smith production. Our producer is Ali McCardell. This podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, PodBean, and reedsmith.com. To learn more about Reed Smith's Alumni Network, or if you're an alum of the firm who wants to share your career story, contact me, Reed Smith's Global Senior Director of Alumni Relations, Laura Karmatz, at alumni@reedsmith.com. Disclaimer: This podcast is provided for educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice and is not intended to establish an attorney-client relationship, nor is it intended to suggest or establish standards of care applicable to particular lawyers in any given situation. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Any views, opinions, or comments made by any external guest speaker are not to be attributed to Reed Smith LLP or its individual lawyers. All rights reserved. Transcript is auto-generated.
Reed Smith alum Doug Sayranian shares his journey from M&A senior associate in New York to his current role in-house as general counsel at cyber threat intelligence company Intel 471. ----more---- Transcript: Intro: Welcome to the Reed Smith podcast, Career Footprints. In each episode of Career Footprints, we'll ask our guests, a Reed Smith alum, to share their career story, how their time at Reed Smith set them up for success, and their advice for early career lawyers. Our goal is to surface insights from inspiring professionals' careers that will help you find your professional success, however you define that. Lauren: Greetings, and welcome to another episode of Reed Smith's Alumni Career Footprints podcast. This is Lauren Hakala, Reed Smith's Global Director of Learning and Development. Today, I'm excited to be speaking with Reed Smith alum Douglas Sayranian. Doug is currently the general counsel of cybercrime intelligence company Intel 471. He joined Intel 471 from Reed Smith's New York office, where he was a senior M&A associate. Doug's career has included roles at three other global law firms, where, as we're about to hear, he built significant chops in public, private, and private equity M&A. Doug, welcome. Doug: Hi, Lauren. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here. Lauren: So I would love to start our conversation by hearing a little bit about Intel 471. What does your company focus on, and what is your role over there? Doug: Absolutely. Intel 471 is a cyber threat intelligence company, and our specialty is focusing on gathering and reporting hard to get information about what's happening in the criminal underworld when it comes to cybersecurity threats, vulnerabilities, and tactics. A good example might be the solar winds breach or government investigations into Telegram or trying to help protect hospitals and businesses from ransomware. My role at the company as the head of legal covers the normal everyday contractual matters, but also things like risk, privacy, compliance, HR, and strategic positioning of the corporation. Lauren: Wow. So it sounds like you're really, or at least your company in the business is working on some things that are in the headlines that we're all seeing every day. So exciting. So as someone who spent most of your career so far at law firms, what's been the best thing about making the jump to in-house? It was a really difficult decision for me when I was considering whether to continue pursuing partnership at a large law firm, specifically at Reed Smith, or to leave for Intel 471, which was actually one of my clients when I was in private practice. The best thing about being in-house is the ability to really put my skills to use and solve problems for the business outside of a narrow legal channel being able to have an impact and an influence in a variety of different aspects of the organization has been really rewarding and it's also allowed me to learn entirely new skills and develop different aspects of existing skills to be a better practitioner and a business leader. Lauren: Great. No, thanks for that. So you mentioned developing new skills in your new role, and I want to ask you more about that. So in what areas have you had to do the most learning? Like where was the biggest learning curve? And how was that for you coming from being, you know, quite a successful senior associate? Doug: I think that there are probably two areas that I would identify as the low-hanging fruit or the steepest learning curves for me when I first went in-house. One is practical, and that is reframing an analysis of any situation or a solution to a problem or a strategy to tackle a certain obstacle. In terms of practicality, the fact that the world is in an imperfect place. In private practice, obviously, attorneys seek to be experts on a wide variety of topics, but understand both the perfectly impossible and imperfectly possible solutions to a client's problem. It was difficult for me when I first went in-house to let go of the impulse to want to apply the best solution, as opposed to applying the solution that was commercially practicable. The second area where I've done quite a lot of reading, both technical and non-technical material, is obviously in the context of artificial intelligence and large language models. It's an exciting new development for technology for humanity and it's really changing the way my business and businesses in general conduct themselves in the world. Lauren: Interesting. So really getting down into the details of the business. Because I imagine as outside counsel, you also try to be practical and business-like, but it sounds like now that you're on that other side, it's a different level of solution-oriented thinking for the business. Doug: Absolutely. I used to joke that when I was an M&A practitioner, I was functionally a wedding planner. Lauren: I love that. Doug: I helped companies fall in love and start a family. It's a little bit different when you're part of the family and you have to think about day-to-day things like getting groceries and taking out trash as opposed to planning for the big party. Lauren: Oh, wow. I love that metaphor. Okay, so let's go back to the beginning of your career now that we have seen where you've landed so successfully. So you went to Northwestern Law School in Chicago, and knowing that, you must have had plenty of options when you started out your career. So can you tell us a little bit about when and how you chose to come to New York and do M&A at a global law firm? Doug: When I was in law school, I had the privilege of taking corporate law courses from Professor Carl Lutz, who was formerly a private equity M&A partner at Kirkland & Ellis. And one of the courses he taught was on M&A transactions, where we actually read through sample deal documents and thought through the negotiation of the commercial terms, the legal terms, and the implications it might have for the fictional business. I enjoyed that work so much that I knew in law school that I wanted to be an M&A attorney. And when I was interviewing with firms, I met with a number of really wonderful partners and associates from all over the country. But it was fairly obvious to me that New York as a market was where most of the activity and the skill and the resources for U.S.-based M&A was located. And the line that I used in my on-campus interviews when I was still a 2L trying to get a summer associate position was, you don't choose to become a gladiator and then refuse to go to Rome. Because of all the places in the world to do M&A, New York is the most competitive and the fastest moving and the most intense. And I knew that if I was in New York City, I would find mentors and teachers and challenges that would help me grow. Lauren: So you just fell in love with the subject matter in law school and then, as you said, made it to the capital of the excitement. And I'm curious, when you landed here as a first-year associate, what surprised you? Was it all that you had expected and hoped for and what was different from what you might have expected? Doug: I joke with people that being a big law M&A associate is not as bad as people say it is, but it's worse than you imagine. In that it's exceptionally rewarding and challenging and changes constantly. And so there's an adaptability and versatility that's required that makes doing the work fun, genuinely interesting on the other hand the lifestyle is quite intense and i think to be excellent all of the time and push for perfection and look for errors or mistakes or gaps is a difficult thing to do. It's a method of mental training that is quite taxing. And so I was really surprised when I first started practicing and started learning from my teachers how consistent you have to be in your thinking. And not rigidly consistent, but just how demanding you have to be on yourself to deliver a high level of practice. Lauren: Yeah, that sort of image that's coming up is just like this relentlessness of having to get it right, even though you're working on difficult timelines, I imagine. So you've shared that M&A practice is particularly demanding. And in my former life, I was also a corporate lawyer. I did securities. So I know, and you've shared that you worked long and unpredictable hours. And I'm just curious, what kept you going throughout those tough times and maybe some sleepless nights? Doug: I had the benefit of working with really wonderful teams of lawyers, associates, senior associates, partners, and also support staff. This was also pre-pandemic, and so most of the time we were in an office. If we had weekend work or late nights, I was almost never alone. Even if I was the only person working on my matter in my office, there would be other people in the office, on my floor, in the cafe. And the feeling of camaraderie, of doing important work, of collaboration, of excitement, really removed a lot of what I would call the distress of long, late nights. And so it was stressful, but it wasn't distressing. Lauren: Now, it's so interesting when I think about what made it so hard for so many people during the pandemic, I think it was just the absence of what you said, right? Having other folks around who you can talk to and who understand what you're going through, and then having all that just physical support, right? Having a cafe that you can go to and take a break in. So that's really, it's interesting to hear that that's what got you through. So just kind of continuing on with this theme of the intensity of your career as interesting and great as it was. I want to ask you to go back to a particularly difficult moment and all of that and give your younger self some advice? What was one of the toughest times and what would you say to yourself when you're in a very intense period? Doug: It's interesting because looking back, the moments I would say were most difficult for me as a junior lawyer are probably not the moments I would have chosen as a junior lawyer. The benefit of hindsight I think recontextualizes some of those things if i was going to give myself some advice and hopefully the audience can benefit from this as well is to maintain some perspective and take a deep breath and think things through because often there is pressure to do things perfectly and instantaneously. One of those is achievable, and it's the quality of practice. No matter how quickly you work or how urgently you work, you're never going to be able to rewind the clock. And it's far better to take a deep breath and make sure what you're doing is really moving the needle and helping your team, helping your partner, helping your client, and trying to reach a goal. So I think falling down and still working with urgency, but not feeling rushed. Lauren: Yeah, I guess as easy as it could be to sort of be an autopilot when you're working that hard, it sounds like just really reminding yourself that you are a lawyer, even though you might be a junior one, and take the time to think and, you know, have empathy also for your senior lawyers, maybe a little in there. So it sounds like you were working hard. It was interesting. It was intense. There were some rough times, but overall, it seems like you did pretty well judging from where you went next and where you ended up. So just quick question before we move on to the next stage of your career, what are a couple of things that you did right? Like, if you look back, you were like, that was a good move. Doug: So I think the biggest thing I can actually take credit for that helped my career go well was I was extremely intentional about seeking out lawyers who I admired as practitioners and as people. And made an effort to learn from them. Work with them, get to know them, seek their advice, seek their guidance on what skills I should try to develop, the best way to develop them, and how to plan for the future and make sure that I wasn't developing myself into a niche that was going to fade away, right? The second thing I think I did right was be extremely organized. And that sounds very simple, but it made a huge difference in terms of my stress level and my ability to work with a team or be nimble or to pick up new work for new clients. Having an organized inbox, having organized files, keeping notes of things and Making sure those notes were identifiable and well-organized made a huge difference and also gave me a little more work-life balance because I wasn't spending as much time scrambling looking for things. Lauren: Yeah, I love that. Going back to a theme that you brought up earlier about slowing down, taking your time, and being thoughtful, right? It sounds like you did that with the basics of getting advice and keeping yourself organized. So, okay, I want to segue now to when you joined us as a lateral associate. So could you tell us a little bit about how you landed at Reed Smith? How did it come about? Doug: Sure thing. So a few years ago I got a call from a recruiter who was working on behalf of Reed Smith, specifically for Jen Cheng, who is one of the leaders in the corporate practice and the M&A group at Reed Smith. And at that time I was in a transition period at my prior firm because a senior partner had decided to retire and a lot of his client work was being primarily done by myself and another senior partner. And we were trying to figure out how we were going to staff this book of business and to continue supporting these clients. At that time, I had a decision to make whether I wanted to continue really focusing my practice on this region of the world, these industries, these clients specifically, or if I wanted to broaden my horizons and try to really develop an aspect of my practice that was weaker than the others, which was public company M&A. I had done some, but not a lot. And it was a skill that I identified pretty early on as being essential to being a powerhouse M&A attorney, knowing how to do public, private, cross-border, private equity, sponsor-backed deals. So when I got a call from this recruiter offering to have an introductory conversation with Jen, I said, absolutely, because she has a great reputation and is known for being a power player in M&A. And when we had our initial get-to-know-each-other call, we hit it off immediately. She's a fantastic lawyer, wonderful human being. We both love dogs. And so we really, we bonded over our love of our four-legged friends. And later when she said, you know, hey, would you consider coming to work for Reed Smith? She really presented it in a way that focused on my trajectory as a lawyer and how I can grow and learn new things, but also be very successful and help the firm. And framing it that way, how I can be helpful, useful, and still grow alongside a really great team was what won the over. Lauren: Oh, it sounds like just a great fit, both personally, professionally. So once you made it to Reed Smith and joined the team, what did you like best about your practice here? Doug: My favorite part of my practice while at Reed Smith was the quality of the clients. Phenomenal companies of all sizes, led by extremely intelligent, caring executive leadership teams and general counsels. And I felt like I was a real business partner. It wasn't just a service provider pulled off the shelf and pointed in the direction of a problem here and there. I was really providing a valuable service to their company and helping them operate and navigate in the world. Lauren: I feel like that is a theme that comes up in a lot of the discussions we have with our alums, that they felt like they were really partnering with the clients and being legal advisor, business advisor. So it's interesting that you said that. And so it sounds like you were doing great at Reed Smith, you were enjoying it. You did make the choice to move on to your current role in-house. I'm curious how that happened and how you made that decision. Doug: So in 2022, Intel 471 approached me looking for a general counsel. Specifically, they wanted a general counsel who had an eye for the strategic side of the business and also knew how the private equity growth lifecycle for corporate investment worked so I could help them scale the business. Expand globally, manage risk, and keep things organized. I really bonded with the executive leadership team at Intel 471, and when they laid out for me the plan that they had for the company and all of the good they wanted to do by expanding our product offering, by owning our intelligence gathering, by expanding our audience, And it really struck a chord with me that I could have a massive impact on this business and really work alongside it. Incredibly talented, motivated professionals. It was really difficult for me to leave Reed Smith because I finally found a rhythm of practice at a firm where I felt like I could succeed very authentically. I didn't have to decide my personality or fit into a particular mold or look a certain way in order to be successful. And I think that's also a product of the legal industry as a whole really evolving and appreciating the diversity of thought that comes from individual authenticity. And leaving Jen's team and also leaving behind the team of junior lawyers that I had mentored and trained was frankly quite heartbreaking, for lack of a better word. But when I thought about what I personally wanted out of my life and my career, I thought, you know what, I'm willing to take a big risk. I'm willing to go into something where I know I'm going to have to start from square one on a lot of things and be a student again. And for me, that was extremely enticing. I know that's not the case for everybody, but for me, that was incredibly attractive. And I did seek advice from a ton of people. I spoke to my parents, neither of whom are lawyers. I spoke to mentors that I had gained over the years, including folks who are partners in other law firms, old professors, and just friends and neighbors. So I really solicited advice from my entire community of support, and it was very useful to me. Lauren: Sounds like a tough decision. And you mentioned consulting with a lot of people. Did you talk to anyone at the firm? Doug: You know, funny enough, I had quite a few conversations with Jen about this decision, and she was incredibly supportive. I wouldn't have expected anything else, obviously, but her insight and her knowledge of me as a friend and colleague and lawyer was really meaningful. And she provided a fantastic soundboard and guide for helping me figure out what I really wanted to do as I developed my skills and my career. And she was obviously very clear about her bias. She wanted me to stay, of course. But when I finally told her, hey I'm thinking about I'm really thinking about leaving private practice and becoming a general counsel at Intel 471 she shifted her focus from helping me to make that decision to talking about how I could succeed in that role and the ease and sincerity with which she made that transition from helping me decide between to helping me think about how to knock it out of the park once I got there was phenomenal. Lauren: So interesting the way that that relationship, you know, just evolved, right? You were, you had several different roles vis-a-vis one another, but that personal connection that you built really, really helped both you and the firm. So I could ask you so many more questions about your, your practice and your transition and your current role. But I wanted to ask you about one of the themes that we've been sort of hinting around. And it's really a question that I think many of our audience of newer lawyers will have. And it's about the issue of well-being and setting boundaries as someone in a very, very busy practice. And so as someone who has been very successful, how would you advise a newer attorney to think about that? How can you kind of take care of yourself and set some boundaries while also giving it your all in an intense practice where, as you said, things are expected to be more or less perfect? Doug: It really is a delicate balance, and it's mostly an art. It largely depends on who you're working with, your team, your clients, and the circumstances that you're under. Some deadlines and fire drills are obviously unavoidable, and so it's all hands on deck. And everyone is kind of expected to make sacrifices for their time and predictability in order to make things work. I think a healthy way of approaching it is to maintain some perspective and humility, but also have a clear understanding of what's important to you and what you need for your physical, emotional, and mental well-being. So a good example is a document needs to get turned late one night because it has to be ready for the morning. On a team of four lawyers, if you're the junior most lawyer who's capable of turning that document, chances are you're going to be the one asked to do that. That's not just because no one else wants to do it and you happen to be the lowest ranking person on the team. And it's probably because there are phone calls or negotiations or meetings that are happening at the same time that your senior associate or your partner or your colleague is handling. And so the work, especially in a high-pressure situation or when there's urgency, is divvied up among the team efficiently as a unit. And so it's important to accept that that's going to happen and expect it and try to plan around it and to be organized. On the other hand, it is absolutely essential to be comfortable raising your hand and communicating with your team. Part of this comes from developing a great working relationship with them generally, hopefully a friendship and a relationship of mutual respect and genuine care. But they won't know that something is important to you or is bothering you if you don't raise your hand and say something. A really good example is a lot of times when I've been working, sometimes I had to go home at a certain time in the evening, quite early actually, to walk my dog because my dog walker couldn't make it back for a second walk that day. And rather than just say, hey everybody, I'm going to leave at six, I'll be back at seven, I said, hey, team, I have to go. I'm going to go walk my dog. I'll bring back coffee on the way. I'll be out of pocket, but don't worry. I'm not just signing off. And to me, that was very important because I love my time with my dog. But it was also important for my team to know, hey, I'm not just dropping off the face of the map. And if something happened, they knew that, hey, this was a priority for me. And so somebody could step in and help. Lauren: Well, I think that's really good advice. And to your point about perspective, right? Making sure that you're taking a step back, thinking about relationships, about organization, and about planning. So thank you so much. I think that that's, it's a helpful example. And I'm laughing because I noticed that your cat is in the background. I guess you like both dogs and cats. Doug: Yes, I actually spent a lot of time now with my girlfriend doing animal rescue. And so we do quite a lot of cat rescue here in Brooklyn. Lauren: Your office mate was very cute to have in the background. Well, Doug, again, we could talk for much longer, but thank you so much for being with us, for sharing your story, and for sharing so much wisdom on how you got where you are today, including a pass-through time as an associate here at Reed Smith. And thank you all for listening to this episode of Reed Smith's Alumni Career Footprints podcast. We hope that you'll join us on a future episode. And thank you again, Doug, for being with us. Doug: Thanks for having me. Outro: Career Footprints is a Reed Smith production. Our producer is Ali McCardell. This podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, PodBean, and reedsmith.com. To learn more about Reed Smith's Alumni Network, or if you're an alum of the firm who wants to share your career story, contact me, Reed Smith's Global Senior Director of Alumni Relations, Laura Karmatz, at alumni@reedsmith.com. Disclaimer: This podcast is provided for educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice and is not intended to establish an attorney-client relationship, nor is it intended to suggest or establish standards of care applicable to particular lawyers in any given situation. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Any views, opinions, or comments made by any external guest speaker are not to be attributed to Reed Smith LLP or its individual lawyers. All rights reserved. Transcript is auto-generated.
Reed Smith alum, Naz Sachedina, shares her journey from qualifying as a lawyer at Reed Smith to her current role as a director at WisdomTree Asset Management. Naz discusses her diverse experiences at Reed Smith, including two secondments, and how these shaped her career. Naz also offers valuable insights on transitioning from private practice to in-house roles and the skills needed for success in the legal industry. ----more---- Transcript: Intro: Welcome to the Reed Smith podcast, Career Footprints. In each episode of Career Footprints, we'll ask our guest, a Reed Smith alum, to share their career story, how their time at Reed Smith set them up for success, and their advice for early career lawyers. Our goal is to surface insights from inspiring professionals' careers that will help you find your professional success, however you define that. Lauren: Welcome to another episode of Reed Smith's alumni Career Footprints podcast. This is Lauren Hakala, Reed Smith's Global Director of Learning and Development. Today, I'm thrilled to be joined by London office alum, Naz Sachedina. Naz qualified as a solicitor at Reed Smith and then practiced for about five years in the structured finance team of our financial industry group. Her time at Reed Smith included two secondments, one with Barclays, and then with Merrill Lynch. Since then, Naz's career has included two senior in-house legal posts, first at counsel at Pinebridge Investments, and then as associate director and now director at WisdomTree Asset Management. Naz, welcome. Naz: Thank you, Lauren. Thank you for having me. Lauren: I’m very excited for this conversation about your career. So I wanted to see if we could start by you telling us a little bit about your current role at WisdomTree and what you're doing now and what you like about it. Naz: Yeah, sure. So as you mentioned, I'm a director. I'm actually a director in the product legal team at WisdomTree. So that kind of means I cover the products and platforms rather than the kind of the corporate legal matters, which is covered by another part of our legal team. So WisdomTree in Europe has a very wide range of platforms and asset classes. So underlying assets kind of range from equities to commodities like oil and gold to crypto assets. We have physically backed platforms we have synthetic platforms where swap counterparties provide exposure to the underlying assets through a swap and all our kind of all our platforms are all slightly different so which means the mechanics the way they operate are slightly different. That means a kind of in my role I cover the kind of lifespan of the product so right from when you launch a product to when you do maintenance like doing the prospectus rollover if you have to make amendments if you have to do security holder votes right to the closure of a product so it's kind of cradle to grave as it were for products and I also want to take kind of wider projects within the with the WisdomTree so if we're making changes to a platform rather than specific products. So that's in a nutshell what I do at WisdomTree. Lauren: And keeping in mind that many of our audience are are newly qualified lawyers and lawyers in their first three years of practice and knowing that you've been in their shoes. What's the best thing about your current role? Naz: I never get bored, ever, just because of the range of assets and platforms. There's always something new happening, which is still a little terrifying. I remember asking Andrzej, shout out to Andrzej at Reed Smith, like, when do you feel comfortable? And he was like, you never do, Naz. So even though it's slightly terrifying, there are always new things to do, new things to learn. I love learning new things. I'm one of those really sad people that gets very excited by it. And also just, you know, WisdomTree, not just the legal team, but the wider team are great as well. I love the legal team. They're awesome. Everyone I deal with are just really nice and very clever people I always want to be the least clever person in the room which I generally am so um so that means I'm always learning basically. Lauren: I love that point because I feel like as a junior lawyer sometimes we think that after a couple of years everything will be we'll know what we're doing and we'll just go to work and we'll do the same thing and it sounds like for you that's not the way it is and that's a great thing. Naz: Yeah agreed yeah I mean I I think I it's one of those things sometimes like I wish I just did the same thing every day but I know myself and people I know like Naz you'd get really bored and I would 100% get really bored so it's the sometimes it's nice when you know that you're like okay I can do this it's fine but yeah do that too much and life does get a bit stale after a while so yes, learning new things is apparently key in my life. Lauren: Well, well, knowing that you've landed in such a place that's so interesting and well suited for your interests, I want to now rewind and go back to the beginning of your career. So when you finished your studies, you attended University College London, you must have had plenty of options for for where to do your training contract. And I'm curious, what did you think about when choosing a law firm? And why did you ultimately choose Reed Smith? Naz: Sure so a lot of my peers were basically looking for the magic circle law firms right that was like the pinnacle of where you wanted to train but then the more I talked to people kind of you know when they come to your unis and try to get you to apply and try to understand what they did as a trainee it just didn't sound very exciting. I know don't get me wrong the life of a trainee is not supposed to be exciting right you're supposed to be learning but even the work they were doing as a guy I put amends through on documents and I do and again that's there's nothing wrong with that but there was no scope seemingly to do more even when you kind of got to a third or fourth seat trainee which is obviously when you're really hitting your stride so I kind of decided I wanted not a magic circle law firm but a really still good size firm that had a lot of coverage did a lot of practice areas was international because you know that's always interesting as well and also I kind of went by the trainee intake size so reed smith oh God I should know this maybe I'm going to get it wrong aren't I I think about 15 to 20 trainees and that that was a really good size because then you know there again there is going to be enough work for all trainees to do because you're not you're not one of 150 so that means that if you kind of work hard and prove yourself there's there's a chance to kind of get more exposure and do proper work rather than just putting them in through documents which again it's necessary work it has to be done well. So that's why I decided to go with Reed Smith. Lauren: Well, that's fantastic. No, I hear that so much from our lawyers in our London office and also here in the US that our lawyers are really doing substantive work and thinking work from day one. I mean, it sounds like you were super thoughtful about seeking that out. So once you arrived at Reed Smith, tell us about your trainee seats. Where did you rotate and how did you decide to land in the financial industry group? Naz: Sure. So I did corporate as my first seat. And that actually so I'm surprised actually when I look back on it how much thought I've put into it because I thought that was good kind of foundational seat right it's not too specialized you don't have to have a lot of background as a law graduate you won't necessarily already have but it gives you a good kind of breadth in terms of especially the clients that there was like life sciences as well as kind of pure corporate clients so you could do a lot of different things and then I went on to comment to Barclays Asset Finance and then I did that I did obviously FIG financial industry group as my third seat and it was the classic you have to think about your third seat because that's when you're your best performing so you want to go to your third seat the place you want to qualify and then I did commercial disputes as my fourth seat so that that was kind of my thinking mostly because I knew I wanted to qualify into into FIG just because I was interested in financial services basically. Lauren: Yeah. And I understand that you went well in FIG. You worked in what I think of as a highly specialized area of structured finance. So what was that like? How did you get up to speed? Naz: I mean, looking back, to be honest, Lauren, it was a crazy, but excellent in the end move, but crazy for me, to be honest. So the structured finance team had only just joined Reed Smith when I was a full seat trainee. So I couldn't actually annoyingly do a seat there. But I was really interested in the subject matter just because obviously at that point just following the financial crisis and you know it was very much kind of in the news and in the zeitgeist so I was very interested in those kinds of structures and so I just I just applied knowing that I didn't have any experience but please I'm really interested and thankfully the team took a chance and and hired me so I was lucky I was lucky enough to be offered a job there and in terms of how I got up to speed I mean I kind of just read as much as I could so I you know, it did our classic, our good old friend PLC about the different kinds of transactions. Right, that structured finance teams would kind of undertake to at least, so I'd go and have an understanding of what people were talking about, rather than just sitting there shell-shocked in the corner. And then when I was actually assigned to a transaction, if I was, for example, asked to look at a specific document, I would then on my own time, look at the other documents as well. So I can understand how they fit together and how one impacted the other and just kind of being really curious about the whole thing just to understand just because for my own education I wanted to understand how things work so that when I was commenting on one thing I could then see well if I do this here that also means something else over here so yeah it was just being curious and reading a lot unsurprisingly Lauren and being a lawyer but yeah. Lauren: No I love that I mean it's I think as a as a junior lawyer at least for me I sometimes felt so out of control like there's all this new information but it sounds like you've had a lot of confidence right to go and meet them. Naz: Misplaced confidence Lauren let's let's not let's not get things confused and twisted um certainly miss but it was more just i felt it was one of those the more information i had the safer i felt almost right so it was like I'll just look at everything and then in the hope that I'll be able to kind of answer questions if if they were kind of asked of me so I wouldn't say confidence Lauren I would i would say more yeah more just wanting to not look like a complete idiot it basically. Lauren: Curiosity right which you said. Naz: Yeah Lauren: So you mentioned that during your traineeship you were seconded to Barclays and seeing now in retrospect that you landed in an in-house role I’d be curious to know what you learned from that experience and how that sort of contributed to your eventual decision to live in-house. Naz: Sure I think one of the things that kind of led me to want to do is to comment as a trainee is the whole point obviously is to get experience right and understand what you like and what you don't like and so obviously you know there are different routes in terms of a legal career but certainly in my head you know when you're when you're really young and don't know better it's very much private practice in-house and those are the only two routes. To go on as a comment just meant well at least I can see if I would be suited to in his house career if I would like it so that was one of the main drivers wanting to kind of understand if that's something I want to do in the future. What I learned I learned I learned a lot about one just the obvious thing kind of how in-house teams are structured what kind of work do they do what's expected of in-house lawyers and I was a I was a second seat trainee Lauren so I was I mean still terrified to be honest and it was just because when you're even when you're on secondment it does say trainee in your email title but everyone kind of disregards that and just sees you as kind of qualified legal counsel. So, but it was, It really improved my confidence just because it was such a massive learning curve because people took what you said as gospel you had to then be confident yourself that what you were saying was correct which meant you have to you know understand exactly what they were talking about and exactly what the question was and what the impact so you have to do a lot of kind of fact finding so you could be sure that you would you were giving the correct answer. Lauren: Yeah no I love that point about how you're the lawyer right in the conversation even though you're you're brand new. Naz: Yes. Lauren: Did you how do you kind of prepare to make an impression? I mean you talked about how you were reading and doing your own research and looking at all the documents. Is there anything special you did at Barclays to feel more confident about the answers you were giving. Naz: I think it was more just again I'm gonna just repeat myself this whole time I'm being curious right and even on things that you weren't working on when you had team meetings and people were discussing what they were doing listening and then asking questions about what that meant and oh is there a document I can look at and can I get more background onto what you were doing and not in an annoying way because in-house lawyers do not have time to sit there and give you background but equally if they can just send you a document that you can then read. And I think the other thing is just kind of in terms of making an impression you know again again being curious but also trying to take the initiative because as a trait you know when you go on as a comment as a trainee thankfully the people that are in-house know that you know very very little you're a trainees they know you're scared so they give you one piece of work right and you do that one piece of work but then you can also be like okay well this is it i think the next steps are going to be this would you like me to do them like I've looked at this document you look to the document would you like me to send it out and then i can answer the questions i just try to take the initiative and you know show that you're not just there to do that one thing that they told you to do but you're trying to be helpful and add value basically. Lauren: No, I love that. Like the anticipating the next thing and offering it up, which I think is something that you so appreciate, especially when you are managing other people. Naz: Agreed. Yeah. Yeah. Lauren: All right. So you after after starting in your qualification seat with the financial industry group, which we call FIG here at Reed Smith, for those who don't know, you had a by all accounts, very successful practice for five years in the FIG group. You've worked with some fantastic mentors at the firm who are leaders in their field and known to be particularly good at bringing up more junior employers. So I'm curious about that time in your career. What did you like most about your team and what did you like about the work you were doing? Naz: What I liked most about the team is that they knew so much collectively because they had so much experience over different practice areas. Is there was very, I can't remember a time when I'd, you know, when there was a random question and there wasn't someone in the team who could answer that question or at least give you a, I would look here and then you find out the answer. So it was such an amazing learning tool because, because you're surrounded by people who have such breadth of experience now and certainly, definitely then I'm sure now as well at the FIG. So yeah, I think that's what I, I also really liked the team. Like they were a really good laugh. You could just have a chat with them. It wasn't just all about work, which is really helpful. So yeah, I do miss my time at Reed Smith. Not being as scared when you didn't know what you were doing, but certainly the people, I haven't forgotten them. And I'm still in touch with a lot of them, which is also really nice. Lauren: Oh, that's fantastic. You mentioned that you thought that you might be interested in in-house roles from your traineeship. When did you realize, like at what point in your career did you start to think it was It's time to think about next steps? Naz: I kind of knew after the Barclays comment, I actually really knew that I enjoyed it. As scary as it was, and as challenging as it was, it really improved my confidence. It made me realize that I could do this and I could go in-house. And so at that point, it just became, well, Naz, if you want to go in-house, what do you need to do? You need to get as much experience as you possibly can across everything that basically structured finance has to offer, which is what I tried to do. And it's obviously you know because the scary thing about going in-house to a place that you know with work you've never done before is thinking god am I going to be able to do this and if you know that you've done a load of stuff before and you've managed to do it that just gives you confidence to know that well I've figured that out I'm sure I can figure this out too. Lauren: And you talked about having some some great mentors and team members you really liked and are still in touch with so when you decided it was time to start looking for in-house roles in earnest did you talk to them about that how did you approach looking for roles and did you tell anyone at the firm you were doing that. Naz: Yes I did I was lucky enough so Tamara Box who's obviously was head of structural finance at that point and obviously still in FIG now I was I was very open with her it was great she'd be right from the outset T-Box sorry I call her T-Box I can't I can't call her Tamara it sounds weird. T-Box was very open to you know people take different paths some people go in-house some people stay in private practice some people go to different firms and she was was very kind of encouraging of kind of discussions around that so even before I decided I wanted to kind of leave I asked her if there was an opportunity to do a secondment for example which is how I got my second secondment and Merrill Lynch yes the toolbox was exceptionally supportive and secondment and both of my left as well and it's great I still get to work with her now which is amazing. Lauren: That is great. So if there were an associate who wanted to start exploring in-house roles at the firm, what advice would you give them about starting a dialogue with their mentors? Naz: So I would say two things. So one aside from the kind of dialogue about that is just try to get as much experience as you can, like across different things, work with different partners. Do different types of work even if it's scary even if you think oh I don't this doesn't have anything to do with anything I might be doing in the future I want to do in the future because you don't know how things transpire and you don't know things that will crop up in your future career that you randomly did 10 years ago that actually helps you and then the second thing was to be honest just be as open as you can like you know partners in law firms aren't going to they're not going to make you feel bad for wanting to go in-house certainly those who understand that at some some point you could be their client right so ask about secondment opportunities you know with from partners in your team if there are any if there's anything you could do to be considered for a common opportunity and also then when you actually do get to work with clients in private practice you know make a good impression not that anyone obviously makes a bad impression certainly but really go the extra mile like be personable be responsive be kind of understanding of what they want and try to deliver that so that if there is an opportunity to do a secondment there they're gonna be like oh yes I remember this person they were great on that transaction sure I’d love to have them on my team for a secondment like that also really helps. Lauren: That's such great advice I mean we we've all had times in our career when we're working very hard and and things on a deal get heated up but just always remembering that the person who you're serving in that moment right they could be it's a chance to market yourself as a professional and the person and it sounds like you really did that. Naz: I tried. I don’t know if I succeeded, Lauren, but I tried. Lauren: So you have a ton of wisdom that I think we could talk for a much longer time about the advice you have for more junior lawyers. But since we do only have a few minutes left in our time together, I want to ask you a couple of questions in your capacity now as a senior in-house lawyer. And the first one related to the last point we were discussing. But when you are working with junior lawyers that are outside counsel. Can you talk about a few things that a junior lawyer has done during your time that's really impressed you and given you the impression that this is someone you really might want to work with again? Naz: Sure. So the first is responsiveness. You know that annoying, a client sends an email and then you respond saying, hi, I've seen your email. The timelines are fine and we're working on it. That is a really pointless email to send, I know, because it seems so unnecessary. But. To the person who's just given you work to do, it's really nice. Okay, that person's either they're dealing with it, I don't have to think about that anymore. So definitely the responsiveness. I would also say attention to detail. You know, as in-house lawyers, we don't expect nor do we really want our partners to know the minutiae of transactions. Like we don't want them to kind of be knee deep in the documents. So as a junior, my kind of advice would be immerse yourself in the documents. Know what's been negotiated and know what the outcome was or where we are currently with them if it hasn't been bottomed out yet. So if you're on a call and someone says, oh, where do we get to on the limitation of liability? You know, you as a junior person can probably, oh, this is where we've got to. And it shows that, you know, the documents and you're keeping track. And that is very impressive. And, you know, it just, it's good to know that someone's on top of these things. So that would be my advice. Lauren: So just that responsiveness and being the person who's kind of keeping everyone else organized. Naz: Yes yeah definitely. Lauren: Yeah as a junior lawyer that that surprised me that that that was part of my role but but as the person who has right the most time and probably the fewest matters compared to you know I imagine you're working on a ton of matters at any given time. Naz: Yes basically it also can be quite daunting as a junior lawyer to be the person that's almost like the lynchpin but it's the classic well if you just break it down right you know what documents are being negotiated you know who's working on if you kind of keep a track of what's the most back and forth it's actually not that bad but it can really yield a lot of results and not just externally to your client right but also internally. It's very helpful to partners if there's a snapshot of what's going on where are we if you can deliver that that shows again that you care you're not just doing what you're told you're really trying to to kind of provide the best service both internally and externally. Lauren: And that point you made about how you don't necessarily want the partner to be the person who's up to date on all the details, right? But for obvious reasons, and I think that's really powerful that someone, you know, a senior in-house lawyer like you can actually notice when a junior is providing that very strong support to their more senior attorney. Naz: Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, obviously, yeah, there is, we don't want, you know, partners to be negotiating limitation of liability because it's a waste of their time, as well as a waste of fees. I think there might be some kind of I can understand that if you're a junior lawyer in private practice you might be like well no one's going to know that I'm doing this and everyone's going to understand I'm not going to get acknowledged and it's not about acknowledgement but you know if you work hard of course you want to get acknowledged for it but you know the partners of Reed Smith certainly you know at least in my experience have very much kind of acknowledged when the work has been done by someone else. And equally on a call it's very obvious right when a junior person can speak up and answer a question that they know what's going on so that will be even if you don't even if no one on the call says oh wow that's amazing I'm so glad you know that, it will be it will be noticed that it was you who was able to give the answer. Lauren: I think that's very motivating and reassuring right when you're when you're working as perhaps the most junior person on the deal to know that your work is really very meaningful to the client. So final question and you've talked a little bit about what what you did and what you think mid-level lawyers should be thinking about if they want to move in-house but just speaking from the perspective of someone who might be assessing people who you're mentoring or who might want to join your team what would you say to a mid-level lawyer about the the skills that they should be developing if that is a path that they if they want to pursue. Naz: So I think yeah and this is kind of a theme that I've seen certainly and certainly in the you know the job that I'm in in now which is it's less about do you have experience in this particular asset class or this particular area it's do you have transferable skills to do this work if you're given the support and the tools that you need. I for example I did nothing I've never done exchange traded product work in my life don't worry I was very upfront about this in my interviews so this is not a surprise to anyone at WisdomTree but you know i was able to demonstrate because of the experience I had on the CLO work on the securitization work I was able to look at complicated structures and problem solve and figure out answers and that's what it really is about. It's about being able to apply the skills that you've learned elsewhere to the job that you're doing now because no one has done everything and it's certainly an in-house counsel as I kind of said as I said before you will end up doing things that no one has ever thought about like you know that hasn't really been contemplated. I'm not even being facetious. Certainly in the crypto space, for example we're definitely doing things that have never been done before and so it's not about do you have the experience because no one had the experience. It's about how can you approach this and will you be able to do this well and that is very much based on the skills that you have your ability to kind of problem solve your ability to approach something and be able to kind of break it down to some of its parts and understand it and then figure out a way to deal with the problem or the best way to do a project or something. So my my advice would basically be try not to get fixated it's very difficult but try not to get fixated on the area itself and getting experience indirectly in that area but get as much experience as you can then be able to demonstrate how the experience that you have will be able to what will mean that you'll be able to do the job that you're applying for very well. Lauren: I love that so so earlier you talked about being someone who loves learning and and it sounds like that is the skill that you're looking for in people who want to work with you. Naz: Yes for sure like enthusiasm and curiosity and wanting to be challenged and don't get me wrong you know challenge is not easy there are certain days when you know the things you're doing are hard and it makes your it makes your brain hurt but once it's done it's a really really nice feeling to be like, yeah, we did that. We as a team were able to accomplish that. And it's a really nice feeling. So yes, definitely. Lauren: Well, Naz, thank you so much. We are at the end of our time together. But I want to thank you for sharing so much from your perspective as an alumni of the firm and a senior in-house lawyer and someone who started their career at Reed Smith and made a very intentional decision to join the team. So thank you so much for being with us. Naz: Thank you again for having me. I really appreciate it. Lauren: Thanks so much, everyone, for joining this episode of Reed Smith's Career Footprints podcast. And we hope to see you at the following episode. Outro: Career Footprints is a Reed Smith production. Our producer is Ali McCardell. This podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, PodBean, and reedsmith.com. To learn more about Reed Smith's alumni network, or if you're an alum of the firm who wants to share your career story, contact me, Reed Smith's Global Senior Director of Alumni Relations, Laura Karmatz, at alumni@reedsmith.com. Disclaimer: This podcast is provided for educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice and is not intended to establish an attorney-client relationship, nor is it intended to suggest or establish standards of care applicable to particular lawyers in any given situation. All rights reserved. Transcript is auto-generated.
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