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Ep 78: Blueprint for the Ultimate Legal Ops Team with Steph Corey, CEO UpLevel Ops & Co-Founder LINK
81 Plays15 days ago
How can general counsels and legal operations leaders work better together? How do you cultivate a high-performance culture across your legal team? And what makes for a thriving community of legal ops professionals?
Join Steph Corey, CEO and Co-founder of UpLevel Ops and Link, the Legal Innovators Network, as she unpacks her career leading legal operations, starting at HP in the 90s, leading operations at Flex and VMware, co-founding the game-changing CLOC and Link conferences, and launching her own consultancy.
Listen as Steph discusses how she built community in an isolating legal role, whether or not you need a law degree to work in legal ops, how to hire the best talent for your team, and merging with The L Suite to bring general counsels into the legal operations conversation.
Read detailed summary: https://www.spotdraft.com/podcast/episode-78
Topics:
Introduction: 0:00
Switching to legal ops from finance: 2:50
Building trust with HP’s general counsel: 5:33
Co-founding CLOC, the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium: 11:21
Do you need a JD to break into legal operations?: 15:47
Tips for finding the right talent: 18:55
How can legal operations professionals and general counsels work better together?: 23:03
Co-founding Link: 28:44
Merging Link with The L Suite: 31:54
The future of her consultancy: 38:23
Connecting with Steph and LINK: 40:27
Rapid-fire questions: 41:11
Book Recommendations: 45:46
What you wish you’d known as a young legal ops professional: 49:30
Connect with us:
Steph Corey - https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephcorey-ulo/
Tyler Finn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerhfinn
SpotDraft - https://www.linkedin.com/company/spotdraft
SpotDraft is a leading contract lifecycle management platform that solves your end-to-end contract management issues.
Visit https://www.spotdraft.com to learn more.
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Transcript
Career Advancement and Networking
00:00:00
Speaker
You can't be so heads down that you're you're only working on the the stuff that hits your plate. That is how you get kind of pigeonholed into this, you know, non-strategic role. And that's what the people will think of you as just a doer. We are doers. in that And that's important to get stuff done.
00:00:17
Speaker
But looking outward and figuring out what's next, what should I be focusing on is so critical. And I think, you know, mentorship and the coaching was was so pivotal, but networking is is really critical and benchmarking along with the networking.
Introduction to Steph Corey and Her Background
00:00:36
Speaker
How can GCs and legal ops leaders work better together? How do you cultivate a high performance culture across your legal team? And what makes for a thriving community of legal ops professionals? Today, we are lucky to be joined on the abstract. by Steph Corey, co-founder of Link, the legal innovators network, which was recently acquired, I think last week is when we're going to be really, well, we've really seen this the week after the acquisition is announced, recently acquired by the L Suite, another community that's very close to to my heart. I spent quite a bit of time working with Karen and Greg back when it was called Tech GC before the rebrand.
00:01:25
Speaker
Link is a community of more than 500 in-house legal ops professionals. They exchange insights, talk about pain points that they have, share resources and best practices. Steph is also the CEO and co-founder of up-level ops, which is a consultancy that helps legal departments think about sustainable success and building for the future. So she's got tons of insights across community building, how to build a great legal department, how legal ops professionals can work well together ah that we're going to be talking about today.
Transition from Finance to Legal Operations
00:02:03
Speaker
Before starting Link and Up Level Ops, Steph was the chief of staff to the general counsel and head of legal operations at companies like Flex, VMware, and HP, Hewlett-Packard. She was also the co-founder of Clock, or a co-founder of Clock, which I think many of you know is a huge organization for information sharing and connecting among legal ops professionals.
00:02:32
Speaker
And we're going to start our conversation here before becoming a legal ops leader. She spent a few years working in finance and accounting. So Steph, thanks so much for joining us today for this episode of The Abstract. Thank you, Tyler. Really appreciate you having me.
00:02:50
Speaker
Okay, so I previewed my first question you started your career as a finance analyst What prompted the switch for you into legal ops? I think like a lot of people your sort of path in wasn't totally preordained Yeah, tell us about that Yeah, it's so funny because I was like, wow, you're, you're, you're saying all these, you know, whatever you're reading my bio. And I'm like, that sounds so cool. And then you're like, she came from finance and accounting. I'm like, Oh, that maybe isn't as cool. Oh no, I'm boring. No, accounts are cool too.
00:03:26
Speaker
So no one ever. No, I think, you know, it's funny, i I had an affinity for, you know, the numbers when I was in school, and I really loved econ and just that and so that's I figured that would be my career path.
00:03:41
Speaker
And then when I actually got into it, like so many things, you know, the practicality of working in that environment wasn't as fun as I thought it was gonna be. um I know that's really shocking. And it was it was kind of like, you know, working in that space in the 90s, which even though I'm dating myself, but it was a harder environment actually for women to be into. And so, you know, it was kind of, it was a little cutthroat and I was a little naive, I think, and and I think it just wasn't the right environment for me. and
00:04:15
Speaker
I really did enjoy my time in mortgage banking to make myself sound super, super exciting. right I really did actually like that work, and I had a really fun time working at um the company I was at then. But HP was looking for this legal operations manager, and I had no idea what that was. I had no idea what the role of the legal department was in a corporation. I had no idea what a general counsel did.
00:04:39
Speaker
And I was this like peppy 20, early 20 something year old, you know, and i I had the email address of the general counsel because a friend worked there and told me about the job opening. And so I just emailed him and said, Hi, I'm, you know, I think I'd be perfect for this role.
00:04:56
Speaker
And at the time they were, technology was a very small part of that function because there wasn't really any legal specific tech that you could deploy. sure And so it was really about, you know, rolling out enterprise types of tools, which of course look totally different today than they did then.
Evolution of Legal Operations Roles
00:05:12
Speaker
And a lot of desktop support helping the lawyers, you know, just kind of manage everything, but it it had a strong finance component. So they were, they were really trying to get their arms around outside counsel spend and budget management. So. My background was a good fit at that time, and so I was really, really lucky to get the role at HP when I did. That's awesome. When you moved into LegalOps, what was the profession like at the time? Or did you feel like you had many peers? I mean i feel like not only were you stepping in into this role that you didn't know that much about, did HP really know what they were hiring for either? like That's one of the things that I'm curious about.
00:05:51
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it's funny because they was called Legal Operations. I think it was the first ah formal organization, certainly on the West Coast, you know calling it that. But I think they knew what they wanted. They wanted somebody to make their lives easier and kind of be invisible behind the scenes doing that. Honestly, that's it. that's the that They were extremely grateful to have me there. Don't get me wrong.
00:06:16
Speaker
i was You know, and and it was it was really truly I look back on that time is just with nothing but gratitude because I learned everything just not everything I know today, of course, but so much it it gave me so much of of the basis of, of you know, my being able to go out and consult and build my own company, right? It was all because of HP.
00:06:36
Speaker
So, look, at that time, I think they knew what they wanted and that's what they got. Somebody who could crunch numbers, make sense of a budget, build spreadsheets, help them organize what they thought they were going to be spending in the upcoming year, um help them kind of manage outside counsel and get them the very fundamentals of technology, you know, implemented. But the incarnation of what, you know, ah the legal operations manager then was compared to what it is now, it's just wildly different, right? so It was, it's kind of funny because I i feel like the career path of a legal operations manager almost followed like my career and maturity throughout the career. You know what I'm saying? It started very basic, like just help me get my password reset for my whatever login, right? And help me do the budget.
00:07:26
Speaker
all the way to like building a strategy. You know, when I ultimately, when I got that role as chief of staff and got there the promotion to that role and had no idea what I was doing, which is that's the genesis of clock, which I know we'll get to in a second, but you know, through my kind of, you know, growing in that role and learning how to do new things and becoming more strategic in that role, the expectations of that role also, you know, kind of matured and people started to look at it as a more strategic role, I think.
Mentorship and Career Growth
00:07:54
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, clearly, I mean, you rose to become chief of staff to the the GC or the the CLO there at HP. I think a lot of people who are in legal ops roles view that as, you know, maybe the pinnacle, right? If not going off and like you have starting your own consultancy or like, you know, our CLO has going off and running a sort of much broader operations function. um People view that as the pinnacle.
00:08:19
Speaker
yeah Tell us a little bit more about that journey and how you were able to to get to become and and build the trust with the GC ah to be able to take on a position like that that's so strategic. A couple of things. I would say that every single legal leader that I worked with at HP helped me tremendously. And so I i had great mentorship and I think mentorship is such a ah huge part of that.
00:08:45
Speaker
yeah And yeah so people who I'm still very close with today and and stay in touch with today really helped me figure out what I was doing and what I should do next. HP was great. The CLO that I worked with at the time, um um you know, later in my career at HP, paid for an executive, ah kind of um you know, kind of a coach to work with me. And so I got... Yeah, I thought that was...
00:09:12
Speaker
It was awesome. it it really you know we we So often we promote people to these roles and we expect them to know what to do without any kind of formal training or guidance. And that's your in my opinion, you're setting them up to fail, right? Because they don't they're they might be great at doing the job they're doing, but then when they get to the next level, they have to kind of figure it out on their own. And and so that's what I think you know, the executive coaching was critical. i I'm so grateful that HP invested in me. and And, you know, it's not cheap, right? So that they, they thought that that was a a ah good use of their money. And it certainly helped me.
Formation and Growth of CLOCK
00:09:52
Speaker
um But then the networking to Tyler, like, that's, you know, what, what really it was that promotion, a chief of staff that brought me to start the clock organization or reach out to the other folks, which is in it eventually.
00:10:04
Speaker
you know, morphed into, um, the, the formal clock organization, but just figuring out, I realized at some point, like, you know, I am the only one. I had a small networking group within HP that was for chiefs of staff because of the other techs had chiefs of staff, but.
00:10:19
Speaker
They were doing very different things than I was doing. Some similarities, and it certainly helped to talk to them and hear what's going on in the exec community and all of that. like That was good. by But there was nobody in my entire organization of I think it was like 300,000 people at that time you know with with e you know contractors and full-time employees. And there was nobody else who was doing what I was doing exactly. And so i you really had to look outward. And that's been a theme of my entire career too, Tyler. like You can't be so heads down that you're you're only working on the the stuff that hits your plate. That is how you get kind of pigeonholed into this non-strategic role. And that's what the people will think of you as just a doer. We are doers, and that's important. It's important to get stuff done.
00:11:07
Speaker
But looking outward and figuring out what's next, what should I be focusing on is so critical. And I think, you know, mentorship and the coaching was was so pivotal, but networking is is really critical and benchmarking along with the networking.
00:11:21
Speaker
Let's talk a little bit more about CLOCK, this organization that you helped start. How did it get started? like What were those early days like? Was it a formal group or was it more, hey, I went and got coffee. Do you guys want to come by and hang out in this conference room and chat about our problems? What was it like? How did it get going? it's yeah Yeah, it's funny.
00:11:44
Speaker
It started with me picking up the phone and reaching out to other organizations and, or, you know, whatever, emailing their GCs and saying, hey, this is who I am and and what I do and who I work for, most importantly, because they wanted to see, they needed to see that other GC's name in order to even look at my email.
00:12:02
Speaker
Do you have a similar role in your department? And if so, would you like to can you make an introduction? I'd like to start a networking group. And, you know, nine times out of 10, they they were like, yes, I do. And here you go. And and that's how I met quite a few of the people, you know, who who were the original founders of clock. And then through a consultant that we worked with, she also said that introduced me to Connie Brenton, who is also trying to do exactly the same thing I was doing.
00:12:30
Speaker
And so we, you know, made that connection and hit it off. And we started, we we decided we would do these phone calls every month. They were like monthly phone calls where we would get together, do an hour long phone call and just check in with each other. What what are the big things that you guys are focusing on, et cetera. And what we found was it wasn't enough.
00:12:49
Speaker
And so then we said, you know what, what if we actually meet in person, do it every other month, but meet in person for like half the day and like just go through some of these issues. And so much like operations managers do is a lot of like workshopping and well, what do you, you know, let's like, you know, kind of whiteboard this stuff out.
00:13:07
Speaker
and And we ended up having our very first meeting at HP, you know, back in my offices way back when. And that kind of set the standard for every one of us would host a meeting every other month, you know, and and and do it that way. And then we had phone calls, you know, in between. But it was it it started out like pretty formal, as ops managers do, you know, we like structure around things. And and then of course, you know, and we decided to do the conference in 2016, and then it really became formalized.
00:13:36
Speaker
Do you think that anybody in the early days had an idea about how big it would become or maybe mean not just clock as an organization, but the sort of broader legal operations profession and how many folks would have those sorts of roles and the vendors and like like how big this whole sort of industry would become? Was that surprising?
00:13:57
Speaker
Yeah, very surprising. I think not in the beginning. I don't think any of us knew. Literally, I was doing it for selfish reasons. Like, I want to be good at my role. These people can help me. They're smarter than me in so many ways. They know they know a lot more than ah than I do. And so it was really about learning from each other. And it was not about even elevating the role, to be honest with you. That wasn't even top of mind for me. It was more about really figuring out how we could do our jobs better.
00:14:27
Speaker
yeah Yeah. You know what I mean? ah Because I think at some point you you like really think about, you know, you you start to, anybody in any career, I think at some point starts to think about what's next.
00:14:41
Speaker
And so that it became pretty evident that you know there are things we could be doing to like give give give ourselves more visibility, especially around getting a seat at the table, because I think that you know we cannot be effective in our jobs unless people take us seriously and give us that seat at the table. So um so it for me, it really got to be more around like, how do I get that seat at the table? How do I get more visibility internally, et cetera? And then it was, oh, hey, there's new people starting in this role. More of us are popping up. We can actually help them and guide them and let them skip a bunch of the you know painful steps that we had to go through in the beginning. And I think that's really where it started. I don't think any of us saw that saw what it could be today. um But Connie definitely had a vision once we really started to grow the organization and more people started
00:15:34
Speaker
participating that you know it could be bigger than what it was. um And then it became pretty evident pretty quickly that that this this was a thing and there was you know there is something behind it.
00:15:47
Speaker
I've got a few questions for you about sort of the the legal ops role and the talent side of this. and I guess the first one is we're similar in a sense, although I'm not a legal ops person, but I've worked for different GCs and on a lot of legal teams and with a lot of lawyers. Neither of us has a law degree. I think that people recognize, especially in the legal ops field,
00:16:14
Speaker
that having different backgrounds or different perspectives can lead to better contributions or a team that runs better or so broad question for you, I think is like, do you think even today that you need a JD to break into legal ops?
Skills in Legal Ops: Business vs. Legal Training
00:16:31
Speaker
No, I think I know a lot ah quite a few people who have gone you know the MBA route and who have also gotten, you know who have a lot of degrees. I know a lot of GCs who went back and got MBAs, for instance. And they will tell you every single time I've asked them, because i've asked i've I'm always curious, right, that the training is totally different.
00:16:52
Speaker
And so in my mind, it doesn't hurt by any means to have a law degree and to practice as a lawyer. In fact, it definitely gives you some different insights. And and like you're saying, all of us come from different backgrounds. It gives us strengths in in some areas, weaknesses in others. um And i I think, you know, coming from as a practicing lawyer, you can definitely add a spin on it that I wouldn't have been able to add because I don't have the same experiences.
00:17:20
Speaker
However, at some point when you're running the business of law and you know when you're you're running the operations, which is really the business management of the legal department, you don't need that law degree and you're not practicing law unless you have a hybrid role. And you think of it like the COO of any organization, right? What is the best way to get something done? Lawyers aren't not taught that in in law school. um In fact, there's no emphasis or training on efficiency. Nobody cares because you get paid by the hour at least until hopefully someday I help to put an end to that. but
00:17:58
Speaker
um So efficiency doesn't even come into play, but when you go to business school, it's all about efficiency, right? In the best ways of doing things and learning about Kaizen's and Kanban's and you know, the best operational practices and all of that. So I think having business training is far more meaningful.
00:18:17
Speaker
But then you do have a gap in how the law departments operate. So you do have to learn that. And so there's you know you're going to have a gap unless you have both degrees and have operated in both environments. And so you've got to learn one or the other. But I think that insisting that somebody who's doing this role has a law degree you're really missing out on so many candidates that are completely qualified for this role and would you know not get out of the park. And when you think of you know a CEO, a COO, the other executive roles um that run an organization, they don't have law degrees typically. And it's just a very different practice. you know It's a different discipline.
00:18:56
Speaker
Building on this, so we recently released, a we being spot draft, recently released a state of legal ops report. There were a few hundred responses, a couple hundred responses, something like that. So it's a decent sample size across organizations. One of the stats that I thought it was interesting is that 60% of the folks who responded said they found it very difficult to find the right talent. And I mean, that could be maybe because They're not looking in the right places. I'm just curious, given your experience across these different organizations and now also advising a variety of sort of legal teams and departments on how to build legal ops functions and how to hire, do you have any tips on hiring or any tips to make that process of finding the right talent easier?
Building a Diverse Legal Ops Team
00:19:43
Speaker
Yeah, I think, look, like attracts like, right? So no matter what, you made a comment about diversity earlier, and no matter what, it's hard for us to step out of our comfort zone. We like to hire people who are like us. That is a human, right? That's just, it's our instinct, I think is just kind of how we are as humans. We like to surround people or surround ourselves with people who are are similar to us. And regardless of what that's like, it doesn't, I'm not talking about any specific you know, gender, race, you know, whatever. I'm talking about just people who behave like us have similar backgrounds to us. ah You know, it's when we're in that work role, I think that's an instinct that humans have. And so lawyers like to hire other lawyers. It's just I've witnessed this for the last 20 plus years, right? This is what they do. So I think
00:20:34
Speaker
You made a comment about diversity brings better results. You were kind of alluding to that earlier, which is true. that's now e I always knew that in my gut to be true. If you have people from different backgrounds, et cetera, they are going to um you know give you different answers. and And I think those differences will ultimately result in a better outcome. okay But I think it's ah it's not necessarily our instinct to look outside of the common places where we look for talent.
00:21:05
Speaker
And so I think it takes that extra step of like stepping outside of your comfort zone. Don't just go to, you know, the typical places where you look to hire people for this role, but you can go to, you know, you can first of all talk to your other executives within your organization, right? And see if there is a killer operations person who's looking for a stretch role or, you know, something different. these you know people in operations can come from HR, from IT, from finance. from ah you know I've seen them come from every part of the organization, especially if they've done like that chief of staff kind of role. I think it can be a a really good fit. And then also, then again, going back to the networking organizations, I think there's a wealth of talent
00:21:51
Speaker
within these networking organizations. So orgs like Link, i I should only be promoting Link, but there are other... But of course, we know there are other orgs out there. But um you know really trying to... I spend a lot of time actually posting on LinkedIn, right? Because the GC I know will say, hey, I'm hiring, you know and i'll I'll post that rec.
00:22:13
Speaker
So going to places like LinkedIn, i I think LinkedIn is pivotal if you're looking for, you have to have a robust profile if you're looking to make a career change. But I i think that um you know asking business people where you can find a good business person, business minded person to come in and run the business of law in your organization is is really a great place to start. so you know I don't think that your law firms are really going to have the answer. um Some of your tech vendors ah you know yeah also have right they have great networks and and they know this space really well. So talking to people outside of those who press ah practice substantive law, I think is a good idea. So like the tech vendors, service providers like me, there's all kinds of recruiters out there of course who work in this space and who really sure you know kind of really dig into the community.
00:23:03
Speaker
I think this this sort of question also about, hey, how can legal ops and GCs work better together is
Collaboration Between GCs and Legal Ops Professionals
00:23:11
Speaker
interesting. Given that they may come, maybe the GC comes from a somewhat significantly different background than the person who they've hired to lead legal ops. maybe the legal ops leader is very savvy technically right and very good at process and maybe the GC is extremely good externally and very good at strategic questions but doesn't really like to be like in the weeds doing things all the time right or building programs. How do you think that these two groups generally speaking can can learn to work better together? Where do you think that starts? Yeah and let me start with
00:23:47
Speaker
with um back to your other question about hiring, you know, GCs looking to hire in this role. I think you have to look for somebody who complements your skill set. And it's so this, this kind of answers both questions. But I think it's, you know, we work with GCs who are very tech savvy all the way to complete, you know, neophytes, they want nothing to do with it, right?
00:24:08
Speaker
And we work with GCs who are gregarious and outgoing and just natural kind of communicators all the way to those who are like definitely more heads down and they'll come up with a strategy, but they don't want to be the one communicating or implementing that strategy more introverted. So I always counsel them to hire somebody who is is different than you, who's going to compliment, but but who you still have chemistry with, because that's very, very important. Very important. But who's going to compliment those those skills. And so, you know, if as a leader, you need to be building a strategy, you need to be communicating that strategy constantly. It's not a one and done.
00:24:45
Speaker
to get that that into the DNA, right the culture of the environment. We always say that you're going to end up with a culture in your environment, but if you don't do it deliberately, it's probably going to be the culture you don't want. um you know Every organization has a culture, but you have to really focus on being very you know deliberate in what kind of a culture you want. And so if you want people who are, you know we we see these environments where people are kind of like keeping things very close to the vest and they don't want to share and they're you know just, that tends to be ah an environment that is not very trustworthy. And it's simply because the GC isn't communicating well enough. And again, if that is not your jam, if you are not a great communicator, I'm not asking you to go do you know a bunch of communications courses and learn how to do it. But hire somebody who can do it for you and like who you can say, look, this is what I expect from people. This is what I want. This is the direction I want the department to go in. And they're going to help you build that out. So I think it's really critical to look for for those skills that, first of all, be introspective enough to know what skills you lack.
00:25:52
Speaker
yeah and know where you can use some support, and then build a team around you who can fill those gaps that you have. Every one of us has those gaps. I'm sorry, Tyler, what was your original question? I was going to tie it back. Yeah. No, that's perfect because the question was really also about, okay,
00:26:10
Speaker
you find that person, right, who maybe complements you, um how can LegalOps and the GC work better together and actually sort of like get things done better together? Where where does that come from? Okay, God, thank you. Yes, that's how I was saying. I knew I had the points, all of this. So, you know, tying back to your original question about, okay, what does that mean then for for GCs and LegalOps professionals?
00:26:36
Speaker
Look, I know a lot of GCs who think of legal apps as very traditional, just get me a budget, pick a technology. I i still want you to, you know, going back to my old HP days, be behind the scenes and get it done. And fine, you know, that, that'll work to some degree and you will definitely get stuff done. But if you really are looking to become, you know, a leader in this, in this field and be a world-class, you know, legal department or world-class organization.
00:27:01
Speaker
then you have to take it to the next level. and And so what that is going to look like is then you bringing somebody on board who who is not everybody's going to get a chief of staff. I recognize that. and We talk to GCs all the time who say, look, my CEO doesn't even have a chief of staff, so I'm not going to get one either. But having somebody in mind with that same skill set who's going to help you operationalize your vision.
00:27:23
Speaker
I mean, that's really at the end of the day what you're trying to get done. And so if you, as a GC, you have to have a vision. Don't just be heads down and and we're going to protect the company from 100% risk and you know and and just hit yeah everything that comes to the legal department. We're just going to solve and churn and churn and churn and churn because you will be on a hamster wheel forever. Instead, take a step back and and look at what should the legal department even be doing in the first place? Does this even meet the threshold of coming to legal or can it be?
00:27:52
Speaker
you know, a template, a training, put it out to client enablement or just a business risk like this, you're going to do this yourselves and we're just going to, we're willing to take that risk. And so, you know, really under getting your arms around that and a good chief of staff can help you figure that out. And then also the opera, you know, the opera operationalization. Yeah, i' right.
00:28:14
Speaker
It is. I think that's a word. Yeah, okay. Well, if not, we're making it one. But like really looking at, okay, now now, what is your overarching vision and how do we get that done in the best way possible and in a palatable way for your your team, too, right? like You can't just... You you need somebody to to influence them and and move people along, both internal clients and your internal team. So I think it's getting that right person to to help you do just that and you'll be successful.
00:28:44
Speaker
So we've talked about sort of your your journey through HP. We haven't talked as much about the other companies you worked with as chief of staff and as head of legal ops, but helping start clock. I'm curious what led you to want to start Link and and sort of what what gap did you feel like you needed to be filled and why did you want to build another community?
Founding and Success of Link
00:29:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's I think that's a great question. we I was you know very active and clock obviously. And when I started up level, which was my GC announced that he was going to be retiring. and And so I twisted his arms to stay working a few more years. And and I said, that's consult. like i think we I'm getting calls every day. like What do you do for this? What do you do for that? I think there's a business there where we can help more than just one you know one or two legal departments at a time.
00:29:35
Speaker
So, and so when we started up level, I could not participate in clock any longer because I was on the seller side, right. And beyond that, what I'd heard from the old timers like me was clock has gotten so big. It's really hard to have content for everybody to be all things to all people is really tough. I i don't even know that I could like, nobody can really do that successfully.
00:30:01
Speaker
And so the people who are very experienced in this space, what I found was they were kind of looking for a space where they could you know have us go back to that really smaller, more intimate environment. When you're in a room of 30 people, you're a lot more willing to share what's honestly going on in your department versus a thousand people, right? Like you're not going to be sharing room things like that in ah in a giant room.
00:30:28
Speaker
It's just the nature of how we communicate with each other. And so Andrew and I, Andrew Dick, who's my partner at Link, who's now part of the L Suite too, he, I forget i forget exactly how he met. he is He is an origin story for us, but I, we did, we talked early on when he was building in-house focus. And then we reconnected to record some, of something, a training, I think, right? Where I was in that training.
00:30:58
Speaker
and we hit it off. And then later he called me and he, oh, the the pandemic had just hit. And he's like, why don't we do a bunch of things virtually? you know and so And so we ended up starting LingQ that way. And so we were um we were just doing these events every other month. And it was really meant just for you know smaller kind of group, more senior people within the space. And that was kind of the criteria to join LingQ too. Like you had to be managing a department or be a direct report of somebody managing the department because they're the next
00:31:29
Speaker
You know, after summers right. And so ah so we had a little bit more of a criteria that we had to be senior to join. And then we started doing these events. And then, of course, when the pandemic was over, we started doing in-person events and the organization grew and grew.
00:31:43
Speaker
But the idea was you know to keep it like to a more manageable kind of group where where we could break out and do like these working sessions. And it seemed to be successful. Tell me a little bit about like what you feel like you've accomplished over the past almost five years, I guess, with with Link. And then why did you think sort of the suite, the L Suite, was the right partner to continue to build the org and take it forward? I know those folks very well. So it's obvious to me, but but for the benefit of our listeners.
00:32:14
Speaker
And I'd like to hear your thoughts on it too after I get my answer if that's okay. But um it was, yeah this is a space where you innovate or die, right? like There was only some... but Andrew and I are running our own separate companies and doing this as a side gig, right? And so yeah we didn't we didn't have a team of people to help us with these events. It's literally like us scouting locations and picking the menus and you know everything else, right? so it's a it's a lot of work for two people to do part-time and i had my team helping me of course the up-level team always chipped in and helped with everything but it it was it was a lot of work and we both had this conversation earlier in last summer and we said like we need to do something different like you have to keep building what what is it exactly that we want to be doing and andrew had the connection with tech gc.
00:33:07
Speaker
Yeah. And so he, he started the conversations and it was just one of those like stars aligning really where they were looking to build out an ops community. Their GCs had been asking them for an ops community. Yeah. Um, so they were looking at building it out and they could either do that from scratch or acquire link, which was already, you know, built and and running and functional. And so they went that route.
00:33:32
Speaker
And now the idea is to have the benefit to us. I mean, it's tremendous, right? Like we die if we don't have the attention of GCs. There are other models out there that you know talk about different routes that people can go in in our careers, and certainly that is 100% true. We could we could legit leave the legal team, move to um you know an operating a COO role somewhere else, but you've seen it and you have it. You have that. yeah after
00:34:02
Speaker
But at least within our organizations, um if that is not your desire, and it might not be the desire of everybody to do that, but there's still so much room for us to grow within our legal organizations, right? And in order to do that, we have to have the ear of the GCs. And so I was trying, Andrew and I were both trying to figure out ways where we could lean in more heavily to that GC community. And so to to when he said, how about us looking at the L Suite,
00:34:28
Speaker
And talking to them, I was like, this is, I did not have one second of hesitation. And it was like a no brainer where we could have these crossover events and we could be in front of the GC community. And it's important, you know, so for us, like from legal apps professional side, it's really important for us to be in front of the GCs. Like we're, our jobs are, don't exist without them. However, they have so much to learn too. And so, you know, there's, especially as I talk to, um, to Greg and Karen and here, like how,
00:34:58
Speaker
many, what the percentage of them that still don't have these roles in place, right? And the work is happening. don't Budgeting is happening. you know Cutting expenses is happening. Implementing the LMs, all of that is happening. Implementing a GAI program, that's happening. But then if you don't have an ops person doing it, you've got a team of lawyers doing it 5% of their time or whatever, you know who are trained to do it, who aren't really into it. so um And so it's important for them to hear from us too. So to me, it was it was just a no-brainer.
00:35:26
Speaker
ah So beyond the sort of I think link and tech you see the else we'd have pretty strong philosophical and brand
Impact of Crossover Events
00:35:35
Speaker
alignment. Think about the way that you've hosted events before how you try to keep them smaller or more intimate places where there can be real conversation. I'm actually I continue to be a big fan of clock and we like going to clock and But it's a totally different experience from going to something like a small 15-person roundtable that's a very curated group of maybe people who have, you know, been in roles at an executive level for 10, 15-plus years, right? I mean, it's just it's just a different sort of conversation. yeah But I'm super excited to finally have a place where we can show up and maybe have GCs in the room and
00:36:15
Speaker
head of legal ops or chief of staff to CLO in the room and get them in conversation with each other because I'm also just really excited to I don't know how that conversation is going to go. I haven't seen it done that many times before and I'm excited to learn. I'm excited to see i'm excited to see sort of like what questions they ask each other or what ah what they say they're learning from each other. Yeah.
00:36:39
Speaker
Yeah, me too, because the the crossover events that I've hosted, which is not really a crossover event, it's like really having a couple of GCs on a link panel, you know what I mean? Or the audience can ask a question, but the audience is all legal ops people. And so what's kind of funny is When you think about it, it's all the GCs. The only people I would ever invite to those are GCs who take this very seriously and have strong, you know, backgrounds. And ah most of them have the MBAs on top of their law degrees and all of that, right? So you're right. This is like we're entering a new space now where it's a GCs who just don't know this space very well.
00:37:14
Speaker
And they're asking for information on it, which is great. So they're at least curious about it. But I'm very curious to see how how these events go too. And and so often you see like you'll see events where there's both legal ops professionals, GCs, CLOs. like The tracks are totally different, right? And so maybe they come together for like one thing or something and one plenary session or something and then the meals or whatever. But I think you know having the like look, digging down and dirty, like, workshopping stuff, really getting into the weeds on stuff. One of the things I know that Karen asked me to do is, like, a training on building custom GPTs for GCs, you know, like, how to build writing systems and stuff like that, like, really getting into the practicalities. We could talk about strategy all day. It's important. It's critical.
00:38:06
Speaker
But when it when it comes down to it, like we're nothing without actually doing stuff, right? So you've got to have this strategy for sure. But like i'm I really do feel like we we want to roll up our sleeves and do things together. And so I think that's right this is a space where we can do that.
00:38:24
Speaker
What will your role be with link slash bell sweet and How are you thinking about that and also your consultancy? is This may be gonna give you a little more time almost to put your foot on the gas with up level ops or yeah how are How are you thinking about that that mix?
00:38:41
Speaker
Well, so far, no, they're using my question. No, i'm I'm very happy about because the focus for my work now with the L Suite is the stuff that I wanted to be doing, right? and so It's the content. It's you know looking at you know building this community more. It's what do the events look like versus doing the administration, which it's the same thing that I consult with my with my my clients about, right? like
00:39:12
Speaker
you want to get the right resources doing the right things. yeah And it probably wasn't the best use of Andrew and in my time picking meal you know menu items for each event and stuff, right? um Or you're sending out all the reminders and you know doing all of that. That stuff is critical. It has to get done. it If it doesn't get done, these these things don't happen.
00:39:31
Speaker
but maybe not the best use of our time doing it. And so with with the L Suite's power of like having a whole team of people who do nothing but this, right? This is what they do. They're so good at it. So now I get to leverage this team and then I get to focus on you know engagement with the community and and really building the strategy and the content. but So I'm still heavily involved, obviously, and and will be for the for the future.
00:39:56
Speaker
But it's going to be, I think, more interesting work that i'm I wanted to focus on to begin with. And, you know, I think ultimately it only helps my my consulting work, right? Because it educates us, we get to see what's going on out there in that space. Of course, you know, the networking and meeting people is always really, really critical. And so I think it will ultimately be a super benefit to Uplevel. But you know, selfishly, I get to do the work that I really enjoy doing. That's great. If folks want to either, well, either get connected to you, or they're hearing about this, and they're thinking, I'd like to attend a link L Suite conference, where should they go? How can they get connected? They can go to link for legal, L-I-N-K, linkforlegal.com, go to the website to join, they can reach out to me directly at steph
00:40:53
Speaker
at uplevelops.com, that's S-T-E-P-H, at uplevelops.com, shoot me a message and and we'll get it connected. Yeah, I think those are probably the two best ways to so learn about LinkedIn. That's easy. That's not like something you fill out a bunch of forms. and Yeah, no.
00:41:09
Speaker
ah all I've got some well, I think they're fun some fun closing questions for you as we start to wrap up if you're up for it.
Steph's Personal Interests and Mindset
00:41:19
Speaker
The first one is what's your favorite part of your day to day? Okay, the favorite part Well, I have an answer I should give, but any an answer that's true, which one give them both. Let's hear them both. Okay. The answer that is also true, but I would say if I'm being completely honest with myself, it's the second favorite part of my day is after all my meetings are done and I try to have my meetings around like four, three or four o'clock Pacific. So I have a couple of times to like reflect and actually get work done. Um,
00:41:56
Speaker
When it's a good day and I've had good meetings and I feel like I've helped people, ah huh that to me like sets me up for like a whole evening, afternoon and evening of just like happiness, right?
00:42:08
Speaker
If I feel like my clients are happy or I've made some new connections and have helped them in some way, I genuinely feel happy. So that's the favorite part of my day when my meetings are over and I can kind of reflect on on the work that I did that day and hopefully how I help people. But the secret kind of really thing that I really love every day is I'm a big workout fanatic.
00:42:29
Speaker
Okay. I love, I love my workouts. So when I get to, you know, close my computer for an hour and do a killer workout, then that's really like, that gives me energy that kind of feeds me for the whole day. Do you follow some sort of video series or did you do like hit workouts or weights or what do you like to do? Everything, but do I have a personal training that I do once a week.
00:42:56
Speaker
And I do orange theory usually once a week. And then I do have a peloton and we'll do those workouts. But my favorite, favorite, favorite workout is MMA and boxing. Wow. Cool. Yeah. So Redwood City has a gym called Undisputed and it's like It's just killer. It's such a great workout. It's the best workout I've ever done in my life. So don't run into Steph in a dark alley and try to take her watch. yeah but You can try, but we'll see what happens. That's fun. Okay. Do you have a professional pet peeve? Oh, a professional pet peeve. Oh my gosh. Um, I would say
00:43:38
Speaker
Wait, let me give it, let me, because there's so many titles, like I would really, yeah, okay. My professional pet peeve, and this has been a long running one with me, are is the it's not my job attitude. nine And so I have always worked with my, but you cannot do everything.
00:44:01
Speaker
And so there's really this balance of, ah you know, being able to understand, I would always tell my team, when something comes to you, it is your responsibility, whether it's your responsibility or not, even if it's to get it to the right person who can help them, right? Like we are in a customer service industry. When you're in legal operations, you are so you are a support function.
00:44:23
Speaker
And so really helping people all the way through. I think that excellent customer service attitude has helped me my whole career with everything I've done. I think, honestly, I think it's why people like me and why I've gotten hired for roles because I really genuinely want to help people. And I think that having that attitude is is really helpful. And I think when I see people who don't have that attitude, it frustrates me.
00:44:45
Speaker
I would also say another frustration is like that expectation of doing more with less and that is always put on people is incredibly demotivating. I think it's the most demotivating thing you could say to somebody, do more. I'm going to give you less, but I would expect you to do more.
00:45:01
Speaker
I can't think of anything that's more demotivating. And so I try to work with teams on like, no, do less with less, you know, like you can you let's figure out what you can say no to stop doing all together, or automating or outsourcing or something like that, you know, and so so that's a big, a big focus of the work that we do.
00:45:21
Speaker
I'm sure there's a lot of that work because I'm sure the legal ops leaders hear that all the time. and The GC may not even want to be delivering them that message. That message may just be coming from the budget or the CFO or the financial environment or the lack of ability to raise another round or whatever it is. I've never heard a GC say that gleefully. like It's never coming from them.
00:45:46
Speaker
Is there a book that you would recommend for our listeners to
Recommended Reads on Tech and AI
00:45:50
Speaker
read? And this could be a, you know, practical, professional book, or it could just be something fun that you've read recently that you want to share with but the audience. Oh my God. Yes. ah Well, okay. So I'm a huge reader. I do like, I get through about 150 books a year. Whoa.
00:46:08
Speaker
Yeah. and listen but im No, no, I'm a speed listener. I do audible. So when I say reading, my husband's always like, Oh, did you read air quotes? Did you read another book? I'm like, it doesn't matter. Science shows that it doesn't matter if you listen or read, you're still getting the same out of it still impressive. one hundred and fifty Wow. Yeah.
00:46:28
Speaker
I do. I like plow through them. like i I think I'm Audible's biggest customer. but i i love And I love fiction, which is terrible because I know I'm supposed to be really you know i'm about to be sounding a lot smarter than that. But I would say, okay, these are the books that I've read recently that I loved. I loved Kara Swisher's Burn book. I thought it was awesome. And anybody who lives in Silicon Valley,
00:46:53
Speaker
she She's, if you know who Kara Swisher is, she's like the the Silicon Valley you know famous tech reporter. And I think she's amazing. I love everything she does. And she narrates her own book, which I also love.
00:47:04
Speaker
and And it's really great. She talks about all the tech giants and and they're her relationship with them, and she has deep relationships with them. And so, I mean, it's called Burn Book because it's based on mean girls, and they have the Burn Book of all the girls. just you like try And so, that she she calls it her Burn Book. And I think it's excellent. It's a really, really fantastic book.
00:47:25
Speaker
And then the other one is called The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleiman. I read that one. That's a good one. Yeah. Okay. It's yeah really good. Yeah. Our listener's a little bit about it. Yeah. Yeah. He he did. He came from the DeepMind, like that original one of the early AI companies.
00:47:42
Speaker
And then the book was about like, what are the, there are risks with, with AI huge fan of AI. Like we've leaned super heavy into it. I know you guys are too. Obviously it's like, it is revolutionary. It's going to change the way we work. It's already changing the way that we work.
00:47:59
Speaker
But there are risks and bad actors can do very bad things with it. yeah And so i his whole take on it is, and Kara Swisher talks a lot about this in her book too, there are we need to get our arms around this and have some, you know and and our our government is so, they don't even know how to you know operate their iPhones, much less really understand. You see it in the congressional testimony. like you know they They don't even know what questions to ask. They're asking you know the the Apple CEO about stuff that they should be asking Facebook about. like They don't even know the different tech companies, et cetera. so like We cannot rely on our government to do this. and so There's got to be some policing within within these organ you know these organizations have to do something. and so it's ah i I think it's a little bit
00:48:44
Speaker
of an eye opener, almost a little scary if you, you know, hit his book, but but also if you if you, you know, take it with the, um with hopefully with the intent that he meant.
00:48:56
Speaker
I think it shows that there's hope, that like we can still get our arms around this and and we can you know really make sure that it's used not used for ill intent. But it's very eye-opening and really the power of... like We're talking about AIs for like writing assistance and figuring out how to analyze invoices and contracts and all of that, but they're talking about like Biochemical engineering and weaponizing this stuff and it's just way beyond you know, anything that we operate in on a day-to-day basis It's really fascinating. Absolutely. That's a
Reflecting on Early Career and Self-Advocacy
00:49:28
Speaker
good one. I like both those ah Okay, a final question for you sort of traditional closing question for my guests It's if you could look back on your days just getting started as a legal ops professional maybe that first role at HP
00:49:46
Speaker
What is one thing that you know now that you wish that you'd known back then? okay One thing that I know now that I wish I knew that I think that I had more power than I gave myself credit for. And so first of all, I was very young when I started this role. I was a kid. I was really young, um like 24 years old, you know what I mean? And so it's intimidating working with all of these really seasoned lawyers and you know these big tech companies. And you're like, you feel like the freshmen on campus.
00:50:22
Speaker
and so I think that it's, you know, i I think that really looking back and understanding and doing it with a gentle hand too. Like I think you cannot shove things down people's throats. You can't make them work in a different way.
00:50:36
Speaker
by telling them that they have to do it. I think it's really using influence, which i I think I was good at. But knowing that I had more influence than I thought I had, I i think I was pretty you know kind of timid and took a backseat earlier on in my career. i'm And probably, I don't know, maybe the people who worked with me would disagree with that, but that's that's kind of how I see myself. And then knowing that I could have driven a little bit harder and um and gotten like a a more senior role,
00:51:05
Speaker
advocated for myself, I think, you know ah you know, for those raises, for those promotions. I think I could have done that probably better or stronger earlier on. I think that's a great point. I don't usually actually comment on these. Usually I just close. But i what I really like about that is I think that ah think that people, especially early in their careers, forget that maybe their bosses are looking to them or want their advice or view them as being really good at their jobs. They're kind of thinking, like how do i how do I please the execs? How do I make them happy? They're going to be skeptical of me day in, day out. and
00:51:39
Speaker
I think it's probably, that's probably not the case, right? Like I think you might have more power because your boss has hired you for a job and thinks you can do it and respects you and wants to see you succeed and wants to see you surprise them. ah Yeah. And you know more things than they know in i this, in this area, you know, like in that sense, you really do know a lot more than they know. So, uh, knowing kind of your understanding, you know, what you can bring to the table, I think is, is so important.
00:52:07
Speaker
Well, Steph, this has been a lot of fun. ah I look forward to seeing you at some link events this year. Me too. Hopefully some of the listeners there as well. So thanks so much for for joining me today for this conversation. Okay. And I have a correction to make. I do not read 150 books a year. It's seventy about books. Well, that's still a lot.
00:52:30
Speaker
Yeah, because I'm looking how long I've been, because I have almost 400 titles and I've been... It's been more than a week, I mean, you know. Yeah, yeah. That's a lot. But I, you know, less do you think I'm like, that's all I do. I don't work.
00:52:48
Speaker
I would respect it. ah And I would ask you after this call, how? Yeah, it's well, listening, right? You could do it whenever. Cooking, getting ready, you know, walking the dogs. And so if I had to sit and read these books, I'd never get them done. but Very impressive nonetheless. Thanks so much, Beth. Thanks, Tyler. Thank you for having me. And to all of our listeners, thank you for tuning into this episode of The Abstract, and we hope to see you next time.