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Ep 101: How Legal Ops Became the Center of Strategy with Adam Becker, Cockroach Labs
80 Plays24 days ago
What does it mean to lead legal operations when there’s no clear blueprint?
In this episode of The Abstract, host Tyler Finn sits down with Adam Becker, Director of Legal Operations at Cockroach Labs and board member at CLOC, for a candid conversation about evolving careers, scaling legal departments, and the growing scope of legal ops. From breaking the “lawyer mold” to embracing AI-native strategies, Adam shares personal lessons on confidence, curiosity, leadership, and why legal ops is entering a new season of strategic impact.
The discussion also explores how CLOC’s community and resources help elevate the field, and why every legal ops professional should see themselves as a partner to the GC — not just a process owner.
Read detailed summary: https://www.spotdraft.com/podcast/episode-101
Topics
Introduction and career arc overview: 0:00
Early clues that pointed to process thinking: 1:14
Breaking out of the lawyer mold and recognizing transferable skills: 2:09
Confidence, curiosity, and pivoting into legal ops: 5:51
Driving impact at MetLife and Endeavor: 8:33
Why legal ops requires conviction, not just thick skin: 11:09
The people-process-tech triangle — and why “people” matters more: 14:13
Culture and collaboration at Cockroach Labs: 16:36
Balancing scale with flexibility in a fast-growing company: 18:53
How legal ops has evolved through CLOC’s growth: 21:14
Is legal ops at a crossroads? And what’s CLOC’s role in the future?: 26:22
Rapid Fire: 32:59
Connect with us:
Adam Becker - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-becker-896a7a3/
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
Introduction to Agentic AI and Career Evolution
00:00:00
Speaker
In the professional context, heard the term agentic AI for the first time recently. And I was like, I don't know if we're there yet. I'm going to start thinking about that differently very quickly.
00:00:10
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, that's my idea. i don't know what the idea is yet. Yeah. but It's a mindset shift or ah the future is going to be here faster than I thought. or There's more here than I realize right now.
00:00:21
Speaker
work might change more radically than I expected. or Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, i'm'm I'm piqued by this one. And I agree, it's easy to say that. It's probably something small I'm going be interested in too. but This is pretty cool. Yeah. yeah I'll have you back on in a couple years to talk about it. Now it's apparently every six months. Six months. Yeah.
Adam Becker's Career Journey
00:00:45
Speaker
Some careers evolve step by step. others of all by seeing what's needed next and building it from scratch. Today on the abstract here in Las Vegas at CLOCK, I am joined by Adam Becker, director of legal operations at Cockroach Labs and one of CLOCK's board members as well. So thank you for having us.
00:01:09
Speaker
Thank you for inviting me to your lovely studio here in Las Vegas. ah Adam has one of the most interesting career arcs in legal, starting as an IP associate at Skadden, then shifting into talent and attorney development, growing into legal ops leadership roles at big companies like MetLife and Endeavor.
00:01:31
Speaker
And now, as we're going to talk about, building legal ops from the ground up. at an exciting company in database technology. We're going to talk today about your journey through law operations, leadership, and how legal ops professionals are really redefining modern legal departments and how they scale and thrive.
00:01:53
Speaker
um Sound like too high of billing or just the right billing for our conversation? Probably too high. Let's see how far we get. But probably, you know, let's see let's see if I can meet this very high expectation that you have set. Excellent. and Okay.
00:02:11
Speaker
I do want to ask you a few questions about your career before we get to to Cockroach, because it's an interesting arc. um Were there early experiences working as an attorney that maybe planted the seeds for this move into more formal ops leadership roles? Like, how did this kind of come about?
00:02:32
Speaker
That's an interesting question. You know, probably not obviously. i i never intended to kind of, I would never have envisioned this being the direction I took. Now, yeah when you look back at things, and this will actually maybe be something will come up later when I talk about you know, when I talk to lawyers now who want to get into kind of this area, yeah when you look back at things, yeah you know, I used to joke, um I wasn't a very good litigator because I would look, I'd get the situation. i'm like, oh, we can resolve this as a way to fix this and we can streamline this whole thing. Right. ah So maybe there was something in there inherently, but it probably made me not the best litigator. Yeah. Because I was always looking for like the way to make this better. Yeah. um
00:03:13
Speaker
And then that included both the situation, but also how we handle it, you know, and at the time it was, you know, obviously not as advanced as it was. It is now. So you look back, there were like clues, but they weren't clues that would ever lead somebody to think, oh, well, I'm really into the process side of this. So I'm going to go do X, y and It just wasn't really on the radar screen. And it took a while to kind of have that come out over time. Yeah. yeah i I actually, I want to talk about that,
Career Pivots and Transferable Skills
00:03:39
Speaker
right? Like the making these leaps, attorney, talent, ops.
00:03:43
Speaker
I think you've alluded to the fact that maybe like some attorneys aren't totally comfortable pitching themselves for a role that isn't in their clear swim lane, right? Even though skills are very transferable. How have you thought about that in your own career? I've never thought about that in my own career. Once I broke the lawyer mold.
00:04:04
Speaker
yeah And it's a really hard mold to break. There is kind of, I don't know why this is. I mean, lawyers are so educated and, you know, the intelligence level across the board is just so high and especially litigators, right? They come out, they're so sure themselves and they can really sell their stories.
00:04:25
Speaker
And when it comes to themselves, a lot of lawyers, and I don't want to stereotype the whole conversation, crew yeah feel like they do what they do and they don't know how to do anything else. So, you know, I'm in ah i'm an employment litigator and so my next job will be in employment. And it it doesn't have to be that way. People are either comfortable with it or it's something in the training and how they're conditioned or it's just this very practical consideration of, well, I've come this far with this expertise so I will continue to grow and capitalize on it, which also makes perfect sense.
00:04:58
Speaker
But a lot of lawyers over over that I've spoken to over time feel kind of stuck with where they are and they don't know that they can do anything else. Now, I think a lot's changed in the past few years and people are a little bit more open to it. But the skill the transferable skill set, which people in most of the world say, yeah, you know, this is directly relatable to what we do here in this way.
00:05:22
Speaker
ah Lawyers sometimes have a hard time with that. Yeah. And I probably did back then too. ah huh i probably viewed the transition as ah related but totally new job, which it is.
00:05:34
Speaker
But there were transferable skills. With that said, there were a lot of skills I simply didn't have yet. Sure. I had to develop. But I think in general, a lot of people have more value value and skills than they immediately realize when they are looking to pivot in their careers. Yeah.
00:05:52
Speaker
Do you think that successful, I mean, we don't have to talk like deeply about navigating interview. We're going to get deep. Into the interview process. um but but But when you're when you're approaching a new job, maybe like when you were thinking about, okay, I'm going to move into my first legal ops job and out of a firm and go
Navigating Career Transitions with Confidence
00:06:10
Speaker
in house. And I don't know, is it confidence? Like how did you prepare yourself for for these sort of moments of transition or inflection in your career?
00:06:20
Speaker
Yeah. I think there was a degree of confidence, but I think
00:06:28
Speaker
I've also always been confidently curious about things. I've talked about curiosity with other folks before. Curiosity, I think, is one of the most important traits in legal ops, probably in all careers when you get down to it.
00:06:42
Speaker
So there have been times in my professional career where something has come to me and I had to decide to take it or not. And then there have been times when I've gone for something and I do think It's beneficial to be a little bit more confident when you're going after something new because you're really trying to, you know, not sell yourself, but show that you can do what the challenges are and different from what you've done before.
00:07:07
Speaker
Legal Ops was a little bit different because the first time it came to me here as really something to explore was a job I did not get. Oh, interesting. It was a friend saying, please apply for this job at my company. Uh huh. And I said, I don't know what this is.
00:07:25
Speaker
I've never heard of this. And he said, look at the job description. And there were 10 or 12 things on there. eight of which I had done. okay And I said, I've done eight out of 12. I'm confident enough to have this conversation. i didn't know what this was. I mean, it's pretty cool.
00:07:43
Speaker
And I learned a lot through that process. yeah Unfortunately, the four that I didn't have were the four priorities of this general counsel. So I did not get that job. And that GC was very nice about it and said, I think you can do this, but I really need X, Y, and Z right now. i makes perfect sense.
00:07:59
Speaker
I've never done that. work at a law firm. That's done for me. ah huh And then i spent the next year learning how to at least start doing that. and I knew I'd never be able to do what it was, but learning more about legal ops. And then I went into that stage of my, uh, purposeful career transition a little bit more confidently knowing that I had to say, there are certain things I haven't done. I would never be untruthful about that, but here's what I've done to learn about them now or prepare or how I've done similar, whatever it may be in the past.
00:08:33
Speaker
I want to talk about Cockroach in a second, but I want to totally pass over like working in large organizations as well.
The Impact of Legal Operations
00:08:42
Speaker
MetLife, Endeavor. How did you think about sort of the the scope of legal ops and the impact that legal ops could have in a a really quite large sort of legal department and in a very large matrixed organization?
00:08:57
Speaker
It's interesting. I think that that's a good question. And I don't think I went into life thinking about the impact I could have on the legal organization. I think I went in there going, this is a job that I'm right for and I get to go in house and learn a lot of stuff.
00:09:11
Speaker
and i And I think that's what I did. and then I think the impact happened. Kind of immediately and over time, and I probably, you know, I've had to learn kind of the corporate way of thinking coming out of a law firm.
00:09:26
Speaker
So something like thinking about impact and even ROI and and that yeah sort of, and these sorts of terms that we use. I started to see it pretty quickly and I said, I didn't view it as impact. I viewed it more as like, um,
00:09:39
Speaker
Improvement and also it was a trigger to be careful about certain things. You know, if you if you play with the ah if you play with that loose ball just a little bit too much, the whole thing falls apart. Right. So like you start to learn things like that. but Yeah. But you see it pretty quickly and sometimes you actually see it in ah the way you wouldn't expect. So we all think impact is going to be praise or people loving what you did and so your boss being great.
00:10:07
Speaker
And sometimes your impact is because a group of people in the department are really unhappy about a change you've helped effectuate, which means you did a really good job. but yeah Or not. but But I started to see the impact pretty quickly ah when those things started to happen. yeah And then i had a, know, ah which is ironically, but probably at the same time I started coming to stuff like this and really learning how people are thinking and approaching this so I could get better at it. And and that's when I started thinking about impact in a more meaningful and different way. And yeah, it it took a little time to kind of understand that, but there is a lot of impact you can make.
00:10:45
Speaker
And some of the smallest things, as we're joking about before the start, the MVPs, the minimal viable product. can really significantly change large scale things and i and i never i never underestimate the impact of small changes and improvements having large impacts Yeah.
00:11:08
Speaker
Yeah. This is a question that is not in the script, but I'm really curious about. I mean, do you think that people who are leading legal ops or doing legal ops often kind of need to have thick skin, right? I mean, in in some ways, it sometimes, you know, maybe you have the backing of the GC to go and run at something. But as you're saying, the process change might not be totally popular with the 17 attorneys who have been there who have had freedom to do things whatever they way they want for the past six or seven years. or um i don't know. I'm curious about about that.
00:11:43
Speaker
um you know and Maybe thick skin is not the right term. Yeah. you know what I'm getting at? Yeah. there's a do you have to Not thick skin as much as you have to have a degree of ah solid confidence in the things you proposed and are moving forward because they will be tipped away at you know Thick skin is probably more for the the harsher environment. Right. um Or the less...
00:12:07
Speaker
Yes. congenial environment right where people will say sometimes just mean things and it's considered acceptable in-house you know one of the nice things about going in-house is that's typically just not the way it is yes there are behaviors that happen in other parts of the legalist ecosystem that do not happen andhouse and should not But yeah, I think it there's a confidence thick skin in a way. And you can doubt yourself because you might have a lot of people telling you why this is so bad and so wrong.
00:12:37
Speaker
And they're actually not even doing it to be mean. It might not mean self-preservation. Sometimes it's simply, I don't want to deal with this change. It's a lot easier for me not to have this happen. yeah So I'm going to tell you why it's wrong.
00:12:48
Speaker
And I think that kind of wall of confidence that you build up in your mind It can take some hits and maybe be torn down if you're not careful with it. But it's funny. We led a session this morning with my friend Tommy, who I know has done this yeah well.
00:13:02
Speaker
And, you know, one of the things she said is really... I know I'm right on this one and I have to hold steady and I have to convince others that I'm right on this one and I'm going to hold it till I'm proven wrong. Yeah. Or something along those lines. And, and it, you know, you, it, it's a fine balance of, you don't want to be stubborn, but you don't want to back off at the first side of criticism or, and so one of the best ways to do that as far as thick skin goes, it's like, Oh, you have a criticism.
00:13:30
Speaker
Let's dissect it. Tell me more about it. And then that actually leads to kind of the legal ops art of like, oh, we are now, are are we in practical or are we in something else? Yeah. And there are different ways to deal with that. But it's not the skin. That's almost like, an you know, they're coming at you as a person. Yeah. But coming at you with improvements is definitely, you need a, um,
00:13:52
Speaker
A sturdy wall that, you know, you will take down if you need to. Right. If you're we've we've all been wrong. Totally. But yeah, there you can you can certainly make people uneasy sometimes.
00:14:04
Speaker
And not because they're bad or good. Just it's different. Everything else has changed. Can we keep one thing the same? but You kind of get that. Yes. Yeah. I mean, along those lines, I think a lot of people are sort of schooled in the idea that legal ops is people, it's process, it's technology.
Balancing People, Processes, and Technology
00:14:22
Speaker
And I'm sure different people have different opinions about are we over under indexing on yeah any one of those three? I am curious. The triangle. Yeah, I am curious what you think about that.
00:14:33
Speaker
But I also think about the people aspect of that. It's not just having the right people to do the right things. It's also like bringing people along with you even when you're doing things that are slightly unpopular it's an interesting question know i'm pretty honest about i'm very transparent about me probably too much so should not be on a podcast with the spot to have people um i go through kind of what i call like i'm just calling them seasons lately like i'm in this season it could be season could be a day or a year you have no idea but i've been in this people season lately and i'm really focusing on the importance of the people around you that you have to work with that you have to build with, that you have to convince of and all that and how to handle those different personalities and kind of get to a place where we're doing something that's great or amazing or better, taking all those concerns into account. So I'm definitely, if like the triangle a triangle, I'm definitely making the people side more of a isosceles situation right now.
00:15:31
Speaker
With that said...
00:15:34
Speaker
The tech part is really interesting. And I'm very keen to see where that takes us. Thinking about today's ah keynote speaker, Nancy Rademacher, was fortunate enough to see a preview of what she was going to say. Sure. It left me thinking a lot about how I approach things and how companies approach things and her take on technology first here is kind of the inverse of what we've always said in the legal ops world. We always say you put tech on top of everything else.
00:16:15
Speaker
You have the process, you have the people, you put tech on top of it. And here's the other way of looking at it. And i don't know if I don't know what it's going to be as we go down this road. Yes.
00:16:27
Speaker
you know, what we're talking about, Gen AI to agenda AI to whatever is next. It's a really interesting time to keep an open mind on it. Do you feel like you're in a people season also because of maybe where you are or where cockroach is in the journey with cockroach, like the maturity of the business? i mean cause when you started, you were the first legal ops hire, right. And you've really built the function from the ground up. And, um, yeah, I'm curious if if that has, if if you feel like, you know,
00:16:59
Speaker
what you've been able to build allows you to be in the people season or where cockroach is in its journey as a company also contributes to that. You know, maybe I don't have a, I have not thought about this before cause I did not do my homework, but it's an interesting question.
00:17:14
Speaker
And I think the script either. Good. We can throw out the script. and Um, didn't know there was a script. Um, There is is something you lose with size. yeah So if I'm working at a 300 lawyer department, understanding the draw the real underneath you know personality and drives of each person you're working with can be challenging and time consuming. It may be impossible. I don't know.
00:17:41
Speaker
When you're working, we're a 500 person company right now, which is not a startup anymore. It's not 5,000. you fuck that it's not It's a good size. It's a real size. And I work with people repeatedly enough, of course, on the legal team, but outside of the team as well, to kind of have relationships where I understand what their concerns are, both in terms of how they operate and what's going on at work.
00:18:05
Speaker
And so, ah yeah, there it is one because you want to make people happy. You don't want to make them do something they don't want to do. But from the legal ops perspective, it's a lot easier to get things done when they buy into it and they want you to do it with them.
00:18:16
Speaker
yeah So I think maybe there's something to that. you know I have a very different relationship with all the people on my legal team than I've had with others. you know I've always been close to to my bosses.
00:18:27
Speaker
um But i I know this group people and they know us pretty well. This is the you case in case. I actually have had this team over to my house. That's great. Yeah. Like I don't usually do that. Yeah. So it's a different level of of personal interaction.
00:18:43
Speaker
Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe there could be something there. How big was Cockroach when you joined? I was in the like, I was employee like 350 or something. Okay. Yeah. How do you think about, um, I don't know if these two things are at odd with each other at odds with each other either, but sort of building process that scales and can scale quickly.
00:19:06
Speaker
but also being able, I mean, 500 people, but Cockroach is a very innovative company. So I'd imagine things have to remain very flexible. Yes. Right. yeah How do you think about balancing those two things?
00:19:17
Speaker
and I think it's the same problem with technology now. It's a question I don't have an answer to. Yeah. I went in there building to scale, right? Because we, the legal team is now more than doubled in size since I've been there. So that's a scalable thing.
00:19:32
Speaker
Everything the company does is, you know, scaling. How do we make it happen? And, but again, now we've hit this technological innovation where maybe there's better ways than there were. Mm-hmm. A year ago, or in my case, a season ago. Right. and and And I think it's a balance between the two.
00:19:48
Speaker
ah yeah and quite frankly, it's the same thing I see as something like this. You know, the the the technology providers in our world are also having this conversation, yeah right? Yes. ah Are we native AI? Are we putting it in? Are we integrated? Are we buying something? like It's the same thing. We have this amazing product that we built and now we have this new technology which we have to build into it. So we're all balancing it in a way.
00:20:09
Speaker
And I don't know if there's a right or wrong answer, but we're we're embracing both. i mean, I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to say this. Cockroach Labs has become very AI focused and we made it a corporate goal to be an AI native company.
00:20:22
Speaker
Yeah. So we play with AI a lot. We have an exploratory program in legal. We yeah are using more than I ever thought. You know, I'm very excited here to learn. i actually had to perfect my GPT is because right now my GPT is overly helpful.
00:20:38
Speaker
Too much person in there, but we're building it. We're doing it. And it's it's it's cool. And I don't know where everything's going to go, but it's a balance. We still need stuff to work, but we are very open to what's next.
00:20:50
Speaker
You can be a little mean to the GPTs. You actually get good results sometimes. Yeah. and That's what the research shows is as as well. Yeah. I'm always nice to it. I know that they've said, don't say please and thank you, but i always do.
00:21:01
Speaker
um But my GPT wants to be over yeah overly helpful to people where I've actually say, only answer the question Oh, I see what you Don't provide more information. And it's like, but I have this information I'm going to give these people. I'm like, no, don't do that.
00:21:13
Speaker
Yeah. um I want to ask you a little bit about your your work with CLOCK.
Growth and Innovation in Legal Ops
00:21:18
Speaker
um I mean, I guess the first question would be sort of, you know, how have you seen the field of legal ops evolve since, I don't know if you want to say the past decade or since you joined the CLOCK board or, you know.
00:21:33
Speaker
Well, I think the biggest change, it's ah like looking back 10 years. Mm-hmm. I could I see where there was big jumps. So I came i think it was the first time it was here in Las Vegas. I don't remember what year anymore. is Yeah. 1617. I don't remember what it was.
00:21:51
Speaker
Was I haven't been coming for 10 years. I'm at nine. OK. Eight. I'm not sure. Close enough. Close enough. First year I came here there were maybe. 700 or 800 people. um It was a very different setup in a different hotel.
00:22:04
Speaker
Came the year after that. It was like 1,200 people. The third year was 2,000. So that... so that exponential jump happened around that time.
00:22:15
Speaker
And it was also when you started to see, weirdly enough, titles and jobs kind of coalesce around like legal ops as a title and with the responsibilities that were kind of mostly similar um And that was kind of the growth of it all.
00:22:34
Speaker
And then it became like a really hot thing. Yeah. like Everybody was talking about it all of a sudden. And I'm like, well, look at me in the middle of this hot topic. But
00:22:49
Speaker
every it was It was an interesting period because I think somehow the community penetrated the GC community and a lot of GC would say, ah I know I need to have this. I'm not sure why yet, but I know I need to have this. I know this is a thing.
00:23:02
Speaker
So a lot of jobs got created that way and that's how the industry kind of blew up. but then we were kind of forming what this was together. So to the credit of the founders of the organization, coming me up with the core 12,
00:23:14
Speaker
which still really holds today. Yeah, there's there's more. There might be sub things under each one now. sure But those competencies hold today and for for the most part.
00:23:27
Speaker
And that really helped drive and create the actual role and profession. here And I think that's important. What I find interesting now of late, just paying attention, is that there are so many different titles now and there are so many different areas and specialties and, and mandates that people have that the consistency is really hard to gauge. And, um, you know, that might be harder for you all when you're like finding people talk to and their title is like director of transformational services, you know, comma legal. You're like, okay, are they in legal ops? Yeah, they probably are. We're not sure.
00:24:05
Speaker
It's,
00:24:07
Speaker
It's a field that keeps growing. You know, when we we look here, there's new people every year. They're still offering the 101 sessions. And, you know, there's over 100 people. Yeah.
00:24:18
Speaker
Every time they do it, 200 or 300 sometimes. It's a lot of people coming in. So it's it's kind of fascinating. And then you have people who are starting to retire.
00:24:29
Speaker
Right. And you have people who are leaving legal ops to go do COO level things. So it's it's a really interesting change. But the change is certainly the growth.
00:24:44
Speaker
I think. what we're all seeing now is responsibilities are growing as well. And there could be a lot of reasons for that. The one that I do like to point out is that GC roles are changing.
00:25:00
Speaker
Yes. And expanding. And they're taking on more. and you know the by One of my jobs, I never talk about mike which one, ah the GC was also in charge of physical company security.
00:25:12
Speaker
Sure. Uh-huh. Sure. Why not? Right? Yeah. And I'm like, okay, they probably just threw that on. I have friends who were GCs and all of a sudden the head of HR. Yep. And... I see that all the time. Yeah, it's not uncommon.
00:25:23
Speaker
So if I'm going to support that person, there's a lot I have to learn about things. yeah I can't assume that that's the same thing as what I already know how to do when it comes to litigation management. And so a lot is changing. And then you become what, you know, there's, I think there are a lot of people doing legal ops now who are the de facto chief of staff slash chief operating officer of legal, whatever you want to call it. Sure. Without the title, without even realizing it.
00:25:46
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Because of the partner to the GC, really, ultimately, like the thought partner and the one who's driving the strategy for the department, I guess. Yes. Right.
00:25:57
Speaker
and And getting all the different areas of of focus aligned under that GC. You know, GC has three departments under them. Mm-hmm.
00:26:09
Speaker
You've got three heads of departments who do things in a different way and present in a different way. And that just probably isn't great for anybody. Yeah. And it's it's it's it is so interesting how this stuff is developing now.
00:26:22
Speaker
I mean, that gets a little bit to a question I have, which is about where legal ops is headed. um I think another flavor of that is there's a sense some people would say like legal ops is at a crossroads or legal ops is at a sort of transitional moment or mean, what does that mean to you?
00:26:40
Speaker
And then I guess a subset there is also in what role does clock need to play, have to play, want to play in helping get legal ops to the next stage?
00:26:53
Speaker
So next season. Yeah, the next season. The legal opposite crossroad, I think that was the title of session yesterday. i I welcome the conversation. I think we yeah i think it's very we're in a very beneficial position to be able to have this analysis of ourselves, right? Self-reflection is always a good thing. Know yourself. Why not?
00:27:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yes and no. And I don't know what, you know, i always feel like when people say we're at a crossroads or an inflection point, there's a negative connotation to that. I don't think there is in this case. I think there are several conversations happening within the ecosphere, you know, strategic, tactical, whatever it may be.
00:27:37
Speaker
And I think, again, big titles are all over the map and I think responsibilities are all over the map. But I think legal ops people are taking on more and more. And some of that will be strategic.
00:27:48
Speaker
Dare I say administrative. Some of it will be very high level that nobody else knows what they're actually talking about. yeah And I think that's okay. Why can't it be both at the same time? And I don't know if those roads have, those roads can cross and you can then kind of combine them all. But I don't think it's one way or another. I don't think it's negative. I actually think it's positive.
00:28:12
Speaker
Again, GC roles are changing. Our roles are changing. This is an opportunity to learn new things. yeah Take on more, be helpful and show what we really can do. I think any organization's responsibility is to its members ye and what they need.
00:28:30
Speaker
And, you know, yes, I'm on the clock board. Thank you for pointing that out. i am My title is I am a current member of the clock board here to serve the people who are members of this association.
00:28:41
Speaker
Yeah. The best that I can. And, you know, I really, that's why I really welcome all the feedback people provide. Like, what do you want to learn about? What should we present? What do you like? What do you don't like? And I think that is initiating those larger level conversations, talking about what's next, really futurism like we saw today, i think is super important to prepare us.
00:29:01
Speaker
Some people will run with it and embrace it and, you know, be ahead of the curve and some won't. And that's okay. But I think our job was to listen, create, invite, and then present.
00:29:13
Speaker
mom You know, one of the things that I'm really focused about is giving our members who want it more visibility and leadership opportunities, whatever it may be. know, we've created more councils. We have... Brand and voice is like a new one. Voice and brand. You know, I'm the liaison to the Education Advisory Council, which is, I think we're back down to like 12 or 15. We're at 21 point. We rotate every two years.
00:29:37
Speaker
We have subcommittees. We have people working only on certain things now, like in the Clock Academy, which is great because people get to get involved and get their voice heard and sit and put in suggestions. Mm-hmm. And the number of things that are happening because somebody randomly said something or threw in an idea is staggering. I don't think people actually realize that. Like, yeah you can make a suggestion. It actually may happen. I hear a lot of people say, well, I made a suggestion three years ago. Nothing happened. I'm like, well, other things have. Not everything can happen.
00:30:05
Speaker
And I think that's super important. The other thing, you know, i will I will say out loud the thing that my friends know This is such an amazing opportunity to get better at what you do. I did a presentation this morning on stage and there were probably about 100 people in the room, right?
00:30:24
Speaker
I would have been terrified of that five years ago. Yeah. And here I am with the friendliest audience in the world who want their friends and peers and other people, companies to do well.
00:30:37
Speaker
So I get this wonderful thing that if my idea is selected, i get to present in front of all these people and get better at it. And the funny thing is, in my real job, I often have to present in front of 100 200 people. yeah And if i am bad at that i'm gonna have some problems after the bike getting the buy-in and that's happening i used to be terrible at this so and then there's so many hidden benefits to doing this that i that i just love i mean the people who are who take the time and ah put their ideas out there to even submit a proposal good for them like great like yeah maybe gonna get it this year maybe you did but like
00:31:17
Speaker
It got your thought process going. You put something together. You learn how to think about something differently. Maybe you explore afterwards and maybe it helped with your real job too. yeah Ultimately, this is all about helping with your real job. We're never going to teach people how to do their job.
00:31:30
Speaker
It's always going to be, hey, I got you i got one idea out of a four-day conference that I can start using tomorrow and it'll be pretty cool. Yeah, run with that. That's pretty great.
00:31:42
Speaker
Absolutely. yeah if it's more than one idea, even better. I always get more than one. but What's your idea so far? Putting you on the spot. Oh, it's... I'm...
00:31:54
Speaker
I, in the professional context, heard the term agentic AI for the first time recently. And I was like, I don't know if we're there yet. I'm going to start thinking about that differently very quickly.
00:32:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, that's my idea. I don't know what the idea is yet. Yeah. but It's a mindset shift or ah the future is going to be here faster than I thought. or There's more here than I realize right now.
00:32:17
Speaker
work might change more radically than I expected. or Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, i'm'm I'm piqued by this one. And I agree. It's easy to say that. It's probably something small I'm going to be interested in too. but This is pretty cool. Yeah. yeah I'll have you back on in a couple years to talk about it. Now it's apparently every six months. Six months. Yeah. um As we start to close out, I want to ask you some closing questions that I like to ask all my guests. This is where into. These are the fun ones. This is the fun ones. Now we are doing the between two ferns. Exactly. Everybody knows what that is. Next year going to get some. Although we won't be.
00:32:50
Speaker
Well. You don't have to go that far. Yeah. We won't be in Vegas. We'll be in Chicago. Next year's in Chicago. But they also have plans in Chicago. More than they have here actually. ah What's your favorite part of your day to day at Cockroach?
00:33:08
Speaker
Not going to answer your question the way you want me to. Great. The favorite part of my day today Cockroach and all my legal ops jobs is... doing so many different things in the course of a day that seem unrelated to each other that are just, it it's just totally random sometimes. And I love the fact that I'm jumping, you know, I'll have a call with a law firm in the morning and spend the afternoon looking at like an intern job description. Like who knows what it's going to be.
00:33:38
Speaker
i love how how varied and diverse things are in the course of day. That's a great answer. keep me it keeps It keeps me happy. if It's something I love about my job too.
00:33:48
Speaker
Like, you know, when you have like the, I need three hours to do this and the end of three hours, you're like, I feel like I've been through something. yeah When I'm jumping around between different things, like half an hour on this, an hour on this, and I feel much more invigorated.
00:33:59
Speaker
Yeah. I think this is a fun one. Do you have a professional pet peeve? have many professional pet peeves. Honed at the law firm over... yeah I...
00:34:14
Speaker
There are certain corporate jargons that I don't react well to. All right. Is it a pet peeve? There's only one that really sets me off, which I'm happy to do. But what if I do it and people listen to this, they're going to email it to me.
00:34:31
Speaker
Just to piss me off. When people say, let's get our ducks in a row, it drives me nuts.
00:34:43
Speaker
My least favorite legal operations term okay is do more with less uh however i'm trying to turn that phrase into a benefit for our folks sure which i will come back to you on the next season so that's my only pet peeve is that one phrase uh you a traumatic incident with uh probably at some probably did probably something that we have we'll have to that'll be the next one we'll have to go into like the the hypno thing on that yeah
00:35:15
Speaker
um Is there a book that you would recommend for our audience?
Resources and Advice for Lawyers
00:35:20
Speaker
And this could be like a professional book, but it could also just be like, I read this book recently on an airplane and it was awesome.
00:35:26
Speaker
So two answers to this. Yeah. um I am still kind of, it's hard to say I'm reading. I'm going through, am reading, but I'm also going through Maury's KPI book on legal operations. um I've had that on my desk for a while. And, you know, it's it's it's it's a great reference guide that I like to have. This is going to be a weird thing when it comes to everything else.
00:35:46
Speaker
ah When it comes to management and leadership, I really appreciate the books about um sports teams written by coaches.
00:35:58
Speaker
ahha Because there is something really relevant to the sports coaching and corporate leadership connection. don't watch any sports, even though my last job had a lot of sports in it.
00:36:10
Speaker
i I think there's a lot of good ideas in them. I'm finishing up one called Coaching from the Inside Out or Players from the Inside Out. I don't remember exactly. We'll find it for the show notes. yeah And it's just, it gives you interest for leadership and management.
00:36:27
Speaker
Yeah. And so they're two different things. So not everybody here is a manager. But yeah, I think there are some really neat ideas which are applicable. I love that. Last question for you.
00:36:38
Speaker
My traditional closing question for my guests. Yes. It's if you could look back on your days as a young lawyer at the firm, just getting started, and something that you know now that you wish that you'd known back then. Oof.
00:36:56
Speaker
um
00:37:02
Speaker
Every experience you have will add to your arsenal of skills,
00:37:14
Speaker
as unrelated as it may seem at the time. Absolutely. And I said, Arsenal, not toolkit. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. What a great way to end this. Thank you.
00:37:26
Speaker
Adam, thank you so much for joining me here at Clock. Thanks for having me in this fantastic studio. Yeah. You travel with the studio. Everywhere I go. Yeah. This is amazing. I travel with the studio. That's the camera. Travel with the studio. I travel with backpack.
Conclusion and Farewell
00:37:40
Speaker
And to all of our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. And we hope to see you next time.