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Ep 110: From Product Counsel to Privacy Leader: Tina Hwang’s Journey
63 Plays3 days ago
In this episode of The Abstract, Tyler Finn is joined by Tina Hwang, Head of Legal at ClassDojo, whose career spans Google, WhatsApp, Ancestry, and Twitter. She built a career by staying curious, stepping outside her remit, and proactively solving legal and product challenges. She talks about starting out as a commercial attorney, finding her way into privacy and regulatory strategy, and how she learned to lead initiatives without being asked. Tina also shares actionable advice for junior and senior lawyers on navigating career growth, finding the right environments, and redefining legal’s value in cross-functional teams.
Read detailed summary: https://www.spotdraft.com/podcast/episode-110
Topics
Introduction – 00:00
Finding fit in the legal profession: from courts to Google—01:05
Discovering the business side of legal at Google—04:56
From Google to WhatsApp: chasing the excitement of building —07:20
Scaling the legal team at WhatsApp: lessons in hiring and growth – 10:44
Leadership evolution: from problem solver to team developer – 13:46
Mindful management: a four-part framework for legal leaders – 18:54
Evaluating new opportunities: people, trust, and executive chemistry – 22:00
Building the legal function from scratch at ClassDojo – 25:42
People, process, tech: where to start when scaling legal—28:26
Metrics that matter: proving legal’s impact to the business – 33:10
Hiring for adaptability and stage-fit in legal teams – 42:21
Rapid-fire Questions – 49:32
Connect with us:
Tina Hwang - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tina-hwang-a9556a19/
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
Transitioning from Legal Counsel to Team Manager
00:00:00
Speaker
You have really have to kind of switch your mindset from, i am the legal counsel delivering the excellent, pragmatic legal advice to the CEO to no, no I am the manager of a team that delivers legal advice.
00:00:18
Speaker
And how do I develop the team to be able to do this? Not just me, And it requires a different type of thinking and a different type of skillset.
00:00:30
Speaker
It's almost like you have to, as a leader, and then as a, particularly as a leader of a, of a large team, you really have to exercise the other muscle of, I am here to develop this function, operate in a way that someone could deliver this advice, even if I wasn't here.
Career Journey through Major Tech Companies
00:00:59
Speaker
When your legal career spans law firms, tech giants, and venture-backed startups, you don't just follow a path, you help create it.
00:01:10
Speaker
Today on The Abstract, I am joined by Tina Huang, head of legal at Class Dojo. Tina has built and rebuilt legal functions at companies including Google, WhatsApp, Ancestry, and now in her current role.
00:01:28
Speaker
Along the way, she's built teams, grown the business, and designed her career on her own terms. We're going to chat today about how she evaluates different opportunities, adapts her approach to leadership to meet the moment,
00:01:45
Speaker
And some things that she's learned about hiring, team building, and finding fulfillment in the work itself.
Early Career Reflections and Lack of Career Plan
00:01:54
Speaker
Tina, thanks so much for joining me for this episode of The Abstract.
00:01:59
Speaker
Thanks, Tyler. Thanks so much. Really excited to be here. um Okay, well, Akshay, our COO, put the two of us in touch. I'm really excited for this conversation.
00:02:11
Speaker
and i don't always go like all the way back to the beginning of the legal career with with guests, but with you, i am kind of curious. ah You know, you started your career working as a staff attorney at the Court of Appeals, um eventually moved into tech and into Google.
00:02:30
Speaker
ah Google and Google was still, I think, pretty early. ah yeah Tell us a little bit about those experiences and what it was that ultimately pulled you to to Google.
00:02:42
Speaker
Yeah. You know, it's so funny. It's one of those things where on paper, if you look at my resume, you would think that I had this all planned out, that I would be at the...
00:02:54
Speaker
firm and then I would go to the court of appeals and then I would go to Google.
Finding Passion in Law and Joining Google
00:03:00
Speaker
and And just want to say no, like the behind the scenes there, there was a real moment in my early career where i was out of law school. I was at the law firm.
00:03:16
Speaker
Didn't really feel like that was the right fit for me in terms of the, dynamics and also just the types of problems that I was tasked to solve.
00:03:30
Speaker
And so really going to the Ninth Circuit was really about calling a timeout and figuring out what excites me about the law, figuring out if I could figure out a place where within the law that I could solve the challenges that I wanted to solve and be inspired to work with the people and the goals and be a part of something bigger than myself. And so, you know, that was really what drove me to, to go to the night circuit, to just sort of experience a lot of different things and figure out what that path was.
Joining Google and Aligning with Mission
00:04:15
Speaker
And randomly, At that time, and you know i had a friend who was at Google who said, hey, you know you you he was at a startup that I had worked at when I was ah a software engineer, even before I was at law school. And he said, listen, you like tech, you know you you're a trained lawyer. Why not just have this conversation, see if it's the right fit?
00:04:45
Speaker
And i was just lucky that I was in this mind space of, I'm just going to try a bunch of different things and talk to a bunch of different people and figure out where the right fit is.
00:04:58
Speaker
And so applied, had a great conversation with all the Google legal team at that time. They were all so not only brilliant, but just really, you could tell mission focused, values driven people.
00:05:15
Speaker
And I really identified with the challenges that Google was trying to solve. And so i i kind of found my way there and just thought, you know what, this is worth worth're trying and worth seeing if this could be something that I really could be a part of.
Evolving Focus from Legal Issues to Business Strategy
00:05:33
Speaker
It did not factor in my mind of like, I need to go in-house and then I need to like advance my career in this in this way. it was really about taking ah step back and really trying to figure out what type of challenges would really inspire me from day to day.
00:05:53
Speaker
I feel like now um you're you're a legal leader. You're also in many ways someone who has ah a deep sort of interest in building a business, the operational side of legal and how a business runs and how legal fits into that puzzle.
00:06:10
Speaker
Was that clear to you at that time as you were joining Google? Do you feel like you learned or sort of developed that interest and mindset while you were at Google? Tell me a little bit about how how that evolved.
00:06:21
Speaker
Yeah, again, i would love to say like that is something that I knew that I wanted to be a part of and that and that I wanted to try. and you know But I think it's a little bit of a mix of things.
00:06:35
Speaker
I knew that I was excited about tech challenges. I did have already a software background. And so I had this intuition that this was something that I wanted to try to be a part of the tech business in a more holistic way.
00:06:52
Speaker
did i knew did I know what it would take to be an in-house lawyer and to solve this from the legal side? Absolutely not. It just so happened that I had this intuition, I found the right opportunity and it it just really resonated with me. The type of thinking that exactly like you're talking about in terms of you're not only trying to solve the legal problem, you're really trying to solve the legal problem in the context of the business strategy.
Leading Product Privacy at WhatsApp
00:07:21
Speaker
And, and trying to figure out how through the legal challenges you can advance a business and help it grow and hopefully also impact it in a really positive way to grow in a way that's legally compliant and also will be healthy for the business long-term.
00:07:41
Speaker
And so it's, you know, if there's anything that anyone takes away from this, this podcast, it's, you know, i think it's, about trusting your intuition of where you naturally tend to gravitate and also having that mind space to try.
00:08:01
Speaker
and Because you're never really going to know until you try, but trusting that intuition and then trying certain situations to test out that intuition. And remind me, you were at Google for how long?
00:08:14
Speaker
I was almost there for 10 years. Yeah. So, I mean, what a great training ground. Like you get to watch Google grow up in many ways, I guess, as an organ, like grow, but also grow up as an organization.
00:08:27
Speaker
um What was it that led you to WhatsApp? And then I want to talk about, I mean, you've had such experience building. I want to talk about that and like sort of hone in on that for a minute.
00:08:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. you know A lot of my ex-Googler colleagues on the legal side, we when we get together, we we like to joke that there was something magical about that time. And so I am so grateful that I joined during that time, could be a part of building that rocket ship from the business side and seeing it grow from you know, a company that could take everybody to Disneyland on a company event du to the behemoth that it is, that is now.
00:09:11
Speaker
um And, you know, when at near the end though, what I was realizing is that i also had this intuition that what really excites me is building.
00:09:24
Speaker
um And I think that when you are at that intersection of Building the legal team, building the legal strategy, helping the business grow.
00:09:37
Speaker
There's an energy and there's a dynamic that just feels great and it feels really impactful as a legal advisor in that period of time because you really do have a lot of influence in terms of the business trajectory.
00:09:54
Speaker
the end of my time at Google, you know, it's just a natural trajectory of of a business as it
Scaling Legal Teams with Business Alignment
00:10:01
Speaker
grows. And as it gets bigger, you're it's less about maybe building in that kind of, I would say like rocket ship way, but more about building kind of internally, maybe refining.
00:10:18
Speaker
And so that it felt to me there where I had this sense of, well, I like this. I like the culture. I like the people. But it's not something that I'm super passionate about in the same way where I was passionate in the early days of building the team, doing many different things, helping the business grow in this supersized way.
00:10:41
Speaker
And so it just so happened at that time I got connected to the general counsel at WhatsApp and and i have the deputy general counsel who are friends to friends friends friends to this day. And they were right at that at that place where they had a very small legal team.
00:11:02
Speaker
They wanted somebody to lead their product privacy regulatory group and build it from scratch. And it just seemed like it was the right opportunity. And I didn't know it at that time. If asked me to express like, why did you leave? I probably would have listed 10 things. But as I look back on it, I think it was it was really about capturing that essence of building again.
00:11:25
Speaker
and And, you know, when you were at WhatsApp, um team ended up growing pretty big, 30 folks. Yeah, and the product legal team was like 30 folks, basically. Yeah. um I don't know. what What was that experience like? And what were sort of some lessons that you learned scaling a team that quickly that you've carried with you into other roles?
00:11:51
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question. Because I i feel like scaling people is so different than scaling process, and so different than kind substantive side too. And so when you're in that environment, you're doing all three at the same time, basically. And it sometimes you're you're you're it's so chaotic because you're trying to build out the process, but you don't have the people, but then you know that you need to support the business in this in this way.
00:12:22
Speaker
and so, you know, I think the the very first thing that you have to do is really try to start back from the business goals and really try to orient yourself as a legal leader to understand where your business is going, where where it's going, why, and really understand the why as well.
00:12:45
Speaker
And to be able to work backwards in terms of, okay, in order to support this, in order to support launching in these countries, what type of legal support do we need? Do we need regulatory? Do we need commercial? Do we need, what what do we need? And what's the volume Also, if we can size volume, and then you look at the tools that you have available to you to scale to that need.
00:13:17
Speaker
Is it outside counsel? Is a contractor? Is there someone in-house that we can repurpose for this expertise? And then you get to, okay well, then what's the trade-off against hiring perhaps a full-time lawyer to do this? And are we at the moment now where it's actually better for the business, more efficient, and more not only time efficient, but budget efficient to invest in hiring full time
00:13:50
Speaker
employee to take this on and really build out that function. And so, you know, you have to go through that painful process and it feels, it sometimes it feels like mud, but at least, at least there you get sort of the, you get a very data-driven approach of business need, map to legal need,
00:14:12
Speaker
map to the tools that you have to deploy, map to, okay, here's here's then how we're going to fill this need in order to meet the needs of the business.
From Legal Advice to Building Self-Sufficient Teams
00:14:22
Speaker
And if there is a gap, here is here is what we're going to present to the business as to the gap and the trade-offs of how to fill that gap. You mentioned interviewing with the GC, the DGC, you know, um Mark Kahn, I think was the DGC at the time. Yeah, he was.
00:14:40
Speaker
I did a great episode. Everybody Mark Kahn, by the way. Shout out to Mark Kahn because everybody just everybody knows Mark Kahn. Yes. ah I did a great episode a couple of years ago with him in which we had a very candid conversation actually around how he realized he needed to evolve as a sort of leader and manager in really big ways while he was at WhatsApp. And that compelled him to get and an executive coach. And I can't remember if we talked about therapy and,
00:15:08
Speaker
um I'm not expecting you to respond to this question in the same way that he did, but I am curious, sort of like stepping into a bigger management role like this, right? Do you feel like this was an inflection point for you and in your sort of approach to leadership?
00:15:25
Speaker
Do you feel like there are ways that your approach to leadership evolved over your time at WhatsApp or then as you started to move into other roles with really high impact? Yeah, it's such a great question because, you know, oftentimes in the legal field, you promote the best person with best legal skills because they are doing such an amazing job of managing the legal workload, delivering excellent advice.
00:15:57
Speaker
And then, you know, it's just natural that One would think that that is the person that should lead a function and that is the person that should be made the manager.
00:16:09
Speaker
And oftentimes that is actually not the case. Actually, there is a very different set of skills that you need in terms of being just being, and I'm not just saying, just is the wrong word, but you really have to kind of switch your mindset from, i am the legal counsel delivering the excellent pramatic pragmatic legal advice to the CEO to, no, no i am the manager of a team that delivers legal advice.
00:16:45
Speaker
And how do I develop the team to be able to do this? Not just me, And it requires a different type of thinking and a different type of skillset. And I think it's particularly hard.
00:16:59
Speaker
And I self identify with this yeah for people who are used to being commended and rewarded. for being the problem solver, for jumping in and solving the problem.
00:17:14
Speaker
<unk> There's just a natural gravitation towards, oh, I'm just going to fix it. I'm just going to solve it. And ah it's almost like you have to, as a leader, and then as a particularly as a leader of ah of a large team, you really have to exercise the other muscle of, I am here to develop this function operate in a way that someone could deliver this advice, even if I wasn't here.
Role of a Legal Leader: Strategy and Mentorship
00:17:42
Speaker
And so as a, as a manager of a large team, you have to develop that opposite muscle of, I'm here to almost make myself redundant.
00:17:54
Speaker
yeah There is And I say this kind of facetious, what is the word? but he's just Facetious. There you go. Facetiously.
00:18:05
Speaker
and Because, you know, of course, like you you do need that strategic legal leader and they're going to be there to for many different reasons. But day to day, you do want to take that mentality as ah as a legal leader, that your job is to ensure that operations, process, training, and mentoring, they're going so well that no matter who the CEO calls within that organization, they can get the same type of pragmatic,
00:18:42
Speaker
risk forward, calibrated legal advice. And that that takes a different skill set. And you you really do have to kind of step back and turn off your natural instincts as the problem solver to hone in and lean into that skill.
00:18:58
Speaker
Are there ways that you remind yourself to be good at that context switching? Because, I mean, I think that is sort of the hard thing for folks sometimes is they find that...
00:19:14
Speaker
80% of it, they find that a bunch of the time they will remember, okay, I'm not supposed to be approaching this situation as like the person who's coming up with the great idea that's going to get the company out of a bind. Instead, my job is to empower the AGC who I'm working with to do that themselves and give them guidance.
00:19:33
Speaker
But that also requires like remembering to do that and remembering to switch off from maybe the type of conversation that you have with your CEO or CFO to a different approach to talking to your AGC, et cetera. I'm curious if there are ways that you try to remind yourself of that or that you feel like you do that well.
00:19:52
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, i you're you're absolutely right. Like it it is a constant reminder and a constant mindfulness that you have to, you have to juggle along with your, your natural instincts of, you know, Hey, I'm delivering this advice. I'm solving this problem.
00:20:11
Speaker
i think that, what really has helped me is and there's this book. It's, I think it's the book called like 90 days, your first 90 days or something like that. And there was a chart in there that I remember that was so helpful to me as I was entering into, I can't remember whether it was WhatsApp or Twitter, but it was like map out, map out the, what is your job?
00:20:34
Speaker
Like map out what is your job and make sure you have alignment with your boss on what your job is And When I map out what I am as a legal leader, I map out like four different things.
00:20:48
Speaker
I'm a, first and foremost, I'm the legal strategist for the company. I want to be able to to deliver on that for the executive team. Second is, ah you know, I'm a program and operations manager as well. I need to build up process and programs.
00:21:03
Speaker
um And then third, I am a mentor and coach to my team. And then fourth, I'm an escalation point for them so that they are always, always know that I, that they have a safety net for me to, for them to get advice. And so what I like to do is map out kind of those four quadrants of my job.
00:21:28
Speaker
And I then set personal goals as a leader that every single quarter I'm doing things to fulfill all four quarter quadrants of that job.
00:21:44
Speaker
I'm not just one quadrant versus the other. Now, given what's going on, you might be leaning more heavily towards one quadrant or another, my think it is that constant type of reminder, mindfulness, mindfulness,
00:22:00
Speaker
mapping out your career goals as well for your job as a legal leader to align to those four quadrants and making sure that you're doing things every single quarter that can align with those four quadrants and you're not forgetting about the training mentorship and probably being that escalation point so that you know you you don't forget about it from a quarterly level and then you map back to like okay well then What I want to is really and emphasize training this
Transitioning Roles and People Importance
00:22:34
Speaker
quarter. And so I'm going to do three training sessions with my team about legal risk and how to define legal risk crisply to an executive team.
00:22:44
Speaker
And I think that's the way that you can train yourself very systematically over-rotate to one thing or the other, is to think about your job more holistically and to be really mindful about What an amazing framework. I really like that.
00:23:00
Speaker
I like that a lot. You mentioned Twitter. you know You spent some time at Twitter. You spent some time at Ancestry. More recently, you know now you lead legal at Class Dojo.
00:23:12
Speaker
um Earlier you you did mention you know intuition driving the move to Google. Other things that you think about when you're considering making a move between roles or between companies, ways that you evaluate whether or not it's the right opportunity for you.
00:23:30
Speaker
even, you know, are there things that you think about today that maybe you weren't considering ah when you made the move from Google to WhatsApp, right? That, you know, now, now you realize, I'll give you an example.
00:23:43
Speaker
I look at the executive team and the CEO and who they are and my relationship with them much more than I used to early on in my career. Yeah. It's such a great question. you know, I think,
00:23:56
Speaker
when you're early on in your career, you're probably looking at like the substantive and issues a lot more in terms of what am I going to be doing? What is the scope of my responsibility?
00:24:09
Speaker
Who am I reporting to? yeah how well big of a team am I i in i am i going to have? And so I think you you're looking at a lot of those things and kind of judging, is this the right opportunity for me?
00:24:22
Speaker
I think as you get more senior, the people aspect of it becomes a lot more critical. And I'm sure this is something that you've heard from a lot of legal leaders from all around that when you get to that more senior executive team level where you're working a lot with the management team and boards, it's really about the chemistry and the relationship and the feeling that you have that
00:24:54
Speaker
you're gonna be able to work with this team day in and day out, and that you trust this team because ultimately, yeah these legal jobs are hard at the legal leadership level because you are sitting at the intersection of being the legal strategist, but also and another element that we didn't talk about, which which you you have as a senior legal leader is your fiduciary duty.
00:25:22
Speaker
to the board and to the company as a whole. That is, you know, the fifth dimension of the job that, you know, makes these jobs very challenging at the very end the day, because you're not only managing the day-to-day legal issues, but you're also keeping in mind that fiduciary duty and what does one do with that on a, on a, on a, on a day-to-day basis.
00:25:50
Speaker
And so, um for these legal jobs at that level, that relationship and building that relationship of trust is so critically important and making sure that that team is what is the one that you're going to be able hitch your wagon from a substantive perspective, as well as that trust relationship perspective.
Building Legal Functions at Class Dojo
00:26:19
Speaker
You're now building up the legal function from scratch at at Class Dojo. um That's a new experience for you. guess what's most exciting to you about building ah building a team, building a function from scratch?
00:26:38
Speaker
I think that it's one of those things where there's an excitement there in terms of you know, so oftentime oftentimes that, you know, you're walking into a situation and you have to learn the rules and the and the dynamic of people and you're like, don't talk to this person or don't do that or here's the process.
00:27:02
Speaker
And then when you walk into a situation like like I did at Class Dejo where there is no legal function, you have carte blanche to create, like you have nobody to, there's an excitement there for me and You get to create it the way that you want to create it. you You get to create the relationships. You get to create the ah you know the process.
00:27:24
Speaker
And you have no one to blame but yourself if it turns out badly. So to me, that that's an exciting challenge to be able to establish that. It is both it does also come with great responsibility. And so that um that is the flip side of it in that you know, when you're creating things from scratch, it you do need to really think thoughtfully about, is this the right process? Is this the right process for the company this time and really kind of adjust for the dynamics of the the people as well as where the company is.
00:28:03
Speaker
But the opportunity to do that, I think I i mentioned I'm a builder. And so i I identify with being a builder and To me, that's exciting. It's like having that opportunity to to do it in the way that that I think it should be done. and And, you know, hopefully you build something good and you're able to have that also be a legacy when when and if you ever move on of like, man, I was
Focus on People, Process, and Technology in Legal Departments
00:28:32
Speaker
a part of that. I was a part of building that from the ground up.
00:28:36
Speaker
I feel like this is a question that I usually put more to folks on the legal ops side as they you know often enter a business or enter a legal department that doesn't have an ops function to it.
00:28:49
Speaker
But you've already mentioned, right, you like to think about the people that you're investing and you're bringing on. You like to think about process and building that out from an ops perspective. You know, the third sort of component of this that people often will focus on or think about is to what extent are we leveraging technology as a legal department? um How do you think about those three things, like people, process, tech?
00:29:14
Speaker
as you grow the team, as you grow the function, do you decide what to invest in, what to focus on? Yeah, it's a great question because oftentimes, like like we mentioned, you're trying to do all three at the same time and yeah figure out like how to what what to prioritize.
00:29:32
Speaker
i i will say that modern day legal departments, um you have to build out all three eventually in order to be successful.
00:29:44
Speaker
I think gone are the days where you know you can throw people at the problem. Management teams do not expect you to be building out thousand people, legal teams, no matter who you are even at the fan companies. you know I think there's a shift in you you are not you are not going to be able to just throw bodies at the problem. You really have to attack it from operations, process, people, you know, all that has to be all part of the the the equation, and which is really exciting to see because when I started, you know, legal operations, that was not part of the equation. it was actually like really emerging. And and I'm so, so happy that Akshay and others have basically kind of
00:30:36
Speaker
taken that mantle and really shown what legal ops and process and technology can do to help improve a legal department. But to answer your question, and you know, to to figure out what to prioritize first, i think you really do have to go back to the business problem that you're trying to solve first.
00:30:56
Speaker
Are you trying to solve contracting? Are you trying to solve, um, Uh, regulatory, are you trying to solve what is the most pressing legal issue that you're trying to solve for the company? And then you have to kind of step back from there to figure out which one you're triaging first.
00:31:20
Speaker
three If it's a contracting issue, i think you have to start with operations and process and technology before you start with people to figure out if you're getting the efficiency that you need already.
00:31:34
Speaker
And it's just a matter of you have the right people, but you need you need better process to solve for the for the problem. If you're solving for a regulatory problem, then that that's probably not something necessarily that you would solve first with technology or process.
00:31:50
Speaker
You probably think that, do I have the right advice? Do I have the right outside counsel? I have the right people on the ground to give me the insight that you need? So I think you really have to start with the...
00:32:02
Speaker
with the um with the problem at hand, the biggest pressing legal risks that you see and work backwards from there.
00:32:13
Speaker
All things being equal though, i will say if I had carte blanche and, you know, could start a legal department and not have the the realities of legal pressure or business pressure.
00:32:28
Speaker
and it's, it's all about setting up the right foundations of a legal department. my first hire would be a legal ops hire. And that's just not, that's not actually did not pay money.
00:32:41
Speaker
To say that. To say that because, because that is the foundation by which you can really scale the legal department in the right way. And is really hiring someone with that type of purview and efficiency lens.
00:33:02
Speaker
such that you can build and scale with that lens always going forward and and looking at the problem. Cause you're gonna look at it from the legal point of view of like, I need to respond to X with y but yeah have that partner who's looking at it from the process operations and technology lens.
Career Advancement Advice and Self-Initiated Projects
00:33:23
Speaker
That's how you get to the right equilibrium, I think in terms of if I was building a legal team in a in a vacuum, I've got a few more questions for you on this, actually. This is this really interesting.
00:33:36
Speaker
There's a lot of focus on metrics, right? And ops folks think think a lot about how they can help drive decisions with metrics. um Is there a metric around contracting Or are there data points that that you feel like your ops team people are surfacing for you that it's not just you care about this, but the rest of your exec team actually cares about this too?
00:34:06
Speaker
Yeah, it's such a great question and because legal work is just one of those one of those things where it's hard to quantify outside of certain areas. And yet,
00:34:18
Speaker
As a as a function, you want to be able to demonstrate efficiency as much as the next function. Like you want to be able to demonstrate as well that you're hitting your goals with X amount of people, but you need y And so it it is such a really interesting, interesting, interesting challenge, I think, as a legal leader of how do you demonstrate metrics to an executive team?
00:34:47
Speaker
With commercial, you know, it's actually, i would say, easier sometimes because you can always judge it on volume. Now, a contract is not a contract, as you know.
00:34:58
Speaker
you know, the like a big business development deal is going to be different than than a small small deal. by um And so, know, you have to factor in factor in that.
00:35:10
Speaker
and But in in other functions, there's just there's just less to gravitate towards in terms of qualitative metrics. And so I like to think about it for those areas is probably a mix of qualitative and quantitative.
00:35:27
Speaker
i So one would be, you know, from kind of the business support perspective, how many launches did we support?
00:35:39
Speaker
How many, and you know, ah how many privacy reviews did we, did we, get looped into and successively complete.
00:35:51
Speaker
Did we, um did we holistically sort of support the business on meeting their goals? And so I think it's a mixture of kind of honing in on that element of legal, which is really, we're here to enable and empower the business.
00:36:10
Speaker
And what are some of the metrics or numbers that we can pull there to um to demonstrate that not only have we done the volume, but we've also successfully kept up with the business and met their needs in terms of what they needed in terms of whatever projects, like launches, privacy reviews, review of the tech stack. how How have we met those standards? And
00:36:41
Speaker
How have we enabled them to do what they need to do as well? I mean, clearly have a very strong grasp on commercial and ops. And um maybe I should have asked this earlier on, but I'm curious, you know you you came into Class Dojo with your more sort of like immediate leadership experience or career being in a regulatory background or in a privacy and product counseling background. And that sort of work is like deeply intellectual obviously a lot of times, but it's also sometimes a little less focused on...
00:37:19
Speaker
revenue enablement or closing transactions or which CEOs care a lot about. I'm curious if you have advice for folks who might want to sort of like take on something broader or who may have, you know, built in an expertise and regulatory and now are thinking, i actually want a sort of bigger arena. How did you make that possible for you? Yeah.
00:37:42
Speaker
Well, one, I would also, also I also want to say like if on paper, It looks like I like planned out my career and that I was going to be like a privacy regulatory lawyer. And let me say, stumbled into that too. like I started out my career at Google as a commercial attorney advising emerging businesses and um and helping them with whatever whatever that they need.
00:38:08
Speaker
So i I would say that as i think I have different, different, different buckets of advice for different, different levels um for attorneys here. So for junior attorneys, if you don't know what you want to do, do a bunch of different things.
00:38:22
Speaker
So when I got into Google, I was a commercial attorney, but if a team needed help, it just helped them. You know, they were like, I, I don't understand this, this, this area of the law.
00:38:35
Speaker
I'm not, not going to sit there and say like, well, that's not my purview, but I will, you know, you just, you just lean in and you find you, if you're intellectually curious, you will be served well because you will just say like, okay, let me look into that for you.
00:38:51
Speaker
Let me go talk to a bunch of people for you. And then I will, I will give you the, the advice. and Try a bunch of different things. Also lean into that mentality of,
00:39:02
Speaker
I'm not just ex lawyer, I'm here to give good legal advice to my client and to package it up as holistically as possible for them, regardless of title or my remit. And now, some people are, some people are gonna take that advice to the Nth degree, we're like, well, Tina told me that like, I should just look, you have to also calibrate for the environment. And there are certain environments where, you know, your remit will be, hey, you should loop in XYZ specialist But then you should also ask yourself, like, is that what you like? Or if you if you want to learn more, then maybe that's not the right environment for you.
00:39:38
Speaker
So that's what I would say for juniors. Junior to mid-level is you don't know what you want to do and you want to try a bunch of different things, find that right environment, and also lean into being that holistic counsel so that you get a broad range of skills.
00:39:52
Speaker
For the more senior, like let's say you've been doing x and then you're like, I want to actually want to do something broader than just X. I would say look for opportunities in terms of either a job that offers you that right, that next kind of opportunity of taking on more of a broader skillset or even within your current role, start talking with legal leaders of like, Hey, like I'm really interested in why, like, could I help you out?
00:40:24
Speaker
Leaders are always looking for help. So if you say the magic words of I want to help, you're going to find opportunities of that mentality. i think the other thing I would say is be also proactive in terms of identifying opportunities for yourself. when i you know i think certain Sometimes in certain jobs, I saw a gap where I was like, i I don't think that anybody is doing this, by the way.
00:40:53
Speaker
I feel like as the product council, I am recognizing that we have all these regulations hitting us But we don't have anybody synthesizing any of these regulations and developing a strategic framework for how to deal with that, those regulations. So I'm just going to work up a plan for how we should deal with it.
00:41:16
Speaker
And I'm going to present it to my boss and leader and see what they think. And No one tasked me to do it. Nobody said like, go do this, but I saw the need.
00:41:30
Speaker
And so and it was something that I was again, naturally drawn to and said, okay, I'm going to work up a proposal and see what my bosses think. And, you know, my boss also instantly recognized that of like, yeah, that is a need that we have.
00:41:48
Speaker
And then leaned into, well, Tina is a natural person then, she has this natural curiosity, natural skillset for this. Why don't we just have her run with this and lead this project?
00:42:00
Speaker
So I would say for more senior folks, I would not only ask your legal leadership for those opportunities if you want a more broad experience, but also find the opportunities yourself in terms of identifying those gaps.
Evaluating Candidates for Company Fit
00:42:17
Speaker
at your current role, which you could really lean in and help the organization solve. That's great advice for folks who want to, you know, grow or move or think about whether or not, you know,
00:42:29
Speaker
something really is actually better out there or maybe the opportunity actually lies in the organization that you're already at. um You've built out teams before. What are things that you, how do you approach hiring, I guess is the way that I would i would frame the question, right? And when you're evaluating folks, how do you try to evaluate not just like, are they a great lawyer like we've talked about and are they're gonna be a professional Maybe they have management potential.
00:43:01
Speaker
I also think there's something to be said for someone being the right fit for where the company is in its life cycle. Right. talk Talk to us about that. How you think, how you think through that and how you evaluate candidates. Yeah.
00:43:15
Speaker
It's, it is so important. And, and and again, i think my, my thinking has shifted a as I've progressed in my legal career, know,
00:43:26
Speaker
Early on as a manager, if you asked me, what are you stress testing for in your interviews? I would say legal acumen, problem solving, ability to solve the hypothetical or case study that I put in front of them and be able to you know do it in under two hours or something like like that. That would be my mindset of like really stress testing whether or not they have that legal acumen.
00:43:58
Speaker
i think now, well, first of all, now, you know, by the time a candidate gets to me, usually they have, they've already gone through that, that hurdle with some other folks and other peers of like, you know, they are, they can do, they can do the legal work.
00:44:14
Speaker
And I think, so my focus now really, when I think about success of a person within an organization, it's really about the more softer skills of,
00:44:26
Speaker
Do you communicate clearly? How well do you deal with curve balls that I throw at you during the interview that you probably didn't have time to prepare for or Google ChatGPT?
00:44:39
Speaker
I'm mixing it up. Yeah, Google ChatGPT. Sorry, ChatGPT. Sorry, Google. And you can't really chat search on ChatGPT try to game the system for, because I'm just going to throw you a curveball in the interview and to say, well, what would you think about like by zd if you, you know, if, uh, if the CEO said why, and it's something really novel to you, like, how would you deal with that situation?
00:45:08
Speaker
So I'm stress testing for those types of skills now in terms of that type of ability to adapt, to communicate um,
00:45:22
Speaker
As you also said, and really also stress testing for can you do that in the culture that I understand the company is going to be in.
00:45:33
Speaker
And so I also really stress test candidates and give them the types of questions that I know they will be facing from their clients.
00:45:46
Speaker
and really see how they react, not substantively, but just emotionally as well as from a communication perspective. Do they get frustrated when I ask the same question again and again, which will happen?
00:46:05
Speaker
do they get flustered when I throw them a curve ball that's not necessarily on the four corners of the page? And so when you build a legal team, i really think that as the leader, you really have to understand the culture of your company and what they need and their environment, the challenges of the role that you're hiring for.
00:46:31
Speaker
And then you also have to really stress test that candidate from that soft skill level of whether or not they're gonna be able to adapt to that challenge.
00:46:43
Speaker
And that adaptability component to it, it's so, so critical in a small team because when you're hiring for a large team, maybe you you know exactly what you're hiring for.
00:46:57
Speaker
For a small team, you really have to find those athletes that can adapt to many different situations of you're doing commercial today, but you could be you could be the privacy attorney tomorrow. And can you adapt those circumstances?
Building Roles Beyond Startups
00:47:14
Speaker
Usually I'm pretty prescriptive with my questions, but before we move to my closing questions, I mean, you have such experience building teams, hiring, growing the team sort of alongside the business.
00:47:28
Speaker
um Any other lessons you'd want to share around building ah that you feel like I haven't asked sufficiently about?
00:47:39
Speaker
big question It's a big question. I think that maybe one one question is, if you're a builder, and and this is actually like a question that I have an answer for myself, of if you're a builder and you know you're a builder, is it always the small company that you gravitate towards?
00:48:04
Speaker
Or um our building roles, like what what are building roles? Maybe that's the better question of like, what are building roles if you know you're gravitating towards that?
00:48:15
Speaker
and it is it And is it startup or is it and is it a startup necessarily? Or can you do it at these larger companies?
00:48:26
Speaker
have what what are what are How do you identify a building role? question I have not completely answered for myself, by the way. And so I'm curious and curious what what what others think.
00:48:40
Speaker
But I think for me, the answer is probably no. It does not necessarily mean that you need to go look for a startup to join and hit your wagon to.
00:48:51
Speaker
i think you building opportunities are really about... the circumstances by which you are joining a team.
00:49:03
Speaker
You could be joining a legal department of a hundred people. And this is a brand new function that you're building out for people. When I joined WhatsApp, it was already a part of Meta. So ostensibly was part of a very large legal team, but because WhatsApp was so new at that time and we were siloed the dynamics were such that we were still in the building stage. So I would say that if you are a builder and you self-identify with that, don't necessarily think that that means you're hopping from one startup to a startup.
00:49:41
Speaker
It could mean a big company, it could be a medium company or a small company, but really stress test the circumstances um and understand the dynamics of where where that role fits in within the overall picture of the company.
Intellectual Curiosity and Career Satisfaction
00:49:56
Speaker
If this was a slightly different podcast, that would be like the perfect way to end the episode. But I think people usually listen all the way to the end. And I like to ask the same set of closing questions to each of us.
00:50:14
Speaker
So we can compare across guests. Maybe with that building mindset in mind, what's your favorite part of your day-to-day right now?
00:50:27
Speaker
My favorite part of the day today right now is being able to see the intersection of so many different things and being able to offer the insight as the head of legal being at the intersection for many different things. I'll just give you an example.
00:50:46
Speaker
um i I can now see across what finance is asking me, what product is asking me, what Eng is asking me, and be able to identify trends and strategies that span across all of those functions and be able to advise my management team This is what I'm seeing, by the way.
00:51:08
Speaker
Five different people have asked me for this. And so therefore, we should do why. And that to me is the joy of being in-house counsel, really. It's just not only being that legal leader, but being that true leader for the company and being able to offer a strategic lens for the company in a way that no other function can.
00:51:30
Speaker
I have a feeling that you're going to have a good answer to this one. I don't know why. I just have a chance. Maybe. You have a professional pet peeve. oh You know, it is not necessarily a pet peeve, but I encourage anybody in their career to to do this if they want to if they really want to grow.
00:51:54
Speaker
And it's something I hit upon already is that intellectual curiosity. And I really feel like the way you learn on a job is by asking why, is by asking why, by asking hard questions, by learning through asking those questions and and trying to understand the past of what happened and also the present.
00:52:28
Speaker
I think so often we go into this mode of, I want the answer. And i think that sometimes we miss the boat, myself included, um not taking the time to really understand why and to be intellectually curious of how we got to where we are.
00:52:51
Speaker
And so I i just urge... any anyone and who is working in a in any environment is to to remind themselves of that, of taking that moment to really intellectually curious, to understand the context and to understand the why. Because I think they will it will serve them well, no matter where they are.
00:53:13
Speaker
So maybe the answer to that and was my pet peeve is when I when i when i sense that that that not that has not happened and the focus is on what is the answer? What is the answer?
00:53:25
Speaker
And there's a time and place for that. But yeah I think that organizations are better served when you can take that that intellectual curiosity component to all of your problems.
00:53:37
Speaker
I definitely agree with that. And we don't need to have an extended conversation about it. But I think that... He's like, tell me more! We'll do a little switcheroo on this podcast.
00:53:48
Speaker
i think I think that we live in a very... um outcome driven sort of society and organizations are very outcome driven, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but like maybe we're a little too consequentialist. And I also think that there's often a lot of, um there's it there's an overemphasis on urgency. And so, um yeah, I think that this sort of curiosity that you're emphasizing gets pushed to the wayside and the environments that over index on both those things.
00:54:20
Speaker
Yes. Something for us to continue to talk about in and future episodes. I have a book, it's called The Quiet, I think it's called The Quiet Brain, and but it is, it's it's one of those books where it talks about exactly what you're talking about, where the tendency of certain corporate environments or work environments is on the quick, quick, quick, but how better some challenges are better served through the slower pace of thinking and really kind of understanding context.
00:54:53
Speaker
But yes, another future, another future podcast. Would you like that to be your book recommendation? Because you anticipated my next question, which is, is there a book that you would like to recommend to our listeners?
00:55:06
Speaker
Wow. You know, I, what I am reading now and is ah is a smart as a, is a smorgasbord of different, of different things.
00:55:18
Speaker
But yeah, feel like that's one I would recommend. I would also recommend um Careless People. And I'm listening to it on podcast right now. And it's, it's not necessarily that I, that I feel like everything in that book is true and about that experience.
00:55:37
Speaker
But I do think it is a good ah book for people to understand sort of corporate America and how different dynamics sort of play out. um and i And I think that when you work these jobs, sometimes you get so caught up in the day-to-day that we for we we don't zoom out and like really think about the ramifications of technology, on the worlds and how there's there is this interplay. So I would recommend that one. Not so much that, again, and that I believe that every single every single word of that book is true, but more so of like that kind of holistic, what I like about the author is they do have this holistic view of tech and how it intersects with all these different areas of society.
00:56:28
Speaker
i I actually, I mean, I chose, well, chose not. I read the reviews of it and I decided, I don't know if I trust that everything, i so and will give that another chance. ah Yeah. Don't read it as a barometer of truth. Read it more yeah more so for the the fact that there is this this processing of tech issues through that lens.
00:56:51
Speaker
Really interesting. Tina, my last question for you, my traditional closing question for my guests, it's if you could think back on your days as a young lawyer just getting started, um one thing that you know now that you wish that you'd known back then?
00:57:14
Speaker
Yeah. and Well, I wish I would have known Mark Kahn like earlier in my career. He would have plugged me into so a whole bunch of different things. And no, I think would tell my younger self to be less anxious about not knowing what I was going to do with my legal career.
00:57:35
Speaker
Because I think you, mean, you're trained as a lawyer to be future driven and to understand and predict what's gonna happen and the different outcomes.
00:57:48
Speaker
And I think I would tell my younger self, be less anxious about the outcome and where you are gonna go. Now, easier said than done when you're coming out of law school and you have debt and you're like, what am I gonna But i i that is, I think, one word of advice that i would i would give to myself and others of you really have to think about your career less about outcome driven and more about leaning into that intuition that we're talking about and and also kind of finding those opportunities that meet that intuition.
00:58:21
Speaker
think that's where you're going to get the maximum career satisfaction. And if you look too much on the at the outcome, I'm not saying that's a bad thing. Like some people are like, I want to be the president of the United States. And look what what look what happened. Barack Obama became the president of the United States. And that's a me.
00:58:38
Speaker
but I think you're going to get better satisfaction not being outcome. If you're just mere mortal, I think you want to look at intuition and also like what leaning into those opportunities that we talked about that feed into that intuition.
00:58:58
Speaker
Tina, this has been, has really been a conversation and I love the framework that you brought. This has been a lot of fun. It has been. We're doing part two, right?
00:59:09
Speaker
That's what I'm hearing. Yeah, let's do it. You could be my first part two. I haven't done that yet. That would be great. Thanks so much for joining me today.
00:59:20
Speaker
Thank you. Thanks so much. And to our audience, thank you so much for tuning in. And we hope to see you next time.