In-House Counsel

Conferences And Networking For In-House Counsel -- Are They Worth The Hustle And Bustle? (Featuring Jason Smith, State Bar Of Texas Corporate Counsel Chair)

Conferences like HLTH and the Corporate Counsel Symposium are well worth the time, effort, and energy.

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“City talking, we taking notes / Tell them all to keep making posts / Wish he could, but he can’t get close / OG so proud of me that he choking up while he making toasts / I’m the type that you can’t control, said I would then I made it so.” — Jack Harlow

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend HLTH 2021 in Boston and the 29th Annual SMU Corporate Counsel Symposium in Dallas.

Attending HLTH for the first time — with 6,000 other attendees — was a bit overwhelming and exhausting. Like your first day of high school or college, or attending an industry event for the first time, you can’t help but feel the anxiety of being the new kid on the block. There are people you won’t get to meet, private events you won’t be invited to, and a sense of anxiety about how you’re spending your time “networking” vs. the endless work emails building to a crescendo in your inbox.

But I’d argue that conferences like HLTH and the Corporate Counsel Symposium are well worth the time, effort, and energy. Getting out there, whether in-person or virtually, is important now more than ever. On this new distributed or decentralized frontier of working, young attorneys will need to understand the marketplace, how the industry is changing, and the power of human connection.

Every year, I’m often pinged by recent bar takers with inquiries of “how can a recent law school graduate crack into the local in-house counsel market?”

In short, there is no silver bullet. However, the older I get, the more I realize that all it takes is one connection, one champion, one client, or one serendipitous moment to get your foot in the door. And once you can crack open that door, you’ll have a fighter’s chance to prove your worth. It wasn’t that long ago that I met my on-campus interviewer by backfilling and volunteering last minute to be an usher for an Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI)-affinity event — where he was a featured speaker. This is just one of many reasons why I’m such an advocate for millennial attorneys to become active in affinity groups.

I also highly recommend “The Start-Up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career” by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha. In “The Start-Up of You,” Hoffman and Casnocha provide a tactical playbook on how someone should build his or her career in this fiercely competitive economy. As Hoffman and Casnocha write:

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Whether you’re a lawyer or doctor or teacher or engineer or even a business owner, today you need to also think of yourself as an entrepreneur at the helm of at least one living, growing start-up venture: your career.

This book is not a job-hunting manual… What you will find are the start-up mind-sets and skill sets you need to adapt the future. You’ll find strategies that will help you expand the reach of your network, gain a competitive edge, and land better professional opportunities.

Given the short week after HLTH, I wasn’t able to attend the Corporate Counsel Symposium in person. While it was very beneficial to leverage the hybrid option, I missed engaging in a warm conversation between the panels, sharing a hot coffee with the fellow morning birds, and grabbing a cold beverage after the day’s events with peers and colleagues in Dallas like I had in Boston just a few days prior.

Still, I did have the opportunity on Saturday to catch up with Jason Smith, chair of the State Bar of Texas Corporate Counsel Section, and Elevate managing director. Jason was kind enough to share some of his thoughts on conferences and networking this weekend with our ATL audience. Without further ado, here is a (lightly edited and condensed) write-up of our conversation.

Renwei Chung (RC): What did it mean to you, and the other attendees, to be able to attend the 29th Annual SMU Corporate Counsel Symposium both in-person and virtually?

Jason Smith (JS): It’s amazing to be getting back to some sense of normalcy. It’s also great to see how we have adapted to the changing world, in that this hybrid conference of in-person and virtual was so seamless and natural. I think this hybrid model will become the norm now as it has allowed us not to just replicate things virtually that we’d done in-person before … but rather that it allows us to do things we previously couldn’t do and offers more flexibility that I think attendees and presenters benefit from and enjoy.

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RC: We covered quite a few topics throughout the full-day presentation, are there any particular panels that you were excited about?

JS: Honestly, the technology topics get me the most excited because I’ve been an advocate and evangelist for technology in legal for over 20 years. I love seeing the new and creative ways the legal profession and broader legal services industry is leveraging technology … again, not to just replicate or automate existing activities, but to expand on our capabilities and extend new and creative ways to deliver legal services.

RC: I get several pings from recent law graduates on how they can secure a job in the Austin, Dallas, or Houston legal markets. What value do you think a young lawyer can get from attending CLE seminars and do you have any advice for recent law school graduates or those waiting on their bar results?

JS: Network, network, network. The CLE events are great for learning new information and staying up to date on legal issues, but for those entering their legal careers, I can’t stress how important it is to begin building a network of friends and colleagues in this space.

Authentic relationships will drive success. And on that note, I’d be remiss if I didn’t put in a plug for the State Bar of Texas Corporate Counsel Section. With over 4,600 members, we offer a number of ways to connect and network both with the in-house community and those who work with them from the outside.  Get involved, volunteer, and network.

RC: More and more, attorneys are wearing multiple hats as in-house counsels for start-ups and mature organizations alike. Do you see this trend continuing and what can we as attorneys do to make sure we are well-rounded when advising on a number of disparate matters?

JS: Absolutely. In-house counsel must be more than just the protector of the organization, they must also be a business partner that understands the business goals and solve problems, not just spot issues. Being pro-active means not just staying abreast of legal, regulatory and compliance issues, but also the business strategies and how our work is completely intertwined with the broader mission of the organization.

RC: What are your thoughts on the state of the state of our profession?

JS: I see big changes happening. The unbundling of legal services is allowing a review of how legal work is delivered, including leveraging legal operations, data scientists and other personnel without law licenses. Combined with innovations in technology, legal is able to prioritize work so that low value, high-volume work is either moved out of the legal department or automated, while the lawyers have more time to focus on the high value, strategic work. In addition, with the push to re-regulate parts of the profession, underpinned by the access to justice movement, I think we’ll see more legal services being delivered in new and creative ways.

I may not have gotten the chance to attend the Corporate Counsel Symposium in person, but I was still able to connect with Jason online. Oddly enough, one of my best connections at HLTH was with a virtual attendee in Kansas City, Missouri. I still much prefer attending in person when possible. But more and more, I’m realizing the virtual medium is not such a bad alternative. Hopefully, with the right protocols in place, we can have both modalities for conference attendees to select what best accommodates their preferences for some time.

This COVID-19 crisis will not be ceasing any time this year. We will continually need to learn and adapt to the changing tides. I do know one thing though, to optimize for success in one’s profession, one should leverage multiple modalities to hone his or her craft and connect with key colleagues. After all, we’re all entrepreneurs at the helm of at least one living, growing start-up venture: our careers.

And if you’re successful on your career path currently, please make yourself available to others who may find themselves at times struggling in their journeys.

In times like these, I often think of Maya Angelou’s words: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel” and “courage is the most important of all the virtues. Because without courage, you cannot practice any other virtues consistently. You see — you can’t be consistently kind, fair, humane, or generous. Not without courage. Because if you don’t have it, then sooner or later you’ll stop and say — the threat is too much, the difficulty is too high, and the challenge is too great.”

It’s vital to remember that our various jobs and even our entire careers will one day have an expiration date, but our everyday actions will not — so practice courage and be kind, for everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about.

Renwei Chung is the Diversity Columnist at Above the Law. You can contact him by email at projectrenwei@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter (@fnfour), or connect with him on LinkedIn. 

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