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This episode of the Legal Department Office Hours is brought to you by filejet, the intelligent way to manage entity compliance. Formations, dissolutions, annual filings, license renewals, service of process. If it's missed, it's a risk. Fines, penalties and even delays. Filejet brings entity management into one platform. Powered by intelligent automation, you get real time alerts, clear visibility and full control across every entity in every jurisdiction. Filejet Built for growth, Trusted for compliance Book a Demo today@FileJet.com welcome to the Legal Department, a podcast for lawyers who want to learn, connect and grow their careers. I'm Stacy Bratcher, I'm a general counsel and I'm excited to share these conversations to help you level up in house. Welcome to the Legal Department Office Hours, where I answer your listener questions questions about how to level up your career. If you have a question, please reach out to me@helloegaldepartment.com I also love hearing from you via LinkedIn or if you have a friend of a friend that knows me, please reach out. I think we all get better where when we share our knowledge. So today we're talking about three different issues. Two of them are sort of related to career progression and transitions and one is sort of what I'd call a block and tackling issue about how to work with your board. So first question, this comes from a listener who reached out to me through a friend of a friend. They were starting a new role as general counsel and this is a high hill to climb. I know those of you who have been in house for a while have appreciation for the role. It is not your average in house role. It is not your average lawyer role. It's a lot to get up to speed. So this listener asked, I'm new in my general counsel role and I'm not sure where to start. Can you help me get up to speed? So first of all, I would direct you to Michael Watkins and his bestselling business book the first 90 days. It is I think a must read, a must have for anybody, lawyer or not, and gives really a roadmap for how to start a new job. I had Michael on the podcast in episode 53, which was sort of once in a lifetime opportunity. He really was interested in lawyers and understood that we're a little bit of a different breed and we had such a great conversation that we also did an article together on Law360 about career transitions for lawyers. So I'm going to first you to check that out because those are very specific for us in house. Second of all, my advice to this person is if you are unsure of what your role is, your job is really to become a detective. And I would start by meeting with your supervisor and setting up a regular cadence to hear from that person about what you're doing well, what they expect from you in the role. You can share your views of what the company needs with how you want to run the department, but building that relationship with your supervisor and being really clear about what it is that they have you there to do. And as a general counsel, the supervisor is usually the CEO. Some companies have it structured that the GC reports to the Chief Financial Officer or the coo. But most companies I'm familiar with usually have that role. Reporting to the CEO and a CEO conversation, you know, you need to get out of your legal hat. You need to put yourself in that person's seat. They are interested in how to grow and protect the business. And so your job in meeting with that person is to learn as much as you can about what is important to them. I would just emphasize that you as a new person, your job is learning and listening. That can be hard for us as lawyers because we think people are coming to us for answers and many times they are. But resist the urge to solve the problem. Those are some of my early tips again. First 90 days is your go to resource and Michael and I tried to put something bespoke together for the lawyers making career transitions in that Law 360 article which I'll link in the show notes. So on to the next topic. Another listener reached out to me. I got the impression that this person was feeling stuck and I have resources for that as well. The question was I've been working in an industry for most of my career more than 10 years and I'm feeling a little stuck. When are you pigeonholed in an industry? Now this is a great question and actually I've thought about this a lot myself, having practiced most of my career in healthcare and actually for healthcare providers which is even more niche. But you know, I am a glass huff full person. I really don't think that we're limited. And the legal training, the legal career I think opens a lot more doors than people think. So my view is that you are only limited by your own beliefs and how you market yourself also. And I'd really encourage people to think about themselves more as skill based instead of industry based. While there are certainly particularities in different industries myself, healthcare being one of the most regulated of all industries, there's certainly, I think it would be hard for somebody to come flat footed into healthcare and land a GC role. But I have seen it happen. But I really think that if you focus on your legal skills and your business skills and don't get too bogged down into whatever those technical skills are, I think you'll be fine. And I want to direct you to two episodes I've done on this topic. Ellen Yang was here at the end of 2025 in episode 84 and we talked about the specific topic of feeling stuck at work. Ellen had a long career in house at Taco Bell, Public Storage and some other brand name companies. And when she felt stuck, she went to her general counsel and asked for some stretch opportunities in different departments and subject matters and was able to round out her practice more and find more fulfillment. Marla Persky was also on the show. She was a two time public company GC at pharma companies. And she talked about, you know, coming into a department as a litigator. And for those of you who have litigated, you know that for the most part you are a jack of all trades and master of none, except for civil procedure maybe. And Marla took that litigation experience and turned it into a GC role. And she did that by reaching out to her GC and asking for more. And she talks a lot in the episode about relying on those legal skills of asking questions, being diligent in follow up and sort of being seen as the person who gets things done. So long story short, I really don't think that you should feel constrained by the fact that you've practiced in one particular industry. I think it comes down to how you market and package yourself as you're trying to find a new role. So our last question is what I would call a, you know, in house fundamental. So and I think it is kind of opaque, an opaque area if you are coming from outside of a company. Even if you're an outside counsel and have done some work with boards. Boards are, you know, a unique body and takes a unique skill set to really practice well in this area. So the question is, I'm new to an in house role and how can I best present myself at the board of directors? It comes up a lot, this question. I've recorded two episodes, at least on board issues. I encourage you to check out episode 68 with Sterling Miller and Deborah Salmore and episode 62 with Joe Scholl. Both in those episodes we talk about boards. So here are my tips again, kind of drawing on the first 90 days strategy. You need to become a learner of boards. You need to be intellectually curious and really try to get as much information as you can about the board at your company. And you might say, well, how do I do this? Well, if it's a public company, there are many, many filings that you are company makes that reflect governance. So any of those SEC filings, if you're not the GC or the corporate secretary, you can get that information from the general counsel. Many times companies will have a assistant corporate secretary or governance liaison, a board liaison, and that person is sort of the know it all about the subject matter expert of the board and how it operates. So that person is, is somebody that you need to get to know. An important thing about board meetings generally is that it's not like a regular meeting. It's not a discovery, it's not problem solving. It is a very choreographed, well intentioned, well thought out meeting where there are specific tasks that need to be accomplished, there are items that need to be voted on. The meeting is recorded with minutes. And so you really need to understand how it works at your company. There are even, you know, sort of nuances where people sit in the room. Can you talk during the meeting? Is there a board portal? How are materials presented? There's a lot to know just in the technical operations of how the board works. Now if you're presenting to a board, this is an area where if you do it well, you will have an in house job for a long time. And if you don't, you will maybe have your job, but you won't get back to the board very often. And so probably my key advice for presenting at the board is keep it crisp. Board members are not there to evaluate your legal prowess, how competent. They don't want to hear about every case citation, every development, every amendment of a statute. They are there to hear the high level of how the legal issues impact the company. So really the best presenters keep it crisp. And I had conversations with board member Janine Wright on this show. She's a former general counsel. She's a tech CEO and board member on three or four corporate boards. And she talked a lot in her episode about what makes a good board presentation. So I encourage you to check that out. In addition to sort of talking at a high level and not overburdening the board with a lot of details, I recommend that you frame your legal presentation in business terms. How does the litigation impact your business? How will the transaction, the different regulatory approvals or the timing, the financing, take your legal work and make it relevant to the business. Also keeping it very high level. And then finally, when you're presenting about risk issues, particular litigation or investigations, you need to give a risk rating. You need to help the board understand the severity of the issue that you're dealing with. And I would frame it in like a red, yellow, green or how is this bet the company? Is this, you know, a black swan or you know, what is the risk register of the matter that you're talking about? So I will frequently tell the board, this is something I'm not worried about. This is something that we can manage. However, if XYZ happens, I'll be back to you to talk about some next steps. So really framing the risk that you see with whatever matter that you're reporting on. So those three things, I've heard it referred to as executive presence. But when you own your content, you come in with a confidence that I can talk about this at a high level. I'm not going to stammer, I'm not going to burden you with a bunch of details and I'm going to tell you how this affects the company, what you need to know that really projects a lot of confidence and you'll get invited back. If you have other questions for me for office hours, please, please, please reach out to me@helloegaldepartment.com and also I'd like to give a shout out to my sponsor, filejet. They are huge supporters of the in house community with their entity management software and I've really appreciated their support for this podcast. So thanks for listening. Hey, before you go, if you want more content from the legal department, check out TLD Goal Getter on Substack. It's a mix of free and subscription based content to help you level up your career. That's TLD Goalgetter on Substack. Hope you check it out.