Jeanne Gills

I would say being a single mom to my son who's a second year in college, and doing what I do in big law firms, which are difficult environments to navigate, and being a mom - I'm very proud of that. And also my Team Impossible. I'm very proud of how we work together, how we support one another, and how I've leveraged that team over the years, even before I gave it a name. We were still functioning as a team long before that. There are many people I've worked with since they were first day out of law school or summer associates. Being able to leverage that team and show others how I can leverage that team to drive success is something I'm really proud of.

Be yourself, and one of my lines is do what you like with people you like. In any organization, make sure that the people in the organization, whether it's the other lawyers or the other staff, are individuals who you like, who you respect, who like and respect you, and who you feel you can work with. You spend a lot of time in this role, particularly in big law where roles are demanding. When you can do that work with people that you like and people that you respect and enjoy spending time with, it feels less like work. And for your clients, the external clients, same thing - where you can have a practice working with people in corporations where you like the people, they respect you, they're responsive to you, they give you challenging work, give you good feedback, are loyal, and where they're loyal to you and your team so you can continue to get work from them even when they move on to other roles. But also where your practice deals with an industry or industries that you also enjoy supporting, so that you follow them, where knowing what's going on in that industry is something you do naturally because you're interested in it, so it doesn't feel like work. I also talk to women within organizations about not over-committing. Women often get tasked to be on committees because people know they'll get the work done. There's a time and a season for all of those things, but make sure that you're not always the one who is tasked to be on the committee but not tasked to lead an initiative, where you have a team of people working underneath you, as opposed to the one doing all of the work yourself.

Asking for help is really important to me. Sometimes women think they can do it all because often they have to do it all or they shoulder a lot of responsibility. It truly takes a village, and when you show up for the things that are important, your kids also see and appreciate the balance. They know that mom works but mom is also there when I need her. Some traits that you want to pass on are the benefit of teams, the benefit of asking for help, the benefit of using your community, and work ethic - those are things that I think they see organically. I had no shame in using a housekeeper, no shame in using a nanny, and putting my son in an Uber to go to school if I couldn't take him myself. There are resources that we can leverage, whether they're paid resources or using family, to help us get done what we need to get done.