WOMEN IN BUSINESS & LAW

Creating a Culture of Success

 Kim Keenan, mediator and arbitrator with JAMS, discusses what it takes to succeed as a lawyer, why she thinks diversity and inclusion efforts have been slow to show results in the profession, and how people can come together collaboratively to achieve better results.

CCBJ: You’ve had an extraordinary career working for organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), several media companies, and as an adjunct professor. Who and what has influenced you along the way?

Kim Keenan: When you see the best, it makes you want to emulate the best. I’ve gotten to see some of the really great lawyers of our time. I saw Mayor Marion Barry’s lawyer Ken Mundy in court. I saw Johnnie Cochran in court. I’ve seen really great trial lawyers do what they do, both in civil and criminal cases. And early in my career, I had some great mentors and met a lot of really helpful people. When I was in law school, I was fortunate enough to meet Suzanne Richards, who was the first female president of the Bar Association of the District of Columbia. She was a close friend of my mentor at the time, a woman named Mabel Haden, who was a solo practitioner in Washington and was doing things that women didn’t usually do at the time. She owned her own thriving practice, and she was always dropping these pearls of wisdom on me and inviting me to functions. At one of these events, a bar dinner, I met Suzanne Richards. Like a typical law student, I asked her, you know, “What do you do?” And she said, “I only do what I want to do. I only represent people I want to represent. I only work on projects I want to work on.” I remember thinking, “Now that’s the job that I want.” I really internalized that message, and repeated it to myself all the time: “The goal should be to do things that you love – things that you want to do.” That was a great influence – as was my whole relationship

I can promote diversity better on a budget committee than I can on a diversity committee.

with Mabel Haden, my mentor. She was one of the first lawyers I met during law school, and every step of my career, from the very beginning, she would help me plot out where I wanted to go. She would talk with me and offer her insights and observations.

I feel really blessed to have had the experiences I’ve had, and now I try to do that for other people. Not just for women, but for all kinds of people I meet along the way. I’m a senior adjunct professor at George Washington University Law School, where I teach trial advocacy and pretrial advocacy. I occasionally teach a mediation section in the pretrial advocacy course, to give students the experience of really trying to resolve a case in real time with real facts. So the students learn that litigation isn’t just arguing in a courtroom before a jury, or arguing before a judge – sometimes it’s also about getting together with the other side and a neutral to find a solution that resolves the whole matter. I’ve been teaching for more than 20 years, and I’ve found that lately more and more students are coming to the class with the notion that they will mediate someday.

There has been a great deal of discussion about diversity and inclusion in the legal profession, but there continues to be a struggle to move the needle significantly. Why do you think that is?

I have another mentor who always says, “If you keep doing what you been doing, you’re going to keep getting what you’ve got.” So if you keep creating all of these committees, and it’s not working, maybe you need to rethink the committees. Somebody once offered me the diversity committee, and I said I’d rather be on the budget committee. Kim Keenan is a neutral with JAMS. She has had a long career as a nationally known trial lawyer, mediator and in-house counsel. She has also been recognized for her leadership with multiple multicultural social justice organizations. Keenan has served as a mediator in the United States District Court for D.C. as well as for D.C. Superior Court’s Multi-Door Dispute Resolution Program. Reach her at kkeenan@jamsadr.com.

I can promote diversity better on a budget committee than I can on a diversity committee. A lot of times the diversity committee is the place where you send all of the women and the people of color to, what, decide amongst themselves that there’s not diversity?

It’s counterintuitive, but I think that unless the diversity committee is itself very diverse – and I mean diverse in that it has participation from people with all different kinds of perspective – then it’s like you’ve sent all of the people who can help with the problem to a separate room to resolve it. And I don’t understand why you would do that and not see fairly quickly that it just leaves you with the status quo. We don’t have to do it all by committee. We could just decide that every time we’re going to hire somebody new, we’re going to try to hire in a way that reflects what we want to be as a company.

I just read this article in which someone at Wells Fargo, who apologized later, said he didn’t know where to find Black talent. Well, as a talented Black person I’m always surprised by that because I’m like, “Well, I know some talented Black people.” But if you’re not asking people who would have access to those people, you’re going to think that there are no people like that, simply because they are not in the room with you.

So when I hear that people are doing it the same way they’ve always done it, I tend to think to myself, “Well, then they don’t actually want a different result.” They’re not actively trying to create a diverse mix at their company. Yes, it’s frustrating, because it can’t be done overnight. But it should be something that can be accomplished over a period of time. Every business, law firm, corporation, etc., has targets about what they want to accomplish every year. So if this is a goal that’s worthy and truly desired by the company, it’s a doable goal. I think what you find is that people have frustration and fatigue because they’ve been saying these things in these little rooms off to the side, or because they know that the needle is not being moved forward – but ultimately, it’s going to take everybody. This can’t just be the goal of the women at the company or the firm, or the goal of the women of color or the people of color. It has to be the goal of the whole entity. And you know that it’s the goal of the entity when the full faith and credit and weight of the firm is behind it.

In many of my discussions with women, there is frustration with the same old advice – to take more risks, speak up in meetings, etc. What advice do you have for women who are looking to rise in the ranks at their organization? And how can men and women work together to advance diversity and inclusion in the legal profession?

I worked for the NAACP, so almost by definition I’m talking about Black people, but I’m going to tell you what they are fixated on: “Can you create at outcome?” I don’t remember anybody at the NAACP ever asking me what law school I attended. Ever. Because all they wanted to know was whether I could actually do what lawyers do. I had to prove that to them. Maybe they weren’t used to seeing a woman in my role, but it certainly didn’t change their focus from “Can you get this done?” If you could prove to them that you could get it done, you didn’t have to have conversations like, “What law school did you go to 20 or 30 years ago?”

The goal is to create a culture where the people in charge want to hire and promote people who can get the job done, regardless of what they look like. But to answer the second part of your question, that culture is created by men and women working together – by men and women in the workplace really focusing on connecting and networking.

I can think of a lot of men who gave me opportunities. I remember one time there was a senior associate at a big

firm I worked for, and his secretary couldn’t work late one night. I was an associate who worked late, and I was the only other person around, and he looked over at me and said, “I’ve got this document due, and it needs to be copied and stapled.” I looked at him like, “Are you kidding me? Are you really saying this to me?” Then he actually said, “My secretary isn’t here to do it.” And I was like, “And that’s the reason you’re giving me this?” I went and made the copies and I brought them to him, but I closed the door to his office and said, “I’m on this team, and I’ll do whatever it takes, but I’m not even working on this project and you just said to me, ‘My secretary isn’t here, so you can do her job for me?’ I don’t think that’s appropriate, and it doesn’t value me as a contributor to this team.” I hadn’t worked with him up until that moment, but after that night he asked me to work on everything. And not only did he let me work on important matters but he also really took the time to help me become a great writer. He was a mathematician with words. He could parse the right words and create the right tone. It was sharp, it was succinct, and he really, really invested time in showing me how to write like that.

Now, if you think about it, the beginning of that story, it could have gone very badly. But for whatever reason, I’m the kind of person who will say, “Nope. Let me go in here and look him in the eye and say, ‘You all paid a lot of money for me to be here, and I’m here because I work late and I work hard. But I’m not the copy girl.’” I think he just thought, “Well, look at all this spunk.” And he gave me so many opportunities, and I credit a lot of my writing style to him. He wanted to work with me because I was literally learning his style, and I was able to emulate it.

Those kinds of opportunities to learn are what ultimately give you the confidence and competence to be good in any situation. So I think that it takes men and women working together. I think that there are some men who get a bad rap but actually are open to making a change in how they do things.

If you want to be someone who is successful in your organization, you need to look at the people who have achieved success.

You said that in many of your discussions with women there’s frustration with the advice to simply take risks and speak up more. This is what I would say: In every organization, it is obvious who is successful, whether it’s a man or a woman. The successful people have habits of success. And it isn’t just that they’re comfortable or confident speaking up in a meeting. That is one of the things though, and it’s important that you have that confidence and competence to know when to speak up and when to listen. Sometimes people don’t realize the importance of knowing when to listen and not say anything. But at the end of the day, you want to observe the people who are successful and just see what they do. What do their days look like? Are they sitting in the library all day? Of course not. They go to dinners. They are speaking at events. They are out and about with people who can potentially give them business. They aren’t sitting in their office with the door closed, reading a book. If you’re sitting in the office with a book and they’re out at all of these events, regardless of whether you spoke up in the meeting, it isn’t going to matter.

If you want to be someone who is successful in your organization, you need to look at the people who have success. And you have to want to be like that person. You have to want to be out and about so many hours a week. You have to want to travel. You have to want to work a 12-hour day or a 14-hour day. And if you find that that’s not who you are, maybe your success lies in a different place. But that’s a decision that only you can make. You shouldn’t let other people tell you that you don’t belong in a certain place. You get to decide. 

Dig Deep, Work Hard, BeFlexible

 Akin Gump partner, Cynthia Mabry, on committing to success.

CCBJ: Please tell us about your career path and what led you to your current role with Akin Gump.

Cynthia Mabry: As a dear friend and colleague of mine says, “I didn’t start at Akin Gump, but I got here as fast as I could.”

I had always wanted to be a lawyer, but I actually started my professional career as an accountant at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Houston. I left PwC in 2007, not knowing that the Great Recession was around the corner.

I graduated law school in 2010 and started work at another international law firm in Houston. As you can imagine, 2010 was not the ideal time to start a law career. Right before I joined, the firm did its first attorney layoffs in its history.

As a new lawyer, I worked on anything and everything – from company formations to title opinions to litigation support. My first real deal was a secured notes offering – and I was hooked. Capital markets was fast-paced and exciting, and my accounting background proved very helpful on transactions and related compliance work. So when a longtime client started working with Akin Gump, I was encouraged by the client and others to make the jump to Akin Gump. I was promoted to partner this January, less than three years after joining the firm.

You serve as a board member for the University of Houston Law Center (UHLC) Alumni Association. In addition, you are a member of the Louisiana State University (LSU) Ogden Honors College Advisory Council. Please share how you came to these roles and what your goals are as part of these organizations.

I am a devoted alumna of Louisiana State University (Geaux Tigers!), and I attended the Honors College while I was there. When I graduated and moved to Houston, I became involved with the local LSU alumni chapter. What started as planning football game watches and crawfish boils turned into serving as president of the Houston alumni chapter when I was just 25 years old.

I continued to stay involved with LSU following law school, and was asked to join the Advisory Council to the Ogden Honors College at LSU several years ago. The Advisory Council advises the dean on everything from recruitment and retention of Honors College students to fundraising and scholastic goals for the college. It has been eye-opening to see the challenges that state-funded higher education faces in America in the years ahead, and I am honored to serve and help the dean face these challenges.

As women, we need to take action and find ways to make the legal industry and corporate life better.

UHLC is a similar story: In law school, I served as president of the Student Bar Association and also chaired the 3L Gift Committee, which raised more than $35,000 from our graduating law school class for the Immigration Law Clinic at the Law Center.

Following graduation, I was asked to help coordinate small-scale fundraising efforts for the Law Center, and

then I was one of three recent alumni asked to join the UHLC Alumni Board in an effort to energize recent graduates. While serving on the Alumni Board, I co-chaired the newly formed Young Alumni Committee, which provides networking and career-development events for recent Law Center alumni, and I also developed a “junior” Dean’s Society for recent graduates.

I recently finished my two-year tenure as president of the UHLC Alumni Association, and I’m now focused on organizing local UHLC alumni chapters in places like Washington, D.C., the Rio Grande Valley and Dallas.

Who and what has influenced you over the course of your career?

Starting “over” professionally in the middle of the recession was really humbling – but I think I am better for it. I learned to dig deeper, work smarter, and be ready to be flexible in a changing market.

First, my family has been very influential in my career. My husband is my tireless advocate and partner. We got married right before law school, so he has been with me from my first law school exam throughout the years leading up to me becoming partner. He has been incredibly supportive at each step of my professional journey. My parents have also been influential. They have always encouraged me to think big and push harder – with everything I do. And – of course – my kids. Working and parenting is definitely a challenge, no matter what your profession. I don’t like to use the word “balance” – you have to learn what works for you and your family, and be flexible.

Professionally, there have been so many people who have influenced me. I think that you find something you like about each person you work with – whether it is their work ethic, their presence in a room, or how they manage Cynthia Mabry is a partner with Akin Gump. Her practice observes capital markets, securities, mergers and acquisitions, and general corporate matters. Mabry represents public and private entities, investors and underwriters in capital markets and during financial transactions, including offerings of equity and debt securities. Reach her at cmabry@akingump.com.

As a new lawyer, I worked on anything and everything.

their work/life – and you find a way to make it your own. At Akin Gump, Chris LaFollette, John Goodgame and Steve Davis invested in me and helped me transition from associate to partner. They are each leaders in their field who understand their clients’ business and objectives. They have each shown me what it means to be a true partner with your clients, as well as challenged me to be a leader within the firm and the community.

What is your advice to other women looking for a path to a leadership role? Stay positive. For all women who are seeking leadership roles, it is up to the leaders to take the high road, to help other women and support other women – personally and professionally. And encouraging others to do the same – that is really key. Leaders must to lead by example.

If you are a professional woman, where there aren’t many women in leadership, it can feel like you are on an island. And there are challenges that men just won’t face in their career, which can be hard for others to understand.

While I do think affinity groups are helpful in some ways, having a women’s group in your place of work is not enough. As women, we need to take action and find ways to make the legal industry and corporate life better for the women that come after us. 

Continuous Professional and PersonalDevelopment Rewards All Involved

 Tara Jones, legal services manager for Verizon Media, began her career as a billing consultant and successfully transitioned to become the manager of the company’s entire e-discovery process. Here, she discusses the attributes and advice that helped her advance in her career, as well as what others can do to chart a similar path.

CCBJ: Can you share a bit about who and what has influenced you over the course of your career?

Tara Jones: I’ve been really fortunate to have had a lot of great influences throughout my career, both professionally and personally. The first person who pops into my mind was a manager I had early in my career, when I was working in legal at AOL, which is now part of Verizon Media. Our group handled complaints that were submitted through the attorneys general and consumer advocacy agencies like the Better Business Bureau. My manager’s name was Heidi Jongquist. She had high expectations and held the entire team responsible for everything that went out, for any decisions that was made. Learning from her was a great opportunity. In the beginning, it was definitely difficult, because I hadn’t had a manager in the past who was as concerned about everything that we did. But throughout the years, she fought for me, and she fought for the whole team. She went to bat for us multiple times, trying to get promotions, trying to get raises. She worked to ensure that we were taken care of. And I worked with her for many, many years. She retired a few years ago, and I’ve been lucky enough to stay in touch with her, and to pose questions to her and ask for advice from her. She’s been a huge influence in my life, both professionally and personally.

What are some key shifts that you’ve seen within the organization during your tenure in legal? I started at AOL in 1998, so I’ve been here for quite some time, and there have been many changes. In 2010, I started working in legal holds, which is just a small piece of the e-discovery business process, but several years later I ended up taking over the e-discovery business process altogether. The most notable change in terms of e-discovery is that when I began working in e-discovery with just legal holds, it was a completely manual process. That’s a sign of the times back then. There wasn’t a ton of money to spend on nice tools. Most of my peers at other companies were doing the same thing. We were managing the entire process based off of spreadsheets and manual inputs from human resources data. We were trying to keep track of legal hold notices, and Word documents and share drives. It was quite a big mess, but at the time we didn’t realize it was mess. In the years since, we’ve been able to develop a really mature e-discovery business process with the tools that we’ve been able to purchase. We have now become completely auditable, completely defensible.

The main goal is to save the company money and still remain defensible with your e-discovery production.

We’ve been able to save tons of money by being able to manage our entire e-discovery docket mostly by ourselves. We definitely still have larger review projects that have to go out to firms or contractors, but for the most part, we’re able to manage all of our e-discovery in-house now. That’s a huge cost savings. So I feel quite a bit of pride about the things that we’ve been able to do. I think that’s the biggest shift: seeing more executives being willing to

Understanding that there’s no threshold to what you can learn is really important.

buy in and throw money at a tool that will help us automate processes and ultimately make us more lean.

What is your advice to other professionals looking to make improvements in their organization?

It is critical to be organized with your thoughts, with your requests, and with whom you’re requesting them from. Go to the table with all of the necessary information. Be as confident as you can be about your request. If someone goes to their manager and says, “Hey, we need this tool because it would make our lives easier,” that’s not good enough. You need to go to the table with documentation. You need to have itemized lists about what it costs to run your function right now – things like FTEs (full-time equivalents), services that you have to pay for, firms that you have to hire, hours that you have to spend doing the day-to-day processes.

After you’ve had a chance to interview vendors and see different tools and the capabilities of these other tools, you can plug in the numbers for what it would cost to pay for the tool and to document what it would cost to use different firms or companies. Once you can present that information to either your boss or the executive, and prove the need for the tools, that’s when you’re starting to win. The goal is to make the process as easy as possible, but the main goal is to save the company money and still remain defensible with your e-discovery production. You just have to be completely prepared, do your research, learn how to write a strong business plan, and learn how to defend a business plan. It sounds intimidating in the beginning, but it’s the only way I know of to really make changes and improvements happen within your organization. Tara Jones is a legal services manager with Verizon Media. Verizon Media serves as a division of Verizon Communications for its media and online businesses. Jones has a strong focus in e-discovery. Reach her at tara.jones@verizonmedia.com.

Is there any advice that you can give to other women specifically who are looking for a path to a leadership role?

I think it’s particularly important for women to advocate for themselves within the organization. I sometimes find it challenging to do that myself. Some women tend to shy away from boasting about their accomplishments, about the things they’ve done within the company that have helped save money or helped with whatever their particular role is. Whatever it is they’ve done to make a name for themselves in the business, I think that sometimes women are willing to allow someone else to take credit for that. Maybe in some situations that’s fine, but in others you have to take credit where it’s due.

In my case, I’ve really had to do a lot of research. I’ve spent a lot of time reading case law. I’ve spent a lot of time joining webinars. I have spoken on dozens of webinars. And I do all that not so much because I think that what I have to say is super important, but because each time I have to prepare for a webinar, I learn something new. And I think understanding that there’s no threshold to what you can learn is really important. That applies to everyone, not just to women. But when you combine all of that knowledge with standing up for yourself and advocating for yourself, it helps to create the path into the leadership role that you want to have.

What are your hopes for the future of the legal profession?

I really hope that there are more professionals, who may not have juris doctor degrees, who will work to find niches within the legal profession that they can lay claim to. When I started working in e-discovery, it was still a relatively new concept in terms of the longevity of the legal process. Discovery has always been there, of course, but there wasn’t a ton of information that I could learn about e-discovery. Obviously, I could read the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and I could understand what was expected. But understanding how to run a business process is completely different than understanding what the outcome is supposed to be. There were a million pieces that went into the process that I had to understand, because I had to understand that if something failed, where I should go to fix it. I think the same can be said for other pieces of projects that happen within the legal profession. There’s a place for the nonlawyer legal professionals to feel and be equally as valuable to the company or the firm that they’re with. 