Rebecca, Mike and Tina have all transitioned their careers in bold ways. Each of them has candidly shared their reflections and insights with great generosity.

Rebecca Smith

Rebecca Smith’s CV is eclectic and particularly inspiring for lawyers keen to explore alternative career paths. She has worked in private practice, as a barrister, as a brand recruitment manager and is now managing her own business.

Rebecca’s experiences enabled her to see the assets and liabilities of the legal training.

Thinking and behaving liking a lawyer is counter productive, alienating and self limiting outside a law firm – you may think you know the risks, have the answers and should be the guide, but more often than not, you realise you have your legal blinkers on that create a negative and unhelpful atmosphere. Having said that, being a lawyer is your biggest asset in terms of credibility in the business world, but you can learn so much from the ones who know and understand the business.

Over time her communication evolved in subtle but significant ways.  I communicate in a completely different way now. I used to sound like a lawyer – there is so much to be gained from learning how to speak with enthusiasm, humour and a sense of calm. Take a great interest in those you meet and find out their stories – it can lead to the most amazing opportunities.

Rebecca’s advice for lawyers who transition into a commercial role: Learn how to use your legal mind in a commercially savvy way. Be prepared to learn from others, especially in the areas you think you have nailed as a lawyer – like negotiation.

The main thing for me was realising there is a very interesting world beyond law and that we get such a small view of the way people think and operate when we approach things as “the lawyer”.

Mike Ferraro

Mike Ferraro has been in senior executive roles at Freehills and General Counsel BHBP before transitioning into a strategic role at Freehills. His reflections focus on critical attributes for success in both worlds at an executive level.

Commenting on the transition for private practice to a global corporation: You have to accept that there will always be a learning curve if you are moving into a sector in which you have not worked in, and that could take around twelve months depending on its complexity.  The key is to do as much as possible in that period to learn about the sector and to listen to a broad range of experienced views. Unlike a partnership, a company has more structure, limitations and a hierarchy and one needs to understand that and adapt to it.

Mike reflects the experience of rejoining Freehills: In returning to private practice it was important for me to undertake a totally different role.  Going back to do much of the same is a recipe for ultimate disappointment and fortunately – to date –  l have managed to avoid that!

Tina Lavranos

Tina Lavranos trained as an ER lawyer and practised for six years before transitioning into a HR role at ANZ.  She has grown her career quickly in a non legal role and, now based in Hong Kong, works with Senior Managers in the South-East Asia region.

Even though I had done work for this organisation before, I under-estimated the shift I would have to make in terms of (1) the technical knowledge that was redundant (and that I would have to let go of!) (2) the competitive spirit and desire to ‘win’ arguments which was unhelpful in this new corporate environment – and made people hate you! (3) how slavishly I had honoured the legal partnership hierarchy and had relied on a structured decision making process to get results.

Tina discovered that the new learning that was critical to competent performance in a non legal role less about knowledge and more about language, relationships and self discovery.

I had little understanding of basic management terms that would become very important to how I performed my job – business model, costing, NPAT, shared services, etc were new ideas I had to understand quickly. The challenge for me was to learn new competencies to encourage collaborative work amongst peers, whilst retaining a focus on results. Examples include:

• expert mediator through conflict: deep reflection, principled negotiation, listening, deep inquiry, suspending judgement
• navigating the ‘multiarchy’ (whether it is the matrix, project teams or other non-regular work structures): clarifying decision rights, etc
• humility (vs. egocentricity): working in the pursuit of the bank as a whole, supporting the decision agreed putting others interests before your own
• inspiring your team and yourself

IKD wishes to thank Rebecca, Mike and Tina for sharing their stories.

Highlights include guest talks by the previous year’s alumni, Cathy Heeley (Chief Counsel, Asia Pacific, Kraft Foods) and Low Sai Choy (Head of Legal, Capitaland) – who also happened to be winner of the 2010 ALB In-house Counsel of the Year Award in Singapore.

Feedback from this year’s CCCM alumni:

“A must-attend”
“Good course for self-awareness”
“Insightful”
“All rounded, relevant, current and most practical”
“Highly recommended not only for in-house but all legal profession”
“Helps you understand yourself better, and reassess the working style and method”
“Excellent course”
“It challenged me to think of law firm from business perspective”
“Mind-opening, stimulating, interesting, very useful”
“Excellent primer to in-house dimension”

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