The National Association of Women Lawyers (“NAWL”), a non-partisan organization founded 125 years ago by women lawyers who advocated for democracy, held its annual 2024 General Counsel Institute (“GCI”) the day after the 2024 presidential election on November 6-8 at the Conrad Hotel in downtown New York City. 

NAWL is committed to providing programming that aligns with its mission and addresses important, current, and challenging issues. Rather than shy away from topics that intersect with political themes, NAWL works to foster meaningful discussions and solutions in the legal community.

GCI is a multi-day program of networking, education, and inspiration designed for senior in-house women counsel. With in-house counsel comprising over 70% of the approximately 300-person audience, GCI creates a unique and relatively intimate conference environment to connect with other counsel, share the highs and lows of in-house life, and build legal and leadership skills. 

What I looked forward to…

Like many of the other attendees, I looked forward to connecting with peers, processing the election results and learning from leading legal experts and thought leaders on how they would predict the impact of the election and trends on our jobs and the world at large in 2025 and beyond. 

A special bonus was that Paragon CEO Trista Engel hosted a Paragon pre-conference happy hour nearby that gave current and future Paragon clients, attorneys and staff a chance to meet and catch up. 

Attendees often lament not having long enough time to network, but we made the best of it over lunches and during the special evening outing to see the Broadway musical “Suffs” (highlighting the historic fight by U.S. suffragists for women to win the right to vote) as well as during the closing day cocktail hour. 

What I learned… 

Throughout GCI, the keynote fireside conversations were meaty, substantive and inspiring. Each highlighted current or former General Counsels/CLOs, Senior Counsels and law firm partners. The plenaries ran the gamut of emphasizing the importance of building your professional brand, developing an innovative pro bono program to support journalists, handling crises effectively, and proactively preparing for the future. The workshops offerings were wide ranging and led by leaders of brand name companies and law firms who addressed many top of mind topics such as: DEI, AI, Right sourcing, Debt Instruments, ESG, Personal Branding and Reproductive Rights.

Of particular interest was the theme that there are some post-election uncertainties especially globally due to the change of leadership, sanctions, tariffs and how to communicate values.  Due to an increased politicization of regulations and differing views in the public and amongst employees about social issues, panelists shared an evolving direction of needing to be more careful about public statements.

The opening plenary featured the dynamic April Miller Boise, Chief Legal Officer of Intel. Among many illuminating perspectives, she emphasized the importance of preparing not only our women leaders but also our organizations for women leaders.

Our very own CEO, Trista Engel, VP, Shannon Murphy and BDM, Angela Ventro hosted a workshop on “Full Time Hire vs Outside Counsel vs Flex Talent: How to Rightsource your Legal Team for Success.” It was a well-attended and well received workshop with attendees commenting that they really enjoyed the roundtable style that facilitated peer to peer engagement and the opportunity to learn more about sourcing options. In that session, GCs shared how they’ve leveraged flex talent to access specialized expertise, the challenge of managing law firm lawyers doing in-house work, and used tools like playbooks and time audits to effectively manage in-house and flex talent teams.

The final mainstage keynote conversation was “Perspectives on Leadership from the General Counsel’s Office” featuring the very candid, accomplished and inspirational Michele Coleman Mayes. Michele held many high-level groundbreaking roles and most recently was the GC of the NY Public Library. The takeaways were to become experts in our fields, prioritize connecting with others, and to always complete the job at hand.

Closing Memorable Advice…

It was heartening and inspirational to hear panelists encourage attendees to:

• be courageous, 
• make a positive difference,
• be collaborative, 
• take risks and step outside your comfort zone to develop more expertise, 
• hire and seek out people who are smarter than you, 
• foster connections, and
• know your worth and that we each bring something special that deserves access to opportunities.

They emphasized the importance of connecting with and providing constructive feedback to other women that would enable their continued growth and success. The more that everyone sees women in leadership roles, the more likely it will be the norm.

In her closing, Michele Coleman Mayes quoted Roxane Gay: 

“I am not trying to be perfect. I am not trying to say I have all the answers. I am not trying to say I’m right. I am just trying—trying to support what I believe in, trying to do some good in this world, trying to make some noise with my writing while also being myself.”

The next GCI will be held at the Intercontinental Hotel in New York on October 15-17, 2025. I hope to see you there.