Michelle Banks has “been there, done that” in The Legal Department. The former General Counsel of The Gap led a global legal and compliance team for the largest specialty retailers in the U.S. Now, she’s an executive coach, helping other in-house lawyers navigate their roles. In this conversation, Michelle shares advice on how to position yourself for a general counsel position if you haven’t had the role before, and how to build relationships and support the CEO and other leaders. We also talk about career transitions, building a portfolio career, and working through the fear of making a transition.
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What’s Next: Career Transitions In The Legal Department – Michelle Banks Barker Gilmore
My name is Michelle Banks. I am an executive coach and professional speaker. A fun fact about me is I don’t own a car. I mostly walk everywhere.
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On this episode of the show, I’m excited to welcome Michelle Banks, who is an Executive Coach at BarkerGilmore. She’s also a long-time lawyer, having been in-house at many companies, including General Counsel of the Gap. Before that, she was at a couple of law firms as well, so she knows inside and outside legal practice.
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Michelle, it’s great to have you.
Thank you.
I was looking forward to this conversation for a long time. We have several mutual friends. I know your coaching practice is focused on lawyers, so I might be a little selfish in part of our conversation. You can give me some tips on what I need to be doing as a general counsel. I’m excited to share your expertise with the audience.
I look forward to our conversation.
It’s not a career journey show. We don’t go through every job you have had and all that, but it’s helpful to set the table for folks about how you’ve been there, done that, particularly in the general counsel position. I frankly think that it can be a very lonely position. I’m sure many of your clients feel very lucky to have you as somebody who’s familiar with their responsibilities. Being at the Gap, which is a very large global company with huge reach, that was a big chair to sit in. How did you know you were ready for that role, and what did you do to prepare for it?
Honestly, I don’t think I knew I was ready until other people started suggesting that I was ready. When I thought about it after other people mentioned it to me, I thought, “I probably do have the right skills and experiences.” I was a corporate governance expert by background. I had the opportunity at Gap to both lead our largest litigation team as well as create our compliance team and lead that team.
I had a lot of experience in different aspects of the law. I have worked with a lot of our brands and businesses over the years. I also had experience both in the law firm context and in-house outside the US, which was helpful at a large global company. I don’t think I had a specific ambition or plan. It took having other people suggest the possibility for me to get inspired about it. When I thought about it, I realized I probably was qualified and I should consider that as a possible future for myself. I was lucky that I had some great mentors and others who championed and encouraged me.
That’s a common theme where you need somebody from the outside to tell you how great you are. We always, especially women lawyers, tend to be hard on ourselves, but it’s nice to have cheerleaders on the sidelines helping you nudge yourself forward.
Exactly.
Moving Into The General Counsel Role
A little bit more on that, one common question I get is how to move into the GC role if you’re in-house somewhere and you don’t have the title. There is this perception that it’s a chicken and egg that if you haven’t been a GC, you can’t be a GC. You had a long tenure with a company. You were there for 16 or 17 years. Did you feel you had to have external experience in order to be considered or did it unfold?
It’s interesting because it’s hard to become a first-time GC. There are a lot of boards in particular that don’t want to take the risk, so to speak, to be someone’s first try at the job. There is a bit of bias in the recruiting space for a tested GC. There’s a bit of an advantage if you’re an internal candidate because very likely, you know the business and the players better than other people.
The thing that I tell people is if you do have an ambition to become a general counsel or to get promoted at your company in-house, you should take on stretch assignments. Compliance was a big stretch assignment for me. You should put yourself out there for promotions. I got the VP promotion by agreeing to lead a litigation team even though that wasn’t something I had experience in. I had experience mentoring and leading people in other areas. I trusted that I could learn that as well and lean on others.
Success in the General Counsel role isn't just about legal expertise; it's about understanding the business and building relationships. Share on XBroad experience, people leadership, or mentorship experience is important. It’s getting to know the business and being able to promote yourself as the person who maybe knows the risk tolerance of the company well and understands the finances of the company. There are advantages that internal candidates have if people are open-minded about letting someone try for the first time to be the leader. BarkerGilmore is a coaching firm but they’re also a recruiting firm. We see both. We see people get promoted from the inside, and we see people get hired externally.
In the internal experience, it’s an important point that success in the job isn’t having had a track record in that precise role. A lot of the secret sauce that general counsel or in-house lawyers can provide is that if you do know the business, you’ve seen across the business, and you know where the minefields are, you can be a lot more effective than somebody who’s hitting the ground flat-footed from outside.
Correct. That’s right. You have to sell that. You have to have people saying they want you because you understand their business and you’ve been very responsive to them, you’ve helped them solve problems, and things like that.
I don’t know if they’re sponsors or cheerleaders, but having people who can vouch for you with that board is important. One of the other key relationships in-house for most people, including the general counsel, is the CEO position. Folks ask, “Should I take a GC job that doesn’t report to the CEO?” It’s a warning sign if you don’t have that relationship. I read that Gap had a number of transitions in the CEO role while you were there. I wonder if you have any suggestions for folks who are new to the role on how to build and maintain those relationships with their CEO.
That is important. As you may have read, I worked for four CEOs in my ten years as general counsel. I had to do a lot of relationship-building. Some of the things that I did that were more important were trying to understand people’s challenges, their priorities, and their goals, and maybe even have shared goals where I could suggest things that made sense. I tried to spend time with people outside the office and get to know them a bit to understand what their seat at the table was like.
The biggest thing I probably did and where I started to build the best C-Suite relationships was when I started traveling, getting out of the office. I would go on trips with people even if it was to go to a store, which you could argue, “Is that how the lawyer should be spending their time?” I always found it useful from a relationship-building and a context-setting perspective. I was willing to do the lunches and the short trips. I didn’t go somewhere for a week, but I would take trips with people. I always felt like that was a bonding experience and something that worked for me.
The other thing that I did was try to be a little bit strategic about the one-to-one meetings that I was having. Every year, either at the end of the year or the beginning of the next year, I would think about continuous improvement. We do that a lot with respect to processes, but I did it with respect to my people. I’m like, “Was I having the right meetings? Were they on the right topic? Were we productive? Was I spending the right amount of time with people?”
Each year, I would shift. I wouldn’t meet with the same people at the same cadence for the same length of time with the same agenda every year. I would try to think, “Are there people I don’t need to meet with anymore?” or, “Are there new priorities at the company and people I should start meeting with that I haven’t been meeting with?”
With respect to the CEO, who I was always meeting with as my boss, I would think, “Is there a way we could shorten our meetings?” or, “Is there a way that I could make them more relevant with changing priorities?” We try to make sure that it is a useful time. I don’t know that people get excited about lawyers coming to their office, but I at least hoped that they didn’t resent me coming to their office.
There’s a lot of good stuff in there. With the relationship-building, and I don’t know if you share this, but a lot of lawyers get focused on getting the legal work done. It’s like, “I’ve got this contract. We’ve got these severances. There are all these other things I’ve got to get done.” I don’t think you can be effective in an in-house role if you don’t have the relationships. I’ve been to some meetings which are not legal and have nothing to do with legal. It’s about getting to know the company and the people that are there. That is work. It counts.
I would say two things about that because I agree with you. First of all, the GC role has evolved. At one point in history, it was more of a gatekeeper role. It is a bridge-builder role. It’s super important to see that as your job. The most successful people in-house, whether they’re in a GC role or some other role, are the people who do see that as part of the job. They don’t focus on the hard skills, but they focus on the soft skills. They don’t focus on transactionally getting legal work done, but they focus on political influence, relationship-building, emotional intelligence, building coalitions, solving problems, and building relationships. There’s so much more to it.
I noticed when people were moving up, if they saw the people side as an afterthought, it was in the way they talked about it. You mentioned it is the work. With some people, it was hard to convince them of that. With some people, they thought the legal work was the work and then there was this other stuff. The more senior you get in an organization and the more responsibility you have, the way it shifts.
Especially if you’re at a large company, by the time you’re the general counsel, you are unlikely to be performing any legal work. Ninety percent of what you’re going to be doing is being a trusted advisor to people and someone that people want to spend time with and want to seek counsel from. To the extent that you’re not doing that, you’re doing things like managing budgets and operations. It’s a business role more than a transactional or litigation role. Some people have a hard time with that. Some people fundamentally view themselves and identify as lawyers. Those people honestly should probably stay in law firms because I don’t know that they’re going to love the GC job.
You’d be very frustrated if you thought that going to an in-house role, especially a general counsel role, was that you were going to be drafting contracts or you might be the strategic lead of a deal, but you’re not doing the indemnity language, the guarantees, or whatever. That’s why I love these conversations. It’s because we’re peeling back the curtain for people who might be thinking about this as, “This is a job that I want.” It is less of a legal job or a lawyer’s job than it is a business person.
That’s right. I agree, which I liked but not every time.
I was talking with a girlfriend who had been general counsel of a couple of public companies. She’s looking for her next opportunity. She was saying, “It would be malpractice for me to do certain types of legal work at this point. I can issue-spot among the best of them. I can help you staff it, run the budget, and talk to the board, but don’t ask me to draft a discovery, a motion, or whatever.” It’s interesting.
I want to talk about your coaching practice. That was a transition from being in-house. You left lawyering in all of its forms to become an executive coach. I wanted to talk to you mostly about transitions because I’m at that stage in my career where I’m looking ahead and seeing what’s next. I want to hear about the coaching practice, what you do, and how you landed that as your next chapter.
Transition To Executive Coaching
I was lucky. After being at three law firms and three companies and being a GC for ten years pretty much working 24/7 because it was a big public global company, I decided it was time to take a break. I was going to retire as a lawyer and retire as a corporate executive, but I knew I was relatively young and that I would do something else. I promised my family I was going to take a year. I always recommend to people that they don’t jump into next. You could have a detailed plan or a concept, but it’s good to have something in mind.
I had in mind that I would take about a year to decompress, spend time with family, and do some fun travel. I was serving on a number of nonprofit boards. I knew that that would keep me engaged with a community of people. I would start talking to people and exploring options. A number of things came my way, but nothing floated my boat and got me excited until Bob Barker called me exactly one year when I had started to think, “What’s next?”
He said that BarkerGilmore, which had up until that point been a legal and compliance recruiting for in-house, was thinking about expanding into two other lines of business consulting. I was like, “Maybe,” but I wasn’t excited. He then mentioned coaching and I was like, “Wow.” I’m a people person. I still had ten of my mentees that I had been working with in my various prior jobs. I was pro bono, still mentoring them. I thought, “This is for me.” I was excited to learn about the practice of coaching and to try to help people grow and develop. That sounded exciting to me and to do that in a different way than I had done it as people’s boss.
Coaching is about helping others grow and develop in ways they hadn't imagined. It's incredibly fulfilling to see people thrive! Share on XI joined BarkerGilmore. I’ve been doing that for about seven years. I love it. I love helping people. I love working with general counsels, which is what I primarily do. I will occasionally coach someone else in a particular special situation, but for the most part, I support general counsels who are often new to their role. Sometimes, they’re even changing industries, so that can be a bit intimidating, or they might be taking their company public, private, or global.
There’s usually some transition going on and someone is seeking outside support and an advisor. Sometimes, they’re at the opposite end and getting ready to retire or think about what’s next in a different way. I have found that I enjoy supporting people in making that change and helping them think about the change in a positive light. Over the years, I have come to specialize in working with women. Although I have coached a number of in-house lawyers, I have a pretty niche practice focused on supporting women in general counsel.
I like that it’s broadly defining transition because there can be things in your company. Getting a new CEO is a transition, especially if that’s the core relationship, as well as growing globally, IPO, and taking it private. All of those things mean different things for you in your career. The workplace is changing in one of those transitions.
I want to delve into this. I shared with you that I was on a girls’ trip with some friends who are also lawyers. We were all talking about, “What’s next?” Some folks have been at the same job for most of their career. There are other people that are not sure. Somebody stayed home with their kids for a while. I heard a lot of fear and uncertainty around transition. I wondered if you had some ideas or thoughts. Change is scary, but it’s inevitable. Do you have any advice on looking at transition and change in a more positive way?
Managing Career Transitions
Sure. First of all, I encourage people not to beat themselves up if they have a fear of change because that’s the natural state. Most people find change a bit intimidating or have at least some fears about the change. I have two suggestions. One is to try to change your own mindset in terms of thinking of change as more of an adventure and a gift. Try to almost chronicle the positives and think about the things you won’t mind leaving behind.
I always encourage people to think about their current life situation or their current job and think about what they would like to get rid of. That’s one of the big positives that can come out of making a job change, a change within your company, or some change in your life. There may be things that you’re doing currently or that are in your way currently that you could have the opportunity to change and maybe align better with your values or is something that you would like to come in the future.
The other big thing is to get support. It doesn’t have to be a coach. Not everybody can afford a paid professional coach. You’ve mentioned friends. I’ve mentioned mentors. There are a lot of people who are willing to help their colleagues or help people through transitions. Getting help is important to the extent that you can hone in on what you’re fearful of.
One example might be, are you fearful of change because you’re worried about the financial impact? Will you have to take less money? Is there some other financial impact to what you might be doing? Could you get someone to help you through that, somebody to help you with your budget or some projection? It’s not being fearful of all the change and the overwhelming aspect of it but maybe breaking it down and thinking, “What are my specific fears? Could I try to address each of the risks in some way so that it becomes a positive?”
Break down your fears of change by addressing specific risks. Turn challenges into positives with the right support. Share on XThe other thing is I encourage people not to limit themselves. For me, I had worked in three very different law firms. I worked in a large firm, a huge global firm, and a boutique smaller firm. Similar to companies, I worked in a relatively small private company, a big global international company based outside the US, and a big global international company based in the US. I had three different experiences in law firms and companies. I had a long career, and I was pretty sure I was done as a lawyer. I didn’t need to try next after those six experiences.
You hit all the high notes.
I hit enough that I knew I was done. For some people, they should be creative, and maybe they’re not done. Maybe you could change your job at your current firm or your current company. Maybe you can try a bigger or smaller environment or a different environment in some way. You could try a different industry. You can go from for-profit to nonprofit. There are a lot of different things that you could try.
One of the things that’s cool about the world of work that I don’t think necessarily existed or at least I wasn’t familiar with several years ago is this concept of a portfolio career. It’s the concept that you don’t necessarily have to do one thing. You don’t have to work full-time in a law firm or work full-time in a corporate environment or for one organization if you’re in a nonprofit.
There are a lot of us who do a lot of different things. All my colleagues at BarkerGilmore, other than the recruiters who recruit full-time, who are coaches or consultants, are all former general counsels or chief compliance officers. We all have a portfolio of things that we do part-time. I have taught law school. I have served on nonprofit boards. I am a paid professional speaker in addition to being a paid professional coach.
I have colleagues who arbitrate or mediate. I have colleagues who run different kinds of businesses. I have colleagues who still practice law on a part-time basis. Many of us speak or write. There are so many skills that lawyers have, and there are so many opportunities to use them in this part-time portfolio way that it’s an interesting thing to think about. It creates a lot of possibilities.
That’s exciting to hear you talk about that. I get bored easily, which is one of the reasons I like an in-house job because every day is different. I wanted to pause and say a common theme that I picked up when I was with my friends was that so much of your identity is bound up with your job and your career. When you think about making a change, it can feel like, “Who am I if I am not a law firm partner, stay-at-home mom, or general counsel?” That’s an existential question thing.
I completely agree with you. In fact, I have been out of the law world from a practicing perspective for eight years. It probably took me five before I stopped introducing myself as a former general counsel. I introduce myself as an executive coach, but it took five years for me to do that. It’s typical for lawyers that we’re very caught up in our identity as a lawyer. We worked hard to get there.
That makes me feel a lot better.
The other thing that I would say is I participated with a group of women in writing a book. It’s called Women in Law: Discovering the True Meaning of Success. One of the themes of that book is that your definition of success should be defined by you and not by others. It’s not by our profession, not by society, or not by our parents. It should be defined by you. It could change over time.
Twenty-three of us contributed chapters to the book. We told a little bit of our career stories. We all went to law school. Most, if not all of us, practiced at some point. Some of us practiced a long time, and some practiced less. About half are still practicing law, and about half are doing different things. We found that all of our definitions of success had changed over time. If we could embrace that, that was a good thing, and we would feel better about ourselves.
What I like to say to people after learning of participating in this book is that we are not going to remember things like the billable hours or the awards. It’s how you feel about yourself, your career, and your life that ultimately matters. No one should be able to define that for you. We’re in a profession where there are certain expectations that we all feel, and it takes a long time to let go of them.
It’s ingrained in you during the law school education during the process of, “Were you on law review?” Everything is status-oriented. It’s like, “Which firm did you go to?” Success “begets” success. You get caught up in this hamster wheel. I was interviewed for another legal podcast called Personal Jurisdiction. These are two lawyers who tend to target younger or earlier career lawyers, but they let me on the show. They asked me the question, “How do you define success?” I struggled with that for a moment, but I landed on being happy with what you have.
Personal Fulfillment And Success
I agree completely. It’s personal fulfillment. What matters at the end of the day is whether you are personally fulfilled. What that looks like will change over time, and that’s a good thing from my perspective.
It’s not the hardware on the wall or the hours on the timesheet. Probing a little bit more on transitions, I know when we talked before, you talked about this portfolio career and having a loose structure around that. You talked about having a couple of things that were your anchors and then leaving with some white space. Why is white space important?
It’s because it’s hard when you’re in a particular job to know what you will miss about it. What do you objectively like about it and not like about it? Also, we’ve been almost brainwashed into being lawyers and fitting into that mold. It almost takes some time to think more reflectively and more creatively. I even encourage people to think about their childhood dreams. What was something you wanted to be or do when you were young? It’s a lot about giving yourself time and space to open your mind up to other possibilities.
White space in your career allows for reflection and creativity. Give yourself time to explore new possibilities. Share on XMyself, as an example, I thought that I was going to serve on corporate boards because I had served on a lot of nonprofit boards. My predecessor went on to become a professional corporate board member. Guess what? When I started exploring that, it didn’t motivate me and excite me the way I thought it was going to. Yet, from the minute Bob offered me the opportunity to become an executive leadership coach, it was not something I’d ever thought about, and I was excited about it. I immediately started researching it, talking to people about it, getting mentors in the space, and diving into it.
At the same time, I have always enjoyed speaking. I did a lot of public speaking when I was at GC because I was at a branded public company. It was very natural for me to become a paid professional speaker when I left the corporate executive world, but I never wrote. I wrote as a lawyer. I wrote legal documents and things like that. I wasn’t one of those people who thought like, “I’ve got a novel in me,” or something.
I ended up jointly writing a couple of articles with people. I ended up jointly contributing to this book, which became an Amazon best-seller, which blew my mind. We don’t know what we’re capable of doing. We need to give ourselves time and space to think about that and to be open to the possibilities that might come our way. We don’t know what the opportunities will be if we stop thinking about ourselves as an in-house lawyer or as a lawyer and are more open to what are all the things we’re interested in, what are all the skills we have, what are all the experiences we have, and what are all the networks that we have that we could tap into to think about what’s next for us.
I like that, thinking more broadly. You’ve reframed instead of transition and change is hard and scary to what’s possible. It’s having a sense of adventure about it. It sounds fun, especially because I like thinking, “What can I leave behind from being a 9:00 to 5:00 person?”
That’s one of the first ones. When you’re starting to fear and think negatively and think about the risk,
try to think, “What would I love to stop doing or get rid of?”
I was having a conversation with somebody else about people who think, “I will do this when I’m retired. I want to paint.” A lot of people say, “I’m going to work out,” which I always find funny. They’re like, “If I was retired, I’d be able to work out.” Why wait? First of all, who knows if you’re going to make it to retirement?
Kudos to you for starting a show.
Thanks.
That’s a cool thing to do while you’re still a general counsel.
It’s fun because I get to have this conversation with you and probe for your advice on what I should be thinking about or preparing for the next phase. It doesn’t have to be, “If only I had this money in the bank,” or, “If I only were retiring, I’d be able to XYZ.” I like that spirit of exploration in the here and now. You mentioned the book. That’s an amazing contribution. You are also involved with Ms. JD. Do you want to talk about that organization?
Ms. JD And Ladder Her Up
Sure. I would love to. The proceeds from the book are being donated to Ms. JD, which is a nonprofit that a number of us authors are involved in. I’m excited about Ms. JD because it was founded by a group of women when they were in law school to support women in law school. It has expanded to encourage women to go to law school as well as to support women through the early career years before they become partners, move in-house, or whatever they might do next. It’s those early associate years that are a big transition.
Where I’m specifically personally involved with Ms. JD is I helped them to co-create a program called LaddHer Up. It is a program that pairs women general counsel with women law firm associates in an interesting way. We do a wine country retreat in California. Women come from all around the country, about 100 law firm associates and about 100 women general counsel. They enjoy relationship-building amongst the cohort of associates and the cohort of general counsel. At the same time, there is a professional development aspect to it for the associates as well as a giving-back aspect for the GC.
The GCs agree to coach and mentor several of the women associates. We do that in a few different ways while we’re in Sonoma or Napa for two days. At the same time, the associates are hearing from some interesting panels and they engage in some workshops. We design the professional development to be for the associates but every year, the general counsel tells me that they get a lot out of it too. Some of it is general leadership concepts and self-empowerment concepts. We do focus on things like how to become a rainmaker.
Sometimes, firms worry that we’re trying to convince all the women to become GCs. It’s not true because we want women to be successful in law firms too. In fact, in my own mind, my hope would be that someday, 3/4 of the women become leaders in their law firms and 1/4 of them become GCs. I would love it if women were successful in both, but we’re trying to help them get through the toughest years in law firms.
That’s so great. I could imagine as a GC, you would feel rewarded for helping folks. Most of us have been in law firms as well. I’m sure you’re getting a lot out of it personally. Thank you for all your contributions to women lawyers everywhere. That’s a niche I love too, being one myself. If people want more information about the firm or coaching services, where can they find that?
There are two places. BarkerGilmore.com has a lot of information about all of our services, which are recruiting, consulting, and coaching, and all of us who are part of the team. I also invite your audience if they’re interested to connect with me on LinkedIn, Michelle Banks. I’m happy to connect with anyone in the field of law or coaching.
This is the final question, which is a little bit more fun than career development for some people. I have used music my whole career and my whole life to reframe my energy and get pumped up when I needed to for work. What is your pump-up song?
My go-to song, and it comes naturally to me when I’m trying to do something that’s harder or when I’m trying to gear up to do something, is Queen, We Are the Champions.
That’s tried and true. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Important Links
- BarkerGilmore
- Michelle Banks – LinkedIn
- Women in Law: Discovering the True Meaning of Success
- https://Ms-JD.org
About Michelle Banks
Since May 2017, Michelle Banks has been a Strategic Advisor and Coach at BarkerGilmore where she specializes in executive leadership coaching for women General Counsel. Michelle brings an exceptional corporate perspective to her clients to help them transition into new roles, manage change, and successfully resolve the array of challenges they face. She primarily supports newer General Counsel and those who are going through a period of transition (e.g., going global or public, changing industries, etc.).
Before joining Barker Gilmore, Michelle was Gap Inc.’s Executive Vice President, Global General Counsel, Corporate Secretary, and Chief Compliance Officer. She was a key member of, and strategic advisor to, the CEO’s senior leadership team and reported to the CEO and the Audit & Finance Committee of the Board of Directors. In addition to managing teams in 15 countries, Michelle served this iconic retailer in leadership roles that resulted in successful global expansion, acquisitions, three CEO transitions, and restructuring of the company’s operating model.
Before her tenure at Gap Inc., Michelle served as Legal Counsel to the NBA’s Golden State Warriors. Before then, Michelle served in the Corporate and Finance, Latin America, and Asia practice groups at global law firm Morrison & Foerster. She began her career in the Corporate practice group at Sheppard Mullin.
Active in many non-profit organizations, Michelle is Co-Founder of UCLA Law Women LEAD, a network of more than 4,200 women law students and alumnae at her alma mater, and Ms. JD’s award-winning LaddHer Up retreat, pairing seasoned women General Counsel with early career women law firm associates for inspiring professional development and mentorship.
Michelle has received numerous national and regional awards, including the ABA’s “Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement” Award in 2019 and the Burton Foundation’s “Legend in Law” Award in 2016. She has been recognized as a “Top General Counsel to Watch” by Corporate Board Member, a “Corporate Counsel Innovator” by the Financial Times, and a “Distinguished General Counsel” by the Directors Roundtable.
She is a frequent speaker on leadership, presenting to numerous organizations such as the Association of Corporate Counsel, Association of General Counsel, Center for Women in Law, Minority Corporate Counsel Association, and National Association of Women Lawyers.
