Aoifinn Devitt: Our next guest has pivoted from working in private practice to going in-house and then back again, where she is now a partner at Evershed Sutherland. Hear from her about her evolving practice from privacy into everything AI, how it is so important to understand the technology, and some of the words of wisdom she has gathered along the way. I’m Aoifinn Devitt, and welcome to this 50 Faces focus series. Which showcases the richness and diversity of inspiring people in the law. I’m joined today by Rachel Reed, who’s a partner and head of US Artificial Intelligence at Evershed Sutherland. She’s based in the Atlanta area. She started her career in law at the firm, then spent 18 years in a series of in-house roles before returning to the firm as a partner in May 2023. She’s a board director of Hop on a Cure, a nonprofit dedicated to finding a cure for ALS. Welcome, Rachel. Thanks for joining me today.
Rachel: Thank you for having me. It’s great to be here.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, you’ve certainly had an interesting background, but can you, before we get to joining Evershed Sutherland initially, can we talk about your background before that, such as where you were born, what you studied, and what your path to law was?
Rachel: Absolutely. So I was born in Gainesville, Florida, which makes me a diehard Florida Gator fan. Hope that doesn’t alienate the listeners right off the bat. I ended up staying home for college and attending the University of Florida for undergrad. I had a couple of majors. First, I was a journalism major and switched out of that when I realized I couldn’t spell without spellcheck, and then ended up doing poli sci, getting quite interested in the law, finished up at Florida and went to Harvard Law School, which was a dream come true. Beautiful campus, great professors, learned a ton there, but I also learned that I do not like cold weather, having come from Florida. So after finishing up at Harvard, my choices, I was looking at either coming back to South Florida or to the Atlanta area, really just an area that had a big corporate law practice that was warm and relatively close to home. My family is still all in Gainesville, Florida. So I interned at a couple of firms and applied and ended up at Sutherland, Asbill Brennan, which was one of the firms that had been founded in Atlanta and had kind of a nice Southern feel, but also a very exciting corporate practice, which is what attracted me to that firm.
Aoifinn Devitt: And how did you make your way to this particular field of law, or did that come after your time in in-house roles?
Rachel: It really evolved throughout law school. So one thing I realized I did not like was sort of the debating, the public arguing, the mock court type exercises that we did in law school. I also, you know, as a first year, you have to take a standard set of courses, and I just found myself drawn towards the more transactional ones. So civil procedure and sort of being held to these, candidly, sometimes archaic rules of the court and artificial deadlines and things of that nature just didn’t really interest me as much. And so this is going to sound weird, but things like antitrust and intellectual property law, and I took as a second-year mergers and acquisitions class, it was really just what interested me, what got me excited. And then as I went through law school, I definitely picked pictured myself more as a commercial or transactional lawyer, not getting dressed and going to court every day. And since this is sort of a diversity-based podcast, I will say this was back in, you know, I graduated law school in 2001, and this was back in the day where women had to wear pantyhose and had to wear skirts, especially in courts in the South. And so a lot of that just really didn’t suit my personality very well. I wanted to dress how I wanted to dress and speak how I wanted to speak. And it was just a little bit more permissive. There were still rules back then for women, but it was a little— gave me a little bit more freedom to be myself, to be in a transactional practice.
Aoifinn Devitt: It’s interesting when corporate transactional practice is the relatively more liberal place to dress and behave, so that’s saying something. And then the transition you made from being in private practice to going in-house is a transition that many lawyers make. Can you talk us through what drove that in your case?
Rachel: Yes, and this was again, I mean, sitting where we are now in 2024 and looking back, it doesn’t feel like it was that long ago, but it really was. And it was a decision that a lot of mid-level women associates made at the time they were either getting married or thinking about having children, and it was really just the demands both of the job but of being in the office, which is also very interesting how that has evolved not just over time but post-COVID. But the demands were such that you really couldn’t even envision yourself being able to do that while at the same time raising a family or building a family. So I actually got a cold call from a headhunter about an open position. I was not looking for jobs. It sounded interesting, so I decided to explore it and go for the interview, and it seemed like a great opportunity. I had just gotten engaged, so I was at that phase. I was going to get married, and you could make a good living in-house, presumably with a much better work-life balance. I can tell you I learned a lot about that over the 17, 18 years, and it’s not always a great work-life balance in-house either, but at the time it felt like the right decision. I’ve made a few career moves, not career moves, but job changes over time, and I’ve always just sort of trusted my gut. And so that, that one was telling me it was the right job and I should take it, so I did. It worked out great. It also led me to my you next, know, role after that, and then eventually back to the firm.
Aoifinn Devitt: So pretty interesting. Anything that you didn’t anticipate in terms of the cultural change, maybe a change of pace? Having one client instead of many, not having access maybe to a huge layer of senior legal talent, which you would have in a law firm and maybe you don’t have in an in-house. And what were some of the things you missed maybe and observed maybe that were less expected for you?
Rachel: Yes, well, the support is definitely the hardest part of the transition, I think, from law firm to in-house. And not legal support, right? Secretarial support, IT support. You sort of get pampered in a law firm because you’re the profit center. Right? And once you go in-house, suddenly you’re a cost, an expense, and everything that comes with what you do is an expense to the company who is focused, right, on its profit centers, which are in the business. So that’s definitely an adjustment. What I liked a lot was having more responsibility and more autonomy, as well as a broader breadth of responsibilities. I think especially as a younger associate in a law firm. We do, and I think this is true a lot in the transactional practices as opposed to litigation, we sort of put people by level into pretty narrow predefined roles. So if you’re on an M&A deal, you’re in charge of due diligence or disclosure schedules, right? We don’t give them sort of the breadth of experiences and types of work that you get when you’re part of a small in-house team and you only have 8 people, right, to support a multi-billion dollar company, and you have to take on additional roles. So my first in-house job was with a healthcare IT company. I was hired primarily to support a particular sales organization in a region of the country. So we sold healthcare software and technology products, but before long there’d be another need, right? Like, oh, the business is building a new outsourcing business and they need counsel. So you would take on those other things. And then there are just sort of the side projects, you know, legal has to be involved, but it doesn’t fit neatly in anyone’s space. So there are a lot of opportunities to learn different things, to do different things, and to take on more responsibility. And candidly, as a young associate, that’s not always within your control.
Aoifinn Devitt: What drove the journey back then into private practice after 18 years? That perhaps is less typical of a move.
Rachel: Yes. Although as I go through this journey, I am finding more and more people who are what we call boomerangs, have left the law firm and then came back. So to the earlier, I sort of alluded to in-house is not always a great work-life balance. I had progressed with the company I was at over the course of almost 15 years. I had taken on a huge scope of responsibility. I felt like I had sort of done everything I was capable of accomplishing at that company. And I will say there’s a little bit of a sense of burnout because other people change, right? So one of my roles, for example, was supporting the IT organization. And if there’s a change in one of the IT leadership roles, you sort of feel like you’re going back and doing the same thing again to build those relationships and partnerships. The other thing that I always caution, I don’t know if caution is the right word, but advise lawyers who are thinking of going in-house is that inevitably at most companies, the more senior you become, the more your day-to-day shifts from doing quote unquote real legal work to administration, management, managing up as much as managing down, right? Managing outside counsel, budgets and things of that nature. So I was missing on some level doing more of the pure legal work, but it’s also, you know, that’s what keeps me stimulated is the learning and growing in new things. And when you feel like you’ve sort of hit the ceiling in a role, for someone like me, that means it’s time to move on and find the next opportunity.
Aoifinn Devitt: And speaking about the meat of the legal role, which clearly the areas you’ve been in could not probably be more top of mind, privacy and AI, and privacy was primarily some of the, in the in-house work that you did. Can you talk us through, let’s start with privacy. I’d love to talk about some of the issues and aspects that you think as an expert in this field, we’ll be hearing more about as laypeople perhaps in years to come. What are the hot button items and some of what’s on your mind?
Rachel: So thank you. That’s a great question. And I get accused sometimes of bringing every question back to AI. But I do feel like we are at sort of this pivotal point in this technology evolution, and AI is going to impact everything we do. But taking a step back, right, the world we live in has been shifting more and more over the years to an online, digital, data-driven world. And I think partially COVID accelerated that. But also it’s the rise of social media. It’s the fact that teenagers now, right, that’s how they interact. And that’s been the case for years. And that’s now who’s entering the workforce. So, so many of our interactions socially as a consumer and as a professional are now happening in the digital world. And that creates data, right? So everything now is data-driven. And I imagine a lot of companies are having regular discussions like, how do we become a data-driven company? We’re going to lose a competitive edge, right, if we can’t be a data-driven company. So the drive to collect data, to use it in different ways, and just the proliferation of data in cyberspace, right, that’s happened over the past few years is going to emphasize privacy, I think, above everything else. We’ve seen that that’s how the laws and regulations are evolving. So if you look even just in the US, but certainly in Europe and other places as well, what has happened over the last few years is not just that we’ve had additional states, for example, adopt privacy laws. There have been amendments and states have taken steps to, for example, broaden what they consider personal information, right? So if you go back to the early 2000s when I started practicing, personal information was like your Social Security number. That was basically all anybody cared about protecting. And now we have Internet activity, IP address, geolocation data, sort of all these ways we’re interacting with digital technology that are tracking our devices, right? Not just what we would think of as information associated with our person. So we’re broadening those definitions. We broaden significantly, starting with the California Consumer Privacy Act, the rights of individuals to exert some sort of control over their personal data. And then now we’re layering on top of that artificial intelligence technology, specifically generative AI, which is going to process just these vast quantities and volumes of data unlike anything we’ve seen before. And the privacy implications of that are quite significant. So I think not only are we already seeing this proliferation of laws specific to AI technology, folks are going to find that existing privacy laws are also going to be implicated by that technology. And I think if regulators see a gap or a disconnect between existing privacy legal landscape and AI technology, I think we will see them move very quickly to close those gaps with amendments or additional laws and regulations around privacy and protection of personal data.
Aoifinn Devitt: And how do you see it from a corporate standpoint in terms of a policy around privacy? Clearly there’s that trade-off as a corporation between the amount of data you can use and commercialize versus observing privacy norms. Privacy policy can become virtue signaling of sorts from corporations. And equally from the consumer side, don’t consumers maybe underweight it sometimes, their own privacy, until it really matters because they’re keen to get a free app or something of that nature? How do those kind of human issues factor into the advice you give?
Rachel: I think it’s for most corporations, it’s all about trust, and that can be managed in a number of different ways. And I think it depends a lot on the industry and the type of company. But for privacy laws and ethics generally, I say, always say kind of the good thing is that they’re very principles-based. So you don’t have to understand all, you know, 50 states’ privacy regimes if you follow a set of pretty basic principles that include notice, transparency, consent, accountability. So people want to know what personal information you’re collecting as a business, who you’re sharing it with, what you’re doing with it, how you’re processing it. I think that for all companies, right, if you want your customers, your consumers, even if you’re business to business and you’re doing data to preserve that trust, you have to be candid, transparent, and truthful about your privacy practices. And then I think consent is the other big one. And a lot of times, yes, the consent might be buried in terms and conditions or teeny tiny script when you’re agreeing to download an app or things of that nature. And there my advice is sort of take the reasonable consumer standard and the nature of your business and make sensible risk-based decisions. So if you are a financial services company and you want to kind of share data with retailers for marketing, like that is not something I’m going to expect when I go open a new savings account, right? That then my data is suddenly going to be used for marketing. If I’m downloading a gaming app, right, then I’m going to say, yeah, probably whatever I enter into this app is going to get sold to someone or shared with someone, right? Because that’s the nature of that world and that industry. So I think understanding what reasonable consumers anticipate and then meeting those expectations. So it’s not to say that the financial services company can’t sell my data,. But I would probably make that in a big bold disclosure or something that requires an affirmative click or a checkbox, right? When the person is agreeing to those terms, not buried further down in the terms because it’s not consistent with expectations. So if you think about, you know, what does the consumer expect and what do I need to do to sort of preserve their trust in me as a responsible business? I think that will get you a long way towards privacy compliance.
Aoifinn Devitt: That certainly seems like a very fundamental way of determining what regulation should be in place or what approach should be taken. When it comes to AI, we’re probably all dealing with such a novelty and the deluge of information and expectations and a sense of not knowing the direction of travel really of different areas. How do we make sense of that? And what’s really focusing your mind from a legal standpoint right now when you speak with companies and your clients?
Rachel: So number one, and where I always start, is understanding the technology itself. And a lot of lawyers in particular look at me like I’m a bit crazy when I say that, but I started as a baby lawyer doing technology contracts and trying to understand life insurance systems and things of that nature. But if you don’t understand what the technology is, how it’s developed, how it’s trained, and how it’s implemented, it will be virtually impossible to advise from a legal perspective or even from a business or a risk perspective on how to appropriately manage that technology. And it’s not intuitive. So every— I’ve been doing a lot of speaking on AI for companies, for clients, for lawyers across the board. And the slide I always spend a lot of time on is actually a diagram of the tech stack, right? So how, when you implement generative AI solution, what it actually looks like, and there are 5 layers. Layers, you know, including your infrastructure layer, which is basically either the cloud environment or the data center. There’s layers of software, there’s where the actual large language model sits. And then there are layers on top of that. And that has been eye-opening for a lot of the folks I’ve spoken with. But it helps explain where you can control what a generative AI model does and where you can’t, and helps you understand what questions you should be asking the vendor if it’s a vendor solution or your own IT if it’s an internally developed solution. And it also helps again, as lawyers, a lot of time our job is to apply law to facts. And I think these are critical facts, right? So you need to collect the relevant facts about the model. How was it trained? What data does it use as inputs, right? What guardrails have been put to restrict or contain the outputs? Things like abuse monitoring, or you can sometimes customize systems so they’re less likely to put defamatory language or offensive language, right, as outputs, things of that nature. But again, if you don’t understand the technology and the building blocks that went into it, it’s going to be very difficult both to really understand why generative AI comes with the inherent risks it does come with, things like bias, right, things like hallucinations, it’s because of the way those models were built and trained. So it’s to help you understand that. And then as, and I like to assess AI in terms of use cases, right? So the technology has such broad functionality and applicability, you could apply it to almost anything. So when a business is trying to make responsible and ethical decisions, I say you need to look at it as a specific use case. And first you need to understand the technology And then you need to understand who’s going to use the technology and how. And then you have what you need to do a proper legal assessment, right? Looking at the current laws and applying it to that particular use case.
Aoifinn Devitt: And with both of these areas, privacy and AI, what I think of when I think of these is, are we running to standstill to a degree because it is advancing so quickly? Can the legal side keep up? And it seems a little bit like the cybersecurity dilemma that, you know, we are furiously trying to keep up with the hackers who are ahead of us in that respect. How would you say the legal capabilities around these fast-moving areas are developing?
Rachel: So the law will always lag behind the technology. That’s something we’ve been seeing for decades. The EU is acting much faster than the US, as we’ve seen, and they’re trying to keep up. And that will likely sort of set the benchmark. But what we have done in the United States with these sort of broad federal regulatory regimes is cast a wide net. So, for example, the FTC Act generally prohibits unfair and deceptive trade practices in interstate commerce. And that law has been used historically in the absence of federal privacy legislation to enforce privacy violations along the lines of my privacy notices X, but I’m doing Y with the personal data I collect. That has already been applied to cases of what the FTC has deemed to be misuse of AI technology. So back to those principles, the same ones often apply to AI: notice, transparency, consent. If you’re interacting with an AI system, if it’s making a decision that could impact an individual, certain rights, inherent rights are inferred in those instances. And so we see the federal agencies using existing laws. If they find anything that they think is unfair or deceptive to consumers generally, they will act on it. We’ve seen similar enforcement by other agencies such as the Fair Housing Administration. If you use an AI algorithm to distribute rental housing ads to web browsers, right, and that algorithm is triggered by assigning a certain zip code based on the IP address, and that zip code determines whether the rental you know, ad is displayed. In the United States, zip code is a proxy for race, so that violates the Fair Housing Act. So what I would encourage folks is two things. We are not going to be able to stem, I don’t believe, the proliferation of AI systems and everything we do. I think that horse is out of the barn and it’s not coming back, and it’s going to rapidly proliferate because in the tech world right? It’s a race to not be left behind. So every SaaS vendor, right, every infrastructure as a service vendor, every real big tech vendor is enhancing their products and services with AI right now. And they’re just going to push it out to their customers, right? And customers are not really going to have a choice. The choice is going to be use the old technology or use what the vendor is now offering. And the idea is to use it responsibly, as best we can in the absence of prescriptive laws and regulations, right? So we’re going to have to use sort of responsibility and ethics as a guide. We have things out there like the NIST, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Standards and Technology has an AI risk management framework that is also principles-based that companies should be applying. So I think it’s finding that medium, making sure you have governance in place and that folks are thinking about the implications of the AI you’re using and deploying, remembering that we do have an existing set of laws and regulations that can be applied, and then really staying attuned and staying nimble for the developments that will inevitably come at some point.
Aoifinn Devitt: And you touched on this. It’s clear that AI is going mainstream. It’s being integrated into everything. Do you think this as a practice area will stand alone going forward? Will it be folded into, maybe sit alongside intellectual property or privacy or where if somebody, a lawyer entering the profession now, wants to specialize in this area, where will this practice area sit?
Rachel: So what we have decided as a firm at Evershed Sutherland is that it’s going to sit in the data privacy, cybersecurity, and technology function. I think it goes hand in hand with data privacy, and I think the two are inseparable. The same way though, I think data privacy goes hand in hand with cybersecurity, and I know some companies separate those functions and treat them differently. What I believe is going to happen and why I think clients and law firms will be best served by combining those functions is that eventually, at least in the US, the legal and regulatory landscape is going to become so complex and there’s going to be so much overlap between the privacy laws, the security laws, and the AI laws and regulations that you will inevitably have to become well-versed in all of those bodies of law to be effective in your role as a lawyer. And so they’ll naturally become combined and become part of the same function. I think the part that’s going to be hard for some sort of pure privacy lawyers to get up to speed is that you really do have to understand technology. So there’s sort of an intellectual property rights component of that. There’s a, do I know generally how hardware and software is run in a business? Those are things that can be learned, right? They’re not inherent. You don’t have to go back to law school to learn these things. But I think having an open mind and really starting to understand the tech world, how technology is built, and then how it’s licensed regularly to customers, and how does a software as a service differ from an on-premise platform, just those types of things folks will have to get up to speed need. But as far as sort of a legal practice area, I think with that underlying foundation in the tech, privacy, cyber, and AI fit very nicely together. And if you’re not combining them, you’ll need to have, you know, make a friend in the other practice group and have close partnerships with others who work in those areas.
Aoifinn Devitt: Clearly a highly dynamic and fast-growing area. I’d love to change gears now a little bit just to what you said was tantalizing in terms of the work-life balance. And how that can ebb and flow regardless of being in private practice or in-house. And this podcast, as you noted, has a particular focus on minority voices, less heard voices, and around diversity. I’d love to hear from you, I suppose, how you rate the legal profession today. How do you think it’s doing today, maybe compared to when you started your career, and any impressions on what it can do better?
Rachel: That is a very deep question. It’s near and dear to my heart. And I want to answer honestly, but also be kind of respectful of the organizations that have given me you opportunities, know, over my career. There have definitely been improvements, but not nearly enough in my opinion. And I think that’s true for both in-house counsel as well as law firm counsel. So one of the organizations I was fortunate to be sort of nominated to participate in when I was in-house with something called the 30% Club. And they endeavor, right, their mission is to get at least 30% women at senior management and board-level positions. And so when I first went to the first meeting and you get matched up with a mentor, my first question was, why 30% when women are 50%+ of the population, right? And so if that tells you anything, right, it’s like, Yes, people care more now. They’re doing more, but it’s, it’s still not enough. In the law firm, I mean, again, some of the old-fashioned ways have gone by the side, but I still hear stories about certain judges in the Deep South, right, that female lawyers are like, if I showed up in pants, I would be kicked out of the courtroom. I think that is ridiculous, right, in this day and age. The other thing that I’m still seeing as a challenge is is the pressure on hours and time for younger and mid-level associates. And I see it in ways that appear to affect the women more so than the men. And I will say I have a stay-at-home husband. That was a decision we made right after I finished my maternity leave. And I— we have one child. She’s now 13. She’s amazing. But he is the parent that drives her to school, that picks her up, right? That takes her to bass lessons in the afternoon. And when we get the call that she’s not feeling well at school, goes to pick her up, right? There are just a lot of responsibilities of parenting. And so sometimes I even think, am I the right person to be telling people how to find this work-life balance when I have a full-time adult basically helping manage my family and other people don’t? What I am trying to do back at the firm is be a resource, a sounding board for all of the female associates. I want them to see someone who hopefully has made it work, but also am willing to share with them that it’s really hard sometimes, right? And this is a demanding job and there are times when you just have to make decisions and sort of hope for the best. And I think as a young woman in this field, I think we feel, especially feel the pressure to not say no to more work, to not admit that it’s gotten to be too much or I need a break or I need someone else to help with this because I think we worry it’ll be seen as weakness or lack of commitment or things of that nature. So I am trying to help with coaching to say like, no, that’s just life, right? Everybody needs a break sometimes. There is absolutely absolutely no reason you can’t be both a successful law firm lawyer and a parent and a spouse. And, you know, whether you’re a pet parent or whatever you are, it’s okay to have interests and commitments outside of the office. And I try my best to both demonstrate that with what I do, as well as both talk the talk and walk the walk, and hope that I can help at least our firm retain female talent. And make it just a really safe and comfortable place for them to work and grow.
Aoifinn Devitt: That is wonderful. And sometimes I think it’s about life hacks as well, sharing life hacks that maybe have made it easy for you because clearly you have a massive amount to stay abreast of in terms of technology, privacy changes, AI. And those are things that, you know, take time and the job is hard. So I think combining that with a family, a foot cannot be taken off the pedal much in this profession. And I suppose it’s a way of how to keep it on while not compromising other sides. So I do think sharing practical things can often matter quite a bit. And just a final point on that, have you seen any particular things like affinity groups, women’s circles, special kinds of leave, maybe emergency childcare, or any particular hacks at a professional level that you found particularly impactful?
Rachel: What I found most helpful is just building a support network. And for me, that’s both with, among my clients. So I have an Atlanta Women Attorneys group where we meet really just to socialize, to vent, to form and deepen friendships. There’s really not a pure business aspect to it, but I find that the more you make the time to connect with similarly situated, right, high-powered, hardworking moms in other positions and just being able, like you said, to share tips, best practices. I think at our last event, we were exchanging Amazon shopping carts because someone had found the perfect under-desk treadmill that you could walk on. So things of that nature, really just building a network and a community. And then I think it’s just not being afraid to ask for help. There are a lot of amazing women out there who want to champion other women, myself included, and I’ve been the beneficiary of many of them along my career. So really just understanding that you are not alone in what you’re doing and reaching out if you need help, but looking for these opportunities to sort of form these networks and groups because you can all rely on each other and you’ll all be the better for it.
Aoifinn Devitt: That’s a good segue actually to the question on reflections around mentors and key people, given you have clearly a set of peers there. Was there anyone in particular that mentored you? And sometimes the answer to this is no. But I’d love to know, through your career, was anybody particularly impactful?
Rachel: I have had several along the way, and interestingly, the two that come to mind are both men. So I do want to say it doesn’t take, you know, you don’t need a working mom as a mentor if that’s what you are. I think you can pick up really great advice from others. But one was when I first started at the firm, and it was a partner who who took me under his wing and really taught me the basics of software and technology law, which started me down this path. And it’s really, I think, when someone just makes a commitment of their time to your learning and betterment, from someone like me, it really makes a big impact. And so I think look for that, look for cues. If someone’s willing to take your meeting request and sit down with you for an hour and explain something to you, like, that’s a good person to kind of stay close to and think about as a mentor. And the other was in one of my in-house roles, one of the general counsels. I think learned a lot from him in the non-legal aspects of in-house work in particular, but even a law firm, right? We’re a business as well. We have accountability to our other partners, to the COO, and, you know, so it’s still the aspects of business and how much of it is really relationship-focused. So sort of about building trust, maintaining trust, figuring out the best way to work and collaborate with either your peers or whoever’s higher up in the organization. So I think it was two different things. You know, the first mentor was more substantively, and then the second was more of the soft skills. But I think both of it, it’s taking the time I think everyone is so busy. If someone’s taking the time, it shows that they care and they’re willing to invest in you, and people really appreciate that, myself included.
Aoifinn Devitt: I think it’s interesting, people often say, how will I know who my mentors should be? I think they make themselves known because of this behavior. Often it is a natural thing. And staying on the personal reflections, when you look back at your career so far, private practice, in-house, and then back to private practice, were there any particular highs or lows that you can recall and maybe any lessons learned from the low points?
Rachel: There are definitely points, and it’s usually early on in each move when you second-guess yourself, right? And it’s like, oh my God, did I just make a terrible mistake in switching to this job or that? And I think I’ve had them. So I 1-2-3 every time I switched. And so my advice is be patient with yourself. And I remember some of the best career advice I ever got was from a woman who hired me for one of my in-house roles. And she said— and I was pregnant with my first child, first and only— and she said, don’t make any career decisions until at least a year after you come back from maternity leave. And that was huge, right? Because things obviously seem very overwhelming. So I made the same commitment with my job changes, right? And said, OK, I’m panicking a little bit, but I’m not going to make any decisions. I’m going to give it a year. And inevitably it worked out. And so I think, again, trusting your gut is really good. It was hard to leave a role after almost 15 years, but everything was telling me that now, you know, that it was the time. And then same with coming back to the firm. That was not necessarily my first or only option, but you after, know, thinking through the choices, discussing it with my family, and my gut kept saying like, I think I do want to give this a try, I think this work. So being trustful of that, and yes, it was super hard. I mean, the first 6 months, I think, I don’t— I think I blocked it out. It was a bit traumatic, but now I’m getting in a groove and I am really enjoying what I’m doing. So I think there are no wrong choices if you trust your gut. Don’t ever feel like you’re stuck in a role or a position. If you feel that way, reach out, ask for help, find a mentor, especially I think for lawyers and for women lawyers. There’s so many opportunities out there. And just keep an open mind for them.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, thank you for normalizing that feeling, that knot in the stomach in the first few months, ’cause I think many, many people will identify with that. And just a couple of closing questions. So can you talk about any, the cause in particular that’s close to your heart and the work you do with Hopin’ a Cure and ALS?
Rachel: Absolutely. So Hopin’ a Cure was founded actually by a friend and neighbor of mine, John Hopkins, who was a founding member of the Zac Brown Band. He was diagnosed with ALS unexpectedly a few years ago. And really part of this is the sense of the neighborhood I live in. We’re all very close and dedicated to each other. But the more we learned about it, ALS is one of the least researched and most prominent diseases out there globally. And it’s one of those that we firmly believe can be cured if we can get the right money and dedication to research and researching cures. So a bunch of us have banded together to do this. We’ve raised a lot of money and made grants to researchers, experts in this area. And it hits home, I think, seeing someone you know and you’re close to going through the progression of this illness. And I know people have similar experiences, you know, almost everyone has a close friend or a family member who’s dealing with some sort of illness. And I think just giving giving back is what is most important. It doesn’t matter to what, but finding something you care about and finding a way to support it. It doesn’t have to be financially, but by volunteering or again, for the attorneys out there, joining a nonprofit board, I think is a great way to give back.
Aoifinn Devitt: And you’ve already littered this conversation with a lot of great words of wisdom, particularly on the career front. My last question is whether you have any creed or motto that you live by or any words of wisdom that you can leave us with?
Rachel: Yeah, so this might sound a little bit ordinary, but it’s really be authentic, be true to yourself. And I realize that’s easier said than done. And I also realize it’s easier the older you get. I think both because you sort of have more leverage, you’re more established, more experienced, but also you’re just more confident being yourself and doing what you want to do. But I think it’s really never too early to start. At least being as true to yourself as you can. Yeah, I do have to dress professionally sometimes, even though I’d rather be you wearing, know, yoga pants and flip-flops. Little things like that. But bring as much of your true authentic self to work as you can every single day, and don’t be afraid of that. It’s exhausting otherwise, is what I found. And we want, right, we want to live these sort of fulfilling, whole lives. And for me, that’s the best way to do it. So if I’m starting to feel like either I can’t be myself or I’m not doing it, to me that means something needs to change and I need to do some reflection.
Aoifinn Devitt: That’s a wonderful conclusion. Certainly there is little room for exhaustion caused by inauthenticity. Plenty of other things legitimately giving us exhaustion in the lives we lead. So I think your authenticity has shone through this podcast. Rachel, thank you so much for coming here. You have made some pivots in your career that are not easy look effortless and graceful. Remarkable. And similarly, the ease with which you seem to have mounted these learning curves that are seismic in terms of the changes in the profession is quite remarkable. So thank you so much for sharing your journey.
Rachel: Thank you very much. It was my pleasure.
Aoifinn Devitt: I’m Aoifinn Devitt. Thank you for listening to our 50 Faces Focus Series. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring lawyers and their stories, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast The podcast is for information only and should not be construed as investment or legal advice. All views are personal and should not be attributed to the organizations of the host or any guest.
Aoifinn Devitt: Our next guest has pivoted from working in private practice to going in-house and then back again, where she is now a partner at Evershed Sutherland. Hear from her about her evolving practice from privacy into everything AI, how it is so important to understand the technology, and some of the words of wisdom she has gathered along the way. I’m Aoifinn Devitt, and welcome to this 50 Faces focus series. Which showcases the richness and diversity of inspiring people in the law. I’m joined today by Rachel Reed, who’s a partner and head of US Artificial Intelligence at Evershed Sutherland. She’s based in the Atlanta area. She started her career in law at the firm, then spent 18 years in a series of in-house roles before returning to the firm as a partner in May 2023. She’s a board director of Hop on a Cure, a nonprofit dedicated to finding a cure for ALS. Welcome, Rachel. Thanks for joining me today.
Rachel: Thank you for having me. It’s great to be here.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, you’ve certainly had an interesting background, but can you, before we get to joining Evershed Sutherland initially, can we talk about your background before that, such as where you were born, what you studied, and what your path to law was?
Rachel: Absolutely. So I was born in Gainesville, Florida, which makes me a diehard Florida Gator fan. Hope that doesn’t alienate the listeners right off the bat. I ended up staying home for college and attending the University of Florida for undergrad. I had a couple of majors. First, I was a journalism major and switched out of that when I realized I couldn’t spell without spellcheck, and then ended up doing poli sci, getting quite interested in the law, finished up at Florida and went to Harvard Law School, which was a dream come true. Beautiful campus, great professors, learned a ton there, but I also learned that I do not like cold weather, having come from Florida. So after finishing up at Harvard, my choices, I was looking at either coming back to South Florida or to the Atlanta area, really just an area that had a big corporate law practice that was warm and relatively close to home. My family is still all in Gainesville, Florida. So I interned at a couple of firms and applied and ended up at Sutherland, Asbill Brennan, which was one of the firms that had been founded in Atlanta and had kind of a nice Southern feel, but also a very exciting corporate practice, which is what attracted me to that firm.
Aoifinn Devitt: And how did you make your way to this particular field of law, or did that come after your time in in-house roles?
Rachel: It really evolved throughout law school. So one thing I realized I did not like was sort of the debating, the public arguing, the mock court type exercises that we did in law school. I also, you know, as a first year, you have to take a standard set of courses, and I just found myself drawn towards the more transactional ones. So civil procedure and sort of being held to these, candidly, sometimes archaic rules of the court and artificial deadlines and things of that nature just didn’t really interest me as much. And so this is going to sound weird, but things like antitrust and intellectual property law, and I took as a second-year mergers and acquisitions class, it was really just what interested me, what got me excited. And then as I went through law school, I definitely picked pictured myself more as a commercial or transactional lawyer, not getting dressed and going to court every day. And since this is sort of a diversity-based podcast, I will say this was back in, you know, I graduated law school in 2001, and this was back in the day where women had to wear pantyhose and had to wear skirts, especially in courts in the South. And so a lot of that just really didn’t suit my personality very well. I wanted to dress how I wanted to dress and speak how I wanted to speak. And it was just a little bit more permissive. There were still rules back then for women, but it was a little— gave me a little bit more freedom to be myself, to be in a transactional practice.
Aoifinn Devitt: It’s interesting when corporate transactional practice is the relatively more liberal place to dress and behave, so that’s saying something. And then the transition you made from being in private practice to going in-house is a transition that many lawyers make. Can you talk us through what drove that in your case?
Rachel: Yes, and this was again, I mean, sitting where we are now in 2024 and looking back, it doesn’t feel like it was that long ago, but it really was. And it was a decision that a lot of mid-level women associates made at the time they were either getting married or thinking about having children, and it was really just the demands both of the job but of being in the office, which is also very interesting how that has evolved not just over time but post-COVID. But the demands were such that you really couldn’t even envision yourself being able to do that while at the same time raising a family or building a family. So I actually got a cold call from a headhunter about an open position. I was not looking for jobs. It sounded interesting, so I decided to explore it and go for the interview, and it seemed like a great opportunity. I had just gotten engaged, so I was at that phase. I was going to get married, and you could make a good living in-house, presumably with a much better work-life balance. I can tell you I learned a lot about that over the 17, 18 years, and it’s not always a great work-life balance in-house either, but at the time it felt like the right decision. I’ve made a few career moves, not career moves, but job changes over time, and I’ve always just sort of trusted my gut. And so that, that one was telling me it was the right job and I should take it, so I did. It worked out great. It also led me to my you next, know, role after that, and then eventually back to the firm.
Aoifinn Devitt: So pretty interesting. Anything that you didn’t anticipate in terms of the cultural change, maybe a change of pace? Having one client instead of many, not having access maybe to a huge layer of senior legal talent, which you would have in a law firm and maybe you don’t have in an in-house. And what were some of the things you missed maybe and observed maybe that were less expected for you?
Rachel: Yes, well, the support is definitely the hardest part of the transition, I think, from law firm to in-house. And not legal support, right? Secretarial support, IT support. You sort of get pampered in a law firm because you’re the profit center. Right? And once you go in-house, suddenly you’re a cost, an expense, and everything that comes with what you do is an expense to the company who is focused, right, on its profit centers, which are in the business. So that’s definitely an adjustment. What I liked a lot was having more responsibility and more autonomy, as well as a broader breadth of responsibilities. I think especially as a younger associate in a law firm. We do, and I think this is true a lot in the transactional practices as opposed to litigation, we sort of put people by level into pretty narrow predefined roles. So if you’re on an M&A deal, you’re in charge of due diligence or disclosure schedules, right? We don’t give them sort of the breadth of experiences and types of work that you get when you’re part of a small in-house team and you only have 8 people, right, to support a multi-billion dollar company, and you have to take on additional roles. So my first in-house job was with a healthcare IT company. I was hired primarily to support a particular sales organization in a region of the country. So we sold healthcare software and technology products, but before long there’d be another need, right? Like, oh, the business is building a new outsourcing business and they need counsel. So you would take on those other things. And then there are just sort of the side projects, you know, legal has to be involved, but it doesn’t fit neatly in anyone’s space. So there are a lot of opportunities to learn different things, to do different things, and to take on more responsibility. And candidly, as a young associate, that’s not always within your control.
Aoifinn Devitt: What drove the journey back then into private practice after 18 years? That perhaps is less typical of a move.
Rachel: Yes. Although as I go through this journey, I am finding more and more people who are what we call boomerangs, have left the law firm and then came back. So to the earlier, I sort of alluded to in-house is not always a great work-life balance. I had progressed with the company I was at over the course of almost 15 years. I had taken on a huge scope of responsibility. I felt like I had sort of done everything I was capable of accomplishing at that company. And I will say there’s a little bit of a sense of burnout because other people change, right? So one of my roles, for example, was supporting the IT organization. And if there’s a change in one of the IT leadership roles, you sort of feel like you’re going back and doing the same thing again to build those relationships and partnerships. The other thing that I always caution, I don’t know if caution is the right word, but advise lawyers who are thinking of going in-house is that inevitably at most companies, the more senior you become, the more your day-to-day shifts from doing quote unquote real legal work to administration, management, managing up as much as managing down, right? Managing outside counsel, budgets and things of that nature. So I was missing on some level doing more of the pure legal work, but it’s also, you know, that’s what keeps me stimulated is the learning and growing in new things. And when you feel like you’ve sort of hit the ceiling in a role, for someone like me, that means it’s time to move on and find the next opportunity.
Aoifinn Devitt: And speaking about the meat of the legal role, which clearly the areas you’ve been in could not probably be more top of mind, privacy and AI, and privacy was primarily some of the, in the in-house work that you did. Can you talk us through, let’s start with privacy. I’d love to talk about some of the issues and aspects that you think as an expert in this field, we’ll be hearing more about as laypeople perhaps in years to come. What are the hot button items and some of what’s on your mind?
Rachel: So thank you. That’s a great question. And I get accused sometimes of bringing every question back to AI. But I do feel like we are at sort of this pivotal point in this technology evolution, and AI is going to impact everything we do. But taking a step back, right, the world we live in has been shifting more and more over the years to an online, digital, data-driven world. And I think partially COVID accelerated that. But also it’s the rise of social media. It’s the fact that teenagers now, right, that’s how they interact. And that’s been the case for years. And that’s now who’s entering the workforce. So, so many of our interactions socially as a consumer and as a professional are now happening in the digital world. And that creates data, right? So everything now is data-driven. And I imagine a lot of companies are having regular discussions like, how do we become a data-driven company? We’re going to lose a competitive edge, right, if we can’t be a data-driven company. So the drive to collect data, to use it in different ways, and just the proliferation of data in cyberspace, right, that’s happened over the past few years is going to emphasize privacy, I think, above everything else. We’ve seen that that’s how the laws and regulations are evolving. So if you look even just in the US, but certainly in Europe and other places as well, what has happened over the last few years is not just that we’ve had additional states, for example, adopt privacy laws. There have been amendments and states have taken steps to, for example, broaden what they consider personal information, right? So if you go back to the early 2000s when I started practicing, personal information was like your Social Security number. That was basically all anybody cared about protecting. And now we have Internet activity, IP address, geolocation data, sort of all these ways we’re interacting with digital technology that are tracking our devices, right? Not just what we would think of as information associated with our person. So we’re broadening those definitions. We broaden significantly, starting with the California Consumer Privacy Act, the rights of individuals to exert some sort of control over their personal data. And then now we’re layering on top of that artificial intelligence technology, specifically generative AI, which is going to process just these vast quantities and volumes of data unlike anything we’ve seen before. And the privacy implications of that are quite significant. So I think not only are we already seeing this proliferation of laws specific to AI technology, folks are going to find that existing privacy laws are also going to be implicated by that technology. And I think if regulators see a gap or a disconnect between existing privacy legal landscape and AI technology, I think we will see them move very quickly to close those gaps with amendments or additional laws and regulations around privacy and protection of personal data.
Aoifinn Devitt: And how do you see it from a corporate standpoint in terms of a policy around privacy? Clearly there’s that trade-off as a corporation between the amount of data you can use and commercialize versus observing privacy norms. Privacy policy can become virtue signaling of sorts from corporations. And equally from the consumer side, don’t consumers maybe underweight it sometimes, their own privacy, until it really matters because they’re keen to get a free app or something of that nature? How do those kind of human issues factor into the advice you give?
Rachel: I think it’s for most corporations, it’s all about trust, and that can be managed in a number of different ways. And I think it depends a lot on the industry and the type of company. But for privacy laws and ethics generally, I say, always say kind of the good thing is that they’re very principles-based. So you don’t have to understand all, you know, 50 states’ privacy regimes if you follow a set of pretty basic principles that include notice, transparency, consent, accountability. So people want to know what personal information you’re collecting as a business, who you’re sharing it with, what you’re doing with it, how you’re processing it. I think that for all companies, right, if you want your customers, your consumers, even if you’re business to business and you’re doing data to preserve that trust, you have to be candid, transparent, and truthful about your privacy practices. And then I think consent is the other big one. And a lot of times, yes, the consent might be buried in terms and conditions or teeny tiny script when you’re agreeing to download an app or things of that nature. And there my advice is sort of take the reasonable consumer standard and the nature of your business and make sensible risk-based decisions. So if you are a financial services company and you want to kind of share data with retailers for marketing, like that is not something I’m going to expect when I go open a new savings account, right? That then my data is suddenly going to be used for marketing. If I’m downloading a gaming app, right, then I’m going to say, yeah, probably whatever I enter into this app is going to get sold to someone or shared with someone, right? Because that’s the nature of that world and that industry. So I think understanding what reasonable consumers anticipate and then meeting those expectations. So it’s not to say that the financial services company can’t sell my data,. But I would probably make that in a big bold disclosure or something that requires an affirmative click or a checkbox, right? When the person is agreeing to those terms, not buried further down in the terms because it’s not consistent with expectations. So if you think about, you know, what does the consumer expect and what do I need to do to sort of preserve their trust in me as a responsible business? I think that will get you a long way towards privacy compliance.
Aoifinn Devitt: That certainly seems like a very fundamental way of determining what regulation should be in place or what approach should be taken. When it comes to AI, we’re probably all dealing with such a novelty and the deluge of information and expectations and a sense of not knowing the direction of travel really of different areas. How do we make sense of that? And what’s really focusing your mind from a legal standpoint right now when you speak with companies and your clients?
Rachel: So number one, and where I always start, is understanding the technology itself. And a lot of lawyers in particular look at me like I’m a bit crazy when I say that, but I started as a baby lawyer doing technology contracts and trying to understand life insurance systems and things of that nature. But if you don’t understand what the technology is, how it’s developed, how it’s trained, and how it’s implemented, it will be virtually impossible to advise from a legal perspective or even from a business or a risk perspective on how to appropriately manage that technology. And it’s not intuitive. So every— I’ve been doing a lot of speaking on AI for companies, for clients, for lawyers across the board. And the slide I always spend a lot of time on is actually a diagram of the tech stack, right? So how, when you implement generative AI solution, what it actually looks like, and there are 5 layers. Layers, you know, including your infrastructure layer, which is basically either the cloud environment or the data center. There’s layers of software, there’s where the actual large language model sits. And then there are layers on top of that. And that has been eye-opening for a lot of the folks I’ve spoken with. But it helps explain where you can control what a generative AI model does and where you can’t, and helps you understand what questions you should be asking the vendor if it’s a vendor solution or your own IT if it’s an internally developed solution. And it also helps again, as lawyers, a lot of time our job is to apply law to facts. And I think these are critical facts, right? So you need to collect the relevant facts about the model. How was it trained? What data does it use as inputs, right? What guardrails have been put to restrict or contain the outputs? Things like abuse monitoring, or you can sometimes customize systems so they’re less likely to put defamatory language or offensive language, right, as outputs, things of that nature. But again, if you don’t understand the technology and the building blocks that went into it, it’s going to be very difficult both to really understand why generative AI comes with the inherent risks it does come with, things like bias, right, things like hallucinations, it’s because of the way those models were built and trained. So it’s to help you understand that. And then as, and I like to assess AI in terms of use cases, right? So the technology has such broad functionality and applicability, you could apply it to almost anything. So when a business is trying to make responsible and ethical decisions, I say you need to look at it as a specific use case. And first you need to understand the technology And then you need to understand who’s going to use the technology and how. And then you have what you need to do a proper legal assessment, right? Looking at the current laws and applying it to that particular use case.
Aoifinn Devitt: And with both of these areas, privacy and AI, what I think of when I think of these is, are we running to standstill to a degree because it is advancing so quickly? Can the legal side keep up? And it seems a little bit like the cybersecurity dilemma that, you know, we are furiously trying to keep up with the hackers who are ahead of us in that respect. How would you say the legal capabilities around these fast-moving areas are developing?
Rachel: So the law will always lag behind the technology. That’s something we’ve been seeing for decades. The EU is acting much faster than the US, as we’ve seen, and they’re trying to keep up. And that will likely sort of set the benchmark. But what we have done in the United States with these sort of broad federal regulatory regimes is cast a wide net. So, for example, the FTC Act generally prohibits unfair and deceptive trade practices in interstate commerce. And that law has been used historically in the absence of federal privacy legislation to enforce privacy violations along the lines of my privacy notices X, but I’m doing Y with the personal data I collect. That has already been applied to cases of what the FTC has deemed to be misuse of AI technology. So back to those principles, the same ones often apply to AI: notice, transparency, consent. If you’re interacting with an AI system, if it’s making a decision that could impact an individual, certain rights, inherent rights are inferred in those instances. And so we see the federal agencies using existing laws. If they find anything that they think is unfair or deceptive to consumers generally, they will act on it. We’ve seen similar enforcement by other agencies such as the Fair Housing Administration. If you use an AI algorithm to distribute rental housing ads to web browsers, right, and that algorithm is triggered by assigning a certain zip code based on the IP address, and that zip code determines whether the rental you know, ad is displayed. In the United States, zip code is a proxy for race, so that violates the Fair Housing Act. So what I would encourage folks is two things. We are not going to be able to stem, I don’t believe, the proliferation of AI systems and everything we do. I think that horse is out of the barn and it’s not coming back, and it’s going to rapidly proliferate because in the tech world right? It’s a race to not be left behind. So every SaaS vendor, right, every infrastructure as a service vendor, every real big tech vendor is enhancing their products and services with AI right now. And they’re just going to push it out to their customers, right? And customers are not really going to have a choice. The choice is going to be use the old technology or use what the vendor is now offering. And the idea is to use it responsibly, as best we can in the absence of prescriptive laws and regulations, right? So we’re going to have to use sort of responsibility and ethics as a guide. We have things out there like the NIST, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Standards and Technology has an AI risk management framework that is also principles-based that companies should be applying. So I think it’s finding that medium, making sure you have governance in place and that folks are thinking about the implications of the AI you’re using and deploying, remembering that we do have an existing set of laws and regulations that can be applied, and then really staying attuned and staying nimble for the developments that will inevitably come at some point.
Aoifinn Devitt: And you touched on this. It’s clear that AI is going mainstream. It’s being integrated into everything. Do you think this as a practice area will stand alone going forward? Will it be folded into, maybe sit alongside intellectual property or privacy or where if somebody, a lawyer entering the profession now, wants to specialize in this area, where will this practice area sit?
Rachel: So what we have decided as a firm at Evershed Sutherland is that it’s going to sit in the data privacy, cybersecurity, and technology function. I think it goes hand in hand with data privacy, and I think the two are inseparable. The same way though, I think data privacy goes hand in hand with cybersecurity, and I know some companies separate those functions and treat them differently. What I believe is going to happen and why I think clients and law firms will be best served by combining those functions is that eventually, at least in the US, the legal and regulatory landscape is going to become so complex and there’s going to be so much overlap between the privacy laws, the security laws, and the AI laws and regulations that you will inevitably have to become well-versed in all of those bodies of law to be effective in your role as a lawyer. And so they’ll naturally become combined and become part of the same function. I think the part that’s going to be hard for some sort of pure privacy lawyers to get up to speed is that you really do have to understand technology. So there’s sort of an intellectual property rights component of that. There’s a, do I know generally how hardware and software is run in a business? Those are things that can be learned, right? They’re not inherent. You don’t have to go back to law school to learn these things. But I think having an open mind and really starting to understand the tech world, how technology is built, and then how it’s licensed regularly to customers, and how does a software as a service differ from an on-premise platform, just those types of things folks will have to get up to speed need. But as far as sort of a legal practice area, I think with that underlying foundation in the tech, privacy, cyber, and AI fit very nicely together. And if you’re not combining them, you’ll need to have, you know, make a friend in the other practice group and have close partnerships with others who work in those areas.
Aoifinn Devitt: Clearly a highly dynamic and fast-growing area. I’d love to change gears now a little bit just to what you said was tantalizing in terms of the work-life balance. And how that can ebb and flow regardless of being in private practice or in-house. And this podcast, as you noted, has a particular focus on minority voices, less heard voices, and around diversity. I’d love to hear from you, I suppose, how you rate the legal profession today. How do you think it’s doing today, maybe compared to when you started your career, and any impressions on what it can do better?
Rachel: That is a very deep question. It’s near and dear to my heart. And I want to answer honestly, but also be kind of respectful of the organizations that have given me you opportunities, know, over my career. There have definitely been improvements, but not nearly enough in my opinion. And I think that’s true for both in-house counsel as well as law firm counsel. So one of the organizations I was fortunate to be sort of nominated to participate in when I was in-house with something called the 30% Club. And they endeavor, right, their mission is to get at least 30% women at senior management and board-level positions. And so when I first went to the first meeting and you get matched up with a mentor, my first question was, why 30% when women are 50%+ of the population, right? And so if that tells you anything, right, it’s like, Yes, people care more now. They’re doing more, but it’s, it’s still not enough. In the law firm, I mean, again, some of the old-fashioned ways have gone by the side, but I still hear stories about certain judges in the Deep South, right, that female lawyers are like, if I showed up in pants, I would be kicked out of the courtroom. I think that is ridiculous, right, in this day and age. The other thing that I’m still seeing as a challenge is is the pressure on hours and time for younger and mid-level associates. And I see it in ways that appear to affect the women more so than the men. And I will say I have a stay-at-home husband. That was a decision we made right after I finished my maternity leave. And I— we have one child. She’s now 13. She’s amazing. But he is the parent that drives her to school, that picks her up, right? That takes her to bass lessons in the afternoon. And when we get the call that she’s not feeling well at school, goes to pick her up, right? There are just a lot of responsibilities of parenting. And so sometimes I even think, am I the right person to be telling people how to find this work-life balance when I have a full-time adult basically helping manage my family and other people don’t? What I am trying to do back at the firm is be a resource, a sounding board for all of the female associates. I want them to see someone who hopefully has made it work, but also am willing to share with them that it’s really hard sometimes, right? And this is a demanding job and there are times when you just have to make decisions and sort of hope for the best. And I think as a young woman in this field, I think we feel, especially feel the pressure to not say no to more work, to not admit that it’s gotten to be too much or I need a break or I need someone else to help with this because I think we worry it’ll be seen as weakness or lack of commitment or things of that nature. So I am trying to help with coaching to say like, no, that’s just life, right? Everybody needs a break sometimes. There is absolutely absolutely no reason you can’t be both a successful law firm lawyer and a parent and a spouse. And, you know, whether you’re a pet parent or whatever you are, it’s okay to have interests and commitments outside of the office. And I try my best to both demonstrate that with what I do, as well as both talk the talk and walk the walk, and hope that I can help at least our firm retain female talent. And make it just a really safe and comfortable place for them to work and grow.
Aoifinn Devitt: That is wonderful. And sometimes I think it’s about life hacks as well, sharing life hacks that maybe have made it easy for you because clearly you have a massive amount to stay abreast of in terms of technology, privacy changes, AI. And those are things that, you know, take time and the job is hard. So I think combining that with a family, a foot cannot be taken off the pedal much in this profession. And I suppose it’s a way of how to keep it on while not compromising other sides. So I do think sharing practical things can often matter quite a bit. And just a final point on that, have you seen any particular things like affinity groups, women’s circles, special kinds of leave, maybe emergency childcare, or any particular hacks at a professional level that you found particularly impactful?
Rachel: What I found most helpful is just building a support network. And for me, that’s both with, among my clients. So I have an Atlanta Women Attorneys group where we meet really just to socialize, to vent, to form and deepen friendships. There’s really not a pure business aspect to it, but I find that the more you make the time to connect with similarly situated, right, high-powered, hardworking moms in other positions and just being able, like you said, to share tips, best practices. I think at our last event, we were exchanging Amazon shopping carts because someone had found the perfect under-desk treadmill that you could walk on. So things of that nature, really just building a network and a community. And then I think it’s just not being afraid to ask for help. There are a lot of amazing women out there who want to champion other women, myself included, and I’ve been the beneficiary of many of them along my career. So really just understanding that you are not alone in what you’re doing and reaching out if you need help, but looking for these opportunities to sort of form these networks and groups because you can all rely on each other and you’ll all be the better for it.
Aoifinn Devitt: That’s a good segue actually to the question on reflections around mentors and key people, given you have clearly a set of peers there. Was there anyone in particular that mentored you? And sometimes the answer to this is no. But I’d love to know, through your career, was anybody particularly impactful?
Rachel: I have had several along the way, and interestingly, the two that come to mind are both men. So I do want to say it doesn’t take, you know, you don’t need a working mom as a mentor if that’s what you are. I think you can pick up really great advice from others. But one was when I first started at the firm, and it was a partner who who took me under his wing and really taught me the basics of software and technology law, which started me down this path. And it’s really, I think, when someone just makes a commitment of their time to your learning and betterment, from someone like me, it really makes a big impact. And so I think look for that, look for cues. If someone’s willing to take your meeting request and sit down with you for an hour and explain something to you, like, that’s a good person to kind of stay close to and think about as a mentor. And the other was in one of my in-house roles, one of the general counsels. I think learned a lot from him in the non-legal aspects of in-house work in particular, but even a law firm, right? We’re a business as well. We have accountability to our other partners, to the COO, and, you know, so it’s still the aspects of business and how much of it is really relationship-focused. So sort of about building trust, maintaining trust, figuring out the best way to work and collaborate with either your peers or whoever’s higher up in the organization. So I think it was two different things. You know, the first mentor was more substantively, and then the second was more of the soft skills. But I think both of it, it’s taking the time I think everyone is so busy. If someone’s taking the time, it shows that they care and they’re willing to invest in you, and people really appreciate that, myself included.
Aoifinn Devitt: I think it’s interesting, people often say, how will I know who my mentors should be? I think they make themselves known because of this behavior. Often it is a natural thing. And staying on the personal reflections, when you look back at your career so far, private practice, in-house, and then back to private practice, were there any particular highs or lows that you can recall and maybe any lessons learned from the low points?
Rachel: There are definitely points, and it’s usually early on in each move when you second-guess yourself, right? And it’s like, oh my God, did I just make a terrible mistake in switching to this job or that? And I think I’ve had them. So I 1-2-3 every time I switched. And so my advice is be patient with yourself. And I remember some of the best career advice I ever got was from a woman who hired me for one of my in-house roles. And she said— and I was pregnant with my first child, first and only— and she said, don’t make any career decisions until at least a year after you come back from maternity leave. And that was huge, right? Because things obviously seem very overwhelming. So I made the same commitment with my job changes, right? And said, OK, I’m panicking a little bit, but I’m not going to make any decisions. I’m going to give it a year. And inevitably it worked out. And so I think, again, trusting your gut is really good. It was hard to leave a role after almost 15 years, but everything was telling me that now, you know, that it was the time. And then same with coming back to the firm. That was not necessarily my first or only option, but you after, know, thinking through the choices, discussing it with my family, and my gut kept saying like, I think I do want to give this a try, I think this work. So being trustful of that, and yes, it was super hard. I mean, the first 6 months, I think, I don’t— I think I blocked it out. It was a bit traumatic, but now I’m getting in a groove and I am really enjoying what I’m doing. So I think there are no wrong choices if you trust your gut. Don’t ever feel like you’re stuck in a role or a position. If you feel that way, reach out, ask for help, find a mentor, especially I think for lawyers and for women lawyers. There’s so many opportunities out there. And just keep an open mind for them.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, thank you for normalizing that feeling, that knot in the stomach in the first few months, ’cause I think many, many people will identify with that. And just a couple of closing questions. So can you talk about any, the cause in particular that’s close to your heart and the work you do with Hopin’ a Cure and ALS?
Rachel: Absolutely. So Hopin’ a Cure was founded actually by a friend and neighbor of mine, John Hopkins, who was a founding member of the Zac Brown Band. He was diagnosed with ALS unexpectedly a few years ago. And really part of this is the sense of the neighborhood I live in. We’re all very close and dedicated to each other. But the more we learned about it, ALS is one of the least researched and most prominent diseases out there globally. And it’s one of those that we firmly believe can be cured if we can get the right money and dedication to research and researching cures. So a bunch of us have banded together to do this. We’ve raised a lot of money and made grants to researchers, experts in this area. And it hits home, I think, seeing someone you know and you’re close to going through the progression of this illness. And I know people have similar experiences, you know, almost everyone has a close friend or a family member who’s dealing with some sort of illness. And I think just giving giving back is what is most important. It doesn’t matter to what, but finding something you care about and finding a way to support it. It doesn’t have to be financially, but by volunteering or again, for the attorneys out there, joining a nonprofit board, I think is a great way to give back.
Aoifinn Devitt: And you’ve already littered this conversation with a lot of great words of wisdom, particularly on the career front. My last question is whether you have any creed or motto that you live by or any words of wisdom that you can leave us with?
Rachel: Yeah, so this might sound a little bit ordinary, but it’s really be authentic, be true to yourself. And I realize that’s easier said than done. And I also realize it’s easier the older you get. I think both because you sort of have more leverage, you’re more established, more experienced, but also you’re just more confident being yourself and doing what you want to do. But I think it’s really never too early to start. At least being as true to yourself as you can. Yeah, I do have to dress professionally sometimes, even though I’d rather be you wearing, know, yoga pants and flip-flops. Little things like that. But bring as much of your true authentic self to work as you can every single day, and don’t be afraid of that. It’s exhausting otherwise, is what I found. And we want, right, we want to live these sort of fulfilling, whole lives. And for me, that’s the best way to do it. So if I’m starting to feel like either I can’t be myself or I’m not doing it, to me that means something needs to change and I need to do some reflection.
Aoifinn Devitt: That’s a wonderful conclusion. Certainly there is little room for exhaustion caused by inauthenticity. Plenty of other things legitimately giving us exhaustion in the lives we lead. So I think your authenticity has shone through this podcast. Rachel, thank you so much for coming here. You have made some pivots in your career that are not easy look effortless and graceful. Remarkable. And similarly, the ease with which you seem to have mounted these learning curves that are seismic in terms of the changes in the profession is quite remarkable. So thank you so much for sharing your journey.
Rachel: Thank you very much. It was my pleasure.
Aoifinn Devitt: I’m Aoifinn Devitt. Thank you for listening to our 50 Faces Focus Series. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring lawyers and their stories, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast The podcast is for information only and should not be construed as investment or legal advice. All views are personal and should not be attributed to the organizations of the host or any guest.
