Todd Smithline, CEO of Bonterms, describes the importance of developing skills that go beyond your legal expertise. Salesmanship, project management, and information synthesis all lend themselves to adaptability in both legal and non-legal roles. He describes the value of feedback, how to offer value to your clients, and how to stay positive.

Bonterms is the two-sided negotiation platform built on Standard Agreements. We solve contracts for Procurement and Sales, while keeping Legal happy. Average negotiation times on the Bonterms Platform are measured in minutes. Bonterms is lawyer-led and funded by XYZ Capital and Wilson Sonsini.

“ So I learned how to create a brand, how to create a product. Because even as lawyers, we are selling a product. I learned how to price a product, how to market a product, how to get a customer. How do you get a recurring customer? … I made the full step, the crazy step, the completely off the pier and into the bay step of stopping being a lawyer altogether. But even after that last leap, I took all my friends with me. I created this committee of 100 lawyers. I had a relationship with my prior firm. I was able to leverage the next step.”

“The one piece of advice I think I'd give lawyers who are interested in doing this: Sometimes I see this thing on LinkedIn where people say "Recovering lawyer" or "Former lawyer" or something like that. And I think I read that differently maybe than it's intended because I read it as them distancing themselves from that expertise and that experience. Whereas I think one of the easiest ways to make this move as a lawyer is to build on it, right? I think that all three of us did that, right? We didn't desert our former expertise, our relationships. We used them to spring to the next thing.”

“ I think the highest prized skill right now, across companies, is the people who can synthesize disparate information. And communicate it well, but at the same time deal with complex situations and nuance. This is something a lot of lawyers are trained to do. One of the skills that we really develop with lawyers is concentration. Paying attention to the details, pulling together disparate facts, and synthesizing information. So I think that is really going to be the coin of the realm going forward.”

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01:12 - Meet David Wang

03:27 - Meet Todd Smithline

10:25 - Taking the leap away from legal

18:02 - Ensuring success in any role

27:47 - Non-legal roles to pursue

34:29 - How to approach law school

54:32 - Defining your value

55:52 - Keep or redline

57:45 - Where to find Todd

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Our hosts and Erin Abrams, Chief Legal Officer at Via, discuss the role of in-house counsel in business decision-making. Erin emphasizes collaboration, early involvement, and building a culture of trust and safety within legal teams.

Via builds innovative software to enable our customers — cities, transit agencies, transport operators, school districts, universities, and corporations — to transform their legacy transportation systems into advanced digital networks.

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“ In addition to having a framework for how decisions are made, I think it's really important to have a framework around the life cycle of what you're trying to accomplish. And I think of it very much in sort of a product lens, but what I've seen be really successful at organizations, especially as they're starting to scale, is really going to the teams and saying things like, "legal can't come at the end.””

“With our joint ownership model, I think part of that means not running away from the consequences of your decision and saying, okay, we mitigated this risk to a place that the business and the legal team felt comfortable.”

“There's not necessarily tons of in-house positions for litigators, but what you can do is become a professional risk mitigator. You can kind of shift and say, okay, I'm really good at pattern recognition. I know what has led to litigation in nine out of 10 cases. So now that I'm looking at this much earlier in the pipeline, I'm looking at it and a contract that seems vague. You know, there's an area of sort of like a gray area. You know, it feels a little bit squishy to me. I've seen litigation result in similar circumstances. Okay, well, this is like a risk I can mitigate.”

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00:48 - Meet our co-host Ken

04:01 - Meet our guest Erin

09:25 - What effective partnership looks like

14:18 - Evaluating business risks

21:41 - Making challenging decisions

28:35 - Using compliance as a competitive advantage

31:35 - How to hire well

42:53 - Keep or redline?

45:30 - Where to find Erin

45:52 - Final takeaways

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Aaron Kornblum, head of legal at Oleria, discusses why security functions are increasingly important for legal departments. Aaron covers the evolution of security threats (from hacking to phishing to smishing), and describes the importance of identity management. Listen for insights on integrating security practices, fostering accountability, and leveraging legal frameworks to enhance both security and customer trust.

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CINDY:  The best defense is a great offense in terms of, do we have our processes in place? Do we have our playbooks? Have we tabletopped? and this is assuming you have all your fundamentals, like all your tools, technology in place to really establish the security for the company.

AARON:  It's that phishing attack to get Cindy's username and password. It's that smish, it's that fake text message to Jessica that is purportedly from her CEO asking for the password to send a wire transfer to the bank account. It's more and more prevalent to get in the door and then do all kinds of bad things once they're inside that juicy interior environment. So understanding what normal behavior looks like within your own environment, within your own ecosystem, is more important than ever. That hygiene, if you will, of accounts and account credentials, passwords, two factor auth, or multi factor authentication, to ensure that the person trying to log in really is the person trying who's trying to log or no one are supposed to be logging in.

AARON:  If you think about some of the areas that we just touched on, so information security, so that building the great wall to keep out folks. But also inside the company, provisioning access and then reporting or doing compliance work. These might be separate teams within a single organization. Maybe it's a small company, and it's one person. But regardless, having that robust communication between the different parts of the company responsible, say for, maybe it's the CIO, and the CTO, and the Head of Legal or GC, and then the Chief Information Security Officer, each one of these professionals has a role in helping to build this portfolio of defensive measures.

AARON:  What do you have in place to protect your identity security? How often do you conduct training for your employees? It's much more difficult to secure, much more expensive to, to take down.

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00:37 - Meet our co-host, Cindy

01:58 - Meet our guest, Aaron
05:34 - Security incidents that keep us up at night

07:27 - Being prepared

15:43 - Ensuring cohesion

19:21 - Risk mitigation

25:43 - What’s in the news

34:14 - Keep or redline?

38:16 - Final take aways

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In legal leadership, credibility is key. In this episode, we’ll discuss the importance of earning and maintaining influence. Lisa Keith, General Counsel for Steve Madden, emphasizes aligning legal counsel with your business’ goals, and how legal professionals can effectively take part in business decisions. Tune in to gain practical advice on enhancing influence within your organization, balancing business and legal perspectives, and building crucial relationships with key stakeholders.

Steven Madden, Ltd. is globally recognized as a leading company in the fashion industry. What began as a modest $1100 investment in 1990 has developed into one of the most iconic brands in footwear.

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"I would say that you really need to pick your battles… I think you have to figure out the right advice to give within the confines of the business you work for and what is realistic, you know? And so I think if you come up with something that is palatable to the business. Then they will hopefully listen to you."

 "I often try to think of my job as kind of like the moral and ethical center of the company. And I think to be a general counsel, you have to have a very strong sense of values… I'm not saying you have to be like a goody two shoes, but you have to kind of have a good sense of what you think is right and wrong and you have to let that guide you and your decision making. So sometimes it's not even about the legal, it's just about your instincts of morality."

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01:13 - Question of the Day

02:49 - Jim’s journey

06:47 - Lisa’s journey

10:31 - How to influence business

15:16 - GC/CEO relationships

25:54 - Acting with integrity

36:28 - Keep or redline?

41:14 - Find Lisa Keith on LinkedIn

41:54 - Final takeaways

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Find Lisa Keith on LinkedIn

Find Jessica Nguyen on LinkedIn

Find Jim Shaughnessy on LinkedIn
More about Docusign

The best in-house legal teams aren’t just legal. They help their organizations solve complex issues, make the right decisions, and even grow their businesses. That’s right, legal isn’t just a cost center.

In-House is a podcast featuring top leaders in the legal industry. Tune in as Jessica Nguyen, award-winning Deputy General Counsel of AI Innovation and Trust at Docusign and former Chief Legal Officer of Lexion, interviews leading in-house counsel and legal experts. Our guests navigate the ever-shifting landscape of the latest issues, current events, and regulations - while balancing the needs of their organizations.

Whether you’re new or highly experienced, In-House is here to help you enhance your career.