The Abstract

What do companies and clients really want from lawyers? How can you align your career with your values while pursuing your ambitions? What makes a world-class legal operations team?In the fourth episode of The Abstract, we sit down with the brilliant Akshay Verma, Head of Legal Operations at Coinbase, as he tackles these burning questions and more. Drawing from his extensive two-decade journey, Akshay Verma shares a wealth of wisdom — from his early days practicing environmental law at law firms to leading in-house legal ops teams for companies at various stages and scales.You’ll get the chance to peek into Akshay’s Critical Lawyering Skills course at Santa Clara University School of Law, and listen as he dives deep into topics like charting your path after law school, navigating career transitions, and finding meaningful employment. He also offers advice to companies hiring early-career legal professionals on how to stay competitive and attract top talent.Topics:Introduction – 00:00Navigating career transitions in law, pt.1 – 1:11Going in-house and becoming a business counsel – 4:22The evolution of the legal ops role – 9:02Navigating career transitions in law, pt.2 – 10:26Heading legal operations at Meta & Coinbase – 11:35Leveraging job interviews to lay down the roadmap – 13:40Akshay’s background in teaching at law school – 15:57Critical lawyering skills that law school doesn’t teach – 18:05Integrating your values into career decisions – 20:33What companies and clients want from lawyers – 25:42Attracting top legal talent amid changing priorities – 29:14How legal and legal ops is changing – 31:31Connect with us:Akshay Verma - https://www.linkedin.com/in/akshay-verma-esq/Tyler Finn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerhfinnSpotDraft - https://www.linkedin.com/company/spotdraftSpotDraft is a leading CLM platform that solves your end-to-end contract management issues. Visit https://www.spotdraft.com/ to learn more.

Join Adam Glick, a former litigator and Head of Legal at Intercom, as we discuss nonlinear career paths, hiring, building an authentic network, and evangelizing the value of a legal department to high-growth public and private tech companies. Adam has decades of in-house experience, is a profound legal executive, and provides practical advice on becoming customer-centric, so legal serves as an “enabler” for the business.

If you’re an in-house attorney, how do you set yourself up for learning and growth throughout a long career? How should you define success? Is it being named the General Counsel of a high-growth company? Or are there other paths for an interesting and inspiring career?Join former DocuSign Deputy General Counsel Doug Luftman for an in-depth conversation around mentorship, management, and fulfillment at work. We talk through how Doug positioned himself to take on executive-level leadership roles, including as General Counsel of two different tech companies. We’ll also explore how he learned to thrive in high-pressure, cross-functional environments where constant learning and growth were required. And, in what can be a challenging job hunting environment, he’ll share tips for managing unexpected career transitions and emerging stronger on the other side.

Megan Niedermeyer, Chief Legal Officer at Apollo.io, and Brenda Yun Perez, Senior Legal Operations Manager, dive into the evolving landscape of legal roles. They discuss the balance between defined responsibilities and the limitless potential of legal functions. Topics include the integration of legal into operational processes like establishing a Deal Desk and managing HR. The conversation also highlights the growing importance of non-lawyers in legal teams, strategic prioritization in legal operations, and fostering an ownership mindset for better outcomes.

Next month, we’ll be launching our new podcast: “The Abstract.”Join Tyler Finn, Head of Community and Growth at SpotDraft, as he interviews leading general counsels, chief legal officers, and legal executives. Our conversations will cover how they’ve nurtured their careers, grown in their roles, become true operators within their businesses, and even taken on other C-suite positions.Tyler spent half a decade building the legal community as an Advisor to TechGC, which grew in membership by nearly 10x during his tenure. He also has deep expertise leading privacy and public policy as a member of in-house legal teams at a variety of high-growth start-ups like Foursquare.We’re so excited to introduce you to some of the leading in-house legal minds of today and tomorrow. Join us as we work to go beyond the practical and make sense of the “The Abstract.”