Enhancing Resilience and Supporting Good Governance by Tapping Legal Expertise

On today's episode of The Founder's Sandbox, our host Brenda McCabe speaks with Lisa Greer Quateman – Corporate Board member, recently retired Attorney, and advocate of a greater presence for legal expertise on Boards of Directors. They speak about “Enhancing resilience and supporting good governance by tapping legal expertise“- how to incorporate legal practices into your startup to enhance the governing principles of your company.

You can contact Lisa or find out more about her at:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-greer-quateman/

https://www.directorsandboards.com/articles/singlemy-board-journey-lisa-greer-quateman

[email protected]

 

00:04
Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe. I own and operate a consulting firm, Next Act Advisors. At Next Act Advisors, I have a very simple mission. I want to assist.

00:33
entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in building scalable, well-governed and resilient businesses. The Founders Sandbox is an additional channel to feature founders, business owners, corporate directors and professional service providers who like me want to use the power of the private enterprise, be it small, medium or large, to create change for a better world.

01:03
Through storytelling with a guest on topics around resilience, a purpose-driven company and sustainable growth, my goal is to provide a really fun sandbox environment where we can equip one startup founder at a time to build a better world through great corporate governance. So today my guest, I'm absolutely delighted, is Lisa Greer-Quaitman, a corporate board member.

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recently retired attorney and advocate of a greater presence for legal expertise on boards of directors. Lisa and I are going to talk about enhancing the resilience and supporting good governance by tapping legal expertise. Thank you, Lisa, for joining me today in the Founder Sandbox. Brenda, thank you. It's a pleasure to be with you.

01:58
You know, I've known you ever since I landed in Los Angeles. We both were members of Women Corporate Directors. At that time, you were the LA managing partner of Pulsinelli and also a member, I'm working on getting your corporate board skills kind of honed at the National Association of Corporate Directors and the Pacific Southwest Chapter. Today,

02:27
You're a board member of the National Association of Corporate Directors, and you have chaired the marketing and communications committee, of which I was a member. And we learned a lot about social marketing and social media. Didn't we, Lisa? We did. We really did, especially during the pandemic. Oh my goodness. So kudos to you. And as a consequence of some of the work we did there, I got my

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I guess the goal to actually go ahead and launch a podcast. So thank you for inspiring me. You know, eight years later, I've been in LA. I am also thankful for you. I am certain that my listeners who are many founders and business owners use legal expertise, but I think you're gonna shed some more light on why it's important from a corporate board expertise. I want you today,

03:22
to really demystify what it is that a board of directors does, right? And now that you're a full board member on several companies in the public sector, as well as private and nonprofit, how you do that in terms of bringing in legal expertise is what this podcast is about today. So thank you for coming in here and demystifying what a corporate board is. Oh, great. I'll do my best.

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Thank you. So tell me, I always like to start with a story. Where did it all begin? You know, you chose to go to law school, although you were considering doing an MBA. So why did you choose pursuing illegal background? Well, I was I was a little confused at the time, because I thought that if I went to law school, I would not have to sell myself. That if I went to MBA school, I would have to sell myself. So I also had

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a grandfather who had acquired some real estate in his lifetime and I was his first grandchild. And he told me in no uncertain terms that I would eventually need to be responsible for taking care of this real estate. And I did not want to be taken advantage of in the market. I wanted to learn my way around. So for those reasons, I went to law school. I then discovered that you have to sell yourself if you want to have a law practice. So that was where I got that wrong.

04:49
I guess I did graduate to running marketing and communications for the NACD chapter. So somewhere along the way, I figured out how to make rain as they say. Fantastic. So in addition to running the family real estate business and lawyering, you often describe your own entrepreneurial experience, right? So you, after law school, worked for a large law firm. You were on the East coast and eventually came here to the West coast. And at one point,

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stage you decided to go out on your own. Tell us about your entrepreneurial experience. You know, it was fantastic. I really, I can relate to these founders and founders were among my most favorite clients along the way. I was in a big law firm and I've been, I was practicing for long enough that back when I was getting started, it was still quote unquote

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women attorneys. And at the time it was okay for a client to tell a senior partner in a law firm he didn't want a woman working on his case or working on his account or something like that. So for me, I decided to sort of jump off the diving board out of the large firm environment and practice on my own for a little while and see how that would go. And it was eye opening because the clients that came with me did not discriminate against women. They wanted me for my

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experience and expertise. So I ended up practicing on my own and building a boutique law firm over a long period of time before eventually merging back into a large national firm for a new entrepreneurial opportunity to open a Los Angeles, California office for a national law firm that had no presence there and to become the managing partner there. So the entrepreneurial bug can be in you whether you're in a small environment or a big environment. I guess that's what you call

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And I know that you talked about when making that decision to actually go to a larger national firm and bring it to the West Coast because it didn't have a presence, you did that also to create opportunities for partners, right? So it was building a structure for those members of the practice to have a career path, which is, I think, a sign of purpose-driven organization.

07:15
back to Oh, that's well put. Yes, amazing. Amazing what you did. Well, while you were lawyering and the managing partner for personnel here in Los Angeles, you got the urge and the interest to develop your own path for board positions, starting with nonprofits. And then you

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joined and participated in the National Association of Corporate Directors opportunities for education as well as giving back. Today you're sitting on the board of the National Association of Corporate Directors, Pacific Southwest. How did you share yourself or share, how did you position yourself? Because oftentimes general counsels or lawyers just aren't present as full board members, right?

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Oftentimes you're the general counsel, you are the secretary of the board, but how did you position yourself for full board membership?

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There's a preconception in some quarters about lawyers on boards. Okay, don't put a lawyer on the board, the lawyer on the board is going to interfere with the work of the corporate counselor, the general counselor, second guess, the general counsel. Okay, or another another myth is the lawyer on the board is going to poo poo every good idea, won't take any risks at all has no entrepreneurial spirit. So in my case,

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And I learned this through one of your other podcast guests. In fact, be sure to highlight your business experience and your business acumen and demonstrate that you can build a business. So in my case, I had run the law firms. I had been running the real estate business. And so I attempted to highlight that experience as an example of the business building expertise that I could bring into the boardroom.

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layered with the acumen that you get from being a lawyer. And guess what? On all the boards where I serve, they're thrilled to have a lawyer in the boardroom now. And they obviously are not the ones who said we can't have one. And you see more and more people with legal expertise in boardrooms now because they understand not eliminating risk, but managing risk.

09:45
You know, many of my listeners are founders, right? So I love that shout out you made that you actually some of your favorite clients are founders and business owners. They have an early stage advisory boards, right? And they use professional service firms, legal firms. I published a post in LinkedIn and on my website, www.

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Why good governance starts early. And I provide there five crucial steps to board formation. How can you make that a bit, I guess I provide a real case scenario of some of your activity in the boardroom, right? To show not only the legal expertise, but looking for strategic opportunities, with some of the regulation and the like.

10:43
You're highlighting a very important issue. And I just want to reinforce what you said about the post that you did on LinkedIn. I read it and I thought it's really a must read for founders because you're covering so many important issues. And in my case, because as you mentioned, I retired out of law practice. I particularly liked...

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your statement that silver haired people can be founders silver bullets. So let's, let's keep that as a tagline for as long as we can, even though my hair, I don't know, you can look here. It's a podcast, but it's not that silver yet, but we're trying. So in my LinkedIn article, among the five crucial steps, I talk about legal documents, can you embellish beyond the legal documents for a founder?

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other areas of expertise that founders need to look at? Well, you highlighted some legal documents that founders wouldn't necessarily think about, and lawyers might not necessarily think about. So I really do commend your listeners to listen to your sandbox all the time and to read that particular LinkedIn post. The expertise that you wanna bring into your boardroom, I think should be varied.

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fantastic because of what we talked about in terms of a knowledge of a regulatory landscape and so forth. But the entrepreneurial side, the finance side, the business side, the marketing side, try to populate that early boardroom with all of that expertise. And I think you can then build a strong foundation for growth. Thank you. You know, what else? So what other guidance?

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Could you provide when a company has moved from early stage to growth stage and they're into a potential eventual transaction? I loved your term. I think you called it legal fluff and fold. Can you provide some examples of the holistic view of corporate governance when you're working towards an eventual transaction? What have you seen in boardrooms? And what have you seen actually with clients of your own?

13:05
I saw loyalty to the, for example, the attorneys who helped incorporate a business and may not have grown with the business so that when the company came to a transaction stage, some big funding or M&A merger and acquisition activity, those attorneys weren't necessarily

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attorneys who practice in that arena all the time. So be loyal to your advisors, but also be open-minded to what the business really needs and see if you can get folks to work well together. I used to really enjoy, especially once I was a big firm partner again, working with the smaller law firms, collaborating for the best result for these founders.

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but also bringing in the specialized expertise that becomes necessary. You need ERISA people, you need labor people, you need all kinds of specialty help sometimes, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, if you're selling overseas, all kinds of things like that, that the smaller professional advisors might not provide. So I think that is an important component for the strong foundation that you need before these transactions. The other is to anticipate

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the due diligence requirements of your investors or of the company across the table. Be ready for that. The legal fluff and fold that I referenced is really just a matter of, it's not a complete, you know, strip all the sheets off and start over and buy new bedding. It's really just make sure that things are in order. Take a look with the eye of the investor. What are they going to want? Ask your advisors.

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What is the due diligence checklist? What will I need to be ready for? How do I prepare my staff? How best to communicate with the staff about what these people are gonna want? And you'll be shocked to find that, oops, somebody forgot to do a filing with the secretary of state. Let's get that cleaned up. Let's talk through this lawsuit. What is our real exposure? How do we communicate effectively about this so that we're not concealing information, et cetera. So,

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anticipating and being ready and having dry runs. I love it. Those are a lot of nuggets, nuts and bolts on good legal expertise, right? Even in a small and growing company. You know, I like to give an opportunity to my guests to let my listeners know how to contact you or follow you. You're very active in LinkedIn.

16:00
And you had a recent interview that I actually enjoyed reading. And the directors and boards.com, they had a, the board journey of lease agree equipment. So it's another resource for my listeners to get to know lease agree equipment and what you're doing to bring legal expertise into the corporate boardroom. So how do my listeners contact you?

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your LinkedIn? What is your LinkedIn profile? Oh, it's it's just my name. So that's the hard part is spelling the name, right? Or they can get to me on Gmail. It's Lisa Quateman, L Quateman, Q, U, A, T, E, M, A, N. Excellent. So before we go, Lisa, I do like to bring my guests back to what I do at NextAct Advisors. I work with

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founders and company owners on topics around resilience, on purpose driven enterprises and sustainable growth. And it always is delightful for me because I ask my guests, like I'm gonna ask you, what does resilience mean to you? Because nobody has the same perception. It's amazing because there's nuggets to, for the founders on what is resilience for you as a lawyer. I think.

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I think resilience is building long term staying power, by being flexible and by being willing to be a lifelong learner. Thank you. And what does purpose driven enterprise mean to you?

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I think a purpose driven enterprise has developed its mission and identified its goals and tactics for achieving those goals. And it's defined its mission by evaluating the needs, honestly, of its stakeholders, since a company's purpose is to meet those needs. What about sustainable growth? What does that mean to you? Well, I'm a back to basics person on sustainable growth. And for me, that means disciplined cash management.

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and the avoidance of over leveraging or fancy accounting or revenue recognition tricks. Okay, last and final question, Lisa, did you have fun in the sandbox today? Well, I did pretty much but I see sand in my toes and I think it's kind of wrecking my pedicure. I love it because I think through having fun.

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one becomes very creative and in the founder story and the founder journey, you do need to have your creativity. And I want to thank you for joining me today and bringing in your legal expertise and why it's important to have legal expertise in the boardroom at any stage in a founder's journey. Thank you and have a wonderful rest of your day. Thank you for those.

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nuggets today. I want to also do a shout out this month of March is actually Women History Month. Lisa and three other women are featured in the founders sandbox as well as on my website, there are blogs around women leadership. And today, the day we're recording is actually Women's International Day. So thank you for joining me.

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And I encourage my listeners to read this article in LinkedIn on Lisa Greer Quatman's single board journey. The podcast, Enhancing Resilience and Supporting Good Governance by Tapping Legal Expertise will be available on wherever you listen to your podcast. Thank you and signing off for today.