Voice of Experience: Lisa Jacobs, Partner, Capital Markets Practice, Shearman & Sterling
This week The Glass Hammer is publishing a series of profiles on top leaders in corporate diversity. Check back all week long to learn about the women making a difference.
By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)
After working as a part-time lawyer for the majority of her career, today Lisa Jacobs is a high-profile lawyer at Shearman & Sterling, a prominent member of the firm’s Diversity Committee and a staunch supporter of women in law. She wants women to know: you can build the life and career you want.
“I’m not a subscriber to the Sheryl Sandberg ‘ambition gap’ idea,” said Jacobs, a partner in Shearman & Sterling’s Capital Markets Practice in New York. “Success is how you define it.”
“I’m not a woman partner who will tell you, ‘this is what success is,’” she added. “Success is what you want it to be and what you take it to be. I wanted a family and to be a truly participatory mom – and I wanted to be a deal lawyer. Fortunately, I found a way to do both.”
Career in Law
Not that it was easy, as Jacobs readily admits. “My career path is not linear in any way,” she began. She graduated from law school in 1982 and was a junior associate at Shearman & Sterling. “It was fabulous training,” she recalled. “In all honesty I can say the firm gave women the same opportunities and assignments as the men. Then I decided I wanted to start a family in the mid ‘80s, and the firm, like many others at that time, wasn’t ready for a ‘part-time lawyer.’ I was very fortunate to be able to find a place to be part-time and still be able to come back when the firm’s outlook became more progressive.”
Through it all, Jacobs’ star continued to rise, and she became Shearman & Sterling’s first-ever part-time partner. A corporate and transactional lawyer the whole time, she was part-time for 18 years – from the day her daughter was born until the day she left for college. She says, “I’m proud of becoming partner and proving that someone can be the type of parent they want to be and still be a corporate lawyer with high-profile clients.”
Important Work for Her Clients
Jacobs has spent the bulk of her career representing or helping to finance American industrials like Ford Motor Company and Deere & Company.
“Ford in a lot of ways defines my legal career,” she explained, having been assigned the company as a very junior associate and continuing to work with it throughout the course of her career. “It’s also given me a firm footing and understanding in industrial companies – and that doesn’t come naturally to a native New Yorker.”
She continued, “I’ve been with Ford through the ups and downs, and I’ve seen multiple iterations of the industry. I’ve participated in the capital markets transactions that have helped Ford through various business cycles.”
Jacobs admits to taking great pride in Ford’s comeback. “Ford is incredibly well managed, with an enormous amount of foresight,” she said, “and to see it succeed is tremendous.”
She feels the same way about John Deere. “Deere & Company has also been an incredible learning experience, with its own cyclical ups and downs. This has really tested management and has proven that well-managed companies can succeed in trying times. It is greatly rewarding to see all that Deere has achieved.”
Jacobs enjoys her work on other matters as well, including working on IPOs. She explained, “I really enjoy working with new issuers and new products or with novel things.”
Diversity in Law
Outside of her work for her clients and her family, Jacobs takes a considerable amount of pride in her commitment – and Shearman & Sterling’s commitment – to diversity.
“Every single one of our inclusion networks is a tremendous home run – from a marketing standpoint, an internal promotion standpoint, and an inclusion standpoint,” Jacobs said. “It’s really indicative of a fundamental business model. We’re a global firm – we were very early in recognizing that you cannot conduct business in an international marketplace without having people in the office who understand the local culture or local market.”
“Yes, diversity is absolutely the right thing to do, but really, it’s the smarter and better answer. We need a diverse workforce for better and more creative solutions for our clients. One of the things I appreciate about the firm is how diverse it is.”
Jacobs has been a member of Shearman & Sterling’s Diversity Committee since she became a partner in the firm and was one of the two original partner co-chairs of its associate-led women’s network, WISER (Women’s Initiative for Success, Excellence and Retention).
“I cannot tell you how amazing WISER is – I absolutely have maternal pride in WISER. Not only does it do wonders for the women who participate in it, but it leads the most successful client function we host every year as a firm.”
She also suggested that WISER may help retain female lawyers. “Careers are really enhanced by mentors and having women partners organized and clearly out there to support women at the firm helps retain them. Empowering the women associates at the firm to run WISER, with the support of the firm and its women partners, makes it clear we want women to succeed here.”
She also praised the firm’s alumni network for helping connect women who have chosen not to continue at the firm, as well as showing associates the many possible careers for lawyers. “Seeing different paths is really constructive,” she explained. “When I started at the firm there were only two female partners. Just having the junior associates exposed to different flavors of female success is incredibly helpful.”
She also mentioned the “It Gets Better” video, created and launched last year by the firm’s LGBT inclusion network, Sterling Pride. “I swear, I cried the first time I saw it. It’s incredible.” The firm’s other inclusion networks are equally impressive, she added.
Advice for Young Lawyers
Jacobs advises young women beginning their careers to plan carefully. “I didn’t really think about my career,” she said. “I wanted to do something I would find intellectually challenging. I had fantastic mentors and people who really trained me, not just in law, but in how to be a successful lawyer.”
“That said,” she continued, “I didn’t really think through the whole process. I might not have taken the same path if I had that foresight – and that would be a shame.”
On the subject of work/life balance issues, Jacobs has strong opinions. “Work/life balance is a myth and an invitation to dissatisfaction… and a nervous breakdown,” she said with a laugh. “If you’re looking for work/life balance, you’re doomed to fail. There’s never a relationship in perfect balance. Someone always needs more – it’s a see-saw.”
“The sooner you realize that sometimes work needs more and sometimes your family needs more, the sooner you’ll be happy,” Jacobs explained. “You need to decide what you’re willing to give up. There are things that are important for me to do, and there are things that I can absolutely give up.”
That goes for work tasks too, she explains. “In a legal career, you’ll never succeed if you can’t delegate. I can obviously draft better than a junior associate, but if I do all the drafting of agreements, that’s not a good use of my time and is not helping the development of our junior associates.”
For women who are at the senior levels, she continued, “Hang in there so I’m not the only person my age in the room!”
“The good news for me, at Shearman & Sterling, is that we have a strong women’s partnership – we’re close and organized.”
In Her Personal Time
“My family is incredibly important to me,” Jacobs said. “The point at which I had my first child – that was a career ender at that time. But I was bound and determined that I was going to be the lawyer I wanted to be and be the mom I wanted to be. I guess I did something right – my daughter is in law school and my son is in college. And my husband is as committed to our family as I am.”
She continued, “I’m not saying it was easy or that everyone should do what I did. But I’m extremely proud of my family and my children.”
“People really need to decide what’s important to them and discard what’s not important to them and try not to do what’s impossible. Some people say you can have it all but not at the same time. But I say, you can have it all, but you need to decide which ‘all’ is important to you.”