CCBJ: Why did you join CLOC as President? Is it quite a bear in terms of a leadership role.
Jenn McCarron: That’s certainly a way to put it! A vacancy was opening after Mike Haven announced he was stepping down. I threw my name in the hat because I’ve been around this organization since its early days. I have served CLOC for a decade.
I love CLOC. It has backed me through my personal 10 -12- year career trajectory, from a legal tech person to a legal ops exec. I feel I owe the organization a lot and have a lot to give back too in terms of service, mentorship, content and breaking through to the unknown. I love CLOC’s immense growth and significance in the industry. This is leadership at another level.
To lead CLOC, and all its business affairs in front of our growing global community is the leadership call of a lifetime.
Under my leadership, CLOC is ushering in Legal Ops 3.0. We need change. We need refinement; we need an iteration. We need to retell our story and our value proposition. This is not a blank canvas. The CLOC founders created the wonderful Core 12 that’s now on version 3.0.
And we’re now creating the next thing and building from years of input, experience and stories from our community. Historically, CLOC has drawn the map and brought our members along with us. Some of us are already in “3.0 roles” and some are starting to cross over. We want to help shatter the ceiling. I love that as an opportunity. That’s why I joined. It’s an opportunity of a lifetime to lead, to grow and to learn. And then, with the industry’s input, go even higher.
Let’s talk about the future. I know you don’t know where it’s going to go, but I’m sure that you came on board with a vision for where it could possibly go beyond contract management.
My vision for CLOC is to help it achieve its mission, which is to advance the business and practice of law. We need to build warriors out of the members as the membership base are the ones fighting the good fight with legal leadership and sometimes, they get lost in the fight. Legal operations can be a big, bloody “Game-of-Thrones” multi-battle scene. It’s so big and loud and noisy and we have to fight to advance how legal departments run. That’s CLOC’s mission and it’s a good one. We’ve been adding to and refining our mission during my first few months in this role and it’s all about building up and supporting our members and what they take back with them when they go and do the work. If we support people to be their best, give them resources and a place to engage and have meaningful conversations, then they will advance. Those are CLOC’s 3 Strategic Pillars: Community, Content and Conversation.
And what do we mean by that? You can guess what Community means. It’s hosting amazing gatherings -small, medium and large - for people to come together, engage, learn and be validated. They come away with best practices, go back to work and have an actual impact at their companies.
For Content, we draw out some of the best-of-the-best speakers, the most-loved sessions and compelling presentations, and turn that knowledge into actionable content and share it into the ecosystem so people can learn from it and apply it to their roles.
Last is Conversation, our newest focus. Conversation is where Community and Content meets engagement. For example, when looking through comments to a CLOC content posting on social media, you find people adding their experience and taking it further. That spin out becomes new a new conversation to funnel back into the content and/or community machine. These 3 pillars feed off of one another and up the content game, making the CLOC community the most compelling place to come learn, meet people, get validation and then create an impact on your business or your legal department. That’s the power of CLOC.
When content is distributed in a digitally engaging format, people just absorb it more quickly in today’s modern age.
We’re all on LinkedIn, but increasingly also on platforms like TikTok. We’re scrolling as we are learning, growing and connecting.
My goal is to get CLOC into our members’ scroll. I know CLOC has some of the best content and some of the best leaders, but if a tree falls in the forest and no one’s there to hear it, did it make a sound? The goal is to turn up that sound, so our content reaches as many people as possible and advances the business and practice of law. That’s my ambition for CLOC during my presidency.
Another area of focus for CLOC is career frameworks, as we chart this new field.
People are a little lost right now but actually, there are more jobs than ever. It’s hard to see those aspirational positions at the top of your career ladder when you are a few rungs down.
If I took my career arc as an example, I had my head down for 12 years, navigating a career that started from a 2-day temp placement at the startup Tandberg, to the director of legal ops at Netflix. I bring that experience to my role as president of CLOC.
What does it look like to go from a legal tech professional to a legal tech executive, regardless of industry?
That’s just one example. We want to provide a career framework so people can feel heard as well as understand the timeframe and skills it takes to get there.
Published June 13, 2024.