CCBJ: Tell us a little bit about yourself, Jacqueline.
Jacqueline Lee: I am a Bay Area native, both born and raised here. I attended college and law school in the Bay Area and am currently Vice President, General Counsel at Flynn Group, the largest franchise operator in the world. I have worked at Flynn Group for the last 6 1⁄2 years, starting as Associate General Counsel leading business and tort litigation and after about a year, moving into my current role overseeing the entire legal department.
What led you to Flynn Group?
In the fall of 2017, a former partner and mentor at Jones Day, where I began my legal career as an associate, became the GC of what was then known as Flynn Restaurant Group. Not long after that, she reached out to me to see if I was interested in making a move in-house. I had recently made Partner and saw myself as a “lifer,” so I initially demurred. She hired me to represent Flynn’s sister company, Flynn Properties, in a commercial arbitration.
Although I’d been to trial before, this was my first
opportunity to first-chair an arbitration team and it was
through that arbitration that I met Flynn’s CEO Greg Flynn
and CFO Lorin Cortina. Both were very impressive in the
arbitration and did a great job telling our story. We received
a judgment in our favor, including our attorney’s fees and
I received an offer to join the company as Associate GC
handling the company’s litigation docket.
It was a chance to work in a fun industry with a former mentor and with leaders I’d gotten to know and respect. As difficult as it was the leave the firm where I started my career and made Partner, it turned out to be an offer I couldn’t refuse.
Tell us a little bit about your leadership style and who or what has influenced it, including your mentoring relationships.
One of my first and most impactful mentors is a partner at Jones Day named Greg. I’ve known him for 20 years. He was the very first person I met at the firm when I was interviewing for that summer associate job and remains one of the smartest, most talented trial lawyers I’ve ever worked with—and I’ve worked with a lot of great lawyers.
So much of what I know about leadership and advocacy, about writing, about client service, I learned from Greg. One of the things I most valued about my time spent with him was that even when I was the most junior person in the room, he wanted to know my opinion. As a developing lawyer, that gave me the confidence that I had something of value to offer, which was indispensable to ultimately building executive presence. It was a real gift, especially early on in my career. And that approach—of treating every team member like a peer, not a subordinate, as someone who has something valuable to say, is worthy of respect and is capable of great things—has really stuck with me and deeply influenced how I lead now.
What qualities do you look for when hiring new people for your team?
I look for hustle and heart; for people who care deeply about their clients and getting great results, but who also care deeply about each other and the folks on our cross- functional teams. I’m very fortunate to work with colleagues who are not only extremely talented lawyers and legal professionals, but also deeply kind and funny people who enjoy working together. I think that’s the real magic of our team—and the lens through which I evaluate whether someone is going to be a great fit for our department and our organization.
How would you describe your firm’s culture?
Great question! I am very excited to describe our culture, which we’ve distilled down to 3 core values: (i) care genuinely for people, (ii) play like a champion and (iii) win as one. That really encapsulates our recipe for success.
“Care genuinely for people” speaks for itself. We care about our employees, our team members, our guests and our vendors as human beings, including their professional development and their lives outside of work.
“Play like a champion.” We love to win at Flynn. The culture is one where folks—and this is not limited to the legal department—are driven to get great results and do their best every day.
“Win as one” speaks to the team nature of our organization. We are an extremely cross-functional and apolitical organization. We’re not about what you can achieve as an individual—we’re about the great results we can accomplish as a team and the gratification that comes with that.
What is the most influential career advice you’ve ever received?
It’s more of an ethos. When I was in private practice, the firm asked each of us, “Who’s here because of you?” Not just in the sense of who we might’ve recruited for a job, but who has stayed because of us—because we noticed them, made them feel included, gave them an opportunity, believed in them.
To me, that’s been a specific, measurable way of answering the questions, “How am I contributing to the longevity and the stability of my organization? How am I contributing to the culture?” Asking myself who’s here because of me has played a big role in how I view my responsibility within an organization—from the moment I set foot in Jones Day as a first-year associate to the way I navigate my job as a head of the legal department at Flynn.
By asking yourself “Who’s here because of you?” you can take ownership of that question. No matter where you are in an organization or what role you play, it’s a reminder that you can make a difference in someone’s workplace experience, which I find very motivating.
What changes would you like to see within the legal profession?
There are 2 changes that come immediately to mind. One relates to civility in the profession. Recently I was on a meet- and-confer call with opposing counsel. We were negotiating the scope of a subpoena, or some other discovery request and I had one of my more junior attorneys on the phone with me. After we got off the call, she remarked at how impressed she was that we both could be firm in our positions and zealous in our advocacy, while still being very respectful of one another. That really stood out to her. But what stood out to me was that what she viewed as the exception should be the rule.
In fact, it is the rule, yet there’s something about how the profession operates that that a civil exchange of positions was viewed as something remarkable by a junior attorney. That just has to change.
The second change I’d like to see is a move away from the billable hour to value-based pricing. I cannot tell you how much time is wasted administering billable hours policies, both on the law firm side and the in-house counsel side. It provides the worst incentives to law firms and creates a lot of unnecessary friction. In my experience, based on my 5 years in this role, the law firms that have embraced value-based pricing and other alternative fee arrangements have gotten more and more of our business because it’s clear to me that they have aligned their objectives with our objectives, so we’re “winning as one.”
Published August 21, 2024.