It was big news when Mary O’Carroll recently chucked two great jobs – head of legal ops at Google and top dog at CLOC – to join digital contracting unicorn Ironclad as chief community officer. But to hear her tell it, it was a no-brainer decision. O’Carroll has a passion for change, and she sees a big opportunity to make changes to address the “universal challenge” for legal professionals: contracts. “I am passionate about making digital contracting the new standard for business contracting,” she told The Global Legal Post. “I feel lucky that I can build a global community at Ironclad from the ground up and help elevate contracting professionals across departments and industries. When contracting is optimized and digitized, and when the billable hour is dead, that’s when my work will be complete.” In her interview, O’Carroll talks about joining Orrick in 2003 – her first experience in the legal profession. “There’s a scene in Zoolander where Will Ferrell says, ‘I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.’ That’s how I felt when I came up against the tradition-bound mindset in law firms,” she says. “When I asked about compensation not being aligned with clients, people looked at me like I had alien eyes coming out of my head. The idea that you could try something differently with a new lens was preposterous.” Check out the full exit interview here.
Published May 3, 2021.
