moved the ball. but the only way we can move the ball is by empowering those talents and minorities and women lawyers and empowering in a law firm means book of business, let's be frank. if you pick up the phone and call that woman lawyer whom you know is good and who's been working on your matters and say i have another matter or i don't know why i'm talking about calling because i usually just email but email and then she can turn around, open up the matter in the conflict system. that becomes her matter to manage. so again, be super intentional. that's how you go and find your counsel. there have been times when i know which lawyer i want and it's not the woman minority because i will call the person i know and say i want you to be my relationship partner and i'm doing this intentionally so you get practice in a relationship partner and what that means

is you will be responsive to me. you will address all the conflict issues that i'm going to push you so that you can make sure that you can claim your position as my relationship partner so i want to see you take advantage of it and i'm here to mentor you through it but i'm not giving you a gift that you can hand it off. so i think there's a couple ways you can go about this. >> a lot of what i would say has already been done. the responsiveness piece, i can't say enough. we move quickly and my messenger came in this morning from clients, i do need people to be available to respond to something and not get back to me a couple days later. at that point i will go after someone else with the question. i see the relationship with outside counsel as a continuum. it's everything from the uber tactical, quick response advice to deeply understanding my product that enables you to get that kind of advice to what you need to reference which is the

gotten.at i've i have a couple of key folks at that firm that have served as mentors and friends and when i considered like when i consider this job, this move to oculus i talked to them confidentially, how did they view me, what did they see at the opportunities, what do they see as my growth areas and what would be good about this, what would be good about that and it's super meaningful to have a really seasoned person who's been in outside counsel and knows me well for many years to help get productive. i do wish we had my more diversity in the law firms that i go to. i can't tell you, there are so many excellent of counsel women who have not become partners at firms and i don't know why. i will have used them for specific work and i think they're phenomenal and when i go to the firm, the relationship partners and so that the individual that i want to working with. and it's usually fine but i wish that i had more

opportunity to direct the work to women who would be in position to accept it read and serve in that role. and so i don't have the answer to what the issue is there with those specific folks for those firms from my perspective, they are excellent and certainly as capable as many of the partners that i work with at many of the firms. we also use a wide range of firms at oculus but i find that it's not really the firm, it's the individual and sort of practice groups that tend to really know the topics that i need them to know. i guess the last piece of advice i would give is that scoping risk is really different when you are in-house counsel then when you are outside counsel so one of the notables would be sort of the overly conservative advice that i can get from outside counsel. i put that as the two long, don't read a part of the email and at the beginning,

lay out the practical advice when the interviews were going to be doing x, are we going to help mitigate this risk and how are we going to optimize the risk we are going to take, not, you shouldn't let them do that. i give advice, and i'm not going to make that happen and i really need the advice on how to optimize the risk and helping communicate the risk to the client so they can sign off on it. they are kind of the things i like to see from my partners in outside firms. >> one other thing i could add, i've worked at an absolutely phenomenal outside counsel and it turns out these people are truly people and they make mistakes sometimes. i have never once terminated a relationship because of a mistake made. i have terminated relationships on a failure to own up to mistakes, and to really just recognize.

that happened a few times but i think it's very important. it's hard when you are the outside counsel and you recognize that you are 100 percent correct. there's going to be mistakes and people are moving fast, they're throwing a lot of things that you . but if that happens, you work together and seek it out. >> since we have the benefit of having these three extremely successful women on the panel, and one of the main themes i've tried to focus on in my years here, these section of science and technology laws encouraging other people to consider careers in science and technology, i would appreciate it if you could a few or a few minutes about career advice and also about encouraging girls to consider careers in fields that involve science and

technology. on a personal note, i met my daughter who just finished her first year at stanford so if you could think about girls like her and what words of advice you would have, that would be much appreciated. >> just to follow on to cindy's point, i think all of us here have also struggled with masters, i don't know what word you want but balanced children and just we thought also if there's a path you recommend in terms of being on the inside or outside counsel, we've all shuffled back and forth between that as well. general advice and figuring out how to be modest and participate in our families even if we don't have children. >> another hard question. [laughter] i always get asked the hard questions, i will get them through. you know i do have thoughts

on that too. my career advice would be to go ahead and do things that make you uncomfortable. that everything i've done that's been comfortable has wound up being a really good learning experience and i was lucky enough really at every place i've worked but intel i had sponsors, women and men both who encouraged me to take on new roles that i literally did not want to take and i was literally deficient for me and i maybe had had a baby or something and i said i couldn't take the opportunity right now and they said you really have to, you really should, it's the right time for you, it's the right opportunity and i would say, i would do it. at first when you start doing it, you're going to love it and it's going to be ups and downs and great things to learn so i actually, even if things make you feel uncomfortable or you think you can't do them, you should try it anyway. advice would be to just do it

and if you fails, it fails and you learn something from that and you move on to something else. but one of the opportunities i got intel was to be the group counsel for the new devices group which is the wearables group at intel and it involves an acquisition of a company which is currently safe in a recall at this product, it had a lot of issues but i got to be the general counsel of that company and also for the red group counsel for a very different team that wasn't used to. i did not want to do that job. it looked very difficult to executives, but incredibly difficult to deal with and i was encouraged by my sponsors to do it, to go ahead and take back the position and i did and i wound up loving it. it was super scary, it was really great and of course, i'm oculus and we are vr wearables so when they asked me to interview, one of eight asked me about was my wearable experience. this job i didn't want is turning into this really great opportunity and it also

gave me the opportunity to realize that i really love end-user product and here i was atintel which is an ingredient product . not so directly to the end-users. typically but doing the wearable devices group i realized, i love watching people wear and by what i'm working on. this is super exciting for me and i know it's not just the hottest thing at intel which is more about it and antitrust but it was something i like and i had to face the fact that the company i love for so many years didn't necessarily do what i wanted to do. so i came to that realization and i have this opportunity come so that's sort of a long way of saying just take the risk. people are giving you an opportunity and it seems like it's the right thing to do. >> when i was considering the opportunity at uber, i fell

in love with the product and in 2012, i have a blackberry so i fell in love with it on a blackberry. but i can really see that it was a change of life. it changed mine and i had an emotional reaction to it, the fact that a car would pick me up on a sunday afternoon in no eval he at the top ofthis very steve hill in eight minutes was amazing. and that i could see it coming and i didn't have to worry whether it's coming, do i have to call the taxi company ? driver or not. and it was amazing i fell in love with the product which made me think really hard about this and i talked earlier about item, all the considerations that went into that. that decision to move but one of the things was, i second with my husband who is also a lawyer and we said this is kind of risky. you worked your entire career and you are also committed to the fact that you want to be

a minority woman partner. you could go to this startup and we said it could be awesome or it could fail. we bought there would be adoption but at that point it was very small. it was riskier then than it is now. and i thought well, that's actually the wrong way of framing the risk. i decided i was going to frame thequestion differently. the question that i decided i was going to answer was , when is the next time you are going to be offered the position of gc of a tech company? when i framed the question that way, it was a no-brainer. like, never. you know? and i was old enough to know that sometimes in life you don't get second chances. and that i wanted to grab this and see where it goes and see what i could learn from it so i think one thing is when you think about your career choices, make sure that you are framing the question appropriately.

we all went into law because we are slightly, or more than slightly risk adverse. make sure you are not over indexing on that risk analysis because you may leave opportunities along the way. >> i think very much along the lines of what sally and amy just said, taking risks has been the most important part of my career and i remember at one point, it was one of these decisions i really for myself up over. it was not how i viewed my wife. it was not where i thought i was going and yet i came up the wrong endemic and i had to make a decision.part of it was asking, when is this going to,? i thought probably never so one thing i said to a lot of people both at the firm i was at an outside, i asked why they were in that position?

it was surprising how many people said they were still in the position because they were afraid to take a risk. i didn't want to have someone come and ask me that 10 years down the line and say i was there because i didn't take a risk. i came up with 100 other ideas of why i wanted to do that, i said i never want that to be the answer. i think it's very important to figure out your own strength and use those to ground where you are going and how you are assessing. i have been concerned over the last couple of years as there's been so much focus, particularly on developing women in the workplace. women in the workplace seminars or training sessions and i walked out the door with an idea of what they were trying to do was fix us. that they can fix women so women were more assertive, on

the table. use certain words, not other certain words and then they would be better. not focusing on fixing the workplace. so i really encourage people to look at their own strengths. and to give you an example, i was a member early of my career, we were in press negotiations and i had an older colleague tell me that when we went back in, i went in that room, laid down the law. and whatever happens, i couldn't be nice. and i heard him out and at the end of that, to his other dim dismay i said that was in no way how i intended to handle the conversation. yes, when was the last time he sent me into interaction or negotiation and i hadn't gotten the result you wanted? that's something. i need to go in there and use

my own strength and not what might have worked for him. if i walk into that room and curse, the only thing i can guarantee you is that everyone would have burst into laughter. i would have looked and felt ridiculous. so figuring out my own strengths and what was going to work for me, i knew i was able to navigate the situation. i think there needs to be a lot more focus on encouraging people to find their strength and encouraging all of us to recognize different ways of negotiating, different ways of interacting and not just coaching people that if they behave in one way that that's the key to success. >> fabulous advice, thank you all so much and i didn't want to have some time for questions so go ahead. >> thank you. to the rest of the questions, as a follow-up to last

question, is there any particular career preparation advice you would give to young women starting the profession and a second follow-up, it's a slightly more difficult question which is a lot of the young women lawyers and not even younger women lawyers are subject to what we call micro-aggression. , virtual hostility and the like. is there advice for how to deal with that issue? >> we are all looking at each other. i'll do a little bit on the micro-aggression and i don't proclaim to know all of these things or to be an expert in this area but one of the things i think two women in my country and in my legal department is don't hold back.

don't speak from a place of emotion and anger but if you chew on your words and like your time long enough, it will come out thatway. just say it. if someone does micro-aggression on you, call them on it because you know what? it's scary to call someone out on that but it's going to feel good . and so i'm trying to encourage people to speak up and stop it. when you don't have another person in the room who will call it out for you, it's so on you to call it out and i will say it is hard to do what it does feel good to say you know what? you got that wrong. that's not what i said or what i'd be happening a lot is you said something and somebody else said something repeated by another guy and they co-opted your idea and you're like, wait a second. it's custom not to play those games but yes, as i said. i think we should go here. so i think it's teaching a little bit of both being skilled and also letting

young women know especially that it's okay to stand up and speak up. >> i think that's great. and ray, i think you had another question, what was it? >> preparation for the career. >> preparation, i think it's to do what you love. i think there's a big focus on stem careers right now which is terrific, i'd like to see more women in stem area but you need to do what you want to do and you need to follow what your passions are and it's a wonderful thing about law school is that it welcomes people who have studied everything from philosophy to computer science to the french classics. you can view all of that and i think do wonderful preparation for what you are doing in the future. if technology industry needs people in every possible area. my background was, i focused

on government and religion and yet there's a role for me in here so there's 1 million different tasks to career in technology or a career in law. you can enjoy any of them. >> i'd say the same, i don't think you have to narrowly focus on something. i think this question from some students, what should i study, patents or dream work west and mark you can focus on a lot of different things and as you will find, over the course of your career, different areas will become hot or become topics you need to know about. everybody has to know some level of privacy now, that wasn't the case a while back. so i think the key to doing what you love is key, i joked about what time i started doing emails but i enjoy my job. i can't wait to see what issue is coming up next and how were going to solid and i enjoy my clients. the most useful skills i see on our team are good communications skills. really excellent ability to

talk to your business counterparts and communicating largely communicating risk and helping them think through issues. so the members of our team that have listening and communicating skills are just so bold. >> go ahead. >> the only thing i was going to add is that i've been a benefit of a lot of mentorships. there's a group of women pcs around the bay area who, it's just a good group and when i have questions about specific, everyone is generous with their advice and i kind of referenced the serendipitous way by which i got to uber that it was because i had a core group of 15 women lawyers, we had been associates together and we been friends and one of them had gone off and took a class in africa and she was the recruiter for this school and we were having lunch and she told me about it. i think those lateral and horizontal mentorship

relationships can really be important and they continue to be important area so i think that i'm living proof that you don't need to have a tech background to be attacked gc and everyone says there's a myriad of issues that touch tech companies now that really i think it's more important to follow your interests and your passions and be the best that you can and see where it goes. >> usually we wait until the end of the program to thank people, for not an outstanding panel but for such a strong panel, you guys have been terrific. i'll toss more questions with the time that we have. is there an intellectual property law that you wish could be changed and make your life easier? >> do we have to limit that to one? >> there's so many lists. >> we are supportive of

patent reform. i think that the rise of mps and trolls is that it's unbelievably punishing to the technology arena. it is costing us an incredible amount of time in terms of outside contraband, and it's something we can just come up with a better framework for. >> i would agree. i think the tech pieces interesting, it's interesting at hardware and software oculus and coming from facebook. there are a lot of different philosophies around teams and we have them all at our company. and so, the patent npd entity is very problematic for everyone. where circling innovation and setting down the way that our companies speak to develop the product.

>> i was asked by the camera person to speak, that's why i decided to come up here. there's a lot of, talking about privacy, what are your views, any comments on the ai issues with apple? >> i don't have any comments on that. [laughter] >> no comments? >> i think we're going to say no comment. >> one of the issues that we have with general counsel is trying to prevent the side of letters and memorandums, the handshake deals. what do you do to keep that from happening? >> i think that's education. ithink it's something you have to police and it's something that a lot of people , i think it's rare

companies where you come up against people who are deliberately trying to do something wrong. you do come up against people who don't know what they're doing so they don't know what the guide rails are and they make mistakes and you fix that through educating people. they need to understand when you agree to something and when you can't agree to something, needs to do it and keeping people really within a tight framework and i think that's the best way to deal with the issue. >> i agree with amy. i said this earlier and especially in a growing company where we are hiring so rapidly, possibly trying to educate clients, ask for time at every staff meeting i sitting on, whether or not i know that i'm going to say and i start with educating people on when to enter agreements and move into legal and try to give them some general basics around that. i don't find people are doing this at all nefariously if at all. it really is trying to move quickly and being used to being in a startup environment.

we have a lot of folks who are young in their careers who don't have a lot of experience with doing deals and they will go out and do things and have it reviewed as well. >> i think being in a startup environment or in a company that's rapidly growing, one of the things that i am big on his circle back. there's got to be a reassessment of the risk and the approach , the risk and the approach you have when a company is 300 versus 3000, it's very different. when you are growing and everyone is focusing and moving forward, it's hard to be that person who says make some time and circle back and double check but i think that's important for a legal department to do.>> i see we are running near the end of time and i apologize to those questions we haven't been able to ask but i'm going to hand over this one. >> if it's okay with cindy, i

had a fun question i wanted to ask everyone because we're trying to tense out the obligations of our job. i'll start off with what's the thing you do upside that really is a fun activity for you? i would start and say yoga is how i buy my time and get out a lot of different rules and another passion of mine , the same as everyone else, share what you love and i love my kids. [laughter] >> i have three sons who are the bulk of my time outside of work and certainly my focus and my tip on that is that each of my sons was born different country. one was in china, my second son in india and my third son was born in the united states. we are united colors. >> i also have three children so i spend time with my children.

i also practice mindfulness people have seen me in the parking lot at work before i go in and quietly. they said what are you doing? i just let everything go and then i'm coming in to get us all back in there. so that's what i like to do. >> i think we have the same favorites and coming back which is for me, it's regular exercise. i do a variety of things, before uber i used to collect pretty seriously and then i found out spending 12 hours on the court every week doesn't jive with this job. so i had to pick up more efficient ways of exercising but i tried to block off that time every morning for myself to do something that's healthy, relieve some stress but also have a little bit of mine. my husband is also now the managing partner of david tremaine and that's not the reason why i lost although we

will speculate . and we're raising two boys together so our life is very busy and i think that what you find is, and you ask this question is you know, there was a question earlier about how do you balance or how do you make it work and one thing that marie was in dc has taught me was when i asked her that question she said, i don't. it's all one mind and it's not as bad as you think. what she meant was she doesn't call departmental lives and i find that in my job, i can't read i can't stay after 6:00 in meetings. it doesn't work that way. that's when a tax start bowing so i like to make sure tuesday night are my nights to cook dinner, i'm home. only occasionally, i'm cooking and my laptop is next to my butter dish and my kids are used to me and my laptop, everywhere they are, here we are but you make it work. so i think that it's a challenge. but i also try to make sure

that i focus and have time with the family and that i bring them into my work and that's the other way. we try not to compartmentalize. if we have business, we talk about it. we give them the mda language every time. sorry. >> the center returns from its thanks giving break today, on the senate agenda legislation on expanding medical care in rural areas. a vote on that bill jewel for tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. eastern. now live coverage on c-span2.wi. you are dressed in robes of splendor. guide our senators on the right path, helping them to unite in