Podcast: #WhyMcGlinchey? Lateral to Leadership with Kelly Lipinski

Welcome to the Why McGlinchey series of the More with McGlinchey podcast, where we talk about why our attorneys decide to join, stay, and grow their practices here at McGlinchey.

In our latest installment, Member Kelly Lipinski talks with Director of Talent Acquisition Margeaux Roush about her journey from Associate to Office Managing Member of the Cleveland office and member of the firm’s executive Policy Committee.

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Margeaux Roush: I’m Margeaux Roush, director of Talent Acquisition, and joining me today for the next installment of our series is Kelly Lipinski. Kelly has been practicing with the firm for a number of years and is the Managing Member of our Cleveland office.

Kelly Lipinski: Hey, Margeaux, good afternoon. It’s good to speak with you.

Margeaux Roush: Kelly, thank you so much for joining me today for the next installment of More with McGlinchey. So, to get started, why don’t you tell us a little bit about your legal practice and the type of work you do?

Kelly Lipinski: Absolutely, and thank you for inviting me to participate. I’m really excited about joining this installment. So my practice is something that I don’t think a lot of lawyers, much less law students or even family and friends, always know is a type of law, and it is a financial services regulatory lawyer. What that means is I work with banks and non-bank lenders, like student lenders, auto finance lenders, mortgage lenders, FinTech companies, etc., to help them build consumer credit programs nationwide. Once they’re built, I also help them maintain it as business goals change and laws change, and help them navigate state and federal law to minimize the chance that they’re going to get sued.

Often, companies will come and say, “Hey, Kelly, we want to launch this new product nationwide, and we need to talk to the business team to figure out, What are our business goals? What are the non-negotiables? What are the things we can really play around with a little bit to either mitigate litigation risk, mitigate enforcement risk, and frankly make sure that we have a solid reputation in the market?”

Things that I typically work on in the course of my day include drafting a lot of contracts and doing a lot of technical federal and state law research to figure out, hey, the company wants to do this specific thing. Is it allowed under federal and state law on a national basis? And then I also do a ton of work, not only with our internal legal team at the client but also their business team, right? So often, companies will come and say, “Hey, Kelly, we want to launch this new product nationwide, and we need to talk to the business team to figure out, What are our business goals? What are the non-negotiables? What are the things we can really play around with a little bit to either mitigate litigation risk, mitigate enforcement risk, and frankly make sure that we have a solid reputation in the market?” Because reputation risk is also really important for our clients.

My particular practice, even though it’s broad in nature in the consumer credit space, I’ve developed some experience with two various specific products. One, as I mentioned, is auto finance. And what that refers to, as I mentioned earlier, is talking with and representing banks that have auto programs and auto financing programs, working with captive finance companies. So you think about the brand names of the cars that are on the road. Often, they will have affiliates that act as the financing source. I also do a lot of work in the education finance space. So, that is helping companies that want to let students pay for college, or their family members pay for college. And we help them fundamentally build those programs nationwide, drafting program agreements, drafting credit agreements, building the online application process, and then helping them, as I said, stay up to speed with laws.

So a lot of my job requires reading. I am constantly reading cases. I’m constantly reading legislative developments and figuring out, Where is the market going? Where are the courts going? Where are legislators going? and digesting that. And hopefully, if I’m doing my job well, start to identify themes or issues that require some type of proactive outreach to our clients to say, “Hey, I thought of you. I want to make sure that you’re aware of this development,” and sort of act as their advocate. And I use that term because a lot of times we think of advocates like litigation, but advocates can have other context here of helping them be profitable, helping them succeed from a business perspective as well.

We’re very fortunate to have this practice group that has been nationally [Chambers] ranked for a number of years, and we’re one of only 15 firms that are ranked in the financial services regulatory space. And McGlinchey is one of only three firms with four or more attorneys ranked.

Margeaux Roush: So Kelly, thank you again for sharing the background of your practice. Shameless plug for the law firm: we’re very fortunate to have this practice group that has been nationally [Chambers] ranked for a number of years, and we’re one of only 15 firms that are ranked in the financial services regulatory space. And McGlinchey is one of only three firms with four or more attorneys ranked. So, we are very enthusiastic about having you join us today to talk about your experience at McGlinchey.

You lateraled over to McGlinchey as a younger lawyer. Tell us a little about how you came to join the firm, where you were before, and what made you want to join McGlinchey.

Kelly Lipinski: As I mentioned earlier, Margeaux, this type of a career, frankly, I don’t think a lot of people know that it exists when you’re in law school. So, I am very transparent: when I was in law school, I did not have grand aspirations of being a financial services regulatory attorney. So, I started my post-law school career working internally for a company for a couple of years, and I had a very strong work environment, thoughtful leadership, and a stable career. But I quickly got bored. And I always tell people that I sort of got bored out of the gate as a young attorney, and I had developed a little bit of experience on concepts regarding privacy, and I just started to look elsewhere, right? And I thought to myself, I’m a young attorney, I’m interested in learning more, I’m interested in a diverse type of work, dealing with different issues.

I was attracted to the type of work that McGlinchey did and my conversations with the partners leading the group at the time, learning about the client work they did and their commitment to mentoring me and helping me learn more about being a great lawyer. So it was learning about the type of varied work that McGlinchey did, the financial services team, financial institutions compliance, and having the expressed commitment from the partners in the group to developing, mentoring, helping me grow my practice and my experience as an attorney.

Maybe at a later point in my career, I’ll come back to something like this, but for now, at this phase of my career, I want to do something more varied. And frankly, it’s really no great goal that I had to work for McGlinchey. But I was attracted to the type of work that McGlinchey did and my conversations with the partners leading the group at the time, learning about the client work they did and their commitment to mentoring me and helping me learn more about being a great lawyer. So it was learning about the type of varied work that McGlinchey did, the financial services team, financial institutions compliance, and having the expressed commitment from the partners in the group to developing, mentoring, helping me grow my practice and my experience as an attorney. And I will say, Margeaux, not in the shameless plug style, but what was told to me at the time as a very young lawyer was truthful. It’s been the experience I’ve had here at McGlinchey in terms of the varied work, the commitment to growth, and the mentorship I experienced to get me where I am now.

Margeaux Roush: That’s so great to hear. I love hearing about mentorship, and it sounds like the firm gave you the support you needed and followed through on their promises to you. Can you tell me what it was like building your book here a little bit? Give me a little bit of information about what it feels like to grow your book here at McGlinchey as a young associate. How did you go about doing that? Who did you talk to? Where did you go for that kind of guidance?

Kelly Lipinski: I am certainly proud of what I have built, but it’s not false modesty; it’s truly a recognition and note of appreciation. I’ve been fortunate to work with partners, especially as a young attorney, to teach me the technical skills to be a great lawyer, as well as the soft skills to develop a reputation and relationships with people in the industry. That’s been my perspective, and I think that’s been the ethos here for growing a reputation and building a book of business. But more importantly, or I should say, probably equally important, is hopefully backing it up with great legal advice, right? You can’t have one without the other. And I’ve had partners that have mentored me, sat down with me, in a lot of calls, face-to-face in offices, taken me on client visits, brought me to conferences, given me opportunities to present it at events, that have really shown me what I need to know, the standards that I need to hit in terms of competency and reputation because they demonstrate it.

My perspective has been that mentorship is not making someone a copy and paste of Kelly Lipinski, but it’s helping them come up with their style, their methodology for developing relationships, and their methodology and style for providing legal advice, but still having standards and still having “this is what we expect.” And I understand that I am one of those stewards of instilling the culture of the firm, instilling the culture of expectations of quality of work, but then hopefully allowing people to sort of make it their own, put their little sauce and their own little stamp of like, what it means for them to be an attorney at McGlinchey and bring their vibe and their flavor to those relationships.

They also would give me feedback on this, that, and the other needs to be improved, or this needs to be grown, etc. They were very helpful and very direct, but also, they modeled for me what it takes to be successful in building that book of business beyond just being hopefully smart and thoughtful with a work product but modeling to me, “Hey, to be successful here, we really have to be responsive to our clients. We really need to be thoughtful in the advice that we provide.” And it’s that kind of modeling of behavior that I really integrated into my practice. And to the extent that there are certain things that I think I do well, and I say that with humility, but there are things I do well, but a lot of the things that I’ve been successful at are because I’ve had great partners that have mentored me and showed me, this is how you succeed in your career. And they’ve laid that framework for me to make it my own. But I’ve had a really great environment to grow and flourish through mentorship and sponsorship.

Margeaux Roush: Can you tell me a little bit about how you’re paying that forward as a leader in the firm?

Kelly Lipinski: Yeah, I’m very reflective on that question, Margeaux, because after what I just described, I’m very appreciative and very cognizant of the investment of time and resources that others have made in me. And I’m very thoughtful about trying to do the same for others. Do I always, you know, succeed? I try to, but I have very high standards, right? I’m always questioning, could I have done more? But it is instilled in me, and hopefully, it’s instilled in a lot of my partners as well, who are, maybe, the next generation, that we are very attuned to and place a priority on a team of smart individuals—but hopefully giving them feedback, taking them under our wings. My perspective has been that mentorship is not making someone a copy and paste of Kelly Lipinski, but it’s helping them come up with their style, their methodology for developing relationships, and their methodology and style for providing legal advice, but still having standards and still having “this is what we expect.” And I understand that I am one of those stewards of instilling the culture of the firm, instilling the culture of expectations of quality of work, but then hopefully allowing people to sort of make it their own, put their little sauce and their own little stamp of like, what it means for them to be an attorney at McGlinchey and bring their vibe and their flavor to those relationships.

I want to be a leader at the place where I work. I know my style and what I find rewarding in my career. Everybody’s different, but I’ve found fulfillment in McGlinchey, and one of my professional goals is to be in a work environment where I like where I work; I want to be invested where I work. I want to have, hopefully, a voice in shaping the future of where I work.

Margeaux Roush: I love hearing that. And within the firm, the Financial Institutions Compliance group is well known for being very integrated and having very strong mentorship and feedback protocols. And it’s great to hear that that’s been something you can pay forward based on your experience, but making it their own experience for the newer lawyers coming up. Because, like you said, there’s not a whole lot of knowledge out there about the type of law you practice when you’re a younger lawyer. And so coming into this environment, having strong mentors, strong feedback protocols, and strong connections with those attorneys that you’re working with is really important.

Shifting a little bit, you’re currently in various leadership positions within the firm. You’re leading an office; you’re on our executive Policy Committee, which is our decision-making body. When you became a member at the firm or even a senior associate, did you have in your head that you wanted leadership positions? Or did those positions evolve naturally? Tell us a little bit about your journey to those.

Kelly Lipinski: Margeaux, we’ve known each other for some time, and I don’t necessarily think of myself as a wallflower in many respects. I try not to be completely over the top, but I want to be a leader at the place where I work. I know my style and what I find rewarding in my career. Everybody’s different, but I’ve found fulfillment in McGlinchey, and one of my professional goals is to be in a work environment where I like where I work; I want to be invested where I work. I want to have, hopefully, a voice in shaping the future of where I work. I probably would not want to be a leader at an organization that I was passive about or apathetic about. My commitment and my desire to be a leader at McGlinchey, frankly, is a reflection of my desire to see this firm flourish, succeed, and grow.

My commitment to leadership at McGlinchey is, frankly, a demonstration of my confidence in McGlinchey and my satisfaction in McGlinchey because I am investing my time and my goals of shaping the leadership of this firm just because I really think so highly of it, right? It’s a place where I want to try to influence to be the best place to work, whether you’re an attorney or a staff member, whatever the case may be.

And I hopefully have, in my mind, demonstrated that my commitment to leadership at McGlinchey is, frankly, a demonstration of my confidence in McGlinchey and my satisfaction in McGlinchey because I am investing my time and my goals of shaping the leadership of this firm just because I really think so highly of it, right? It’s a place where I want to try to influence to be the best place to work, whether you’re an attorney or a staff member, whatever the case may be. This is a fully functioning business with a lot of different people. We want to make sure that it’s a great place to work across the board, not just for our attorneys. And so I think that comes from firm leadership, that comes from office leadership. These are some of my professional goals, but closing the loop for you, Margeaux, that has definitely been a goal of mine here. As I’ve enjoyed working here, I’ve wanted to be a leader here.

Margeaux Roush: Excellent. You’re completely right. You’re not a wallflower by any means. You do have a very powerful voice, and I appreciate that you bring that to the table and that you’re able to feel like you have that voice here at the firm. Do you think that your experience getting to leadership here is different from other laterals?

Kelly Lipinski: Hard for me to say, Margeaux, frankly, just because I am self-aware that I came here as a very young attorney, right? My experience is probably very different than partners of mine who I am thrilled have joined us recently, but maybe they’ve been practicing with a firm for 20 or some years. So, each particular path, I recognize, has its challenges. And I don’t want to be naive and say what worked for me as a second-year associate coming to grow within a firm is the same as someone who’s been practicing at a firm for 20 years and then is coming here at McGlinchey. It’s probably different, right? There’s a lot of different challenges and different opportunities. So I’m frankly not entirely sure. I suspect they are different. But I suspect that there are some commonalities. There are things that, regardless of whether you are a lateral as a young associate or a lateral as a mid-level associate, or a senior partner, you want to work at a place where you feel like your work is rewarding. You want to work at a place where you feel like you are recognized and acknowledged as a professional, as a human, respected, right? And I think those are all things that, regardless of where you are in your career, I find value in. And again, I think that’s the culture that we have here.

There are things that, regardless of whether you are a lateral as a young associate or a lateral as a mid-level associate, or a senior partner, you want to work where you feel like your work is rewarding. You want to work at a place where you feel like you are recognized and acknowledged as a professional, as a human, respected, right? And those are all things that, regardless of where you are in your career, I find value in. And again, I think that’s the culture that we have here.

If you want to be someone that desires to work with a team on really fun things, interesting things, in our team, at least, and I can only speak for my team on this particular point, we have roles for people like that. If you want to be doing great, sophisticated work that’s interesting, that’s fantastic. If you want to be someone who is out talking to clients or being a thought leader, we love that as well. So, everyone has a different role. My goals have been more focused on what I find rewarding: talking to clients, helping build relationships with companies, and also, of course, doing the work. So, it’s a slightly long-winded response to your question, Margeaux, but, you know, what I’ve done is a little bit different than other laterals. But I think that there are some commonalities that cross and transcend all those experiences.

Margeaux Roush: I think your answer actually summed up why someone should consider lateraling to McGlinchey. Because there is that diversity of paths, and there is that ability to come in and define your role within your practice group. I have heard that from a lot of different practice groups, that one of the best things about McGlinchey is that you can come in and there’s the flexibility to figure out what your path will be, and to work with your practice group leaders or the head of the firm or the leadership of the firm and find a path to get done what you want to get done.

When you’re talking with peers in your practice group or other lawyers with a similar experience level to yourself, do you find differences between your experience and theirs? And what might some of those differences be because you’re here at McGlinchey?

But after you build a business plan and you come up with your goals, there is a lot of trust that is vested to attorneys that if you make a business case for doing something, you talk about it with your colleagues, with your practice group head, etcetera, the attorney is given some latitude to try new things here that maybe you don’t get the chance to do at other firms. I’ve found that exciting, and it’s been helpful to my career.

Kelly Lipinski: There are definitely differences of experiences, and some of it is frankly just firm structure. Some of it is practice group structure. I’ll address the first one in firm structure. We are of the size of a firm that balances an interest in letting attorneys show initiative and hustle, if you will, run and try to do new things without oodles and oodles of bureaucracy and a lot of oversight from the sense of paperwork, right? And if I compare and contrast that with some other firms, you know, anecdotes that I hear is that even to move one step to the left, you need to get practice group approval to do that or to get a cup of coffee, you need to get the managing partner to sign off on that. That is not to say that we don’t have controls and process, and we are very focused on ensuring that we are profitable and smartly running a business. But after you build a business plan and you come up with your goals, there is a lot of trust that is vested to attorneys that if you make a business case for doing something, you talk about it with your colleagues, with your practice group head, etcetera, the attorney is given some latitude to try new things here that maybe you don’t get the chance to do at other firms. I’ve found that exciting, and it’s been helpful to my career.

With respect to the practice group itself, compared to other teams, and again, I can only speak to my Financial Institutions Compliance team, what is different that we have here than in any other firm, frankly, is the depth of our bench. There are really smart attorneys at other law firms that I have tremendous respect for, and they do great work as well. We see each other at the same events. We have common clients and we have overlap there.

But I would say there are no other law firms that practice in our space that have the top-to-bottom – and by bottom, I simply mean age of experience, not competency – but the breadth of attorneys with experience levels and the type of experience. It is really exciting to work in a team like that because I can get a question that deals with a funky, fair lending marketing question that I want to schedule 30 minutes to talk to one of my partners who has a lot more experience in fair lending than I do. We get on a call for 30 minutes, and at the end of the call, I’m layering in my product-specific advice, I’m layering in my partner’s fair lending-specific advice. And that results in the clients getting nuanced, practical, real-world advice that is not just the Kelly Lipinski show. It is the holistic McGlinchey Financial Institutions Compliance advice that gets the benefit of those experiences versus just a onesy, twosy person.

I love hearing you talk about autonomy and collaboration because the number one reason that everyone tells me that they stay at McGlinchey and why they come to McGlinchey is the people. And so that depth of knowledge and autonomy comes, like you said, from the top down.

Margeaux Roush: I love hearing you talk about autonomy and collaboration because the number one reason that everyone tells me that they stay at McGlinchey and why they come to McGlinchey is the people. And so that depth of knowledge and autonomy comes, like you said, from the top down. We have it from the Managing Member of our firm, the Managing Members of our offices, the Policy Committee, all the way down to brand new law clerks. They’re given some autonomy to develop their skills to find out what they’re interested in.

I appreciate you spending time with me today. If you could think of one or two things that you think are really the reasons why you stay here at McGlinchey and why, in all of the opportunities out there in the world, what’s the reason that you wake up and come back to McGlinchey every day?

Kelly Lipinski: I wish it was as singular as that, Margeaux, right? I wish that there was a singular thing, and I’m actually glad that there’s not a singular thing.

Margeaux Roush: Me too, actually.

Kelly Lipinski: Yeah. People can be broken on a singular thing. If that singular thing changes, then I don’t have ties to a firm, or it ties to why I love a place. So, my reason to stay at McGlinchey is frankly a little bit more woven in multiple points of connection here than just one particular reason. I think it’s said in a lot of places, but what is real to me is the people I work with. I work with smart, thoughtful, respectful, caring individuals with very shared goals of doing really good work, doing it in a respectful manner, and trying to make sure that we all succeed. It’s not backstabbing, it’s not undercutting, and it’s not overly competitive in the sense that if I get something, that means you can’t get it. That is not the culture here. And so collaboration is more than just collaborative of thought. It is an environment of collaboration of success, that if I can help one of my partners get a new client relationship by joining them on a prep call, strategizing about topics to discuss, getting on an airplane and joining them on a call, I will do that, and I know that my partners will do that with me as well. To me, that is what people mean. That’s not just being a nice person but having that mentality. We have that, and it’s that culture that has certainly caused me and made me want to stay working with my colleagues. That is perhaps the number one driver.

I also really like the work that I do here, right? It is not often that I do the same thing twice a day. I like the very nature, right? What prompted me to look for a different career many, many, many moons ago is frankly what keeps me staying here. I like the intellectual curiosity. I like doing new things. I like learning new things. I like learning about new business ideas. So, if I was doing routine work day in and day out, I would be bored out of my mind and want to be doing something different. And so, the fact that I get to work here with clients doing varied things that challenge me intellectually is rewarding. That’s one of the reasons that I stay, and I try to bring in work that also meets that expectation for others on my team.

So my reason to stay at McGlinchey is frankly a little bit more woven in multiple points of connection here than just one particular reason … what is real to me is the people I work with. I work with smart, thoughtful, respectful, caring individuals with very shared goals of doing really good work, doing it in a respectful manner, and trying to make sure that we all succeed.

Margeaux Roush: That’s such an excellent answer, and I love how you brought all of that full circle for us. It definitely is the collaboration, the excitement of something different every day, the ability to learn something new and continue to develop and grow, and that you’re not pigeonholed here into this, is where you were hired, and this is where you’re going to stay. There’s none of that.

Kelly, everything you’ve shared with us has been so insightful, and I love hearing that your experience here has been so positive. So thank you for sharing that with us and for sharing #WhyMcGlinchey with us. So, thank you for your time today, and I appreciate you sitting down to talk with me.

Kelly Lipinski: It’s been my pleasure, Margeaux, and thanks to you. I know this is a team effort, and I thank you and your colleagues for putting these events together. Thank you for doing that. I think it’s a great podcast series, and I can’t wait to hear others in the future.

Margeaux Roush: Thanks so much, Kelly.