Leveraging Latitude: Cultivating a Full Life in the Law

Royalty visits Leveraging Latitude as the reigning Mrs. Universe catches up with Candice Reed. Juanita Ingram is an attorney, author, award-winning actress and filmmaker, and she is also the first black woman to be crowned Mrs. Universe. Juanita speaks about her unique career path and the life lessons she’s learned along the way. With her characteristic charm, wit, and vulnerability, she shares how she came to embrace her full self and the opportunity to be found in stepping outside the confines of established expectations. She discusses:

• Why, in the midst of a successful legal career, she began competing in pageants;
• The challenges she faced as a “trailing spouse” after leaving her in-house position with Rolls-Royce to move to London for her husband’s job;
• The advice from her life coach that helped her to embrace the possibility and value of a successful and meaningful nontraditional legal career;
• How a backyard BBQ gave her the idea for the award-winning docuseries, The Expats International Ingrams;
• Why she believes it is critical to tell a variety of black stories in film and television; and
• How she found her purpose by charting her own path.

A podcast by Latitude Legal - Flexible Legal Talent.

Tim and guest host Michelle Culligan speak with Lisa Ann Cooney, Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Officer, and Corporate Secretary at Day & Zimmermann, listed by Forbes as one of America's Largest Private Companies. For Lisa, leadership and business are personal, and she shares the lessons she’s learned about advocating for herself and her career goals, inviting and responding to constructive criticism, adapting leadership styles to varying situations, and giving back through coaching and mentoring.

A podcast by Latitude Legal - Flexible Legal Talent.

Conference season is in full swing! On this episode of Leveraging Latitude, Candice Reed and Tim Haley speak with special guest Alexandra Guajardo, Conference Director for Legal Value Network’s LVNx Conference taking place September 21-23 in Chicago. Alexandra shares an exciting preview of the conference and Legal Value Network’s unique approach to accelerating evolution in the legal industry. From her experience serving as Pricing & Analytics Officer at Shell, Alexandra also shares her insights on the growth and trajectory of legal operations in supporting the people and the business of law.

A podcast by Latitude Legal - Flexible Legal Talent.

Lawyers are the last ones to give themselves permission to step back and think, “Am I happy, should I do something else?” We often are tasked with solving everyone else’s problems, but are reluctant to ask ourselves if what we’re doing is helping us meet our own career goals or priorities.

Cynthia Moon and Joan Blackwell, Directors of Legal Recruiting and Placement at Latitude, share their personal experiences as attorneys who chose to pivot their legal careers into law-adjacent recruiting positions. They take us through their decision-making process when considering whether to leave the daily practice of law and the value of choosing work you love (over what is expected). In this episode, we talk about looking forward to Monday mornings, finding meaningful work slightly outside the practice of law, and asking ourselves the important questions, “Is the work I’m doing now fulfilling? Is it helping me achieve my current professional and personal goals? Can I leverage my legal experience to do something else I might enjoy more?”

A podcast by Latitude Legal - Flexible Legal Talent.

In the second installment of Latitude’s Legal Influencers series, Candice Reed speaks with Brittany Leonard, general counsel at Civix, a multinational technology company that provides services and software solutions to over 100 airports, 90 percent of U.S. nuclear power plants, and nearly half of the country’s secretaries of state.

Candice and Brittany discuss Brittany’s inspiration for her creative, authentic, no-holds-barred posts providing strategic business leadership and pragmatic career advice to her online community of thousands of attorneys and legal operations professionals. They discuss:

• Brittany’s unique path from contemplating leaving the practice of law to becoming General Counsel;
• Hot topics among the legal industry, including the impact of AI, the growth and significance of legal operations, and the pursuit of healthier work environments;
• Conquering self-censorship and fear that may hinder active participation in these conversations on social media and elsewhere, empowering attorneys to engage in meaningful dialogue;
• Tackling imposter syndrome by reflecting upon past accomplishments; and
• Brittany’s advice for not performing within other people’s framework and showing up as your authentic self in the practice of law.

A podcast by Latitude Legal - Flexible Legal Talent.