From Fortune 500 General Counsel To Executive Coach

Pictured: Mila Trezza

Please tell us a bit about yourself and your professional journey.

My name is Mila, and I spent most of my career as an in-house lawyer, with over 10 years as General Counsel of a Fortune Global 500 energy company. I am now an executive coach for lawyers and legal teams. I developed my over 20 years of professional experience as a lawyer internationally. I served as director of over 30 companies of the Eni group, operating across many jurisdictions and cultures. I recruited, led and developed high-performing teams of in-house lawyers. I am dual-qualified and lived in six countries, which shaped my passion for the international dimension of the legal profession.

In early 2022, I launched my first business, Coaching Lawyers by Mila Trezza. I now work with in-house and private practice lawyers who wish to overcome their challenges, accelerate their growth and get more of what they want faster.

Why a career in-house?

I think a career in-house attracts lawyers who wish to develop a set of unique professional skills. Take for example the focus on commercial awareness, political savviness and understanding of a company business, which rank high in the job description of in-house lawyers.

In-house lawyers also need to be skilled synthesisers in order to answer the daily question, ‘Is this ok with legal?’ The analysis that backs up in-house legal advice frequently takes into account multiple internal and external inputs. However, the translation of that analysis must be a simple answer that the business can understand in order for them to be able to rely on it. In my experience, people who are interested in a career in-house frequently have a proclivity for pragmatism and problem-solving built into their professional DNA, and they wish to make an impact in the organisations they serve.

Hence, and to answer why in-house for me, I think the skills I wished to cultivate in my career were the skills of an in-house lawyer, which I discovered early in my professional journey were also what I enjoyed the most in my work.

What career advice would you offer to a lawyer who is considering moving in-house?

The career advice I would offer to a lawyer who is considering a move in-house is to look into the long-term journey. Don’t limit their considerations to just the most talked about aspects of the job, such as working closely with the business, specialising in one industry and being willing to advance professionally within a less structured career progression. My suggestion is to project the next 8-10 years of their career and start thinking about whether the long-term trajectory is also something they find meaningful.

Why? Because the long-term development of an in-house lawyer often includes progressing from the role of an effective legal adviser into a (predominantly) managerial role. In other words, once an in-house lawyer masters providing reliable and commercial legal advice, their next career move may involve developing people-management skills.

Management challenges are coupled with leadership challenges when effectively leading a team, and maybe one day leading a department or more than one department. There is little in the professional journey and training of a lawyer that prepares them to become a manager, let alone a politically savvy corporate leader. Some people successfully master the journey and the transition, but many others find it to be a difficult undertaking. Private practice lawyers also face managerial challenges as they progress in their careers, but their long-term journey is more geared towards business development than leading a corporation, for example, on ESG.

When it is hard and the development of the necessary new skills does not receive appropriate support, some lawyers settle for keeping their teams together, even if only just. But their teams are unhappy, legal talent does not develop their full potential and, over time, the team feels overwhelmed or under-managed.

Tell us about your journey from being a General Counsel to launching your business as an executive coach. Why coaching?

One of the many things that attracted me to executive coaching is the way coaching allows to cultivate authentic leadership.

During my time in-house and after having worked with many lawyers and legal teams worldwide, I realised there was a deeply felt need for lawyers of all seniorities to develop the leadership

needed to grow the enormous and diverse talent pool in the legal profession. My vision was to make an impact by offering what I learned to more than one organization. Being an effective lawyer in the 21 st century involves not only acquiring extensive professional experience and solid legal skills, but also embracing a leadership mindset. This mindset piece is the hardest to achieve.

Coaching is one of the avenues it can be nurtured and cultivated. It builds awareness and relational intelligence that are instrumental in exercising the emotional muscles lawyers need alongside intellectual skills. These muscles are necessary to break through silos and create real collaboration, achieve sustainable change, and create those positive leadership ripples that inspire others to take action.

By Mila Trezza