An Interview: About the HERizon Women’s Initiative

The following is a Legalverse Media interview conducted with key members of the HERizon Women’s Initiative. The interview reveals the mission, operations and membership process for the organization.

1. Introduction: About Susan, Teka and Barb

As an introduction maybe you can tell us something about yourself, about the things you do on a day-by-day basis in the legal sector and so on.

Susan is a founding principal of a management consultancy company called LawVision. She helps law firms with practice group issues and leadership training to drive strategy, competitive advantage and financial performance and law firms and legal departments with legal project management skills; and Barb owns an Executive Coaching company, helping thousands of clients (many in the legal industry) achieve their potential. Teka is a Director of Legal Operations at Disney, where she has the pleasure of leading an amazing team overseeing the legal department’s technical transformation.

2. Empowerment Through HERizon

The three of you are running HERizion. HERizon Women’s Initiative is dedicated to empowering women in the legal community to lead boldly, break barriers, and drive innovation. How does the Initiative help to do this?

Our mission for HERizon is to empower women in the legal community by providing practical resources, mentorship, and leadership development, always with an opportunity to share and practice. We aim to foster a supportive and inclusive environment where women can thrive, share knowledge, and advance in their careers, while breaking down barriers and advocating for gender equality across the legal industry. ALL women and allies in legal-related fields are welcome to join at no-cost.

We help women lead boldly through:

• Leadership and professional training workshops
• Interactive Executive Coaching sessions
• Community networking events

Our approach elevates our members by connecting women with industry thought-leaders and role models, sharing actionable strategies for overcoming challenges, and promoting bold, innovative thinking in legal practice.

These programs are vital for women and male allies as they provide knowledge, networks, and inspiration to overcome systemic barriers. We maintain an online schedule of upcoming events on the Legalops website, and all sessions are recorded for participants who are unable to attend live.

3. Roles at HERizon

Could you briefly say something about the role each of you fulfills at HERizon?

Each of us brings a unique perspective and skillset to HERizon. For example:

Teka brings an in house perspective, Susan brings in law firm professionals and expertise in leadership and training, and Barb helps leaders master the mindset, skills, and presence to lead with impact.

These complementary roles ensure HERizon remains responsive, resourceful, and engaged.

4. HERizon’s Added Value: What Makes Us Different

How does HERizon differ from similar initiatives, if any? What’s the addedvalue HERizon presents?

Building on the unique mission of Legalops.com to galvanize and leverage the disparate experiences of those in house, in firm and service providers to build a rich community, HERizon dedicates focus and attention to development and investment in ourselves or others as women and allies in the legal industry.

5. Three Unique Selling Points

If you have to choose 3 unique selling points which 3 should you choose to describe HERizon and why?

With very little time commitment and no cost, we offer: best in class subject-matter programming, depthful relevant executive coaching and a rich network of contacts to foster community and help women in legal achieve their goals.

6. HERizon’s Global Vision

What are your plans (if any) for rolling out HERizon world-wide? Would that be a serious option for you?

Yes! Rolling out HERizon worldwide is a serious and exciting option, and we are building partnerships to make our content and community easily accessible internationally.  We already have a handful of overseas members!

7. How to Join HERizon

How do people join HERizon?

Membership is open to anyone committed to equity and innovation in legal practice.

One would go to LegalOps.com and click “join” in the upper right to set up their profile. This takes a few minutes, but will pay rich dividends as it allows access to all Legalops programming including ours.  (If any trouble registering, please email our trusted problem-solver, Laramie.Rose@legalops.com).

8. The Biggest Challenge Ahead in Law

The legal profession is changing and professionals need to be more business and tech-savvy. What do you see as the biggest challenge for the legal professional, and women in particular, in let’s say five years from now?

The legal profession is rapidly changing, with increasing demands for business savvy and tech fluency. The biggest challenge will be adapting to new client expectations, digital platforms, and innovative business models. For women, overcoming persistent bias and ensuring equal access to leadership roles and technology will remain critical. In five years, those who embrace lifelong learning and bold leadership will thrive.

For an example, there is research (Forbes, for example) that shows women are less likely to use AI as their male counterparts for a several reasons. This means that AI is training on fewer prompts and content from women and could mean output is more biased. As such, in HERizon, we’ll tackle this topic head on in future sessions to best position our community for current and future challenges.

Closing Remarks

Thank you for this opportunity to share HERizon’s mission. We are passionate about empowering women and transforming the future of the legal community. We invite legal professionals of all backgrounds to join us as we break barriers and lead the way toward a more inclusive and dynamic legal profession.