Sheila Murphy is the Associate General Counsel at MetLife, Inc., where she leads the Financial Products & Insurance Litigation Practice Group. Prior to joining MetLife, Sheila was a litigation associate at Thacher Profitt & Wood, a corporate law firm. She is an active member of CARE Women’s Initiative of New York, the National Association of Women Lawyers, and, of course, 85 Broads. She kindly sat down with me to discuss her legal career, seeking that elusive balance as a working mother and the importance of cultivating meaningful relationships in your professional life.

1. Can you give me an overview of your career thus far?

I started at Thacher Profitt & Wood post-law school. I originally wanted to join the firm’s corporate department, but the firm asked me to join the litigation group instead and, thankfully, I found that I really enjoyed it. When I was in my sixth year or so, I had our first child and switched to part-time, and realized that my career may stall if I were to remain at the firm. A friend of mine told me that MetLife had a position available, and I’ve been with the company for almost 15 years now.

2. What are your primary responsibilities at MetLife?

My Practice Group handles most of US Business litigation relating to our financial products and distribution, as well as defined certain regulatory actions. I started out managing discovery, then steadily progressed to where I am now. I currently manage about 35 people in three different units, Policy Litigation, Institution Benefits and Product and Distribution Litigation. I focus less now on drafting and more on litigation strategy, which I love.

3. How does your experience working in-house compare with your time at a big law firm?
I think a lot of attorneys working at law firms are misinformed or don’t understand the level of intensity of in-house work. My work is more varied now and encompasses many more jurisdictions. The biggest difference, I think, is that I have a constant, steady stream of work now, unlike at the firm, where you would have big peaks and valleys.

4. Whom do you see as your “client” now?
My clients are the various departments within MetLife’s US Business. To gain credibility and win their trust, they have to see that I am a good, ethical lawyer who understands the business. The legal affairs department meets regularly with the business side to discuss how to manage and mitigate risk. We educate the legal affairs staff on the products and public relations priorities of MetLife. Our legal staff are encouraged to move within the group, from M&A to litigation, for example, so that they can be exposed to all aspects of what the company does.

5. Since you manage so many people, can you give us your thoughts on what makes an effective manager? What did you learn from your managers in the past?
When I started my career, I worked primarily with male partners. At MetLife, I have had the opportunity to work with women at very high levels, which has been great. In my experience, women are much more cognizant of people issues, about how decisions affect all aspects of our employees’ lives, as well as the importance of work environment in creating better results. As a manager, I really try to encourage all of my employees to ask for what they want. I have noticed that men are much better at this, although asking is only half of the equation. Recently, my responsibilities increased significantly. Two male employees came to me and asked, “Is there anything I can do for you?” Their intention was to lighten my workload and expand their own responsibilities and experience. They were willing to take on small tasks to do so. I won’t forget something like that very easily.

6. Have you had mentors in your career? What makes an effective mentor, in your opinion?
Having a mentor is so important. If you don’t have one within your own company, it is that much more important for you to find one outside it. A good mentor is someone who you communicate well with and leads by example. I am very aware of the fact that I need to demonstrate through my actions what I tell people. Both the mentor and mentee need to listen and understand what the other wants.

7. What can you tell young attorneys and people starting out in their careers about being good mentees?
There is some chemistry involved. And as I mentioned, asking for what you want is important, even though you may not always get everything you ask for. It’s very important to be specific about the guidance you need. Someone may confide in me that she is unhappy. Well, is it that you want a promotion? Would you like to try a new area of work? Those are very different objectives and mentees should be as explicit as possible.

8. As you continue to progress in your career, do you find yourself drawing on your law firm training? If so, how?
I draw from my firm training constantly because it gave me confidence and a very good foundation of skills. I also understand very well how outside counsel think—this helps enormously in our strategy sessions, and also comes in handy when I am budgeting and managing litigation. Because I handled some very large cases at the firm, I learned great project management skills, which aren’t necessarily legal in nature, but more about how you motivate others and how you keep track of all of the moving parts. This has been a very important skill to have MetLife. Also, I have a great network of people from the firm who I draw on for advice.

9. When you are juggling so many priorities, how do you keep in touch with your network?
I use social media a lot, like Facebook and LinkedIn. It’s easy to pass along an article or drop a quick note. When I am going to be at an event I will post a note via social networking and hopefully someone else will show up and we will find some time to catch up. I am also a big fan of reunions- where you can get a large group of people together on one night. By doing this you consolidate catching up, networking and having fun. It really gives a lot of the people to reconnect in a short period of time. I attend and/or organize reunions for both MetLife and my prior law firms. For both, we hold reunions at least 2 or 3 times a year. The law firm reunions include everyone from the litigation department, from secretaries to partners. We all got along really well.

10. As a working mother of 2 children, what is your theory on balance?
I don’t think there is such a thing! I see it more as managing your priorities for that specific day. I have a very supportive husband, which helps a lot. As my children have grown older, I’ve found more time to do more networking outside of MetLife and to expand my skills. I really wish I had started this much sooner. While I was also very involved within MetLife, I think it is very important to have a network beyond your organization. In retrospect, I would have become very involved with one or two organizations, either bar associations or charities, and cultivated relationships earlier in my career. I counsel my associates to get involved in both Company and outside initiatives.

11. That’s a great segue to your work with CARE. Can you tell me more about the project you’re involved with?
Oh, I love talking about CARE. I have been part of the NY Women’s Initiative for about two years now. We raise funds, advocate for and increase awareness of CARE’s work empowering women in the developing world. As Sheryl WuDunn talked about in her book (Half the Sky) and at the Power Breakfast, investing in and empowering women really has such tremendous, widespread impact. For instance, we advocate for the prevention of childhood marriage, so that women can get an education, earn an income and, as a result, change the future for her and her family. We only consider established programs. Two of our most recent grantees is a microlending program based in Mozambique and water sanitation project in Peru. If anyone is interested in this group, they should just reach out to me.
Our funding strategy has changed a little bit. In the past, we used to visit projects on the ground, and then select which ones to fund. We found that this led to a delay in disbursing the money. Our goal now is to get the money to the organizations as quickly as possible, so we raise money into what we call an “emerging fund.” We will select grant recipients from the various RFPs submitted to us. Next month we will be select our first project using this methodology.

12. And finally, how did you become involved with 85 Broads?
I’ve been very interested in broadening my network beyond legal professionals. My aim is to learn different leadership skills and styles. An article about 85 Broad appeared in the New York Times at around the same time I found out about the organization. I’ve been involved for about nine months, and I love how the women are so giving. I’ve found my experience to be very rewarding.