Stacy Ackermann | A Focus on Relationships: The Real Key to Rainmaking and Impactful Leadership

Elise Holtzman: Hi, everyone. It's Elise Holtzman here, a former practicing lawyer and the host of The Lawyer's Edge Podcast. Welcome back for another episode. The role of managing partner at a law firm is not for the faint of heart. Even at a single office firm, the demands of strategy, culture, clients, and profitability can be intense. Now, multiply that responsibility across 45 offices and 1,700 lawyers around the world, and you get a sense of what today's guest wakes up to every day.

Before we dive in, today's episode is brought to you by the Ignite Women's Business Development Accelerator, a nine-month business development program created by women lawyers for women lawyers. Ignite is a carefully designed business development program containing content, coaching, and a community of like-minded women who are committed to becoming rainmakers and supporting the retention and advancement of other women in the profession.

Registration is now open for the 2026 Ignite cohort, and early bird pricing is available. To learn more about Ignite, visit thelawyersedge.com/ignite. I could not be more excited to welcome today's guest, Stacy Ackermann, who is the global managing partner of K&L Gates, one of the world's leading law firms with more than 45 offices across the globe.

A trailblazing leader and accomplished finance lawyer, Stacy brings a rare blend of strategic vision, authenticity, and deep industry insight to her position. Drawing on her extensive experience advising on complex transactions and a long track record in key leadership roles, she's shaping the future of the legal profession with a focus on innovation, collaboration, and inclusive leadership. Stacy, welcome to The Lawyer's Edge.

Stacy Ackermann: Thank you, Elise. I'm very excited to be here. Thank you for having me on your podcast.

Elise Holtzman: It is my pleasure. I'm going to dive right in and ask you about this incredibly intense job that you have. So it's probably fair to say that one doesn't go from having no leadership experience to being at the helm of an AmLaw 50 firm. What are some of the leadership experiences that you've had in the past that you think have prepared you well to take on this role?

Stacy Ackermann: I've been at K&L Gates since 2012. Since then, I have had various leadership positions at the firm. I was the practice area leader for our global finance practice and then moved to the lead practice area leader for the global finance practice. I also served on the management committee for two consecutive terms, so approximately eight years on the management committee as well.

Elise Holtzman: I'm somebody who is a big believer in being proactive and intentional about looking for leadership roles. So whether you want to become a leader or whether you want to become a rainmaker, and we'll talk a little bit about that, I'm curious for you whether it was one of these things where you saw the opportunity and put your hand up for it or whether somebody else made a suggestion to you to get involved. How did all of that start for you?

Stacy Ackermann: I absolutely did not raise my hand. I was very intent, and I've always been very intent, on growing my practice, to be frank. What I really enjoy are my relationships with my clients and working on deals.

So I was always incredibly laser-focused on my work and my billable work and my client development and business development. So it wasn't something that I really wanted to do to step into management. But what happened was I don't like to be on the sidelines for anything, right? So if there's an opportunity to jump in and get involved and be able to be at the table making key decisions, I wanted to do that.

So it was really more of a desire to get involved and to jump in than wanting to be in management at a law firm. That was never in my goals when I graduated law school.

Elise Holtzman: It's funny because if you are one of those people that can't sit on the sidelines and you have an opinion and you have a voice, I do think that people start to recognize that you are somebody who might be a good leader, right? Because if people are sitting in their office just grinding out the work and not really paying attention, those are not the ones who “get discovered.”

Stacy Ackermann: I think that's right. I think that it is important, especially in this era where we are in the legal marketplace, that the law firm leaders are, number one, good lawyers. Number two, they understand how to develop teams and how to build business.

I think that's a very important aspect of being in law firm management, knowing how to do that and then leading others in that regard. So it started off really building your team, right? I mean, to build a book of business, you need to invest in your team—your team from the allied professionals and the lawyers that are on your team.

Investing in those teams, frankly, probably gives you the best management training because you're building your team to best service your clients and provide the best legal services. It really just evolves from there. Once you learn how to build your team, then you just step into additional leadership positions because you've got that base foundation of understanding what the client and the external marketplace needs.

Elise Holtzman: Let's talk about that a little bit more, because one of the things that I do talk about in business development—while nobody can see me, I smiled when you started talking about building your team, because that's something I talk about quite a bit. I think that's something that people miss out on. They're so focused on the one-on-one relationships or taking people out to lunch or speaking on a panel or something like that.

Team building is not something that they teach us in law school. I mean, they don't teach us any of this stuff in law school. But talk to me a little bit about that. What was that like for you in terms of building a team? Where did that start? Was it just simply delegating to other people so that you could free up your time to do some of the other work? Or was it more intentional than that?

Stacy Ackermann: It was absolutely more intentional than that. Relationships are the base of everything that I do, both internally at the law firm and externally with respect to client development and business development. So it was very intentional to build a team.

Frankly, building a team and working with people that you like and respect just makes our job so much more fun and so much more enjoyable. I mean, as lawyers, we bill a lot of hours. If you are in the office really grinding it out as an associate or an income partner, an equity partner, having a team around you that you like and that you trust makes a huge difference.

I will say personally, one of my partners that I work with to this day on an almost hourly basis, we were summer clerks together. We've practiced together since our summer clerk days. We have been at three different law firms together, but she has been instrumental in building that team and investing in the team.

You need to not only build the team, but you really need to invest in them. That's with respect to personal relationships, professional development, providing them with client opportunities, and just from a personal standpoint, caring about the people you work with.

Elise Holtzman: That's a great story. I love that. Also that it's not just a one-and-done. This is something that can last for an entire career, where you develop those kinds of trusting relationships. It doesn't mean that you necessarily see eye to eye on everything, but you're building something together.

Stacy Ackermann: Hopefully, you don't see eye to eye on everything because that's what then builds the mutual respect.

Elise Holtzman: Pursuing your goals as a rainmaker, then, gave you some of the skills that you need to succeed as a leader. What about the actual legal work that you've done? Your practice focuses on things like structured finance, working with lenders, investors, servicers, all kinds of complex transactions, distressed loan workouts, some very sophisticated kinds of work that you've done.

What lessons have you taken away from those high-stakes deals that you think are valuable to you in terms of excelling in the role that you're now in?

Stacy Ackermann: The deal work that I've done over the years has taught me a lot. I mean, obviously, it's incredibly important to make sure you're building consensus with all of the deal parties so that you can resolve any open issues and close a transaction. Then that's frankly what I do on an hourly basis here at K&L Gates too—execute and close.

You need to be able to know how to get into the weeds, figure out a deal. Specifically with the loan workouts, I think the biggest takeaway that I learned from loan workouts is being able to put a deal together, take it apart, and put it back together again. That's a skill that you can use in just any problem you encounter.

Being able to build a solution to the problem, adjust, pivot, and ultimately close and execute on the deal—that's the fundamental road to success.

Elise Holtzman: Talk to me a little bit about the interpersonal part of this. Because we're talking about a law firm with 1,700 lawyers or thereabouts, 45 different offices. I think this is the definition of “you can't please all of the people all of the time.”

We also know there are so many things going on in the marketplace now—all sorts of innovation and changes and generational differences. There's just so much going on. How do you, in your own mind, approach such a huge job?

Stacy Ackermann: Interpersonal relationships are very important and they allow you to get things done. Relationships, I think I mentioned relationships are really the fundamental core of my legal profession, my whole entire career. It starts off as a junior associate with building those relationships internally. I always say as a junior associate, your clients are the partners that you work for and you learn how to best service those clients.

They be internal at that point, but as you progress throughout your career and you start building those relationships with the external marketplace, it's at the core of the relationship that really is important to the trust and also to generating revenue and generating business on behalf of the law firm. So if you translate those relationships that you have with your clients to the internal relationships now in this management role, it's, like I said, building consensus, but it's getting to know people and it's establishing trust. That's very important for me to trust people on my team and for them to trust me.

So building that internal trust and respect will enable you to get things done. You're absolutely right. There are a lot of people that have different opinions and may not like certain decisions that I execute. I had a call last night in which one of our regional managing partners was very politely and respectfully telling me he disagreed with several of my decisions.

That's good. I want to hear that feedback. I think it's important to building a management team and our management committee has difficult discussions like that. That's important. I do think it's important that when people don't see eye to eye, those discussions occur. It's amazing how you can find common ground if you have the base mutual respect.

Elise Holtzman: I also think that's where the trust comes in because otherwise, if you're a little thin-skinned about it, and look, who doesn't want to be accepted and agreed with all the time? That would be nice. But in a role like this, I think that having a little bit of a thick skin is important.

I also think that it's okay if we disagree with each other because I know that tomorrow when we have a different conversation, we're still friends. We're still colleagues. We still respect each other. I trust that this other person has the best interests of the firm at heart, even if we don't agree with each other. So yeah, I love hearing that, that the trust is very, very important to you.

Stacy Ackermann: You raise an excellent point. I mean, a firm first mentality really makes a difference in building that trust and respect. That is something that in every partner's meeting that I hold, in any town hall meeting that I hold, I always emphasize the firm first mentality. That's why we are here. That's what we do every single day.

Elise Holtzman: What do you find challenging as a leader, whether it's in terms of your own development and learning the ropes, learning how to handle some of these issues or the way other people lead? And what I mean by that is, as I mentioned earlier, they don't teach us this stuff in law school. You know, you and I had that conversation beforehand. So I'm curious whether you feel like you learned the ropes along the way because of these roles you had, or whether you were somebody who had natural leadership ability or some combination of both.

Because a lot of people outside the profession certainly complain about lawyers not being great leaders. I always say I think that many of us are great leaders, but we certainly didn't have formal training on it unless for some reason we had it in another role. So for you, I'm curious what you see in terms of your own leadership capabilities, where those came from, and what you see for some of the people with whom you work.

Stacy Ackermann: Well, I think that's an interesting comment that you made about people viewing lawyers as not good managers. I do think there is some truth to that. We are not taught how to lead or manage, frankly, in law school. We're taught to read cases and to write and to read and maybe a little bit of arguments as well along the way.

So I think what was instrumental for me in my progression was frankly learning to be comfortable being uncomfortable. That sounds so cliche, but if I'm not uncomfortable, I'm not learning and I'm not challenging. So learning to have that comfort with discomfort and also just challenging yourself every day and pushing yourself forward, because every single day I encounter a new problem that I have not encountered before.

You have to be comfortable attacking those problems. That is, frankly, one of the funnest parts about my job is solving problems. That is actually taught to us in law school, right? And it's translating how to solve problems in law school to as an associate, as an income partner, as an equity partner, solving your client's problems, and then solving the issues that you encounter internally within the law firm.

But I do firmly believe that once I learned that being uncomfortable was actually a good thing, I saw tremendous progress in both my legal work and my ability to build my team, my ability to go out and market and do business development, and now currently leading this law firm.

Elise Holtzman: You mentioned that it's a cliche, right, to be a little bit uncomfortable. I think it's a cliche for a reason, right? Because, to your point, it works. You learn and you grow and you're able to step into roles that you might not have thought about early on or might not have imagined. For me, it's exciting.

It's funny that you said that because I was just writing a little bit of a blog post about a couple of the things that I've done over the last few years that I've been most excited about where I really just sort of there's also that cliche, something about jumping out of the airplane and building your parachute on the way down. So I did a couple of those things as well. I thought, "You must be crazy." Then I just pulled the trigger on it and did it. Those were some of the most exciting times when you're learning.

Stacy Ackermann: It's fun, right? It's great, you're learning and having fun at the same time.

Elise Holtzman: Yeah. Well, I'm glad to hear you say that also, because you've taken on this role recently, right? I didn't point that out, but you're we're talking in July, November of, yeah, in November of 2025. You just took on this role in July of 2025. So you're probably still drinking from a fire hose a little bit.

Stacy Ackermann: We'll talk about jumping out of the plane and trying to figure out the parachute on the way down. You know, we're in that process, but I'm very grateful that I was able to step into this position and at a time where the firm is doing really well financially and otherwise, previous leadership did a fantastic job of enabling me to come in at this point, where we have a very solid foundation.

Now that enables me to, instead of trying to steady a ship, I'm looking at where our strategic vision should be and how to execute on that strategic vision, focusing on growth, focusing on what we're going to do next, what our clients need from us, what the legal market is going to look like, and making sure that this firm, frankly, is a little uncomfortable, right? And evolving because the legal marketplace is evolving and we need to evolve with it.

It's trying a bit to look around the corner and see what's next. But coming into this in July, I was very fortunate that I was able to come in at a fantastic time because firm leadership had done such a great job of building that strong foundation.

Elise Holtzman: Yeah. So that forward focus can be really exciting. It can be a little daunting. You mentioned having to react in some ways to the legal marketplace having so many changes going on. What are some of the changes that you think are most important to be paying attention to these days for a firm like yours?

Stacy Ackermann: I'll tell you what, I learned so much during COVID about preparing for what you don't see coming, right? And that's very difficult. We had a lot of lessons come out of COVID that we're still implementing today with respect to practice management and how to work across teams, across geographical locations.

I mean, you mentioned how broad our geographical footprint is. We have 47 offices and trying to integrate is always a challenge. But the one issue that I have meetings about every single day is technology and what the technology, the impact that technology is going to have on the legal profession.

I think it's going to be profound. I'm actually really excited about it. A lot of people say AI is going to replace lawyers. I don't believe that the case because as lawyers, we don't make widgets. I think that we are going to have to use that technology and understand how to use that technology and then also how to price that technology too, right? But how to use that technology to become better lawyers and to provide better legal services and what that is going to look like in two years versus five years versus 10 years. That would be what I see as one of the biggest challenges right now.

Elise Holtzman: How do you address something like that, especially with so many people?

Stacy Ackermann: We're very fortunate to have a great team, our technology team. We have a fantastic chief that runs that team, and we are actively investing in that team and investing in technology. But what we've learned to do is it needs to be a top-down approach.

I mean, I have regular training sessions from our trainers on different technology and how to use AI in my daily life, how to make my personal life better, how to make my ability to respond to clients better and how to incorporate it into management. So it is a top-down approach, but we're also making sure that we're investing in our more junior lawyers because frankly, that's our future, right?

And so we've done things such as you mentioned law school not teaching you a lot of things specifically about running a business. That is a huge challenge for many people graduating from law school and going into a especially Biglaw. You know, you just for so many years just grind, churning out hours as much as you can and then learning what is the business of law and how do you transition into that?

So we have started a new program that we do a mini MBA for our second-year associates. All of our second-year associates we send to a retreat in which we've got some great faculty teaching business concepts and how to read a balance sheet. Some people graduate, they don't teach you that in law school, but it is incredibly important to run a business and to build a book of business and to manage a law firm.

We are investing in the technology, implementing a top-down approach, but really focusing on the investment in our future, in our younger lawyers, as well as lateral hires.

Elise Holtzman: People talk about law firm culture so much these days. It sounds to me like some of the things you're talking about are those things that contribute to a strong law firm culture, investing in your younger lawyers so that they're not just considered cogs in a wheel, but they're considered the future of the firm.

They're considered capable of learning things like rainmaking skills and business skills. They don't wind up waking up at year 10 or year 12 and suddenly realizing they don't know how to do any of those things. The other thing that we know is that law firms are struggling with talent retention. That's another one of the big things that people are talking about in the marketplace, as you well know.

So the technology as well as this idea of younger attorney doing more job hop, laterals moving at a higher rate than has been seen for many years. What are some of the things that you and your teams are doing internally at the firm to either maintain the culture that you already have or build the kind of culture that you want to have?

Stacy Ackermann: Our culture is very important to us. It is a culture of collegiality. It is a culture of trust, as I explained earlier.

But what we are doing for talent retention is investing in our talent. We are only as good as our talent sitting in our offices. We have developed a very robust professional development program that we start with our summer associates.

Our first year through equity partners, we have a large team that implements that. We also break it down to different practices so that it's not only high-level professional development with respect to the mini MBA that I mentioned, but also specific practice development. I think that's important for our lawyers to know that they're our greatest resource and we're going to invest in them.

But as you mentioned, the lateral market, wow. I mean, it just makes your head spin when you look at the lateral market and you look at not only associates job hopping, as you said I think there is a different culture. I still practice with somebody I was a summer clerk with.

I think that's probably highly unusual. I hope that others experience that because I do think that it makes a career more meaningful and more enjoyable. But the lateral market is a challenge.

It really is. It's a challenge in retaining people and also attracting the best talent. You know, when I look at the comp issues that come with laterals, it is eye-opening. It is eye-opening. That is truly drinking from a hose, trying to get your arms wrapped around the lateral market and making sure that we are able to compete with the best of the best and offer competitive pay and offer a culture of collegiality that people want to come to and want to stay.

Elise Holtzman: There's so much to unpack there. As you say, there's so much that culture touches on. I think finally people are starting to realize that for a while it was "culture schmulture." You know, yes, we're nice to each other. You know, yes, we're all smart. Yes, we try to be collegial.

People were using the term collegiality even when I was looking for jobs. They would all say, "Oh, yes, our law firm is a collegial place." But when you put your money where your mouth is and you are investing in people, you are training them, then as you pointed out, you're demonstrating to them that you're important.

I've had some law firm managing partners say to me something along the lines of, "Well, yeah, we want to invest in them, but the young people keep leaving. You know, people leave so much. So it's so upsetting to invest in them and then have them leave."

I'm curious as to your response to that, because my response to it is it's understandable one might feel that way. Yet what's the alternative?

Stacy Ackermann: I agree with that. What is the alternative? And we need to be bringing associates in and we hope they stay with us, right?

We are investing a lot of time and a lot of money in the professional development, in all of the other benefits that we provide. So we do hope that the best of the best come and stay. But I think you put it precisely correct. What is the other alternative?

You know, I'll be frank with you. We have looked, because of the challenges in the market, our first-year class has gone increasingly smaller and smaller because bringing those first years on and training them, we've had to make some hard decisions of, is that the best use of our partner's capital? And so, yes, we still have a summer program.

Yes, we still firmly believe that that summer program is important, and we still bring in sizable first-year classes, but they've been smaller in the past several years. And that's been intentional.

Elise Holtzman: When you think about attracting to your firm associates and partners, right, because that lateral marketplace is busy, what are some of the reasons that you think that people come to K&L Gates, and what makes them decide to stay? You talked about the trust and the collegiality. We talked about training people, letting them know they're important.

What are some of the other things that you think people like about the firm that causes them to want to come and remain?

Stacy Ackermann: I think coming to the firm, the global platform is a significant factor for a lot of laterals wanting to come to a firm where they can do cross-border transactions, where they have colleagues across the globe, literally, that can help service their clients, grow the clients, institutionalize the clients. So I do think that our platform is attractive for many laterals, but that's a different question than why they stay, right?

I mean, the platform, once you bring a client and the client is happy with the platform and you've institutionalized the client, the reason people stay is, I hate to say it, it is the collegiality. I think it's the culture in which when you pick up the phone and you call a partner in another office, they answer. You send them an email. They respond.

You need them on a call with a client. They jump on the call with the client. So instead of other firms that I've experienced where it's really more of a silo culture, at K&L, if you're going to come here, you're going to want to use all 47 offices, right?

It's to your benefit to do so. So attracting people to the platform and then having them use the platform and create those relationships, again, back to the relationships. The relationships are fundamental to why they stay.

Elise Holtzman: Well, and it's not just lip service, right? We know from research that has been done at Harvard, Dr. Heidi Gardner, who wrote Smart Collaboration and Smarter Collaboration, she's got almost 15 years of research that demonstrates that when you work across offices like that, when you work across practice groups, it's one of those "a rising tide lifts all ships" things.

Like not only does the firm do better and the clients stay longer, so then you get to have those deep relationships that you can enjoy. But the individual lawyers also do better. So it's one of those win-win situations. But not every law firm is operating with that in mind.

Stacy Ackermann: That's part of our compensation structure, right? Is to encourage that collaboration with your other partners and across practices and across offices, because you're absolutely right. It is better for the firm. It is better for the client, and it's better for the individual lawyer.

I mean, you talk about rainmaking. You need to be able to use different offices, different lawyers. There are only so many hours in the day, right? There are only so many days in the week. So when your revenue is tied to billable hours, you have to have more billable hours. As one individual, there are only so many billable hours in a week that I can produce.

So being able to utilize the platform, it's the best thing for the client and best thing for the firm and the best thing for the individual. That's how you build a book of business.

Elise Holtzman: I love hearing that because one of the other things that I often hear from managing partners is that the compensation structures are so challenging. I think for every law firm that you have, or many law firms have different compensation structures. I always say, if one law firm had figured it out, everybody would probably be doing it the same way.

So making sure that you're using your compensation system to encourage the kinds of behaviors and the kind of culture that you want to have, they work hand in hand. Those things feed off of each other. So I love hearing that.

I do want to ask you a little bit about your experience as a rainmaker, because not only are you leading this global firm, but you are a significant rainmaker as well. So I have had the privilege of inviting a whole host of rainmakers to come on the podcast, many of them women, because I do love amplifying those voices as we work for supposedly more than 150 years. We're going to have to wait until 2181, supposedly according to research, to have parity in leadership levels between men and women, so I love talking to women rainmakers.

I'm just curious for you, you mentioned the relationships, so I'm curious for you, what spurred you to become a rainmaker, and also what you think the key to your success has been. If it's relationships, let's talk about that. If it's something in addition to that, I'd love to hear about what you think has been the most successful for you.

Stacy Ackermann: Well, for me personally, I'm probably different than a lot of rainmakers and maybe part of this is because I'm a female and I charted my own path. I didn't have any mentors that really showed me how to do it. So the way it worked for me, and this is all in hindsight, I'm not sure I even knew I was doing it at the time, but I concentrated on being a really good lawyer and understanding how to get things done.

So I think that is first and foremost is you've got to be a good lawyer. For me, I've always been a working lawyer. I like billing time. I like working on deals. There are many rainmakers that focus only on the relationship and not the deals. That was not my personal path.

My personal path was I worked really damn hard and billed a lot of hours and became an expert in my world of commercial real estate finance and did a lot in the marketplace. You know, I speak at a lot of panels. I speak at various client events and really being out there in the marketplace. But I've always been a working lawyer. I like it.

That is a struggle also currently stepping into this role is being able to still work on transactions and run a law firm of 1,800 lawyers is a challenge. So my 5:00 AM wake-ups and runs, I can try to process how I'm going to do both. But it's fun. I do think as a managing partner, having that interaction with clients in the external marketplace is very important because it keeps my focus on what the lawyers at this firm need to be doing. I'm modeling that behavior as well.

Elise Holtzman: That's an interesting point because you could be, one could be in the ivory tower of managing a law firm, but having the continued contact with clients on a day-to-day basis does ground you and let you pay attention to what it is that the clients are looking for.

Stacy Ackermann: I think it's very important that I hear the voice of the client. For me to just sit in my office and manage internal issues, I'm going to lose sight of the most important part of our job, which is servicing our clients and providing the best legal advice.

So I mentioned the firm first mentality, but the second point is client voice. We have got to bring the client voice into the firm. That has been one of the pillars of my leadership is making sure that that voice of the client is not only in the office, it's in the management committee meetings, it's in my interactions with the allied professionals. It is a culture here at K&L that we need to make sure that the voice of the client is in the firm.

Elise Holtzman: I'm curious about your perspective as a woman who is a rainmaker and a leader, because some women, not all certainly, but some women, some people think that it is harder to be a woman and make it as a rainmaker and make it as a leader. I'm curious as to your perspective on that.

Stacy Ackermann: I don't know if it's harder because I've only done it from my position. So I can't judge. I have seen women that have struggled with it. I think that being a rainmaker, there's not one way to do it.

There are some fundamentals of building relationships and being good at what you do, but there's not one way to do it. I think authenticity is the key. You need to be authentic. You need to be authentic with your colleagues and you need to be authentic with your clients with respect to your legal skills, the way you interact with them.

I do think that maybe there are some women that try to do it the way that men do it. You can't interact with others by a rule book that someone else has written. You need to do it in a way that's authentic and works for you. So I don't know if it's harder for women.

I think there are obviously some obstacles of juggling work-life balance. We all do that. That's, I actually don't think it's juggle because it's really just whatever ball is in the air, you need to be concentrating on with 120% of your attention and then just flip it when the next ball is in the air. So I do think there are challenges for women in a rainmaking drive, but I think if you approach it in an authentic manner and with a lot of hard work, you'll find success.

Elise Holtzman: As you sit here now in this role that you've just taken on and in your role as a rainmaker and someone who's been practicing law for quite some time, what advice would you have for the next generation of lawyers, knowing that this generation values different things than maybe we did? What do you say to them?

Stacy Ackermann: Push yourself out of your comfort zone and embrace change. You know, so many lawyers that I interact with on a daily basis hate change. Change is hard. Change is hard. Change is uncomfortable.

So embracing change, as you mentioned, when I started my career, what I was doing and the way I interacted, I mean, I remember when I got my first phone that had email. I remember that being, oh my gosh, revolutionary. Like we could actually leave at eight o'clock at night instead of waiting until midnight. So embracing the change and trying to figure out a way to make that change work for you to improve how you're working, to improve the production that you are creating, and to maybe make your life a little bit more enjoyable.

Elise Holtzman: Stacy, as we wrap up our time here together today, and listen, I think I could talk to you for hours about this stuff, I love hearing your perspective, I'm going to ask you a question I ask all of my guests at the end of the show. There's a phenomenon called the curse of knowledge, where experts sometimes forget that what is so obvious and natural to them is not at all obvious to others.

When it comes to taking on or succeeding in a significant leadership role at a law firm, whether it's managing partner, on the management committee, comp committee, running a practice group, whatever it may be, what's a principle or a piece of advice that may seem obvious to you, but you think is important for people to hear?

Stacy Ackermann: I think it comes down to you don't know what you don't know. So you've got to jump in. I think anything that you decide to take on, you need to jump in headfirst. If you're ever going to take a risk, take a risk on yourself.

That is one fundamental principle that I always remind myself of and remind those that work with me and especially my children as well, that if you're going to take a risk, take a risk on yourself.

Elise Holtzman: I love that. That is a perfect way to end. Thank you so much, Stacy, for being here. It's really been a pleasure speaking with you today.

Stacy Ackermann: Thank you, Elise. The pleasure was all mine.

Elise Holtzman: I'm going to thank our listeners for tuning in as well. If you've enjoyed today's show, please subscribe, rate, and review us at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. In the meantime, be bold, take action, and make things happen. We'll see you next time.