Priya Lele: Launching a global network for female leaders in legal innovation

Earlier this year, on International Women’s Day, She Breaks the Law was launched - a new, unparalleled global network for female leaders in legal innovation. The initiative was co-founded by Christie Guimond (White & Case), Nicky Leijtens (NautaDutilh), and myself.

She Breaks the Law was founded with a mission, embodied by four strands: She Connects, She Shares, She Develops and She Creates. It offers female leaders, at the forefront of disruptive legal innovation, with a forum to connect with like-minded women. It develops their skills and knowledge through mentoring and coaching. It allows them to share experiences, and it provides a safe space to create, collaborate, and test ideas.

Like at Lucy, we’re embracing curiosity as a catalyst for success – as a way to explore, to see both what you can do and what you enjoy, and to craft a career from this. In the legal innovation space, it’s important to see which opportunities resonate with you; choose these over the pursuit of labels. In both traditional and non-traditional roles, there are endless opportunities for anyone who wants to do law differently. The world is your oyster, so good luck – be different, and be you! Find a way to ‘break the law’ – and know that we’re here to support you. 

For innovation and disruption in the law, strong leadership is essential. This, in turn, requires a strong network and collaboration across the legal ecosystem and across geographies. At She Breaks the Law, we want to break down boundaries between disciplines, industry players, and locations. This is at the heart of our network. It’s about promoting innovative ideas through collaboration. Especially in areas of education, access to justice, diversity and inclusion, this is invaluable. Innovation has an impact when paths converge – ‘traditional’ career paths, for example, with ‘alternative’ routes. That means recognising the value of diverse roles, respecting different perspectives, empathy and adaptation. It all begins with connection: sharing stories and giving support.  As Helen Keller wrote, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”

The female element is equally essential. The network shines a light on women leaders of legal disruption, specifically – to celebrate their successes and stories, and change a largely negative narrative about female legal leadership, into something far more positive. She Breaks the Law isn’t there to reform the gender balance, but goes beyond: it exists to support the next generation of leaders, female leaders who are breaking the mould, and delivering services differently.

During my time at Lucy, I completed a Masters of Law, back in 2004-2005. Since then, I’ve been a Research Fellow at the Cambridge Centre for Business Research, before returning to law firms. I’ve been a Senior Associate and corporate lawyer at Ashurst, Bates Wells Braithwaite, and Berwin Leighton Paisner (now Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner), where I was the Principle Legal Process Improvement Lawyer and led the firm’s Legal Project Management initiative. I now work for Herbert Smith Freehills, an international legal practice, as Legal Process Design Lead for US, UK & EMEA. Each stage of my career has helped shape my own growth, innovation and ultimately, the co-foundation of She Breaks the Law. My time at Lucy stressed many of the values we now promote through the network.

As co-founders, Christie, Nicky and I believe a network like ours is invaluable. We’re not the only ones to think so: within 24 hours of launching, we had over 100 members on LinkedIn. Within a week, we had 400. Our launch event in April (hosted by LexisNexis in London) was oversubscribed, and attended by over 100 women. Now, four months later, She Breaks the Law has nearly 1,500 members from 25 countries. It’s the first global support network to bring together a whole spectrum of disciplines – from lawyers to technologists, to legal project managers, female founders, academics and everyone in between – in one group, focussed on innovation.

Like our members, She Breaks the Law has big plans for the future. We’ve already hosted successful inaugural events in New York, Chicago, Amsterdam and Sydney and we’re also hosting follow-up events including in New York in June and in London in September. We just formalised ourselves as a Foundation or Stichting She Breaks the Law (i.e. non-profit organisation) in the Netherlands. The formal legal structure will enable us to pursue our next steps – the creation of our digital platform; deepen our engagement with our sponsors and raise money for future activities to further accelerate this great initiative. By the end of the year, we plan to have launched in India, Dubai and Toronto. This is just the beginning.

Visit the She breaks the Law LinkedIn Group or Priya Lele’s LinkedIn Profile