Perfecting Your Pitch returned to New York City this year, with more female firm lawyers and in-house counsel working to boost the number of women leaders in mergers and acquisitions.

The October event in New York brought lawyers from across the country, with female firm M&A lawyers at all career levels practicing their pitches on real in-house counsel, who provided feedback.

“I thought it was a really important piece of development for women in firms,” said Sonia Galindo, the general counsel and secretary of Rosetta Stone who participated in PYP. “I have firms that pitch deals all the time, and [after] saying pitch teams as well as matter teams have to have diversity, they end up being all men.”

She said she wanted to participate because it was a way to help further develop female M&A lawyers' skills. Another in-house attendee, Addivant general counsel and corporate secretary Joyce Johnson, said she also wanted to help promote women in M&A.

Johnson said she's seen many women in M&A slip through the cracks, especially at big law firms, missing out on mentorships and not being included in pitch teams. She could only recall one time a woman was a lead attorney on a deal she was involved in, and that was in the 1990s.

“I've noticed that the women tend to be assigned to more menial tasks,” Johnson said. “They don't tend to be the leads on the transaction documents, and I'd like to see that change at the law firms.”

One firm-side attendee, Stoel Rives associate Jennifer Johnson, said she was impressed by the number of in-house counsel who gave their time to help women practice their pitch. Over the half-day event, Johnson and her team ran two pitches.

She said the feedback she got from in-house counsel, including providing a clear plan and budget, was useful information she can bring back to her real team for pitches going forward. While she's done mock pitches before, she said that having real in-house lawyers provide feedback made the simulation more real than when the practice is in front of other lawyers from her firm.

“I definitely got a lot more out of it going in front of real general counsel, knowing that they're not looking to hire you for this pretend pitch, but you're dealing with real-life people who are going to give you real feedback versus hypothetical feedback you get in a training,” she said.

Another firm-side participant, Stoel Rives partner Anne Glazer, said feedback from GCs that stuck with her was to bring confidence, solutions and recommendations to the pitch, rather than lay out a series of options for the prospective client.

She said she also enjoyed seeing company legal leaders give their time to help boost women lawyers in the M&A space.

“[It's] very encouraging for everyone on our team to know that these companies and these GCs within these companies really value the inclusion of women in M&A deals and on pitch teams and want to see them succeed,” Glazer said. “It just was a very good feeling.” 

Another Perfecting Your Pitch event will be held in San Francisco on Nov. 14. Corporate Counsel is a sponsor of the event.