Sheila Murphy left the in-house world with a mission.

After decades spent serving on insurance company MetLife Inc.'s legal team as a senior in-house lawyer, Murphy broke out on her own to coach women on career success. She left MetLife in December as senior vice president and associate general counsel.

Since then, she's founded Focus Forward Consulting to work with women lawyers on advancing their careers, in the hopes of boosting gender pay equity and representation in law's leadership ranks. She started her career at the firm Thacher Proffitt & Wood.

Corporate Counsel spoke with Murphy about growing in-house, gender equity at firms and in-house and her career tips. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Corporate Counsel: Why did you want to coach women? 

Sheila Murphy: Because women, if you look at the legal field, there's a huge gap between women equity partners and men equity partners both in numbers and financial, and I am passionate about trying to change that.

Both from a macro level, which is looking at some of the institutionalized reasons why women are not doing as well as men—things such as assignment systems, sponsorship, how feedback is given, performance reviews, how they are done. But those things don't change overnight.

So while we're working on the macro stuff, I also want to work on the micro stuff, which is what can we do now to increase the number of women who are reaching leadership in the firm and get their compensation closer to the men.

That's why I focus on women.

CC: Does your coaching mostly focus on the macro or micro issues? What are some of the issues you regularly see? 

SM: It's on the micro issues for the most part. I preach about the macro issues, unfortunately I haven't gotten to coach any firms on the macro issues.

On the micro issues, a lot of what you see is having trouble breaking away from the legal technician, time management and understanding and appreciating that generating business and their career development is just as important as doing legal work. And being able to push the work aside, ask for help, delegate more, so they can do this.

Women need to invest the time in themselves to develop their brand and their network and make sure they're giving excellent customer service. Meeting with clients you already have. There's an assumption that if I do good legal work there's no way that I'm going to lose this business.

CC: When you were a GC, was firm diversity a factor you considered in outside counsel selection? 

SM: Yes, absolutely.

CC: Did you tell firms that? 

SM: Oh, absolutely. I told law firms that. I've had discussions with firms that did not bring in diverse teams. I also had a firm tell me diversity is not always what you see, and they were right.

CC: You've said that you moved in-house because there wasn't enough flexibility at your firm. Can you tell me about that factor in your decision to leave your firm? 

SM: You have to go back in time. My daughter is now going to be 26, so we're talking a long time ago. I was offered part-time, which was 5 days a week 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. It was either that or four days a week any time, and I wanted a little more certainty, though I ended up staying past 6 p.m.

Let's just say not all the partners were on board with this. There was one who loved calling me in at 5:45 everyday. I realized at some point that I wasn't having a career. There were limited possibilities as to how I was going to advance in the organization.

A friend came to me with an opening. They were looking for a person who had big case discovery experience and she said, “This is in your wheelhouse. Perfect fit for you.” I went in and I got the job.

It was the best thing that ever happened to my career. Because I went from being someone on some cases where I wasn't the most senior person, not necessarily involved in the strategic decisions. So having a much broader view of the legal issues that were out there. I learned a tremendous amount and worked with some guys who really focused on promoting good talent.

CC: Has the rise in women GCs had an impact on diversity, at firms, from what you've seen? 

SM: Women in-house are having a great impact on diversity internally, but I've also worked in-house with a number of men who also were very focused on diversity and were big cheerleaders.

Legal departments overall are leading the efforts in diversity because corporations realize and have seen the business case for diversity. So you get that trickle-down effect. Having women and people of color leading areas helps because they are truly committed to it, but I would also balance it by saying I've seen a lot of men who have shown true commitment to it.

CC: You were at MetLife for more than 20 years. How did you continue to grow while in the same company?

SM: At a company that size there are always new issues coming in the door, and you just kind of raise your hand and volunteer to be part of it. You've given a lot of exposure to different issue.

I don't think people understand that MetLife had agriculture, investments. So it's not just life insurance that you're getting exposed to. And the issues over time evolved and became more sophisticated. I think, for the most part, I was always surprised by the new things I was able to learn. There's so many businesses.

And in-house it's really encouraged, at least it was at MetLife, to try to take advantage of different experiences. You could volunteer to work for a different area of a law department. We had a lot of lawyers try a stint in compliance or [human resources] or the business, as long as you had a reputation for excellent work and ethics, there were opportunities there to grow in so many ways. You just need to raise your hand.

CC: There are only so many GC spots in a legal department. How do you develop your skills and grow even in the same role? 

SM: Legal departments recognize this issue, that there are only so many spots, so that's why they institutionalized cross-department opportunities. Even before that, you could go speak to someone and ask your manager, “I'd like to learn more about cyber. Can I take on some assignments in that area?”

Your title didn't change, but all of a sudden you have a broader breadth of understanding. That can help you deadline with your day-to-day client because you're dealing with issues that are intertwined.

There were also opportunities to learn about department management. Lead a project, lead a team, where they could develop soft skills and leadership skills they might not be getting in their day jobs.

I always tell people if your day job is not helping you grow, and you need your day job, there are so many volunteer opportunities, bar associations, looking for people to show depth, that you can continue to grow. Even when you have the most invested manager, no one should care more about your career than you and you need to figure out the skills you need to stay relevant and get to the role you want.