Leaving Big Law for In-House Opportunity: A Q&A With New Stats Perform General Counsel Elizabeth Cutri
"I would find myself at night or when I was going home thinking more about the business issues than the legal issues," Cutri said. "I started to think that this might be a good fit for me."
February 27, 2020 at 11:59 AM
5 minute read
Decades before "Moneyball" hit theaters and long before the book that inspired the movie was published, a company in Chicago called STATS, which stands for "Sports Team Analysis and Tracking Systems," was busy collecting and analyzing baseball statistics.
The firm, which merged last year with U.K.-based Perform Content to create Stats Perform, now analyzes a wide range of sports data with artificial intelligence technology, including a novel AI system that collects player tracking data directly from video broadcasts of games. The NBA's Orlando Magic currently uses the tech to analyze potential college recruits.
Stats Perform operates in a unique space in the burgeoning AI industry, which appealed to former Kirkland & Ellis partner and intellectual property guru Elizabeth Cutri. The Chicago native recently walked away from a life in Big Law to serve as the first-ever general counsel for Stats, which is headquartered just around the corner from Cutri's former office at Kirkland in downtown Chicago.
She spoke with Corporate Counsel recently about her decision to leave Kirkland after more than 11 years with the firm to take on a GC role without having had any prior in-house experience. The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Corporate Counsel: What spurred you to leave Big Law and go in-house?
Elizabeth Cutri: It was always on my radar as a transition I was interested in thinking about and potentially exploring. What motivated it was as I started to get more senior and as I became a partner and stepped more into the shoes of the person interfacing with the clients and talking to the client and working with the client's personnel, I started to realize that I'm more interested in the business issues. How is this legal issue affecting your business? How is the business driving the legal decision? What products do you have on the horizon? What projects are you working on? What are your budget constraints? What are your competition issues? All these things that I started to get more access to. I would find myself at night or when I was going home thinking more about the business issues than the legal issues. I started to think that this might be a good fit for me.
CC: Is it a little bit daunting jumping into the GC role having had no in-house experience?
EC: Yes and no. I have a lot of managerial experience because as a partner at Kirkland that's what I did day to day: manage teams of people, make sure that the strategies were set and aligned with the client and the top-level staff, strategy, direction, control, budgeting, all the way down to the nitty-gritty stuff. From that perspective, I feel very comfortable. The only thing that's kind of daunting is that I have to learn this business and learn these people. I did not do work for Stats Perform prior to coming here. So I've got to get to know everyone. I've got to get to know what makes this business tick and what their goals are, what's important to them, what their risks are and what people care about. So, yeah, that's a project. But it's really exciting.
CC: Do you have a legal department or are you a one-woman show?
EC: There are currently six other lawyers, two here in Chicago and four currently who sit in London.
CC: Very interesting space that you're in, a very interesting area for AI to operate in. What attracted you to Stats?
EC: One of the most important things to this company now is development, rollout and utilization of AI technology. That was a big part of what attracted me to this role. Of course, it's here in Chicago, which was really attractive to me from a personal and lifestyle standpoint. At the end of the day, this company's core value proposition is its technology, which is really where my comfort zone is and where I feel is a safe bet, a good place to be. It felt like a smart place to be and a place that is really poised for some growth.
CC: What are some emerging trends and topics of concerns for in-house counsel in the AI industry?
EC: We're in the patent world, so we're trying to think carefully about our IP strategy. That's what's really on the forefront of my mind right now, thinking carefully about our IP strategy and making sure that we're taking the right steps to protect the really amazing, valuable ideas that people here are coming up with.
CC: Any privacy concerns that are at the top of your mind?
EC: We are a business-to-business entity. Some of our customers are Google, Yahoo, betting operators. So that helps us in some regards in terms of data processing and our obligations and workload. We don't have a lot of the issues that consumer-facing entities have, which is kind of nice.
Read More:
How Legal Departments Are Using New Data Tools, Tactics to Fight Megaverdicts
Using AI to Improve the RFP Process: A Q&A With Globality's Mili Desai
Corporate Legal Departments Slow to Adopt Artificial Intelligence Contract Analysis Tools
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