Michael Wu has spent more than 20 years serving as an in-house attorney, recently exiting Carter's/OshKosh B'gosh after five years as senior vice president, general counsel and secretary.

Wu is passionate about diversifying the legal profession, corporate C-suites and for-profit boards. He frequently mentors other lawyers and law students, particularly those who are underrepresented in their areas of endeavor.

At a panel discussion last year, Wu had practical advice for new in-house attorneys: Read your company's Form 10-K filings and, during the on-boarding process, meet as many of your clients as possible. “You have to get to know the nuts and bolts of your business,” he said.

What role do you see for in-house legal departments, if any, in urging outside law firms to employ more diverse lawyers?

In-house counsel and corporate legal departments have a critical role in influencing law firms to employ and promote diverse attorneys through the power of the purse. Given the business imperative for diversity and inclusion and studies that have identified the competitive advantage for companies with diverse workforces, I believe in-house counsel should push law firms for diversity of perspectives, experiences and backgrounds to ensure their companies receive the best possible value from their outside counsel and innovative legal solutions for the challenging business problems their companies face. In-house counsel can also advance these initiatives by joining organizations such as the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, minority bar associations such as the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association and the National Bar Association and the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity.

A good example of an in-house legal department at the forefront of promoting diversity at law firms is Verizon. Recently I was pleased to present the Georgia Asian Pacific American Bar Association General Counsel Diversity Champion Award to my good friend, Craig Silliman, executive vice president for public policy and chief legal officer of Verizon, at our annual gala dinner. Craig and the Verizon legal department formally established a metrics committee in 2015 to measure a baseline of diverse attorneys representing Verizon and to develop targets for law firms to assign diverse timekeepers staffing Verizon matters. Their billing software has been modified to include fields that capture timekeeper demographic information, including the level of the timekeeper, which provides direct access to diversity-related data.

Who was one of your mentors, and what did you learn from that person?

Gerald “Liam” Strong, chief executive officer, Cerberus European Capital Advisors LLP was the most impactful mentor in my career. In my late 30s, when Liam was the CEO of Teleglobe, he promoted me to my first general counsel role. I learned how to effectively manage a team and a board of directors from Liam.

What is a misconception lawyers have about the role of in-house counsel?

A couple of key misconceptions are that in-house lawyers have a better work-life balance with shorter hours and that they have less sophisticated work. I have worked many late nights, weekends and holidays during my 20-plus year career in-house and have had a fulfilling career as the general counsel of three public companies. I have taken two companies public; led an investigation of FCPA violations; overseen acquisitions and dispositions; managed class actions, cybersecurity incidents and internal investigations; managed a risk management function that has recovered millions from insurance companies; and led the successful Fourth Circuit reversal of the Rosetta Stone v. Google trademark infringement case that many law students study in law school.