JoAnn Lee of Exxon Mobil Corporation. Courtesy photo.

JoAnn Lee was recently promoted to the role of associate general counsel at Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil Corp., putting her near the top of the law department at the world's largest publicly-traded oil and gas company and a perennial member of the “Fortune 5.”

Lee, a Texas native, has spent nearly 20 years in Exxon Mobil's legal department, serving in roles including assistant general counsel of litigation. She recently spoke with The National Law Journal about her path to the top, her company's philosophy on outside law firms and why hearts and minds need to change to fix the legal industry's diversity issues.

Can you tell me how you decided you wanted to be an attorney?

JoAnn Lee: I have wanted to be an attorney since eighth, ninth grade. I have an older brother who is brilliant. I followed him and everything he did, I wanted to do.

When he was in high school he decided he was going to be a lawyer, and I just said, “if he's going to do it, that's what I'll do,” not really knowing much about it. Then he switched to acting, and I knew I couldn't do that. But what sealed the deal for me was watching Barbara Jordan in the Nixon hearings. I had never seen a black woman like her before. I didn't grow up with a lot of lawyers and doctors and judges. My family was just regular blue-collar folks and watching her, and the way she enunciated, and the way she commanded that room, sealed the deal for me. My brother was no longer a factor, but I wanted to do what she did so I started to study Barbara Jordan.

After working for the Harris County, Texas, District Attorney's Office and in-house at Union Pacific Railroad, you went to Exxon Mobil in 1999. How'd you get there?

JL: When I was at Union Pacific I tried injury cases. On one case, Exxon Mobil was a co-defendant and railroad cases are a little bit tricky. It was one of our employees who was injured on the job and because of the nuances of railroad law and litigation, I made a pact with the Exxon Mobil lawyer. I asked him “to stand back in the depositions and let me go first, let me do the work for us, because you don't understand the nuances of railroad law, so you could mess it up for all of us.” He said, “OK, but just know I'm coming after you if you mess it up.” And I said, “You can clean it up, but just let me do this.” We did that for several depositions and things turned out well for both of our clients.

After that he asked me if I'd ever thought about leaving and I said I'd never really thought about it, because I'm enjoying what I'm doing. He said, “You should consider Exxon, we try cases too. It's a broader range of cases and we've got an excellent team.” So, after about six months he convinced me to interview, and then I went over to Exxon. In fact he worked for me when I was head of litigation and we became great friends.

How does Exxon choose outside law firms?

JL: A lot of companies have this convergence model where they use fewer law firms, but it's our philosophy that we hire the best lawyer for the case, for the jurisdiction, for the subject matter and if that means that we're hiring a different lawyer, a different law firm for every case, that's what happens.

I go to a lot of conferences, such as the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, the American Bar Association, the National Association of Minority and Women Owned Law Firms, the Hispanic and National Bar Association Conferences. And part of what we do at the conferences is to identify lawyers because one of the things that I focused on during my tenure as assistant general counsel of litigation is how to ensure that we field diverse teams with women and minorities. And we've been very focused on that, even before me, but I've made it my mission. I've never wanted us not to be able to use women and minority lawyers because we couldn't find them, we didn't know who they were.

What inspired you to get more involved in advocating for diversity in the law?

JL: First, I'm a woman and I'm African-American so diversity and inclusion have always been important to me and I really believe that there's a business case for it, we're better when we have those diverse perspectives.

I know how hard it was for me because I came into this business a long time ago, in the early 80s, and I didn't see a whole lot of women or people of color in management positions in-house. I've done pretty well but it wasn't easy. At Exxon Mobil, we do really well with women and we're doing pretty well with minority attorneys. We can always do better. We work very hard at it, and every time we have a woman or minority who excels, that helps the rest of those coming behind them.

What do you think the legal industry should be doing differently to bring in and retain more minorities and women?

JL: Law firms have to help us because that's where the training happens since we don't hire right out of law school. We've talked for so long about our aspirational goals, but you have to have an action plan, diversity has to be a requirement. You can talk philosophically all day long in firms and in-house, but you need to have an action plan, you have to say: this is what we're going to do and this is how we're going to do it. I have a lot of friends in firms, they talk the talk and I think they believe in it, but there's really no plan of action for exactly how we can get there.

I know there are a lot of firms that have the Rooney Rule so they make sure they have women and minorities when they're interviewing candidates for associate or even partner positions. But even if you do that and you actually hire someone in the firm, that just gets them in the door. What do you do when they're there? Are you mentoring and are you sponsoring? Are you making sure they get access to really good clients? Because that's how you develop them. And do they work with those clients? Because I can say I want a diverse team, and you can go out and make sure you have women and minorities on my team, but are you including them in your big cases with all your big clients and having them do meaningful work? If it's litigation, are they on the trial team? Are they taking depositions? How are you developing them?

One thing that I used to see with some firms and still do, is when they come to visit us they always bring women, they always bring minorities, because they know I'm running the department. But then when they staff our cases, you don't see those people, or you see them doing document production or discovery, not doing meaningful work. We have changed that dynamic with our firms. I've said, “Don't show up with anybody that you're not going to put on cases, that you're not going to allow to do the work, that you're not going to develop for me so they can one day be my go-to lawyer.” Our firms have been receptive.

Change has proven to be tough.

JL: When in-house counsel require diversity that's the first step, but we need to change the culture, it has to be changing hearts and minds, and until we can get there, we won't really make any meaningful impact on the number of women and minorities that are moving in the upper echelons in this profession. We're still at the “forcing it” stage: many law firms do it because we require it. I'm not saying it's the only reason they do it, but that's part of it.

One day I hope we don't have to have this conversation, it's just automatic. I don't have to tell firms who to put on the team. I want to be provided with a diverse team of people doing significant work on matters. I don't know that I'll live long enough to see that, but I hope I do.

How important is mentoring in this equation? Have you had mentors?

JL: There is no way I could have navigated the things I have and prepared for the opportunities that I've been fortunate enough to have without mentors and sponsors throughout my career.

Jack Balagia, former general counsel of Exxon Mobil, was my mentor, my sponsor and friend during my time at Exxon Mobil well before he became GC. He talked me off of so many ledges, helped me to determine what jobs I should have, which ones were a good developmental opportunity. I'm a single parent and there were opportunities I was offered that I considered not taking because I thought that it would compromise my ability to be the best mother I could be to my son. Some required a lot of travel, and I work a lot already, so I had to balance motherhood and the requirements of the position. I love my job but if I had to choose, being a good mother is more important to me than being a good lawyer. I want to be both and with the guidance of people like Jack I was able to navigate the corporate world.

He talked me through it, He said, “You just do this, this is an opportunity. If it's too much, I'll move you, but you don't turn anything down because you think it might be a problem. You've got to get in and do it because it's important, you need these skills to get to the next level.” Even when I wasn't interested in going to the next level because I was more worried about being a mother, he told me not to take myself out of the game.