Barbara Murphy Melby, with Morgan Lewis & Bockius.

Barbara Murphy Melby, Morgan Lewis & Bockius

A legal pioneer in a male-dominated field, Melby has been widely influential in shaping the booming and rapidly evolving technology and outsourcing legal market during the past 25 years. She leads Morgan Lewis & Bockius' technology, outsourcing, and commercial transactions practice globally with lawyers throughout the United States, as well as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Singapore, Japan, China, Shanghai, Abu Dhabi and Russia.

Under Melby's leadership, the team has grown from a premier U.S.-centric practice to an elite global practice. 

As one on the first women practicing in the outsourcing field, 14 years ago, Melby founded the first executive women's group focused on outsourcing and shared services. The New York event for Women in Outsourcing and Shared Services (WISSO) is a standing-room-only conference that attracts leading women in the outsourcing industry who meet to share experiences relevant to the outsourcing space. Due to high demand, the event now is hosted bi-coastally, in New York in May and on the West Coast in November.

In addition to outsourcing, Melby works with Fortune 500 companies in structuring and negotiating complex technology transactions, including deals that leverage emerging technologies such as blockchain, cloud-based solutions, robotics and automation. She also handles issues relating to the collection, use and commercialization of data, as well as the benefits and risks associated with data aggregation.

To advance thought leadership in the technology legal market, Melby created, and regularly contributes to, Morgan Lewis's industry leading blog, Tech&Sourcing@MorganLewis, which had more than 47,900 views in 2018 alone. She also spearheads the firm's Tech&Sourcing webinar series. In addition, now in its 15th year, Melby founded, and hosts together with her partners, a popular annual legal education and networking event in Philadelphia for technology and sourcing professionals in the Mid-Atlantic region.

What career path would you have pursued if you weren't a lawyer?

I was a Victorian Studies major in college and loved all of the authors from that period, from Charlotte Bronte to Oscar Wilde. If I could have made it work, I would have been a novelist.

Name a mentor or someone you admire.

Jackie Murphy, my mother. She always forged her own path and worked hard to help others. She raised nine children, has two PhDs, taught grade school at St. Elizabeth's, taught English literature at Graterford prison, was the head of the English department at Rosemont College, started a half-way house, and even now at almost 80, teaches English as a second language through refugee and immigrant community centers.

What is the best advice you ever received?

Don't wave to the crowd.

In 50 words or less, what does the legal profession need to do to prepare the next generation of lawyers?

Focus on sponsorship—not just mentorship—and training, wellness and lifestyle balance and how to best leverage emerging technologies.

What's the one piece of advice would you give someone when dealing with a crisis?

Take a deep breath and step back. And then … contact your lawyer or crisis response group. Help collect all of the facts and the best and worst case scenarios. How initial communications are cared for is critical.