Michelle Fang, the chief legal officer of peer-to-peer car-sharing company Turo, got widespread sign-off from in-house lawyers on a letter demanding law firms improve diversity or risk losing clients and developed a set of strategies to tackle the issue for general counsel. Fang, who is among the 21 lawyers chosen by The Recorder as Women Leaders in Tech Law as part of this year's California Leaders in Tech Law and Innovation Awards, recently spoke to The Recorder about the formation of the Law in Technology Diversity Collaborative and other efforts she'd like to see on the diversity front.

The Recorder: What's your proudest professional achievement of the past year and why?

Fang: Recognizing the lack of diversity in both the legal and the technology space, I joined together with legal leaders from six other tech companies to establish the Law in Technology Diversity Collaborative, which is a first-of-its-kind cross-company summer associate program. The collaborative provides diverse first-year law students with the unique opportunity to work in-house at both a tech company and a law firm during summer. The goal of the program is to give these students strong work experience early on, mentoring and training, and a cohort of peers that they can take with them as they start their professional journey.

I am proud of this accomplishment because it is a meaningful step towards diversifying both the legal and tech pipelines and hopefully retaining these lawyers in the pipelines over time. It took a lot of work from so many people to get the effort off the ground, but it was a labor of love and well worth the effort. We are looking forward to broadening the program to include more companies and students this year.

What's your proudest personal achievement of the past year and why?

I have always wanted to bake homemade bread but was intimidated to get started. It is actually a lot more complicated and time-consuming than it appears. I didn't think it was something I could do well. I used to watch "The Great British Bake Off" with envy and decided that there was no reason that I couldn't learn to bake bread. After some trial and error, I have learned how to make all sorts of incredible homemade breads. Even with lots of practice, sometimes it doesn't come out right. It is a good reminder in business and in life: If you want to be good at something you have to start somewhere and just keep trying until you "nail it."

What's one piece of advice you'd give to a woman starting out in tech law?

Know that you are as smart and capable as anyone in the room and that you have value to deliver to your business. So don't hold back!

What concrete steps could be made to increase the number of women in tech law?

Mentor and sponsor women and push to give them their first big break.