It was 1999 and I was an unhappy part-time lawyer with two young sons, trying to advance to partner and also figure out that balance thing. I had a strong sense that I was not alone and that there had to be a better way. I sent out an email to a handful of women struggling with the same issues. Within days, 150 lawyers responded. That led to a brown bag lunch group that grew in ten years to a network of over 10,000 lawyers — first women, and eventually anyone who understood that the legal model was broken.

I am a change agent. Back in 2007, I conceived of the Best Law Firms for Women initiative and fueled a competition and benchmarking among law firms on women’s issues which I led in a partnership with Working Mother for a decade. In 2011, two colleagues and I co-founded Bliss Lawyers, a company that hired hundreds of lawyers to work on temporary engagements for clients across the US. Nine years later, I co-facilitated the successful acquisition of Bliss by its largest competitor, Axiom, the global leader in high-caliber, on-demand legal talent. It’s truly rewarding to go beyond talking about change to facilitate new ways to deliver legal services and for lawyers to work.

Today, I run DEH Consulting, Speaking, Writing and I still lead that network, which has evolved into the DEH Speaker Series and the Inspiration Loves Company podcast featuring prominent thought speakers and an exchange of ideas about what's working, what's not, and how to make things better. I consult to companies and firms and I speak at client events and in public venues in the US and abroad. My focus and expertise have broadened and I work across industry to cover careers, workplaces, and women as well as law. Having given nearly 1,000 talks in my career, I also serve as a communication coach and work with groups at companies and firms as well as individuals.