ACC: Career Development Your Launch Pad: Influence and Visibility: A Playbook for In‑house Counsel

I wrote this piece for ACC's Corporate Counsel Now because I kept seeing the same pattern in my C-suite leadership coaching work: technically brilliant lawyers who were stuck because of how they were perceived.

The in-house legal world rewards precision and discretion. The problem is that the same instincts that make lawyers excellent at their craft — working behind the scenes, staying in their lane, waiting to be asked — can limit career growth. 

Influence and visibility aren't about self-promotion. They're about being the person who’s sought out before a decision is made, not after it needs cleaning up.

One lawyer I coached was known internally as the "red-pen lawyer," she’s  brilliant, but only ever brought in at the eleventh hour. By shifting how she framed her advice, asking business questions before legal ones, and positioning herself earlier in conversations, her colleagues stopped pulling her into strategy discussions.

This piece walks through five practical areas — brand clarity, business fluency, executive presence, strategic visibility, and everyday relationship-building — drawn from the same framework behind my Promotability Index® assessment. Each one comes with a reflection question you can use immediately.

The throughline: influence accumulates, one conversation and one visible contribution at a time.

→ Read the full playbook in ACC's Corporate Counsel Now

Ready to accelerate your own trajectory? My executive coaching work is built around exactly these questions and where to start depends entirely on where you are right now.

ACC pdf_ Career Development Your Launch Pad_ Influence and Visibility_ A Playbook for In‑.

Download • 466KB