So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People

“Trust is fundamentally about you do what you say you’ll do.” - Jessica Nguyen

How do you get 2,200+ legal professionals to show up for a contracts webinar?

In this episode of So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast for People, Jessica Nguyen, Deputy General Counsel of AI Innovation & Trust at DocuSign and Head of Contract Nerds, joins Megan Senese and Jennifer Ramsey to pull back the curtain on why most law firm marketing completely misses the mark, how DocuSign is using AI to build deeper trust with its clients, and the one outside law firm that truly stood out to her, and what one lawyer did that was different from every other law firm competing for attention.

From building one of the most engaged contracts communities in legal to helping shape AI strategy inside a global tech company, Jessica shares what actually creates momentum, and what kills it.

In this episode, you’ll hear directly from a Deputy General Counsel about:
  • Why Contract Nerds consistently attracts thousands of lawyers and what lessons you can apply to your next webinar
  • How community becomes a long-term growth engine — not just a mailing list
  • What in-house counsel actually look for when hiring outside counsel 
  • The positioning shifts that make lawyers stand out instead of blend in
  • The CLE mistakes all law firms make and how to change it
  • Why legal services feel commoditized and how to break that cycle
  • How AI can 10x your legal productivity without replacing your judgment
  • Why consistent execution, not just branding is what builds real client trust
  • The role gratitude plays in sustaining a long-term legal career

This conversation is for lawyers who want a clearer understanding on how to attract the right clients—without chasing, posturing, or relying on generic marketing tactics.

About Jessica Nguyen:

Jessica Nguyen is Deputy General Counsel of AI Innovation & Trust at DocuSign and Head of Contract Nerds, a global community serving thousands of contracts and legal professionals. A seasoned in-house leader and former Chief Legal Officer, Jessica focuses on customer-centric innovation at the intersection of AI, agreements, and trust.

She also hosts the In-House podcast, where she interviews legal leaders about influence, career pivots, and building a meaningful in-house career.

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Creators and Guests

Host
Jennifer Ramsey
Host
Megan Senese

What is So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People?

Welcome to So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People where we explore the behind-the-scenes of work, law, life, and everything in between. We’re your hosts, business development and legal marketing coaches Jennifer Ramsey and Megan Senese, and we’re here to showcase the human side of the legal world, from marketing and consulting to the very real challenges of balancing ambitious careers with being human. This isn’t your typical, dry legal show. Instead, So Much To Say is a human-centered leadership, marketing, and culture podcast through the lens of law. We bring you real stories, candid conversations, and thoughtful insights that remind you that outside of being a lawyer or legal marketer, what makes you human matters too. So whether you’re navigating billable hours, building meaningful relationships, redefining success, or simply trying to stay human in a high-performance profession, this podcast is for you.
Stay human. Stay inspired. Namaste (or whatever keeps you human).

[00:00:00] Jessica Nguyen: I think trust is fundamentally about you do what you say you'll do because you can lose trust. And so in terms of trust that the product will deliver, then it's gonna be like we listen to what you need and want. We take that back, give us some time, and then deliver a product gives you that. It's not just saying, trust us, it's about, or we value you. It's like, and we actually deliver on it.
[00:00:25] Megan Senese: Welcome to So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People, where we dive into the beautiful chaos of work life and everything in between. Outside of being a lawyer or a legal marketer, we wanna know what makes you human. And with that, let's get started. If you are a big law partner or a big law lawyer.
[00:00:48] Then knowing what is top of mind for general counsel, deputy General counsel in-house counsel as they're making hiring decisions about outside counsel is like the number one thing that we are all striving for. If you are a legal marketer, thinking about how to help your lawyers. You wanna be able to tell your lawyers this is what general counsels are looking for when it comes to hiring outside firms.
[00:01:19] If you are a business developer at a firm and you want to help your lawyers, you wanna sound good, you wanna look smart, but you have absolutely no access to the clients themselves, then this episode is for you. We literally have a Deputy General counsel on. She was also a general counsel of a startup.
[00:01:39] She's also the head of Contract Nerds. She's the Deputy General Counsel of AI Innovation and Trust at DocuSign. We have Jessica Nguyen on today, and she is going to talk to us all about. How she's built trust with her clients using ai. She has shared what outside law firms have impressed her the most, and exactly what they did to separate themselves from every other big law law firm out there.
[00:02:07] She also, in her own words, gives us legal marketing, dirty talk, how she has been able to build. A webinar list of registrations. She gives us literally the playbook on how she was able to get more than 2000 lawyers to sign up for a free virtual webinar. And anybody who works for law firms knows that is a tremendous feat, and she's gonna talk to us all about what she's done, how she maintains relationships, how she builds trust.
[00:02:43] How she uses AI to 10 x her life and every other secret that we wish we knew Jessica Nguyen is going to tell us. Hi Jessica. It's been a while since we've, since we've chatted. Thank you for, for getting on. So, Jessica, the last time that we met, which was on one of my women in legal virtual sessions, and I, and I'm pretty sure you were still on maternity leave.
[00:03:09] Or you were like, I'm going back tomorrow. It was like something like, very quick. So welcome back to work. Or maybe you never stopped working. How old is your baby? Or baby's plural? How many kids? What? Tell me what, what's going
[00:03:21] Jessica Nguyen: on? A mom of three. Okay. Uh, I have a 13. All girls too. 13-year-old. 10 and a half year old.
[00:03:29] 11 month old.
[00:03:30] Megan Senese: Oh shit. Oh, congratulations. So I want you, you came back from your maternity leave. You were like starting, I think you were like, yeah, I'm going back to work. And I've been watching you, you know, not creepily, but watching you on, on LinkedIn and you just became the, the head of contract nerds.
[00:03:47] So love to hear Yeah. Just a little bit like who are you, what's your story? And then we can dive into some of the. Questions 'cause you've won a bunch of shit, you've got a lot of awards, you've done all these things and I want, we wanna talk about it. We wanna celebrate you and hear your story
[00:04:01] Jessica Nguyen: Well, honestly, I had a relationship with the founder of Contract Nerd.
[00:04:04] Her name is Ned. She's great. She's an amazing content creator and influencer in the contracts community. And. She came up to Seattle when she first started the contract nurse community and just asked for my thoughts, and she told me that she had an offer at a contract management company. I shall not name that company.
[00:04:23] And they told her that they wanna give her a job, but they want her to. To stop doing contract notes and she was super like sad that she couldn't have this community anymore 'cause they wanted her to build their separate community. They're probably, their product community is my guess. There was some conflict there.
[00:04:40] Long story short, she said no. And over the next five years we stayed connected. She continued to build a community. We went, uh, before DocuSign, I was at a legal tech startup called Lexion. I was her first contract nerd sponsor. We do these webinars every month, uh, on average ladies, over 1700 registrants.
[00:05:01] Megan Senese: Oh my gosh. Whoa.
[00:05:03] Jessica Nguyen: Yeah, people want to learn about contracts that much.
[00:05:06] Jennifer Ramsey: What are we missing when we think of contracts? We're both
[00:05:09] Jessica Nguyen: flabbergasted. I, I know you're into marketing, so this is interesting. I mean, legal marketing. This is a legal marketing goldmine. So tomorrow we're doing a CE accredited contract webinar about AI term contract terms.
[00:05:21] Ah, check now to right now, as of today, you're getting the live count 2,257 registrants for Yeah.
[00:05:31] Megan Senese: I mean, incredible. That is. Out of control, particularly since we, Jen and I have worked for so many different, you know, so many firms. And now in our, in our new lives, in our fractional capacity and working with our individual clients lawyers to get, I mean, if we, if someone told me that they had a hundred people for their webinar, we'd be like, great.
[00:05:52] We'd be to a backflow. Yeah, we'd be so happy. So is it free for everyone to attend?
[00:05:56] Jessica Nguyen: It's free for the attendees. And we normally, so before DocuSign acquired contract nerds, meta monetized by selling sponsorships. 'cause you can imagine all of anybody who's trying to sell a service or a product to contracts or legal professionals are like, I want that list.
[00:06:16] I want that list to add to my email subscriber list and to do any sort of sales follow up campaign, nurture campaign. This is like marketing Dirty talk ladies. Yeah,
[00:06:25] Megan Senese: I love it. We're so, we're like, oh
[00:06:27] Jennifer Ramsey: my God, tell us marketing dirty talk. I love that.
[00:06:32] Megan Senese: I mean, people would freak out. I would, I mean, I would freak out if we had 2100 people sign up for anything that we did.
[00:06:39] I, I would be losing, I, I'd be losing my mind.
[00:06:42] Jessica Nguyen: So you imagine, I mean, I think the transition to why, why DocuSign bought it. Like this is such a great
[00:06:47] Megan Senese: no brainer.
[00:06:48] Jessica Nguyen: I mean, the reasons are, there's multiple, Hey, you know, one of our initiatives is you can imagine like DocuSign is came to market as the first and best e-signature solution, but it has to go beyond that.
[00:07:00] We have to be more e-sign provider and agreements and contracts. Is the direction of the company and the future of the company, and what better way to get in front of and become top of mind to contracts professionals worldwide than owning the channel of contract nerds.
[00:07:18] Jennifer Ramsey: Of, uh, it's beautiful. I, who, who's the marketing expert on this podcast?
[00:07:23] I don't think it's you and me, Meghan. It's
[00:07:25] Megan Senese: not, it's not us. It's Jessica.
[00:07:27] Jessica Nguyen: I'm, I'm being a lawyer pretending to anything about marketing.
[00:07:31] Megan Senese: No, I don't think that's true. I would imagine when you have been the solo in many of your iterations of previous careers, you have to come up with some creative solutions, creative ideas, and that, that, that takes some, that's a little.
[00:07:46] That's a marketing, right? What some of it is making me think of this book that I had fi finally just finished reading. It's called Fan Ocracy. It's how to Turn Your Fans into Customers. Oh, and customers into fans. And so what I'm hearing you say is that contract nerds, not only did they have a really great product, but they had a built in community and people will follow them.
[00:08:08] And so anytime you can take those fans and build around and build a product around their fans. It's like a, it's like a no-brainer, a win-win. And so it sounds like that's the perfect opportunity for DocuSign to, I don't wanna say swoop in, 'cause that sounds negative, but to join in on the, on the fun.
[00:08:25] Jessica Nguyen: Yes.
[00:08:26] And kudos to DocuSign for, you know, one of our priorities of buying this is we're not gonna change contractors. We're not gonna make it all of a sudden just about DocuSign. DocuSign logos everywhere. All the content's gonna be about DocuSign products. No, it's exactly the same. High value contract educational content plus add more value, like more contract templates.
[00:08:48] Oh, sponsoring live events, which is what the community wants, and really how we're earnings gradually the trust of the customer base.
[00:08:56] Jennifer Ramsey: Speaking of the word trust, which you just said I, so I love your title, deputy General Counsel, AI Innovation and Trust. Can you like expound a little bit on what AI innovation and trust me and in the DocuSign ecosystem and because honestly, I don't know if I've ever seen someone's title, actually have the word trust in it before, and that is intriguing to me.
[00:09:21] Jessica Nguyen: Yeah, so my role was made up, so I came, I, I said earlier, I came from a legal textile called ION that was acquired by DocuSign, and my title at ION was Chief Legal Officer. So I am a lawyer about 20 years outta law school now. Season GC and, but through the acquisition, they don't need another GC. At DocuSign, we have a fantastic CLO, Jim EY and an and a 70 person legal team.
[00:09:48] They don't need me to do legal work or to be their gc, so. So you can imagine this acquisition, when they met me or heard about me and my impact at Lexion, they were like, we don't really know what she's gonna do yet, but we just want her on our team. Phase one, phase two, what? What title do we give this woman we don't really have a job for yet.
[00:10:09] And I would say that what my value is in this company of 7,000 plus employees is recentering everything around the customer. Is about the customer. Like what does the customer want? What does the customer need? And when you get a certain size, you lose sight of that sometimes. Not because people are, you know, have bad intentions.
[00:10:31] Like they get so like bogged down on their, but my OKRs are this and my manager told me to do this. I'm like, does a customer even want that? Like, I mean that even important to the customer. So I think there are two. Components of trust when it comes to customer centricity. It's, and, and ai. Does the customer trust that you're gonna give them a product and service that's gonna actually bring them value?
[00:10:56] And then there's also trust, like, is the AI gonna even work and is it secure and you're using my data properly and all, all that other stuff is really important in terms of DocuSign is a company trying to make money, right? So, but trust is a lot. Com I think it's really important in differentiating an AI world.
[00:11:12] Megan Senese: Yeah, that was gonna be like my follow up question. I'm like, how I'm sure people would say for right now, particularly around legal, like AI does not equal trust.
[00:11:23] Jessica Nguyen: No.
[00:11:24] Megan Senese: Like at all.
[00:11:25] Jessica Nguyen: So I think trust is fundamentally about you do what you say you'll do.
[00:11:30] Megan Senese: Yeah.
[00:11:31] Jessica Nguyen: Because you can lose trust. And so in terms of trust that the product will deliver, then it's gonna be like, here's we listen to what you need and want.
[00:11:42] We take that back, we give us some time, and then deliver a product that gives you, gives you that, and then the data and the AI and the security standpoint. It's a matter of, hey, here's what we commit to, not, how we gonna process your data, how we're going to use it, and making sure we actually deliver. So really it's about execution to, it's not just saying, trust us, it's about, or we value you.
[00:12:05] It's like, and we actually deliver on it. Community. We're so cliquey, like we're such a small ecosystem, we all talk, right? There's like a gazillion communities where we're like, oh, this product is great, or That product is great, or you can trust them or not them.
[00:12:20] Jennifer Ramsey: Talking about marketing, dirty talk, we are all about client centricity, customer client centricity.
[00:12:26] And that is when we were in-house at the AM law firms, that was one thing we always tried to get our lawyer, our private practice lawyers, to think about was the client.
[00:12:35] Jessica Nguyen: Yes.
[00:12:35] Jennifer Ramsey: Which is sometimes kind of hard for them to do. And um, and, and, and I, I honestly, I don't, it's, they got a lot going on, you know, there's a lot to do.
[00:12:44] So talk to us about your experiences without, 'cause we, we do have a fair amount of. Outside lawyers who listen to this podcast just be, just to get legal marketing tips, business development tips, customer experience, customer journey tips.
[00:12:59] Jessica Nguyen: Well, that's, we have the shared, uh, ideal customer profile, which is in-house legal clients.
[00:13:04] So they shouldn't speak language as, as me, even though I'm in in-house counsel and have been in-house for the vast majority of my career.
[00:13:11] Jennifer Ramsey: What advice do you have for outside counsel to make in-house counsel like the center of the universe and to adopt that client centricity perspective?
[00:13:22] Jessica Nguyen: Yeah, I mean, honestly, when I think of the marketing tactics of most law firms, it is.
[00:13:29] Not good. They like, maybe they'll sponsor an event and do a CLE and they putting a, a subject matter expert that has zero negative charisma to speak and they just read off a slide.
[00:13:41] Jennifer Ramsey: Zero negative charisma. Yes,
[00:13:45] Jessica Nguyen: negative charisma, and then. I attend these events because I'm a lawyer and I need CLE credit, but I look around the room and I swear no one is paying attention.
[00:13:54] They're just working on their laptops or on their phone and then checking in the box to get their CLE credit. And so that has been the formula and for law firm marketing. I dunno, this is the beginning of days. And, and then maybe they'll do like a newsletter or a legal update article. Thank you. I do read some of those that are relevant, but honestly now with Gemini and, and all these other aggregator sources, I don't click.
[00:14:21] That's not a problem just for law firms. It's a problem for anybody. Exactly. Search engine optimization, like that's click through rates are abysmal now.
[00:14:30] Megan Senese: Well, it's zero click. One of the things that we've always said. To our lawyers. It's like, okay, great. You're gonna write a thought. Leadership was, I mean, it's still important, right?
[00:14:38] You have to get out there and blah, blah, blah. But if you're going to send something to someone, you also have to explain kind of why you're sending it. Give a sentence or two. Hey, here's my long ass client alert. It's a hundred something pages long. Here's the five key things you need to know. Because you mentioned it, right?
[00:14:56] That's the shitty thing. But was there any examples of something that really impressed you or stood out or that was different, or maybe you don't have any, but that a lawyer, a law firm, did to impress you?
[00:15:09] Jessica Nguyen: The one time that I was impressed by a law firm was. A partner at DLA Piper, he was our lead corporate lawyer for Lexion, the legal tech startup that, uh, I was a GC of.
[00:15:22] And yes, I valued all of his legal work in terms of negotiating the term sheet and all the m and a parts of the deal. He was really leading on and I was leaning on him. 'cause he does that all day long, right? He does. A gazillion m I'm seeing them episodically right every couple of years. So he knows what market it's, but where he really impressed me was.
[00:15:44] He knew that as a startup, growth is your most important metric, unlike your survi and core to your survival. So when we spent time together to get to know each other, we scheduled a one-on-one time together. He didn't ask me for anything. He just wanted to hear how things are going for the business, not build, just checking in.
[00:16:04] And then he came to the table prepared. 'cause he's been in all of our board meetings, which is a lot of big law partners. They sit in the board meetings and they're like your free corporate secretary. 'cause where they make money is to be in the deal, right? They will you six figures plus in legal fees. So what he offered was he had a list of where he knew the gc, uh, a bunch of different companies, and he was willing to make an intro for me.
[00:16:31] Add value to what matters most to your client. Now, that was unique to when I was the GC of lexion and I was very focused on growth like I need to here for legal work. Sure. And be good at that and excellent at that. That's table stakes. But what can their law firm do to take it to the next level to really differentiate?
[00:16:49] 'cause if I'm honest with you, I think a lot of law firm legal services is very commoditized. I don't care if it's DLA, Piper, Skadden, Fenwick, whatever. If it's about the relationship and what you can do more above and beyond legal services
[00:17:07] Megan Senese: that is dirty. Talk to us right now,
[00:17:09] Jessica Nguyen: marketing, dirty Talk.
[00:17:11] Megan Senese: What's been so refreshing about being in this new space of this new life for us?
[00:17:15] So we've been in our, in our business now for three years. Is that when we say the exact scenario of like, you should come up with ideas that would be. Outside of just like, let me introduce you to our litigation department because they're really great and maybe you wanna pay for more things, right? Like that doesn't help you.
[00:17:32] You need someone to be thinking about what would be, what is helpful, how can I be helpful? And if you don't know the answer, then youe to you. The lawyer needs to sit back and think about. Hey, would it be helpful if I did this right? Would it be helpful if I introduced you to other general counsels in the same kind of who has been through this scenario before?
[00:17:53] Would it be helpful if, right, and then you can position it in that way if you're not a hundred percent confident, but it's, it's not just bring the, the entire firm and send a a a hundred. Page PowerPoint deck, which I have done in the past because we sometimes we're forced to, to do whatever the, you know, the firms have told us to do in the past.
[00:18:15] Um, so I love to hear that because it, it's something that we've been saying, you know, on this show, and now we get to say, oh yeah, well we also have proof of people outside.
[00:18:26] Jennifer Ramsey: Well, and it's tangible, right? Yeah. I mean, it's something that can be done. It's if with a little bit of thought, like you were saying, Jessica, about this partner who.
[00:18:34] Came prepared. I mean, it's, it's not, it's not rocket science to, to prepare and think beyond, but a lot of people it is, it is. It's kind of crazy that it can be a differentiating characteristic these days. Right. So people
[00:18:48] Megan Senese: get scared. So earlier, right, I was telling, um, I was telling Jen right before to this.
[00:18:55] Recording. I was talking to a group of Canadian lawyers and a lot of them were asking like, how do I break in with the general counsel? What do I say? And I don't know what they need. I'm like, have you asked them?
[00:19:06] Jessica Nguyen: Yeah, just ask. Mm-hmm.
[00:19:07] Megan Senese: Right. And people get terrified. They're terrified because I think it's, uh, and I don't know if this has been your experience, but from what I have seen is that often the lawyers and I am encountering feel like they're expected to know everything and sometimes they don't know how to.
[00:19:25] Finagle between those two of like, I should know everything. Then how am I gonna ask a question where I don't know the answer? I don't know if that,
[00:19:32] Jessica Nguyen: well, maybe the question is just, what's keeping you up at night right now and how can I support you?
[00:19:37] Megan Senese: Yeah,
[00:19:37] Jennifer Ramsey: yeah.
[00:19:38] Jessica Nguyen: That's not asking the in-house counsel, your target client, what can you do for me or semi-legal work?
[00:19:43] Just how can I help you? And then we'll go from there. It's not, it's not that scary.
[00:19:48] Jennifer Ramsey: Yeah, I agree. And it goes to that T word again. Trust.
[00:19:52] Jessica Nguyen: Mm-hmm. Trust or you try to help and it's recognized and that's how you build that relationship and that trust. And so I've heard other stories, right? So it's not, maybe just my story is a bit unique because Lexion did want to earn relationships, which other general counsels 'cause of the product, but.
[00:20:10] I've heard of deep loyalty embedded with these various law firms because you can do things like, uh, recommend, uh, someone for a job like you. Oftentimes, like this partner at DLA Piper is an example. He, we know each other from Lexion. I'm a proven quantity. And when he knows of a company needs a general counsel, he might reach out to me and say, Hey, you wanna be GC of this job?
[00:20:32] I mean, I'm gonna stick with, I trust him. I know that he's in me. Um. And, and he was thoughtful of recommending me for this job. So, and the same way that that partner did for that, uh, here's my client list and I'm happy to introduce you to the gc. He shows that he is invested in me beyond just, I want legal work from you so I can bill you.
[00:20:54] Megan Senese: This is where I'm like, and what about, so you're not such a big fan of client alerts and you're not such a big fan of boring CLEs.
[00:21:01] Jessica Nguyen: I like client alerts and CLEs. I just wanna make sure they're relevant and top of mind and not know,
[00:21:08] Jennifer Ramsey: right?
[00:21:08] Jessica Nguyen: Literally hosting a CE tomorrow. Ladies, everybody's super stoked for an AI contract Addendum, Sealy webinar.
[00:21:15] Jennifer Ramsey: Well, Andrew, you all are the subject matter experts in the space too.
[00:21:19] Jessica Nguyen: We always have experts talking, um, because the, the content itself should always be what the community wants or needs.
[00:21:27] Jennifer Ramsey: What are you most excited about when it comes to AI and contracts and then just ai, just generally speaking.
[00:21:37] Jessica Nguyen: I'm just confounded how much terrible shitty work lawyers still have to do that doesn't require a law degree.
[00:21:44] Whether it be billing time that shouldn't, you know, whether it be even like things like giving me a summary, writing first drafts of emails. I use AI all the time.
[00:21:53] Jennifer Ramsey: Yep.
[00:21:54] Jessica Nguyen: I host a podcast too called In-House and literally I have an outline and a title, and I get a great abstract and detailed like questions from ai.
[00:22:04] Every little task that I, I'm, I've, I've been 10 x right? So. I think AI is, it's not, hasn't replaced me. You still need me to have the relationships to get the podcast. Guess you still need me to be the voice and face of this podcast. And you can put together the topic and the re and you know, filter out the noise that AI could create in the output.
[00:22:25] You still need me, but think of a task that would take you hours. It just drilled down to half hour or less. Log articles, first drafts of contracts. Taking a first pass at a contract. Super easy now.
[00:22:40] Jennifer Ramsey: Yeah,
[00:22:40] Megan Senese: I mean, we, we use it. We're we're always like, we would not be able to live in our,
[00:22:45] Jennifer Ramsey: run our business. No.
[00:22:47] Yeah. Like I think that, that the universe was aligned when we started stage and then OpenAI came out with chat. GPT, like it all happened around January, 2023, like three years ago. Isn't that kind of crazy to think about? But yeah, like you're right. I love that 10 x, like we can 10 x ourselves,
[00:23:03] Jessica Nguyen: we 10 x ourselves.
[00:23:05] And honestly, AI is. I mean, I'm a mom of three. You just heard me earlier. I got a 13, 10-year-old and 11 month old. It's really helped me stay up to date on the le. I double check all the work and the references, but I even asked like, what are some new regulations that I may have missed? Like brainstorm with me.
[00:23:25] I think a lot of lawyers misuse ai. I think a lot of lawyers use ai, like the same way they use Google search. They run a single query and they be like, I'm done. They don't, they barely give it any context, the ai and be like, what Output is terrible? And then they drop. But you never use AI ever again. I like that is not how you use ai.
[00:23:45] I actually have a Google document that has a, uh, input that I love and I keep iterating on that input and I save and I make it better and better. Like for example, I do webinars like tomorrow, webinar. And I'm gonna do a blog article of a rec record of the recording of the webinar. And I have, yeah, I just update that input with my takeaways.
[00:24:06] Jennifer Ramsey: It just gets better.
[00:24:07] Jessica Nguyen: It gets better.
[00:24:08] Megan Senese: And I love that because I think this is something particularly for people who might be brand new to maybe working, right? So there's like, Jen and I know what the end product is supposed to look like, and then we have brand new, maybe new professionals who are. Just trusting.
[00:24:25] My daughter's doing this too. She's starting to research things and she's getting the zero click results and she's like, okay, well I just clicked that and that's the answer. I'm like, you have to check it. And so there's still like, I think because we have grown up in like using the Dewey Decimal system and having three sites.
[00:24:43] Three references for every piece of your internet website search. Right? You have to, I think that's part of how I have gotten comfortable with using Chacha tape, where I'm like, Hmm, that's not really exactly what I want. What is the source? What's the date of that? How do like, digging, digging, digging, digging.
[00:25:00] But I also know what the end product generally, in my head, should like, sort of look like before I even go into the like tool. Right? And so I love to hear you say that it's not. I think that's the piece of technology, right? It's not. It's not just you open the, the tool or you take it out of the box and it's perfect and you never have to update it or, or touch it ever again.
[00:25:23] It's, it's moving constantly. You have to constantly be flexible and, and, and adjusting.
[00:25:29] Jessica Nguyen: Totally. I think when I think of just technology over time, and I think I obsess over this a lot and top of watching. Garbage tv. Like, tell me lies. Yes. And nobody wants this. Being a mom of three, having to do taxes right now.
[00:25:40] Ugh. Right now it's giving me so much pain, all collecting all my tax documents. Like I think people freak out. The reality is tech. What it does is it just makes you do things faster and allows you to do things more. Think about from riding horses to having a car. You still travel. You still need a human to direct the car or like you just travel more and you do more of it and you travel further than you did with the horse email from like letters to email.
[00:26:05] You still have a co, a human involved with correspondence. You just write more emails, correspondences and, and expect faster results like CO and then ai. It's all the productivity enhancements. I can, I can do more now. I can go to your podcast and still be prepared for tomorrow's webinar 2002. Other tasks that I have to do today too, and I can do it because the AI is helping me.
[00:26:31] And I also have kids coming home from school pretty soon. So I think I need to drop off a kid at soccer in a few hours too. I can't do that all what I'm doing. I basically have like six jobs right now, ladies.
[00:26:42] Megan Senese: Yeah, I mean, I hear that. Yeah,
[00:26:43] Jessica Nguyen: you do.
[00:26:45] Megan Senese: So as we're starting to wrap up a little bit, I love to ask, you know, what's the thing that's not on your LinkedIn?
[00:26:52] You have all these great awards, which you're obviously very accomplished and you have all these great titles and you've led teams and you've been acquired and then you, all these things, you have this amazing webinar that we're all gaga over, right? And your own, in your own, um, podcast. So what's something that people don't know?
[00:27:10] Jessica Nguyen: I actually am, and part of the brand I build on LinkedIn and why I have a following is I'm pretty open. About all the things that have gone wrong in my career. It doesn't show up in the description portion, the about me or the, you know, the drop role because it doesn't really belong there. But I have posted on, um, all the things that have gone wrong when I was, I was laid off for my law firm in the last recession in.
[00:27:37] Obviously the recession started in 2008, but I was laid off in 2010. I'm open about that and what I learned from that. I'm open about all the times where, oops, I flubbed how I communicated or approach with a senior executive, or being a people manager. God people managing is hard, especially multi-generational people managing.
[00:27:55] I swear, like I, and I read, and this is spot on, like Jessica, the name Jessica is a new Karen to Gen Z. That's not wrong. Like I, I, I, they we're, we're both like what I, a new Karen, but it's more like how I learned to work and what was appropriate and how to coach someone and mentor someone in a work environment is so different now.
[00:28:18] To the different generation and I need to learn and adjust. And I have shared that at conferences. I have shared that in LinkedIn posts. And then another fun fact is I was almost on survivor.
[00:28:29] Megan Senese: Oh, okay. Let's talk about that. Like how close, how close were you almost. Do you have to try out for that?
[00:28:35] Jessica Nguyen: You do.
[00:28:36] Um, they, I was actually recruited though.
[00:28:39] Megan Senese: They were like, you're amazing. We need you on our show.
[00:28:43] Jessica Nguyen: Well, no, I'll, I'll tell you what happened. So I was recruited and this is 2006. So I just graduated from law school and a recruit, a casting associate found me on my law school website where at a, she thought I had a nice smile.
[00:28:57] Ah.
[00:28:58] Megan Senese: You do.
[00:28:59] Jessica Nguyen: It was like, I saw your picture on this University of Washington website because they were recruiting for diverse, uh, castaways. 'cause you imagine a lot of the folks are white models. Not me. Check, I check neither of those boxes who want to be actors, not lawyers, not doctors, and not folks with, you know, people of color very often.
[00:29:22] So because of I fit all those boxes of what they don't normally get, she, she casted me and she asked me to submit a one minute video and was back in the day VHS video recorder, not my, I think I had a Blackberry still. And, uh, she said just talk to the camera for a minute. I just wanna see if you're engaging for 32nd sound bites.
[00:29:41] And she was like, the next day they FedExed me and took it to LA
[00:29:44] Megan Senese: Oh my God. And then what?
[00:29:46] Jessica Nguyen: And then I, I went through the whole process. You sit in isolation for about a week and you have a cohort of, there's about 30 to 40 potential castaways and you kind of like see who your competition is. I was like, oh my God, there's like three other Asian girls.
[00:30:00] I'm probably like, which Asian girl are they gonna pick? But she's, they're not in my cohort. So you have a cohort of folks that you're on the same mealtime gym time. Um, et cetera. And you can't talk to anybody except, uh, the, the, the production company employee. So there was, it was Mark Burnett Productions.
[00:30:16] They do, yeah. They do Survivor and a bunch of other reality shows. At the end of the week, they told me you are on the maybe list, like, we really like you, we think you are great on camera. What our pro, our producers are unsure about is, are you controversial enough? It's kind of a compliment actually. Yeah, because they want good tv, right?
[00:30:39] Yeah, right. They want tv, like they want conflict. Um, some fun, some fun interesting things too is you have those scheduled meal and gym times, and then you also have to do like a half day mental, mental test to make sure you're like, just the right amount of crazy, but not too crazy. Uh, you also have to do like a, a deep, uh, like a physical examination to make sure you can lose up to 20% of your body weight.
[00:31:01] Hard conditions, right. Going on mental. Even like after your mental tasks, you have to have meet with their on staff psychologist who looks at it and then talks to you to, you know, assess, like combine the data, aligning it with an in-person conversation. Oh wow. Because you can't what you be just the right amount of interesting and crazy, but not too crazy where you're gonna have a mental breakdown or hurt others.
[00:31:27] Megan Senese: Yes. Right, right. So you didn't do that and you just launched a bunch of businesses instead.
[00:31:32] Jessica Nguyen: I was a junior associate at a law firm, so I, I went the more traditional legal path because I didn't, I didn't become a a d-list actor.
[00:31:40] Megan Senese: Tell us quickly about your, about your show and, um, where people can find it and all the things.
[00:31:46] Jessica Nguyen: Well, it's, it's a show that is targeted to any in-house legal professional, whether you're a general counsel in-house coun, any in-house counsel level, or even legal ops professionals, anyone who wants to just uplevel being a better in-house legal professional. So you'll oftentimes hear from. Legal leaders, people who have been there and done that and will tell you about their career or what they're looking for.
[00:32:09] So it's been, it's been great. And I unlike a lot of other legal podcasts where it's just been, here's the career journey of some established general counsel. I have a topic of the day, so it could be like how to become more masterful influencing other non-legal executives. One of the hardest parts of an in-house legal role.
[00:32:29] How to, if you don't love being a lawyer anymore, what are some career pivots you can do with a law degree? One of our most popular episodes as well. So, and the most recent episode is about the power of having a personal brand and a community, which I think will, you know, resonates with the whole marketing dirty talk thing we have and why it's actually important, whether, even if you're just a lawyer and you don't, uh, in terms of your own career and taking control of your own career.
[00:32:55] Jennifer Ramsey: Mm-hmm. Yep. So important. Yep.
[00:32:58] Megan Senese: So what, what's the last thing you want people to know as we wrap up today?
[00:33:04] Jessica Nguyen: The last thing I would love people to know is that I am as average and normal as can be in terms of I didn't go to the most prestigious law schools or colleges. I grew up extraordinarily poor. Uh, my parents are immigrants from their Vietnam War refugees.
[00:33:24] And the message I would love to send to listeners is if I can do it, you can. Anything is possible. You just have to, you work hard and there's a lot of an, there's a lot of tension in our world right now in our country, and I will say it's not perfect, but I am still immensely grateful for all of the opportunity this country has provided me and my family.
[00:33:45] Because is, because I live in this country that I look so fancy on LinkedIn. I, I have all these awards. I got a podcast. I almost made it on Survivor. So I think be grateful.
[00:33:58] Jennifer Ramsey: That is just beautiful. This is why we do this because we get to meet people like you who have just the most eloquent, lovely life mantras to share, and that's what it's really all about.
[00:34:12] Jessica Nguyen: The world is really angry right now. I look on my social feed, my personal social with me, and everyone's angry about something and I think we lose sight of what we should be so grateful for having. And I hope folks will reset and reframe their minds.
[00:34:27] Megan Senese: It's so interesting you say that I did this.
[00:34:29] Essentially it was like setting an intention for the last 13 days of the of 2025. So essentially you wrote down 13 things that you wanted to have for 2026. So I put them in a bag and you're supposed to pick out one and like get rid of it without looking at it. And whatever. The one that's left over is your wish that it's going to come true.
[00:34:52] For 2026, you're supposed to release what's like, stop thinking about that and only think about this one thing and ground yourself in this one thing you're supposed to have written it down like it is happening to you. It's happening. And so mine was, I am fortunate and that's the one I got left with for 2026.
[00:35:09] I am fortunate, which is I am, it's sort of like I am grateful. So I wanted to share that story. Um, 'cause it made me think of, made me think of the same kind of connection there.
[00:35:18] Jessica Nguyen: Every situation, there's a good and bad. I, you know, even like the interview question, what's your strength? Your strength should also be your weakness.
[00:35:26] So every situation I always say like, well, what's, what's, what's the, why are you fortunate? Because it's like reframe your mindset, whether it be, yes, I'm really busy, I have to dash off to soccer, carpool, and a few hours and get a bunch of shit done before a webinar tomorrow morning. I'm so fortunate that I have a great job to support three kids in a high cost of living city.
[00:35:48] Uh, honestly, Seattle, it's like San Francisco, Cindy. It's so expensive. I'm fortunate to be busy. I get to do all these things. I get to be in this, this podcast with you two and meet you two, right? I'm so fortunate,
[00:36:01] Jennifer Ramsey: grateful to meet you and to know you and to have you on our podcast. So. I, I always, Megan meets the best people on LinkedIn and I'm, I'm grateful that she likes LinkedIn.
[00:36:14] It's not really my thing as much, but I'm one of the beneficiaries of all the amazing people she meets like you, Jessica. So, in gratitude.
[00:36:26] Megan Senese: This episode was brought to you by stage. That's us! A women-owned business development and marketing boutique focused on relationships, revenue, and growth for individual lawyers, legal marketers, and law firms.
[00:36:39] In addition to wanting to know what makes you human, we also wanna know what podcast guests do you want us to have on? What topics are top of mind for you? Let us know. Email us at info@stage.guide.