Episode #25 Kristen Nelsen, General Counsel at Chase Properties

(upbeat music) - I'm Shana Rosner, your host of In-House Council Chronicles, a podcast designed to chronicle the career journeys of In-House Council so we can collectively learn from their unique past to their in-house position, the challenges they've overcome, the milestones they have celebrated, and how they're shaping the future of law and today's rapidly changing business environment. Today, my guest is Kristen Nelson, Kristen earned her BA in political science from Case Western Reserve University in 1998, and her law degree from Case Western Reserve School of Law in 2001. She started her legal career in private practice and is currently General Counsel of Chase Properties, a real estate company founded in 1973 that operates on a diversified platform catering to the evolving needs of the commercial real estate sector. I can't wait for Kristen to share her career journey with us. Welcome to the podcast, Kristen. - Thanks, Shana, thanks for having me. - I want to start off by sharing that you started your legal practice in private practice. - I actually started my practice in title, so I worked for a couple of title companies originally and worked there for a few years kind of learning the process of closings and just basically the transactions overall and then actually went into a small firm after a couple of years of working in title. - How did that title experience benefit you when you moved into private practice and beyond? - It actually was really beneficial, especially doing transactions because I was able to take my experience at the title company, understanding a little bit of underwriting, understanding how to read a survey, title and survey objections, the closing process. So I was able to take that experience and build off of it as I went into a law firm. - And then how did you make that transition and why did you make it when you did to go into a law firm? - Actually, the timing of when I was at the title companies, it was not long before 2007 and 2008 and things were shifting and they were actually cutting a lot of positions at the title companies and I actually was let go and had a few months off and then found a job practicing real estate law in the law firm that I went to. That was, I had always wanted to work in a law firm but the climate wasn't great when I came out of law school so I wanted to get into the real estate industry so that was how I started out was in title but then took that with me. - Why real estate? Why was that of interest to you from the beginning? - When I went to law school, I wasn't sure what type of law I wanted to practice. I was pretty sure I didn't want to be a litigator so I was kind of starting with kind of eliminating things that didn't interest me and looking at what classes did interest me and I enjoyed property law, I enjoyed contracts and so I started kind of moving in that direction eventually ending up taking a couple of classes that were called Advanced Shopping Center Law. So it actually was what I ended up doing but I really enjoyed it. It was really interesting to me and that kind of solidified the choice for me. - So you were practicing in law firm for a bit before you moved in house. What made you make that shift when you did? - I think that experience with that shopping center class. I knew that that was really what I wanted to do and so I was kind of watching the local real estate companies seeing what positions were out there and this one came available and it was a great opportunity for me to move in house. That was the direction I had always hoped that my career would take. - So that was at Chase Properties and you started in as an associate general counsel, is that right? - Originally when I started, almost 100% of my job was in leasing. So I was doing a lot of the retail shopping center leases and as my experience there grew, I wanted to take on more challenges and started working more on the transaction side as well and it evolved from there to where I was doing a good bulk of the leasing work and then also starting to learn transactions. - I know you moved back to private practice the firm where you were before you moved to Chase Properties and then returned back to Chase Properties. So a little bit of a different trajectory. Tell me a little bit about that. - Sure, I always say that my career has taken kind of a winding path but I wasn't sure exactly where my career was going to progress at Chase and so I wanted to get a little bit more experience handling a lot of transactions kind of on my own and so I went back into private practice and realized that there are certain things about being in house that I really prefer and when the opportunity presented itself for me to go back to Chase took that path. And then you moved into the General Counsel Spot at Chase Properties what about four or four or so years ago? Is that right? - Yes. And tell me about what changed in your responsibilities when you moved into that General Counsel position. - As I moved into that role, I obviously took on managing the department. So it was actually my first time managing other employees, kind of moving from people who were my coworkers and then now managing them, which was an easy transition because they're a fantastic team. But it was taking on the managerial role but then also trying to take a step above the actual just practice of law and trying to learn more about being a strategic partner for the leadership team and having more of that overall view and looking at how the business runs itself and looking at things, kind of from a higher level. - And I'm gonna talk to you in a little bit about your leadership and your team. But I first wanted to ask you about how your position has evolved in the GCE spot since you started there. - It's evolved along with the company. So our company is continually growing. As we grow, there's more of a need for legal and so not only are we growing the departments internally, we've expanded our resources with outside counsel, outside counsel, just keeping track of more and more transactions, more leases, being able to run with a larger volume of work. We often joke about 10 years ago how many transactions we might do at a time and now we just are coming off closing three transactions in two weeks and that's pretty standard now. It was not standard when I originally started. - And hasn't the portfolio changed a bit since you were there? - It has. When I first started at Chase, they were just kicking off their investment funds. And so it did change the trajectory of the company as they have grown from, I think when I started, they were in their first fund kicking off the second and now they're in their fifth. So that has changed the business model, you know, how we hold and sell assets, the strategy has changed a little bit since I've been there. - As bringing to mind that in your position and probably in a lot of general counsel position you have to be nimble. - Absolutely and not only that strategy has changed, what we do with properties has changed. We're continually, I joke all the time that they stay awake at night coming up with new ways to challenge us in the legal department but coming up with new strategies of splitting off pieces of property and selling those, you know, what to do at the end of a life of a fund and recapturing and keeping some of our properties and restructuring that corporate. I've taken on more responsibility on the corporate side as well, which I did have some experience with that but that has definitely grown as I've continued along as general counsel. I've gained a lot of experience there as well but yeah, it's new strategies how to keep up with things. It's constantly learning new things. - What has been the biggest challenge that you've faced in your legal career thus far? - I think that one of the challenges is this, the constant growth. It's a good challenge. I enjoy it because I always say we're never bored. It's always something interesting but it does seem like we're continually doing things that are more sophisticated and it's learning how to do that and leaning on outside resources, understanding I always say that I'm very comfortable knowing what I don't know and being able to say, I don't know this, let's go ahead and bring somebody in to give us a little bit more expertise, I think as general counsel, you do wear a lot of hats but I think you have to be comfortable knowing when you're not an expert in something and relying on an outside partner or outside council, somebody who has more expertise in that field. - Do you utilize outside counsel and has that changed over time and you project that it's gonna continue to change? - Use outside counsel a lot when we know that they have a little bit more expertise. So it may be when we're facing an environmental issue or a new national tenant where we haven't worked with that national tenant before. We may want to rely on that. on some more experience. So we've been, I think that that's been pretty consistent. The volume of what we keep in house versus sending to outside council does change just depending on what our what our work load is and what our staffing looks like. I don't know if I expect it to change too much. I think that that depending on, you know, where we go with technology, I could see us relying a little bit more on people that have more expertise in AI or, you know, other various technological evolutions, I guess. But it seems to be consistent that it's just when we when we need somebody that that knows a little bit more than what I might know about something, then I'm comfortable bringing them in and finding out what they have to say. That makes sense to me. And I want to talk a little bit about your legal team. How many is a part of your legal team at this point? Now we have two full-time attorneys. We have a part-time attorney, a paralegal and a legal assistant. I helped with at least one of those attorney hires. I'm proud to say, how would you describe your leadership style as a general council? I would say it's still evolving. Like I said, I really hadn't had a leadership role before I stepped into the general council position. And I think I learned a lot from managers that I've had in the past. And, you know, taking styles that I thought were good styles that I thought were not necessarily didn't mesh with my personality and try to work. I try to, you know, lead by example. I definitely do not micromanage. I never enjoyed being micromanage, but I want to be available to my team when they do have questions. So I want to give them kind of that freedom to be independent, but then also have the ability to to come and sit down and talk to me when when they do have questions. And I would say just trying to stay calm, I think, you know, one of the best leadership styles I think that that I've seen are people that can remain calm. Don't get upset, you know, you sure you get frustrated when things aren't going the way you want them to be, but I think you really just have to stay calm and and and just lead by example. Along those lines, what's most important to you when building and maintaining your legal team? What's important to me and what's important at Chase overall is just a fit in the culture. Obviously, you know, we're looking for lawyers that have experience and are able to handle the role pretty much anything that that's thrown at them because in house, you never know what's going to be asked of you day to day, but you know, it really is a personality fit in people who are willing to, you know, really take on new challenges and, you know, just be willing to be part of the larger team. No, you've told me before, you have a pretty strong culture, unique culture at Chase properties. And as you said, you take that into account when hiring. What makes the culture they are unique and and one is a fit for you. I think what makes it at least what I think makes it unique is the atmosphere that everyone there cares about each other. It's not just you walk in and everybody's head down and doing their work and leave at the end of the day. We really do enjoy being around each other. We do some volunteer work at the Cleveland Food Bank and those are always a lot of fun. We have a lot of, you know, we get together for happy hours and just the other day, we had an all-company meeting, which we have quarterly and then afterwards we had a baby shower for one of the guys at work that recently and his wife recently actually had the baby the day we were supposed to have his baby shower. But it's just a really, you know, I think I don't know if it's working for a family. I think it's, you know, the atmosphere overall that that's set from the top down, but but it is a really family atmosphere. I remember when I I actually started working there and then found out not long after that I was pregnant with twins. It was really nervous. I'd only been there a few months and I remember one day walking into a meeting and it was a baby shower for me and it really it just meant a lot. There was a huge cake and you know everybody was there to celebrate me and I think that was within the first, you know, probably five or six months that I had been there and it really just as an example of how everyone at the company really cares about each other. I remember that you had twins and I wanted to kind of segue that into how you balance work as a general counsels a busy position and a young family is easy and I'm definitely still navigating it at times I feel that that tipping one way or the other. But you know, I am fiercely protective of my work life balance, which which is difficult because you do feel that pull to stay really late. I need to stay late and there are days where I just do we do have a hybrid schedule. I work from home two days a week which really helps a lot and you know, I try to really use those days to the fullest because when I'm home I do feel like I can I can stay at my computer a little bit later because I can just shut it down and and walk out and cook dinner. But you know, I think it's also helpful that that I do work for a company that's very supportive of the work life balance. And there's you know, just an understanding that it's not an expectation that I work more to get things done. It is a constant conversation of what is the best way to make this work and if we need to send something to outside counsel in order to keep the balance of the overall department keep well, we definitely experience our higher stress levels. It's trying to not stay at that level all the time and I think that that's why you know, Chase is such a great place to work is because that that's encouraged. And so I do try really hard to you know, be there especially during baseball season when my I have three sons they're all playing baseball all of games, you know, trying trying to run here and there and and you know, you may make it up on a weekend or you know, evening or wherever you need to, but but it's important to me to to maintain that balance. I've really been working on that over the last year where I've I've really been trying to to set some boundaries for myself and make sure that you know, okay, you do need to leave at this time and do that and and make allowances for it. What differences did you see with the work-life balance so to speak between working in a law firm versus working in house? If any difference. I think there there is a difference and I think that that part of it is because when you are in house, you're immersed with everyone every day and it it goes along with why I like being in house because as an in-house lawyer, you're part of that larger team. You're not just doing the legal work, you know, being paid just to do the legal work, you're you're part of the team and everyone has an understanding of what all of the projects are that are going on. You know, there's there's always a push-in pool where if we have a big transaction that's closing, it's going to be a little tougher to pay attention to the leasing side as much as we might need it to be there's there's always that balance but everyone in the company knows what's going on at all times has an understanding of what the priorities are and I think that that is the is the same for the work-life balance. Everyone knows, you know, this person has a sick parent or this person, you know, is going to have a baby or this person has, you know, this trip coming up and and so it's it's part of being part of that larger team I think that that makes the difference. They see you as more of a person, you know, a whole person as opposed to just a lawyer. I appreciate that perspective. I really hadn't thought about it from that way that you're really more of a it feels like for you at least it's been a team feeling. What keeps you excited about the real estate market and your position in it? It gets just always changing. Like I said, you know, a few minutes ago, I'm never bored. There's always a new challenge. There's always something new to learn, you know, now it's it's you're trying to navigate how to include AI and how to, you know, not only do it, you know, take it on and find ways to use it but also in a responsible way. How do you do that without relying too much on it, you know, as it's evolving and learning, I guess, for a lack of a better term. But it's just constantly changing and I'm learning more and more about the business side that I have over over the past few years and I really enjoy learning that piece of it as well, not just the law but the overall real estate business and listening to people speak about it. It's it's just always changing and it's really interesting. So in your role as general counsel at Chase Properties, do you so to speak, have us seated the table and some of the business side meetings? Yes, yes, we have a leadership team. It's it's our two CEOs, our CFO or COO. We meet weekly. We have quarterly meetings where we're we're together all day, you know, doing strategic planning for the company. And so I feel, you know, I really enjoy having that that voice and and their, you know, decisions, obviously business decisions that that are being made that I can weigh in on, you know, different pieces of it, get insight into why we choose to, you know, buy one asset over another and it's it's it is really interesting. What are you most proud of in your legal career thus far? I think just I would say I'm very proud about, you know, moving on. moving into this transition is general counsel. This is the position that coming out of law school, I would have said was probably my dream career. And so I have had a winding career to get here, but it is exactly where I wanted to be. And I think just achieving that goal really meant a lot to me looking back over a lot of things that tougher times, struggling with things. I can remember when I was first starting to draft documents, just wishing I could hit a fast forward button to when I knew what I was doing. It's hard, it's a struggle when you're first learning how to do something. And every once in a while I sit back and I think to myself, oh, I know how to do this now. This is great. It's just navigating all the challenges throughout my career to get to where I am now and continuing to meet new challenges along the way. - That's great. And I want to close as I always do by asking if you were to go back in time and give yourself advice as an attorney just starting your legal career, what would that be and why? - I think the advice would be to be patient and to always bet on myself. I feel like I learned that as I got more experience, I was more willing to bet on myself and make bolder choices. So I think that I would tell myself be patient and be confident and don't sell yourself short. Any different advice that you would give to someone that's already in-house and looking to move into the general counsel seat from a different position? - I would say, you know, continue to learn as much as you can, learn as much as you can about the business that you're in and, you know, learn how to be a strategic partner alongside of the law work and just be somebody that they can really count on. - Great pieces of advice. I think our listeners will be able to take advantage of is really been a pleasure talking to you today. Thanks for sharing your career journey with us. - Thank you for having me.