Navigating a dynamic general counsel career demands an almost James Bond-like dedication, a hands-on leadership with the ability to embrace the unknown. Host Joe Schohl reconnects with seasoned GC Ben Huddleston, whose path spans from advising fast-growing, pre-IPO companies to building and leading group legal teams at a $6B+ enterprise like DaVita. Ben shares his candid, real-world advice on managing major M&A at Quorum Health and ultimately becoming the first General Counsel for a complex group of 28 international businesses. He dives into pivotal moments, explaining how to learn new industries on the fly and the secret to maintaining attorney-client privilege while acting as a trusted business partner. Ben concludes by detailing the vital role of equanimity and continuous improvement in leadership, including his unique internal time-tracking method for accountability across multiple entities.
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Hands-On Leadership: Ben Huddleston On Rolling Up His Sleeves For 28 Companies
I talk with Ben Huddleston, a seasoned general counsel whose career runs from his days at a historic Nashville law firm straight into the heart of legal leadership for some of America’s most dynamic healthcare and business organizations. In this episode, Ben breaks down his journey from helping fast-growing clients go public in the 1980s and 1990s to building and leading group legal teams at DaVita, to managing legal risks and major M&A at Quorum Health, and finally to steering legal operations for a complex group of 28 international businesses.
We dive into the pivotal moments and big transitions Ben faced, including how he learned all new industries on the fly, what it means to be the first GC for an enterprise, and his real-world advice for anyone facing uncertainty or new challenges in their career. Whether you’re a lawyer, an executive, or looking for candid leadership lessons, this conversation with Ben Huddleston has something for you. Let’s jump in.
Why Business Law? The Genesis Of A GC’s Career
Ben, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
It’s great to reconnect. We’re going to go back. Somewhere along the way, our paths will intersect on this story. I want to go back further in time. Tell me what inspired you to pursue a career in law.
I was coming out of college, not quite sure what I was going to do, but I knew fundamentally that I wanted to do something in the business world. A part of me naively thought, “If I know the rules, I’ll be better at the game.” What better way to know the rules than to go to law school and learn those rules? When I went to law school, I didn’t necessarily think I would spend my entire career practicing law as I’ve done.
I knew that I wanted to seek out business law courses in law school, and where I had to go into practice after law school, a practice that focused on business as opposed to litigation. That was my personal interest. In the days when I went to law school, it was a bit different. You truly had to seek those types of classes out a lot more than you do today, where law schools can cater more to those interests than they did in the days that I went to law school.
Fortunately, I was able to take a position with a law firm based in Nashville when I got out of law school that had a very robust business practice. I went into that area of the law right out of law school. In those days, a lot of companies didn’t have in-house counsel, at least the companies that came to the law firm where I went to work for service. I was fortunate to be able to start honing skills as a general counsel right out of the gate as an associate at a law firm, with the mentorship and help of more senior associates, junior partners, partners, and so forth.
There was no barrier at the time of working through a legal department with the clients that we represented. I was extremely fortunate to get the type of experience I got at the law firm during that period of time. It validated my choices of going into business law because I enjoyed working with energetic, creative business people who were in the pursuit of creating something positive for the economy, for the local business, and so forth. That’s how I got started. It was through that approach.
'Do nothing on the sly.' Share on XThis was a Nashville-based law firm. You’re from Nashville originally, right?
That’s correct. Born and raised, and go back many generations. This firm happens to be one of the older law firms in Nashville, one of the larger law firms at the time that provided regional client support. It also had a very healthy healthcare department, which I’m sure we’ll get into a little bit. They were one of the firms at the forefront of that type of legal business at a time when there weren’t a lot of lawyers walking around necessarily calling themselves healthcare lawyers.
You were given the opportunity then to serve an outside GC role. The firm was serving, and you were helping support that.
Part of a team approach to support the GC role for many companies, not all of them, that didn’t have their own in-house counsel. I can recall two or three of the biggest clients that I work with that did not have an inside lawyer at the time. These were businesses that were highly acquisitive, that ended up having IPOs, going public, and then continuing their growth. They needed a lot of legal support in a bunch of different areas. As part of the business lawyer team, I got to see very early on a lot of the inner workings required to provide legal services for growing enterprises like that.
Outside To In-House: The Urge To Take A Hand On The Wheel
A lot of folks make the move in-house because they’re serving as outside counsel and they’re working with inside counsel. They think the grass might be greener on the other side. You weren’t working with a lot of inside counsel. What caused you to want to make that transition?
Part of it, Joe, was the thought at the time that I had that the companies I was representing, once they went public, were going to select me as inside general counsel. We’d go off, have a fine marriage, and grow together. As it turned out, the companies that I was representing at the time, fairly quickly after their IPOs, follow-on offerings, and their growth, ended up being acquired by other larger existing companies. That path never materialized, which was fine. I had an urge to one day be on that other side of the fence.
It wasn’t because I necessarily thought it would be greener grass, but I had an urge to have my hand on the wheel of an enterprise as opposed to coming in as a hired gun, even though I got to do a lot of different things and have that general counsel experience. Once a deal was done, it was on to the next deal, as opposed to how we make the deal we just completed work. How do we integrate that deal? How do we make it operationally effective and profitable? I had an urge to be part of that. While my changeover from being at a law firm to going in-house wasn’t organic in the way that I expected, because I wanted it, when the opportunity came, I was able to jump at it.
Tell me about that opportunity.
I was a young partner at the law firm. That can have within its own struggles because suddenly you’re expected to grow your own book of business and do things that sometimes, in down economies, can be somewhat difficult. At that particular time, I was approached by a fellow partner of mine who caught word of an opportunity with DaVita, which was about to acquire or merge with Gambro. There was a young general counsel of the firm at the time who was looking to build a world-class legal department. When that opportunity came, I said, “Sure, I’ll be happy to talk to the general counsel.” Lo and behold, you and I started talking.
The DaVita Model: Building A World-Class Legal Team & Group GC
I was quite young then. I remember interviewing you. We decided that we were going to structure the function to have group general counsels. At that time, we were dividing the country into five regions. The company was going to be quite big. The law department had historically been quite small. We were going from not quite scratch, but looking ahead and building a department that could scale with the business. I interviewed you for a group GC job. I’m going to take you back further in time, because one of the things I remember being very impressed by was your high school experience, and particularly the motto of the high school, which I don’t remember. It will help shape you as a young man, then as a lawyer, and into who you are today.
You have quite a memory. I attended a small private school in Tennessee known as The Webb School, which was established after the Civil War. Their cornerstone is an honor code, which ultimately was adopted by Princeton University and other schools. The code is in Latin. “Do nothing on the sly.” It made a real impression on me as a young man, and on others who go to that school. That certainly was a tremendous shaper of my life and the approach that I chose to take with the rest of my life.
As it relates to DaVita and that opportunity, as I look back on that, I was very grateful at the time to come into that 1/5 of the company because that 1/5 of the company in and of itself at the time was a $1.6 billion enterprise. I approached that as the title, as you’ve referenced, was Group General Counsel. I was the general counsel of that 1/5 entity. In many respects, I didn’t feel the pressure of going into a $6 billion-plus entity to be GC like you were.
I was able to go into my first quasi GC role with that umbrella and be part of a team. There were other GCs that we worked alongside. That was an exciting time. I walked in on the day that the merger was completed, the day it closed. As I look back on that time, right out of the gate, there were three buckets of things that I was tasked to do. One was to keep the wheels on the machine going, the day-to-day legal oversight required to keep everything between the lines.
Keep the wheels on the machine going, the day-to-day legal oversight required to keep everything between the lines. Share on XThe other was to be part of a team to build towards the goal of establishing a world-class legal department for this large publicly traded company. The third piece was establishing best practices and preparing templates to use going forward to make things succinct and commercially viable. It was an exciting time, quite busy, but a great way to come into the in-house without just being handed the keys for a whole enterprise, which would have been intimidating for me at the time.
All five of the original group GCs in those roles went on to be standalone company GCs over time. It was a great opportunity to be the GC for a large business and at the same time have peers with whom you could compare and contrast what was working. It was almost like this federalism model with states that you could do. You had autonomy, but it was in this overall structure of support.
I reported to you as the general counsel, but I also reported in a dotted line way to a senior vice president who essentially was the CEO of that 1/5 of the company and his team. A federalist approach is a great way to describe it. It was a good way for me to come into a GC role, because, in those days, there was a little bit perhaps of a bias. If you work for a law firm, how do you know about being in-house? I don’t think that exists as much today as it did then. It seemed like much more of a binary choice back in those days. You’re either with a law firm or you’re in-house. The lines are much more blurred today than they were then.
It totally takes me back. We hired high-integrity people in an environment where integrity was one of the core values. It paid off not just on the legal side. When you look at the CEOs of the five areas, the SVPs, most or all of them went on to be CEOs of healthcare companies. At DaVita, we called it spreading ripples out into the healthcare community. I haven’t ever seen anything quite like it.
Nor have I. It was a tremendous time and a tremendous experience.
When did you become a ripple in the DaVita infrastructure and go out into the world?
Back in the days, you’re either with a law firm or you’re in-house. The lines are much more blurred today than they were then. Share on XIt was roughly six or seven years on. You had already departed to be a ripple. As those things happen, oftentimes that’s a signal that maybe a time is coming for another opportunity to be evaluated. Much like the DaVita opportunity, I caught word of an opportunity from my network. We may talk about the importance of maintaining a network. I caught word of an opportunity to be chief legal counsel of the wholly owned subsidiary of a very large publicly traded healthcare company. The subsidiary did an entirely different business from the owner of it.
I was intrigued because I was able to have a chief legal counsel role, but not necessarily be part of some sprawling, huge entity. I felt I wasn’t quite ready for that yet. I went to work for Quorum Health, which at the time was wholly owned by Community Health Systems, which is based here in the Nashville area, and is now. The Quorum was in the business of managing hospitals at the time. CHS was in the business of owning and operating hospitals. The GC of CHS wanted a chief legal counsel that she could trust to oversee all of the legal aspects of this subsidiary, which was important to the parent, because if something catastrophic went wrong with the subsidiary, the parent would not be happy.
Embracing The Unknown: Stepping Into A New Industry Cold
Tell me what it was like moving into that role. How was it similar? How was it different?
It was different in that I no longer had the solidarity, the team of four other group GCs that I was working with. I was on my own as the chief legal counsel of an entity. I didn’t know anything about the business. This was a business I was stepping into cold. I had to learn what it meant to manage rural hospitals. What exactly are the relationships that Quorum is building? What’s in these contracts? How are they protected?
This is a through line throughout my career. I have found that, doing what I do, I have to embrace the unknown and to learn how to adapt, how to get up to speed quickly, how to understand a business, and how to manage the risks based on that understanding, but be an effective advisor and ultimately be a trusted advisor for the clients that I’m representing. That has been my North Star in my career. It was somewhat intimidating to go into a business that I had never done work for before, had never represented in any way, and be tasked with oversight of everything required to be done to keep it legal.
Embrace the unknown, learn how to adapt, how to get up to speed quickly, understand a business, and manage the risks. Share on XLet’s dive into that. With the benefit of hindsight, what would you tell a young Ben Huddleston stepping into that position? How did you do those things? How did you learn what you needed to learn to be effective in the way that you wanted to be effective?
Off the bat, there was no AI at the time. I would tell young Ben Huddleston that if you were able to fast forward, wait a little bit, you’d have a lot more help potentially. The first thing I would do is encourage the young person. You can do this. You’re going to have to roll up your sleeves. You’re going to have to do a lot of reading and a lot of learning, but you’re also going to have to be patient with yourself. Don’t be afraid to tell people when you don’t know something that you’re going to have to go hit the book somewhere or pick up the phone and call someone else. Don’t be afraid to be honest when you don’t know something.
If you put in the work and put in the effort, it’ll be okay. It would be that assurance because that’s what I had to do. It was almost in a way going back to law school. I looked for sources and read the contracts they had, but I pulled whatever sources I could from similar businesses to find out best practices, where the risks were, and what I needed to be cognizant of. It comes down to putting in the time with confidence that I was going to get there.
You had some confidence because you were doing things in a sequential manner. You could look back on past success because when you came to DaVita, you didn’t know anything about what we were doing there. You grew into a great group general counsel, which then qualified you for the next-level role.
I’ve told this story a couple of times. An example of where that confidence came from was when I was a senior associate at the time at the law firm where I worked. It is the only law firm I have ever worked for. One of our clients was a publicly traded restaurant company that had gone public and was looking to grow. They decided they wanted to go into franchising. No one in the firm had franchised any restaurant business. The senior partner said, “Ben, go set it up.”
I had never set up a franchise business in restaurants or anything else, but I put in the work. I put in the study. There were some missteps along the way, but I ended up getting a franchise set up for this client. That experience gave me the confidence to know that, regardless of the business that I go into, there’s a set of answers that can be found. You just have to be willing to roll up your sleeves, put in the work, and learn it.
That is the general counsel’s mindset and mentality there. It has to be because you can never answer the question that’s outside my area of expertise. The law is your area of expertise.
I am liking it to being James Bond as an attorney. I’m going to be dedicated, relentless, and creative. I’ve got to work within the guardrails of the law and what the law says, but I’m representing my client to try to obtain their objective. That requires sweat, toil, and sometimes a few tears.
The GC’s Juggling Act: Advisor, Partner, And Corporate Leader
How do you manage the competing demands of being a legal advisor, a business partner, and a corporate leader all at the same time?
A lot of times, those demands overlap. I won’t say I necessarily compartmentalize those aspects of my job with a bold line. I definitely try to ascertain what areas I’m being asked to work on fit most squarely in the legal box as opposed to the strategy box. It can get blurry often. You have to be careful. I had a personal experience with one of the companies I represented, where I was subpoenaed as an attorney. I thought, “This will never go anywhere. I’ve got privilege.” The argument of the lawyers subpoenaing me was, “You don’t just practice law. You also give business advice.”
This is when you were in an in-house role.
That’s correct. Along the lines of what we’ve been talking about, I went off to study this approach. Is there anything to this? I learned some courts have given leeway to litigators who make that argument. That’s a caution to any in-house counsel to be cognizant of that potential trap. After that experience, I ended up being subpoenaed and answering almost every question, “I’m sorry. That’s privileged and confidential. I can’t provide any information about that.” It goes to the question you asked. How do you manage the different hats? It’s tough, but I make sure that when I’m providing advice where it fits within privilege, it’s got the appropriate label, and that I do the things that I learned a lot under your tutelage and at DaVita, even, how to establish that privilege. That’s critical.
The Big Leap: Becoming The First General Counsel Of An Enterprise
I still carry that forward to everything I do. I’ve been deposed in it and had to delineate between what was privileged and what could be answered. It’s no fun, although it is a good experience as a lawyer to have because it gives you some view of what it’s like from your client’s perspective. Take us along the path, then. At what point did you have your first job where you were the GC of the whole enterprise?
It’s the place where I’m sitting now in my office. Quorum was ultimately spun out by CHS into a different entity. As I referenced earlier, sometimes along your career path, signals happen. Things happen where you realize it’s maybe time to be looking for the next opportunity. Here again, an attorney friend of mine out of my network and I were having lunch one day. He said, “I know of an interesting opportunity, a company here in town looking for their very first general counsel.”
It turns out the company has been around since the Civil War. They’ve had an inside counsel along the way, but never someone with the title, the role, and the responsibilities of general counsel. This company is not in healthcare, but it has 28 different operating businesses operating internationally. It sparked my interest because I like learning new things. We’ve talked about that. That’s another through line throughout my career.
I like the challenge of representing businesses in areas where I’ve never done work before. We have the primary business, which Southwestern has been doing since the Civil War. It is selling books door to door. Young students in college sign up for a program in the summer to learn how to be salespeople. We have a program to teach them how to be salespeople that’s effective. These young people often go from this program after they’ve done it for a few years and graduate from college, to create businesses for us or create other sales businesses.
It is because they’ve gone through this tremendous program where they’ve learned these skills that they can carry with them for the rest of their lives. As I mentioned, we have 28 other businesses doing other things. Sales run through those businesses, but we’re doing work all over the world. It’s interesting and challenging for me because I don’t know from day to day what challenge I’m going to be faced with. It could be a real estate matter. It could be an HR matter. It could be a piece of litigation. I’m not sure what the right word is, but it keeps me very busy and engaged.
You do like putting yourself in positions where anything could come your way at any time.
I haven’t sat on a therapist’s couch to figure that out. Maybe that’s my next step. Clearly, it’s what I’ve chosen to do in my career. It’s something that I find energizing.
First-Time GC Lessons: How To Learn The Business And Manage Risk
What did you have to learn in that role where there’s no other lawyer above you that was new that you didn’t have to do when there was someone?
What I’ve always tried to do is learn the business as thoroughly as I can and then build a relationship with my client. In this case, I work very closely with the CEO and chairman, the CFO, and then the other folks who are providing enterprise-level support, whether it’s IT, HR, or Marketing. First and foremost, it’s to learn the business. Secondly, and a natural corollary to that, what’s worked in the past for them as it relates to legal representation, and what hasn’t worked? What are the areas of risk that need to be better addressed? What are the areas of contracting or work management that could be improved?
That was a focus from day one for me and continues to be a focus. Every day, there’s something that can be improved. Besides just getting that day’s work done, it is making sure that I carve out time to at least think about, if not somehow address and move the ball forward to improve some aspect of what the legal department, as it’s currently comprised of today, can do better.
Tell us about your legal department.
It’s small but mighty. I work with another attorney who has celebrated his 25th anniversary here at the firm. He has a ton of knowledge about the history and the protocols of the company that I’ve been able to plumb and use as I’ve been in this role. We have an office administrator/paralegal who is super effective at making sure that we’re staying on top of the different things that we’re supposed to be doing.
A lot of the focus in the last couple of years has been to update our processes, like a lot of legal departments, big and small, are doing, whether it’s contract lifecycle management, how we’re incorporating AI, or what type of research programs we need. All in-house counsel can relate to the constant tension of budgeting for outside counsel, which seems to get more expensive by the day. A selling point that I had walking into this door and that I will continue to sell for the rest of my career is that I am not afraid to learn the business, to learn the risk, to roll up my sleeves, and to do the work.
There’s going to be times when, as a legal department, we’re going to need to pick up the phone and call a specialist, an outside counsel. It is maintaining the balance of being able to do the work as much as we can inside before we pick up the phone and make that call. When we do pick up the phone and make that call, it is to make sure that the work we’re asking to be done is done most efficiently in terms of cost and labor. That’s the sweet spot we’re constantly trying to hit.
There are going to be times when, as a legal department, we need to call a specialist, an outside counsel. It is maintaining the balance of being able to do the work as much as we can inside before we pick up the phone. Share on XHas AI yet had an impact on that balance?
Absolutely. I’m a big proponent of the use of AI and looking forward to using it more. I’m sure your audience is well aware of the risks with it, as with any new tool. Particularly for a small department like ours, it carries with it great potential to be able to further maximize the work that we do and create additional efficiencies that will result in cost savings, quicker turnarounds, and all the things that bosses of legal departments are looking for.
Are there any tools in particular you found valuable?
We’re using Microsoft Copilot because it’s built within the suite of our Microsoft program. That’s particularly valuable because Microsoft already has our information. We don’t have to build something from scratch in that regard. One of the first programs that I put into place that I learned about from DaVita all those years ago is the Thomson Reuters Legal Tracker program, which, at the time when we were at DaVita, was called Serengeti. That’s a tool that I’ve relied on for my entire in-house career to manage outside counsel, spending, budgeting, that sort of thing. They have some new AI generational tools that work within their legal tracker and in another area called general counsel, which we found to be very promising.
Unique GC Structure: Internal Time-Tracking And Accountability
How do you manage your time in your calendar across 28 potential businesses looking for help on any given day?
This is one of those areas where the grass is certainly not greener because I actually keep my time just as I would if I were in a law firm. My time is billed out to whatever client I do that work for internally.
You track your time because there’s a cost allocation.
There are companies I’m aware of that do this. I’ll be curious to see if this is a trend that gets picked up more in the coming years or not. Oftentimes, when I talk to other lawyers, they’re awfully surprised that that’s how we do it here, but it is. That’s how I track my time, much like a lawyer sitting in a law firm office somewhere.
Do you think that has an impact on how you spend your time without a doubt?
Yes, without a doubt, because I’m under the same pressure as a lawyer sitting in a law office somewhere. If one of my 28 business clients gets my bill and has questions about it, and I haven’t kept my time appropriately, or it looks like I’ve not done my work efficiently, I’m going to get asked about it.
That is definitely a bit unique for an in-house role.
This is the first in-house role I’ve had with that structure. I’ll carry it with me for the rest of my career because it keeps me honest.
How do you make sure you’re spending enough time on important but not urgent tasks, and maybe proactive, where one of the 28 is not asking for something right now, but you know it’s important to put off issues in the future?
Our reporting structure is such that, quarterly, I provide our CFO a report that goes into a bundle that is reviewed at the board of directors meeting for that quarter. That’s a regular reminder of, “I said last quarter we were going to do this. I said at the start of the year that this was the big project.” That’s an easy reminder of how I keep up with that. It’s human nature. Sometimes, I get caught up in the day-to-day. It starts getting towards the end of a quarter. I go, “I’ve got to address this thing that I said I was going to address.” There can sometimes be some scrambling on it. Ultimately, because of that reporting structure, it’s built in to stay true to what you said you were going to do.
You’ve got that built-in accountability mechanism.
I would like to think that if it wasn’t there, I would have the self-discipline to do it myself. It sure helps that it’s already there.
When you reflect on your career to date, what’s some of the best advice you’ve been given? What’s stuck with you?
There was a word used in the early law firm days of mine that I had to look up, even though I was an English major. The word was equanimity. I had to look it up. It means to act in a calm and reassured manner, regardless of the circumstances that you’re facing. I’ve had to employ that consciously throughout my career, because there are times we all face in our careers that are high-pressure, where the stakes seem high.
Practice equanimity, to act in a calm and reassured manner, regardless of the circumstances that you’re facing. Share on XI’ve had to remind myself that, ultimately, everything is going to be okay. I’m going to do my best. If I make a mistake, I’m going to be kind to myself. I’m back to the honesty and integrity part. I’ll own up to what mistake I made and will move forward. That equanimity, as a North Star in my day-to-day approach, was a lesson that I learned early that I’ve found very valuable.
The other word that comes to mind is accountability, another one of our core values at DaVita.
DaVita had fine core values. There’s a third one that I like, too, the continuous improvement. I think I mentioned this already. Having the self-discipline to seek continuous improvement in the areas of your work on a daily basis, if possible, is important.
Staying Sharp: Continuous Improvement & Professional Growth
What do you do to stay sharp and continue growing as a leader and a professional?
I try to carve out as much time as reasonably possible to read materials in the areas that I’m working in. I certainly attend as many webinars and seminars as I can. There’s a built-in accountability fixture of that with our continuing legal education credit requirements, but taking on learning areas when I can and then finding where I can apply those in the work that I’m doing in a practical and meaningful way.
Here we are, sitting towards the end of 2025. I’ll take some time away from my desk and try to reflect in a meaningful way on what I’ve done in 2024, what worked, and what could be done better. I always come up with a list of personal and professional goals for the coming year. I don’t call them resolutions, but they’re goals based on that review. I keep them on my iPhone. I’ll pull them up from time to time throughout the year and look at them. “I said that this was important, and maybe I’m not focusing on that.” I am doing a general reminder from time to time in that regard.
It’s a great segue into the question I like to wrap things up with. What are you most looking forward to?
We have some business deals that I’ve been working on in 2025 that I’m most looking forward to getting closed in 2026. There are a couple of interesting deals in new areas of business. That always excites me. I’m excited.
Are you saying 28-plus?
Absolutely, if you’re looking for a hard 30 in 2026. I’m absolutely looking to get those deals done, completed, out of the gate, to where they’re contributing to the overall business of the enterprise that I’m representing. I’ve got three teenage daughters at home. I’m looking forward to them finishing up their semester here shortly with their exams and going on to their next challenges.
Are they in high school?
They’re in high school. Two are in high school, and one is in middle school. They’re in the throes of exams as we speak.
Same as in my house right now. One finished, and one still had exams. The one who is finished thinks, “You’re going to work? Let’s have fun.”
That’s the same in our house. Our middle schooler is looking at the two high schoolers going, “What are you guys doing? Why are you so upset? Why are you in your rooms with your doors closed for hours on end while we’re studying?”
A busy time for sure. By the time this comes out, we’ll be through the holidays. In the meantime, merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Happy New Year. It has been great reconnecting with you, Ben. I can’t wait to see what you’re going to do next.
Thank you so much, Joe. It has been great. I hope you have a great holiday.
Thank you. Take care.
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Thanks for tuning in to my conversation with Ben Huddleston. Here are three takeaways that stood out from Ben’s journey. First, success as a legal leader is rooted in the ability to learn new businesses fast. Ben shared how each career transition, whether into healthcare at DaVita or managing a portfolio of 28 companies, required rolling up his sleeves, asking hard questions, and relentlessly studying contracts, operations, and risks until he became a trusted advisor.
Second, true impact comes from building not just legal skills, but relationships. Ben emphasized how credibility is earned at the executive table by understanding your client’s business, embracing accountability through concrete reporting, and never being afraid to admit what you don’t know or to seek help. Third, the modern general counsel’s edge is found in adaptability and continuous improvement.
From implementing AI tools and innovative time tracking to learning from both missteps and mentors, Ben models how to stay curious, open to change, and rigorously self-disciplined, how it can keep you sharp, even as responsibilities scale across continents and industries. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share the show with a friend. I would love to connect with you directly. Search for me, @JosephSchohl, on LinkedIn. Until next time, thanks for tuning in.
Important Links
- Southwestern Family of Companies
- Microsoft Copilot
- Thomson Reuters Legal Tracker
- Joseph Schohl on LinkedIn