Meaghan Nelson is general counsel of SingleStore. Previously, she was associate general counsel and assistant corporate secretary at Veeva Systems. Meaghan was a corporate associate in Wilson Sonsini’s Palo Alto office from 2011 until 2013. She earned her J.D. from the University of Illinois College of Law in 2010.
We recently spoke with Meaghan about her career path, her time at Wilson Sonsini, and how that experience prepared her to go in-house, among other topics.
How did you find the experience of moving in-house? Do you have any advice for those looking to do the same?
When I moved in-house in 2016, I went to a company (Veeva Systems) that I had taken public in 2013. So, I had already worked closely with the team as outside corporate counsel for a long time. When I came to Veeva, it was like a homecoming—in fact, when the CFO announced that I’d joined the company, he actually said those words: “It feels like Meaghan is coming home.” And it really did.
In terms of advice, I’d say that when you’re thinking about going in-house, don’t discount current clients. When you leave a law firm to go to a client, it’s a positive thing for the law firm. You feel good about that change and the law firm feels good about that change. It benefits everyone.
Another piece of advice is to pick a place based on the people, because the job is hard, being an in-house lawyer is hard. There was one day I counted the number of independent legal issues that came across my desk, and it was into the 20s. It can be stressful, but when you’re working with A players, individuals who are just good people, it makes the job that much easier. You could go to the hot company, you could go to the rocket ship, but at the end of the day, the job is the job—and the job is easier when you’re with the right people.
One final piece of advice I’d share is that when you’re in-house, the best thing you can do is to lean into understanding the business. In my role as a GC, I see myself as a strategic, enterprise-minded executive who just happened to come up through the legal organization, much like other executives have come up through their pertinent area of expertise. That transition in perspective is important to be successful in-house. I’m a businessperson first, and I have the law as background, as well as a team to help protect the company.
What did you learn from your time at Wilson Sonsini?
First, I want to say that I’m so grateful for the time I had at Wilson. I started my career at Cravath in New York, focusing on public company representation in M&A. When I moved to Silicon Valley in 2011, I was looking for a firm with marquee clients where I could do public company work in M&A, because that’s what I thought I loved doing. Wilson checked those boxes, and I was excited to get the offer to come in as a lateral associate.
When I joined Wilson, it was right when the IPO market was reopening, so I didn’t do a lot of M&A deals—instead, I ended up doing a lot of company-side IPOs and other offerings. I was in the Pacific Group, where you could choose your own adventure, and I realized very quickly that I loved IPOs. I also loved public company reporting, so I just went door to door to folks and said, “Do you have any companies I can help with? I want to gain the experience.” Wilson provided a platform that allowed me to do that, so I was able to gain a lot of experience in a very short period of time. I will forever be grateful for that opportunity, and for the connections I made with those I worked with. That was one of the experiences I took away from Wilson: you learn from the partners and senior associates, but you learn from your peers, too. We all pushed each other, and it was a fun time.
I am a client of Wilson now, and because I know the types of lawyers that Wilson hires, those are the lawyers I want supporting me and my team.
How did Wilson Sonsini prepare you for the challenges you face today as general counsel?
Since it was so busy with all the IPOs, secondary offerings, and other public company work, I learned how to push my limits and really manage the workload with different competing obligations. I learned how to handle the practice of law, and that serves me well now that I have so many different legal issues coming across my desk. I also learned to have the confidence to ask questions, because you can’t give good legal advice unless you have the full context.
But for me, the biggest takeaway from Wilson was the network I built while I was there, including people I never even worked with at the firm. We have that alumni connection, and I’ve been fortunate to have people introduce me to other Wilson alumni. I have a good number of “phone-a-friends” through this network. For example, I’m in an unofficial group of other first-time GC women who are all Wilson alumnae, and we bounce ideas off of each other—it’s not a formal network, but we will send text messages or have quick catch-up calls. I really value that. And I continue to keep in touch with partners who were mentors of mine at Wilson, as well as people who were at Wilson before I was.
What’s something interesting that people would be surprised to learn about you?
The first is that I’m a certified yoga instructor. Before law school, I worked in finance at a retail company, and the rent for my apartment kept going up, so it was almost like I had to pay to keep working. So I quit my job, put all my possessions into storage, moved to Baja California in Mexico, and lived in a tent on the beach. I got certified in yoga instruction at a yoga institute I found online, and everybody thought I was crazy. But it really helped put me in the right headspace to go to law school, as part of the transition to a new career path. In fact, I think the yoga training and getting into that meditative, calming headspace really helps me in my job on a daily basis.
The second thing people might not know about me is that I’m a prolific reader. I read probably 40 books a year—though I count audibles as reading, so maybe I’m cheating a little bit. I like reading about psychology and understanding how humans work. The way that I approach being a legal advisor is that I want to understand people’s motivations; I want to understand how I can crack the egg when it comes to people who are skeptical about legal. I want to learn more about optimizing performance—I love learning about all of that.