Lenor Marquis-Segal Shares Her Passion for Helping People

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Lenor Marquis-Segal can’t remember what life was like before the legal profession was a part of it. She grew up with a criminal defense attorney father, who treated his clients like family, and a mother who also studied the law. Throughout her formative years, both parents encouraged her to follow a similar path. But for a long time, she was against it.

“After seeing the style of practice my dad had, I just didn’t want to deal with it,” she admits. “He was always chasing clients, and everything was so emotional and high stakes. If you didn’t get your client off, they had serious consequences. He was one of those lawyers that really internalized everything.”

Marquis-Segal wasn’t sure whether she’d be willing to pay the emotional toll that kind of work required. While she decided to pursue law school after getting her undergraduate degree from Cornell University, she thought that she’d focus on “unemotional law,” drawn to the idea of solely working on corporate or transactional matters.

However, things didn’t go according to plan. When she wasn’t studying at New York University, she worked at its Immigration Rights Clinic and found herself becoming deeply invested in the outcome of cases. Other pro bono and volunteer work brought on similar feelings of compassion and a drive for advocacy. As Marquis-Segal started her career as a litigation associate at Heller Ehrman LLP and Steptoe & Johnson PLLC, she realized that corporate law wasn’t as “unemotional” as she originally thought, either.

In many ways, she was still like her father.

“In law school, I thought I didn’t want to go into anything involving families or people and that I’d go into the kind of law where it was just about money,” Marquis-Segal says. “But I was too young to realize that it’s never just about money, even in corporate law. [There are] still people and emotions involved, and you still need to build relationships. At the same time, I’m someone that likes to help people and was raised to do that.”

From there, Marquis-Segal embraced her passion for people as she journeyed through her career. For over a decade, she handled labor and employment, complex commercial litigation, securities litigation, and more while balancing those responsibilities with pro bono efforts outside of work. In 2017, she began her in-house journey at ABB, a technology leader in electrification and automation. The transition was a learning curve, she admits.

“When you’re external counsel, you can have a misperception that you have a good view of what’s happening with your client when really you have one little piece of the puzzle. Coming in-house, you realize there’s an entire universe, and it’s eye-opening,” she says. “While I needed to get [used] to the new environment, I quickly decided that I’d never go back to private practice. I like the freedom of having one client and of working for a company that makes things that have an impact. It’s more fulfilling.”

For the next five years, Marquis-Segal thrived, gaining increased responsibilities and exposure to the business. She went from serving as a commercial litigation counsel to becoming a senior counsel for global litigation. When the Power Grids business of ABB transitioned to Hitachi Energy, leaders called on her to bring her expertise with it to support the vision of a sustainable energy future.

“We’re all mortal, seconds away from a potential big change, and that put some things into perspective on a day-to-day basis.”

Lenor Marquis-Segal

But the journey wasn’t without its unexpected challenges. At forty-five years old, Marquis-Segal had a stroke. While she went on to have an excellent recovery, the leader says the experience served as an important reminder.

“We’re all mortal, seconds away from a potential big change, and that put some things into perspective on a day-to-day basis,” she says. “It’s not like, ‘A few years from now, I’ll be the kind of person or lawyer I want to be.’ Just wake up and be that person right now. And just be that ideal version of yourself.”

Marquis-Segal aspires to do just that in her current role as senior counsel of North American Litigation, which includes the US, Canada, and Mexico. She spends most of her days minimizing risk, resolving disputes, solving problems, finding middle ground, and working compromises. In that capacity, she believes her biggest accomplishment has been gaining trust and having “the ability to resolve things while we still have control over situations.”

“When you go into proceedings of any kind, you give up some control and you’re letting other entities, bodies, or decision-makers influence what happens,” she says. “For me, in these last few years, the focus has been about building relationships so we can work through things without escalating them.”

“I have had the privilege of working with Lenor Marquis-Segal for many years and have been impressed not only with her intense focus on her company’s interests, but also with her meticulous attention to detail, which ensures accuracy and operational excellence,” says Al Farnell, account executive for CT Corp at Wolters Kluwer. “Lenor is a consummate professional and a valuable asset to Hitachi Energy!”

Outside of Hitachi, Marquis-Segal continues to dedicate her time to pro bono work whenever she can. Recently, she participated in a North Carolina Bar Association event, where she helped residents solve random problems.

“People could call in with questions and we got a chance to answer them, point them in the right direction, and spot additional issues for them. I was probably one of the lawyers who took too long with each caller, but for me, it was a chance to talk people through a problem and give them concrete steps,” Marquis-Segal says. “That’s what you do when you’re in-house anyway, and it’s so rewarding, exhilarating, exhausting, and worthwhile.”

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