Stacy Howard Is the Relationship Builder

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After more than nine years in-house at McDonald’s Corporation, Howard is a fountain of both legal and institutional knowledge. The senior counsel in the Commercial Litigation Practice Group is an ideal fit for an organization known for employing some of the very best in-house practitioners. Her tenure alone is proof of that alignment.

The team is, Howard says, a big part of the reason she’s stayed so long. That and the fact that she continues to lean into new areas of both practice and responsibility. Howard didn’t know she’d end up at the home of the Golden Arches, but she did know she wanted to practice law.

“I was fortunate to know as early as high school that I wanted to pursue law school,” Howard says. “My reasons were pretty simple: I enjoyed reading, writing, and advocacy.”

The self-described Enneagram Type One, someone naturally inclined to do the right thing, says that passion drove her to law school, but she studied what she wanted in her undergrad, knowing that good grades and a solid LSAT score were ultimately what mattered. She double majored in psychology and French with a minor in women’s studies, studying abroad in Paris and then teaching in Parisian schools for six months.

Before heading overseas, however, Howard took what she expected to be a short-term gig as a project assistant at Chicago firm Altheimer & Gray.

“I thought it would help me learn a little bit about the law,” she remembers. The now-dissolved firm became her professional home, and the connections she made are still important to her today. Howard would follow several to Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal (now Dentons), and then again to build the Commercial Litigation and White-Collar practice at Loeb & Loeb’s Chicago office.

What made Howard such a strong in-house presence is also what motivated her law firm moves earlier in her career. She focused on the relationships, not necessarily how it might read on a job application.

“I followed people who were willing to take time from their billable hours to mentor me,” Howard says. “I was a twenty-two-year-old college grad with no legal experience when I met many of these people, and I chose to follow them even though it may not have looked great on a résumé to move so quickly early in my career. They did interesting and complex work, and most importantly, they enjoyed it. I chose to follow those kinds of lawyers.”

Howard says the relationships she’s built are her proudest accomplishments. That kind of relationship-building was ideal for the in-house atmosphere that required working across multiple business segments and parts of the legal department in her commercial litigation role.

“By building strong relationships, you can unlock cross-functional collaboration to solve complex issues,” she says. Those relationships, especially after nine years at McDonald’s, continue to get stronger.

To get the job done, Howard partners with her legal department colleagues and their clients on a variety of litigation matters, including those touching on employment, vendor management, intellectual property, real estate and franchising.

“Stacy is a highly strategic litigator who combines hard-charging litigation tactics with nuanced protection of business priorities,” says Rachel Brass, partner at Gibson Dunn. “She sees around corners, knows what is coming in the next week, next month and next year, and avoids as much litigation as she handles. Taken together, she is an ideal client partner.”

And as the years have gone by, Howard has also taken the lead in onboarding new team members, walking them through protocols and procedures, and helping them learn and adjust to the organization’s unwritten rules.

Howard has also made it a priority to provide the team’s e-discovery managers with professional growth opportunities, such as by attending depositions, mediations and trial prep sessions. Moreover, in her secondary role as the team’s e-discovery lawyer, Howard encouraged the e-discovery managers to lead quarterly business reviews and contract negotiations with e-discovery vendors.

“I spend a lot of time reading and listening to books and podcasts about leadership so that I can become the best version of myself,” Howard explains. “And I am fortunate to have so many great examples of courageous leadership here in our legal department.”

In addition to being a veteran in-house lawyer at McDonald’s, Howard is married and a proud mother of two, and the benefactor of a friend group she routinely thanks for their “free therapy.” If it’s not obvious, that person-to-person connection is critically important for Howard in her professional life as much as her personal.

“By building strong relationships, you can unlock cross-functional collaboration to solve complex issues.”

Stacy Howard

Whether that be helping a colleague navigate a tricky legal question or sitting on the sidelines at a soccer game or cheerleading competition, Howard knows how to put people first. Not because it’s the right thing for business, but because it’s just the right thing to do.

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