May 11, 2020
A native of southern California, Michelle attended UCLA for undergrad and UC Berkeley for law school. From there, she became a trial lawyer at Quinn Emanuel at a time when the firm had fewer than 100 lawyers. She gained deep trial experience and positioned herself to take on an in-house role at NBC Universal where she investigated and assisted with IP litigation. Michelle went on to eBay where she would spend the next nine years in the family of companies until she became the General Counsel of StubHub. A change in the organization and strong encouragement from a friend led her to consider the GC role at Turo. She was intrigued by the opportunity and inspired by Turo’s CEO, who she casually met for tea to learn about about the company. It was then that she knew, the Turo team was one she had to be a part of. Reflecting back on her storied career so far, Michelle shared experiences that brought her pride like the Tiffany v. eBay case that created precedent around the country in trademark law. She talked about how she builds and manages her team and how she hires her outside counsel. In fact, before Michelle and I met, I knew her from her groundbreaking efforts in the Women’s General Counsel Network, where she helped author an open letter to law firms regarding diversity and inclusion. Michelle undoubtedly leads by example on those efforts and we could learn something from her extraordinary perspective on these issues.