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Gilchrist Connell’s CEO on leveraging her experience as a chief people officer

Late last year, the chief people officer for national law firm Gilchrist Connell became the BigLaw player’s new chief executive. Here, she reflects on her vocational experience and details how coming from an HR background and wearing “many, many hats” lends well to leading a large legal practice.

July 25, 2025 • By Robyn Tongol

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In this episode of The Lawyers Weekly Show, host Jerome Doraisamy speaks with Gilchrist Connell chief executive Belinda Cohen about her career prior to joining the BigLaw firm five years ago, the work she did as CPO, balancing the proactive and reactive as an HR professional, and how she came to be the firm’s CEO.

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Cohen also discusses the firm’s vision as set out by her predecessor, Richard Wood, and how her HR background will assist in furthering that vision, how and why HR professionals are well placed to step into such senior leadership roles, how HR professionals can create such vocational pipelines for themselves, and what excites her moving forward.

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