Reed Smith alum Stuart Kuntz shares his path from senior M&A associate to associate general counsel of a public company, including what drew him to in-house practice and the mindset and approach to client service that contributed to his success. He shares his insights from two decades of dealmaking on how outside counsel – from partners to junior associates – can make a strong impression, and how junior associates can prepare for a career path that leads to success like his. ----more---- Transcript: Intro: Welcome to the Reed Smith Podcast, Career Footprints. In each episode of Career Footprints, we'll ask our guest, a Reed Smith alum, to share their career story, how their time at Reed Smith set them up for success, and their advice for early career lawyers. Our goal is to surface insights from the careers of these inspiring professionals that will help you find professional success, however you define that. Lauren: Welcome to another episode of Reed Smith's Alumni Career Footprints Podcast. I am your host, Lauren Hakala, Reed Smith's Global Director of Learning and Development. And today, I'm excited to be speaking with Reed Smith alumni, Stuart Kuntz. Stuart is Associate General Counsel, M&A, and Ventures at a company that many of our listeners will be very familiar with, and that's Foot Locker. He joined Footlocker two and a half years ago after spending about 17 years in legal roles of increasing responsibility at Verizon. Earlier in his career, Stuart practiced as a transactional associate here at Reed Smith. Stuart, how are you today? Stuart: Hi, Lauren. I'm doing great. Thanks. Lauren: So I'd like to start by asking you just about your current role at Foot Locker. How do you spend most of your time and who do you mainly interact with during your work days there? Stuart: You know, I spend most of my time, I'm a transactional lawyer, spend most of my time on M&A transactions. I spend some amount of time on international franchising transactions. as well. I also, as part of my role, I support our treasury group. So I do spend some time, not as much, but some time supporting treasury, either with regard to our credit facility or other agreements or questions they have. So that's, you know, that's the bulk of my practice at Foot Locker. There's an occasional, you know, occasional commercial contract I need to help out with, you know, a little this, a little that. But I would say the bulk of it is disposition work, international franchising, and some treasury support. Lauren: So it sounds like you are a real deal lawyer. And I'm curious, how would you describe your style or your approach to helping your clients get transactions done and closed? Stuart: You know, it's a lot of, you know, we talk about style and approach, you somewhat want to mirror your client's style and approach. And it can change from deal to deal. There are transactions that, you know, we got, you know, we have to take one for the team. Essentially, this is something We got to get done and, you know, we're going to have to bite our lip and do it because it's, it's critical and, you know, generally, you know, disposition of business that just isn't strategic, for example, you know, you're going to have to get done. There are others that are more nice to have where you can take stronger negotiation positions. It also depends on the counterparty. There are people who are very easy to deal with commercially reasonable professional people. There are people who, you know, are, it can be very difficult and, you know, everything's a fight and there can be people who, you know, maybe they're not difficult, but they They're not particularly sophisticated, and there's a lot of almost educating the other side when you're doing a deal. So it varies from transaction to transaction, but you try to get a feel for the deal. I try to be collaborative. I try to generally be fairly reasonable. I don't start from where I think I'm going to end up, but I would not necessarily set out an agreement that has every single issue biased in my favor in extreme ways because it's just not productive. So, you know, I would say, you know, try to start, you know, kind of, you know, somewhere near where you think you're going to wind up. You get exceptions here and there, but that's kind of my style, collaborative, approachable. Does that make sense? Lauren: Yeah. No, I'm hearing a lot of almost like situational awareness, right? And being able to read a room and adapt your style. So I definitely want to come back to that later when we talk about your advice for junior lawyers. Stuart: Sure, sure. Lauren: So you started your career as a law firm associate, like I did, and you were including at Reed Smith. Stuart: Yeah. Lauren: So I'm curious, when and why did you decide to move to an in-house role? Stuart: I moved in-house probably about six years into my practice, which I think is fairly typical for associates. I don't think that's particularly unusual. I went originally to MCI, which was a predecessor company of Verizon. They were bought by Verizon fairly shortly after I got there, actually. You know i like the idea of having one client really getting to know your client's business your client's style your client's you know pain points you know even your client's neuroses because you know everyone's got everyone's got neuroses and you know just knowing your clients is helpful i like the idea of being involved very very early on the idea of kind of even giving you know giving and strategic thought to, you know, deals and whether we should do it and how it should be done are things I really enjoy about being in-house and things that, reasons I thought I wanted to go in-house. After six years, I got in a point where I knew how to run a deal. And so, you know, I didn't need hand-holding to actually do the nuts and bolts of running a deal, which is important because in-house, there isn't, you know, that level of support that you get in a law firm from more senior lawyers, you know, who you're doubled up with on a deal, teaching them how to do a deal. It's, you know, this is your transaction, you know, call me when it's done. So, you know, so yeah, I think, you know, a lot of that I liked, I, there are things, you know, I, about the law firm life that I think long-term probably were not going to be for me. You know, I never saw myself as a big rainmaker, being able to bring a lot of business if something's not a concern in-house, obviously, you know, I'd be honest, I don't miss the billable hour. Lauren: I’ve never heard anyone say that they do. Stuart: I know, I know. Look, my time is my time, and I do my work. If I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy. And if I'm not, I don't stress about not making hours. I just, you know, whatever comes, I take care of it, and I'll track it or worry about it or even really pay attention to it. You know, today, you know, after being in-house for 20 years, I have no idea how much I spend on something. I just, you know, just do it however long it takes to take. Lauren: Yeah, no, I like what you said about being a sixth-year and knowing you could run a deal and, you know, being ready to do that at the company. So when you landed at MCI and you had that kind of expectation, was it what you thought? Did anything surprise you about in-house practice? Stuart: It was a lot of what I thought. A couple of things, I guess when you think about surprising, the level of support is not what it is in a law firm. And that took a little bit of adjusting is, you know, there's no word processing department. You know, the level of support staff for the legal department is much, much smaller. You know, so you're a little bit more on your own in those ways, or you somewhat rely on outside counsel in those ways. Learning how you know certain skills i wasn't prepared for learning how to manage outside councils is nothing you experience at a law firm so you kind of learn that on the fly talking to other in-house lawyers how do you kind of keep control of that process how do you know you need to prioritize your outside counsel they're not going to know necessarily so that was a skill that you know i think was new to me and maybe you know something I really hadn't thought about before i came on board as well, if that makes sense. Lauren: Yeah, yeah. And so it sounds like you did have some learning to do about the new role. Stuart: Oh, yeah, sure. Lauren: And fast forward nearly two decades later, you're now Associate GC, so you moved up consistently. What do you think it was that you did right looking back that allowed you to become quite senior now? Stuart: I think it's a number of things. Do good work, right? No matter what you're doing, do good work, you know, be a good deal lawyer. You know, those skills are always valued. Develop good relationships with your internal counterparts, whether it be your clients, which are probably your most important relationships, but with other lawyers in the legal department. As an M&A lawyer, every deal has subject matter expert questions. And, you know, especially at Verizon, which had a huge legal department, you know, I had to be, you know, in tight with the IP lawyer, the tax lawyer, the benefits lawyer, the commercial lawyers, because, you know, I'm creating work for them. You know, I need you to review this. I need you to do this diligence. I need you to get on a call and negotiate this provision, you know, and, you know, people don't always love having work created for them. So, you know, you want to make sure your buddies with them, you know, give them a real skin in the game. They feel like they have a stake in a transaction so that, you know, that you can move them along, you know, communicating up to senior management in the legal department is important. You know, they're very busy people. My general counsel, she's not interested in a 30 page memo on why w
