The Real Lawyer: Caren Khoo (Part 3)

In the heartfelt conclusion to our three-part conversation, Caren Khoo, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at Verizon, opens up about the foundational supports behind her success, including her family, her network, and her faith. Caren reflects on the importance of freedom, humility, and asking for help, sharing valuable lessons learned from a career filled with unexpected twists and personal growth.

We explore what it means to build a meaningful professional life while staying grounded, supported, and open to change. This episode is full of wisdom for young lawyers, working parents, and anyone navigating career and life transitions. As we wrap Season 1 of The Real Lawyer Podcast, we’re deeply grateful to Caren and all of our guests for sharing their real stories.

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04.93)
Welcome back to the Real Lawyer podcast. I'm your host, Joyce Sophia Hsu. And you're joining us for the final part of my conversation with my good friend, Karen Koo, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at Verizon.

Speaker 1 (00:26.798)
Karen, I'm in awe listening to you talking about all the different roles that you've taken on at Verizon. And what an interesting and varied career that you've already had up to this point.

and I can only imagine all the exciting and interesting things that you're going to do next. I'm curious, what would you say were the key factors that really sustained you and helped you achieve the level of success that you've achieved so far?

That's such a good question and there so many components to that question. The first I would say is the support I have at home. My husband is a former criminal defense lawyer and stays home. He is a stay at home dad and he has been since our daughter was born pretty much and she's now 17.

and we have an 11 year old son and he takes care of everything, of them, of me and it allows me to do what I want to do at work or that I need to do for my job and he's so supportive. I feel like I can always have the safe home base.

Yeah, I could totally attest to that having known Dan. Also, ever since you two started dating. And I want to tell our listeners, if I may, just now while we were recording, Dan popped his head in and asked what you wanted for dinner. And I was cracking up because of course you answered chicken parm.

Speaker 2 (02:21.432)
you know, his support allows me to spend the time that I want to or need to at work. And that is a freedom that I never thought I would have, I never really imagined having. And so I can't say enough about how, you know, just Dan himself is just a huge, you know,

huge piece of my life and also somebody who makes my life so much easier as a professional working mom. Same with amazing family and friends, my parents, friends like you, know, friends. I don't know if you remember Joyce. When Max was born, I was so exhausted and I thought I would just do patent litigation forever. I was still doing patent litigation at Verizon and

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:17.23)
It wouldn't be too exciting and I'd never get promoted, but I could still do it. It's fine. I'm just, if this is the end of my career at Verizon, patent litigation is not a bad thing. And you said, no, Karen, you just need to get some rest, get your head back in the game. This is not you. And I took that advice and I'm so glad I did because that was 10 years ago.

and I've had so many jobs since then, had I not gotten my head screwed on straight by you and had gotten that encouragement, I think that maybe I would still be doing patent litigation and not have grown so much, both professionally and personally. wow. So having that network of great friends, people who are in your corner and know you and are always rooting for you.

That's super important. That's the, I would say the foundation that allows me to do what I want and need to do at work. And then at work, it's a combination of people and interest and aptitude. What I mean is that I have, like I said before, been so lucky with the people that I've worked with at Verizon, both.

folks who I have reported to, who've reported to me, who've mentored me regardless of where they are at in their careers, and who I've had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know. Having that network inside the company of peers, friends, mentors, and sponsors.

helps get you through very hard times where there's a lot of change going on in the company and you know, not just from a work perspective, but people leaving the company and new people coming in. It really does help to have a network that you're growing and getting to know inside the company. And then being interested in the work. I feel like the things that I need from

Speaker 2 (05:39.402)
my work, my working style is I need freedom, I need to feel supported, and then after that it's all my own interest and curiosity in wanting to do a good job and wanting to make sure that nobody is surprised by, you know, what's happening, that everyone gets the right kind of support from me and also that I'm listening well. And so

that freedom to be able to make decisions, the freedom to be able to be who I am is a huge part of what I feel like has made my path at the company the way it is with the different zigzags that I've taken and different experiences, but also gives me a lot of satisfaction. And I think the last...

is something that my dad told me years ago and that I have seen over and over which is you can only predict or control like 5 % of your life and the rest is probably luck or divine intervention. I definitely feel like one, know, I do believe in God. I do feel like I see.

God's presence in my life because there are a lot of things I'm very thankful for that I can't explain and I clearly probably do not deserve. But at the same time, I do also feel like giving up that idea that I could control everything took a lot of pressure off of myself. And I think that a lot of us as lawyers and engineers go in with this idea.

perfectionism that we want to do things right if we just you know saw around every corner we could solve all the problems right before they started right and in reality life isn't like that yeah just understanding how to be adaptable how to maintain your integrity and that core that you have but be flexible not be judgmental assume good intent those have been such key

Speaker 2 (08:00.022)
realizations to being happier at work and being happier in life in general that I feel like had I learned them earlier maybe I would be even happier.

All happens in divine timing, right? Yeah, I couldn't have said it any better. When you mentioned having freedom, I was going to ask you what you meant by that, but then thanks for clarifying. I think it's hugely important to have the freedom to be yourself.

at whatever job you're at.

That's where you could truly bring all of your passion and all of your gifts to bear. You just said it all. That's clearly the key to your success and thank you for sharing. You've shared so many personal experiences. I'd love to close our conversation with some advice for young lawyers or law students. Is there anything else that you'd like to

mention in that regard

Speaker 2 (09:18.638)
think that one of the things that I keep learning over and over as I take new roles and step into teams that I haven't had a chance to work with before and I'm getting to know is that there is value in knowing when to ask for help. And doing that actually allows people to

to feel closer to you because when you don't ask for help, nobody actually knows if you need help or how to help you. And if you don't ask for help, you feel a lot of pressure to do things on your own and you feel like you have to solve problems on your own when maybe it's not something you can solve on your own. So I think bringing people in, asking for help early.

is something that I wish I had known earlier. And it kind of goes also back to, you know, asking the dean for help, but maybe I should have asked for help with my classes before I got the bad grades and had to go to the dean and search out my major. Because looking back, I could totally do electrical engineering today.

Bye.

I think that's something to learn when you're young and to not feel embarrassed by that and to not feel like it's something that you have to be perfect at all the time or know everything all the time. And I think having that humility of knowing that you don't know everything and being open to learning and asking questions.

Speaker 2 (11:04.318)
that is something that will serve you very well as you move into different roles in your career or in school or in different disciplines or new environments because you don't know what you don't know.

and the more you know, the more you know you don't know. I think if you have no expectation that you're supposed to know something, you feel a lot more free to ask those questions that seem very elementary, but

It's okay because you're learning something new and to have that mindset of always knowing that there's somebody out there who knows more than you do about something and just to keep yourself grounded and not judge yourself too harshly about it, but also just know that you don't have to prove

you're the best or prove you're the most knowledgeable. The most important thing is to make sure that you understand what's going on and you're asking questions enough to get that understanding.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Lives are long and careers are long. When you were in law school, you probably never really thought that you would end up in the role that you're in right now at Verizon and being a true generalist and the manager and the team leader.

Speaker 2 (12:39.042)
Yeah. And I mean, maybe one other thing that's sort of borne out by this whole conversation is keep in touch with your friends. Friends are your network.

Absolutely. Well, thank you very much for your time, Karen.

Thank you so much, Joyce. This has been so much fun.

Speaker 1 (13:12.504)
Thanks so much for listening. I can't believe I'm saying this, but this concludes the first season of the Real Lawyer podcast. I am so grateful to every single one of our amazing guests who took the time to share with us their personal journey.

learned so much from every one of these conversations and I hope that these conversations also resonated with you. The Real Lawyer has been such a labor of love. This was our very first podcast and it has inspired us to create more podcasts.

So stay connected with us with Sophia Media on LinkedIn or Facebook and watch out for news about upcoming shows. Until then, be well and be happy.