As senior vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary for UPS, Teri Plummer McClure oversees the legal, compliance, and public affairs activities of the world’s largest package delivery company. In short, she is where she has long dreamed to be.
Prior to joining UPS’s corporate legal department in 1995, McClure practiced labor and employment law with several Atlanta firms. “Though I mostly enjoyed litigating and advising a variety of companies,” says McClure, “I like what I’m doing now so much more: as general counsel, I’m in a better position to help the company advance to where it wants to go from a business perspective, and I can do that in a legal and compliant way.”
McClure belongs to that club of determined attorneys who even in childhood were acutely aware of their professional destiny. As a little girl growing up in Kansas City, Mo., McClure delighted in the frequent family debates often initiated by her lawyer grandfather. Her parents, both teachers, never doubted that their daughter would finish college, while McClure herself never doubted that she would graduate from law school, pass the bar, and work as an attorney.
“I remember when I started in the legal profession, I didn’t see a lot of other people like myself practicing law,” recalls McClure. “My coming to UPS is a testament to the company’s desire to achieve diversity and their sincere effort to open doors and look more broadly in terms of the people they wanted to recruit to the organization.”
When asked in 2003 to become vice president of operations for the Central Florida District, McClure was assured it would be the best job she ever had, and for a lot of reasons, she says, that is actually true: “To be on the ground floor where our operators are working, managing money down to the penny, and counting minutes and seconds is very exciting,” says the Emory law graduate. “But since law school, my goal has always been to advise companies on dealing with government regulations and strategy issues-essentially what I’m doing right now.”
Over the years, although McClure has witnessed a rise in diversity in the legal profession, the general counsel is nonetheless concerned by recent reports citing the increasing number of women and minorities exiting law firms. “These reports are a wake-up call,” says McClure. “I’m hopeful that by refocusing on the issue, the experience for minority associates at many firms will change for the better. At the same time, it’s very promising that the number of women and minorities, particularly women of color, in in-house positions throughout the world is growing.”
Today, McClure concedes that she still enjoys a good debate, maybe a little too much. “According to my husband, I, like all my family, have a need to debate everything,” McClure says happily. “But after all, he’s a consensus-building pastor. I’m an attorney.” DB
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From the July/August 2007 issue of Diversity & The Bar®