IBA Legal Policy & Research Unit podcast

Inspirational legal women: a conversation with Lise Lotte Hjerrild

Lise Lotte Hjerrild is a leading Danish M&A and corporate governance lawyer. As senior partner at HortenDahl in Denmark, she has led more than 150 major corporate and public M&A transactions across sectors including energy, life sciences and healthcare. Alongside her commercial practice, Lise Lotte serves on the IBA Management Board and Women Lawyers' Committee Advisory Board, where she has become a prominent advocate for advancing women in the profession.

Inspirational legal women: a conversation with Pascale Lagesse

Pascale Lagesse is a partner and founder of Bredin Prat’s employment law practice, as well as being the current Vice-Chair of the International Bar Association’s Legal Practice Division and a member of the IBA Management Board. She has been recognised as one of the leading employment law lawyers in France, as well as being one of the top 40 of the CAC 40 lawyers, which refers to expert business lawyers advising the largest companies on the French stock market. In addition to her legal practice work, Pascale is the course director for labour law studies at the Paris Bar School and a member of the research commission at Paris 2 Pantheon Assas University.

Inspirational legal women: a conversation with Fiona McLeod AO KC

Fiona McLeod is a senior counsel with more than 30 years’ experience practising across Australia in commercial and public law, including doing considerable work on class actions and royal commissions. She was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia in the 2020 Australia Day Honours for distinguished service to the law and to the legal profession at the national and international level, and to women lawyers. She is presently a senior officer of the IBA, notably within the Bar Issues Commission, and has also been on the advisory panel for the Phase Two part of the Raising the Bar: Women in Law initiative.

ESG Conference 2025: a conversation with Lauren Boccardi

Lauren Boccardi leads the legal team supporting The Nature Conservancy’s impact investment portfolio. Before joining the Conservancy, Lauren served at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), where she most recently served as the Deputy Assistant General Counsel for USAID’s Bureau for Food Security and for the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance. Her work at USAID covered private sector engagement, impact investing, legislation and policy, and Middle East issues. Prior to USAID, Lauren worked on a wide range of corporate transactions as a corporate lawyer at Debevoise & Plimpton, focusing in particular on energy and environmental work.

ESG Conference 2025: a conversation with Mariana Herrero

Mariana Herrero is a leading Mexican environmental lawyer. She holds extensive expertise on wildlife protection, waste regulation and environmental law, integrating insights from projects, litigation and M&A. As the first female partner at her firm, she champions diversity, equity and inclusion, having led the firm’s DE&I Committee and co-founded Abogadas MX to promote women in legal leadership. Mariana is widely recognised by Latin Lawyer and other international publications. She spoke at the IBA ESG Conference session ‘ESG: The Brussels Effect at a Crossroads’, focusing on EU directives’ impact in Latin America.