Publications & Media

Select Publications

Law Practice Magazine
Law firms prize rainmakers and pay lip service to leadership, without realizing that neither role reaches its full potential when the two are siloed. Published in the ABA’s Law Practice Magazine, this piece argues that rainmaking and leadership aren’t competing functions — they’re interdependent ones that share more DNA than most firms recognize. The fix isn’t choosing between profit and people. Developing both equally is the highest-return investment a firm can make.
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Harvard Negotiation Law Review, Vol. 28:65
The legal profession is not facing a series of problems to solve — it is navigating a set of polarities it hasn’t learned to see. Published in the Harvard Negotiation Law Review, this article introduces Polarity Thinking as a framework for understanding why the profession’s overattachment to Stability — at the expense of Change — is driving the generational divide, accelerating burnout, and perpetuating the diversity deficit. The antidote isn’t choosing one over the other. It’s learning to leverage both.
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Law360
Feedback hoarded for a big reveal in December doesn’t age like fine wine. Published in Law360, this piece argues that the annual review is a system designed to produce exactly the disengagement firms complain about. The fix is radical but simple: build a culture of frequent, real-time feedback that starts with learning to ask for it yourself.
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Harvard Law Today
Law firms prize rainmakers and pay lip service to leadership, without realizing that neither role reaches its full potential when the two are siloed. Published in the ABA’s Law Practice Magazine, this piece argues that rainmaking and leadership aren’t competing functions — they’re interdependent ones that share more DNA than most firms recognize. The fix isn’t choosing between profit and people. Developing both equally is the highest-return investment a firm can make.
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Money Tales Podcast
Aspiriant Wealth Management
The legal profession is not facing a series of problems to solve — it is navigating a set of polarities it hasn’t learned to see. Published in the Harvard Negotiation Law Review, this article introduces Polarity Thinking as a framework for understanding why the profession’s overattachment to Stability — at the expense of Change — is driving the generational divide, accelerating burnout, and perpetuating the diversity deficit. The antidote isn’t choosing one over the other. It’s learning to leverage both.
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Harvard Gazette
What happens when you put a Harvard Kennedy School lecturer and an American Enterprise Institute fellow in the same room to debate technology policy? In this Harvard Gazette feature, Betsy moderates the conversation — and demonstrates how the Polarities framework can give even the most contentious cross-ideological discussions a shared language and a productive path forward.
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Harvard Law Today
In an increasingly polarized world, the most powerful skill a leader can develop is knowing when not to choose. Published in Harvard Law Today, this profile of Betsy’s groundbreaking Polarities course at Harvard Law School explores why the either/or thinking that dominates our politics, our workplaces, and our personal lives fails us — and how a Both/And approach illuminates a path that either/or thinking cannot see.
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Trial Lawyer Magazine
A litigator who argued against the top First Amendment lawyers in her very first federal oral argument — and won. A negotiator who co-led $2.2 billion in settlements against S&P and Moody’s for their role in the Financial Crisis. A Harvard Law lecturer who also teaches HIIT and Barre at the gym. In this Trial Lawyer Magazine member spotlight, Betsy reveals the through-line connecting it all: relentless curiosity, a learner’s mindset, and the conviction that technical skill alone will only take you so far.
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Harvard Law School Program on Negotiation
When perspectives collide, the human instinct is to pick a side. In this PON Live! webinar for Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation — attended by an international audience of practitioners — Betsy demonstrates why that instinct fails us when facing polarities and introduces techniques for seeing, mapping, and leveraging interdependent opposites to become a more effective leader and negotiator.
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