For many lawyer moms, learning self-compassion is the key to surviving a profession that demands perfection. Sue Bunnell, Assistant General Counsel and Executive Director at Wells Fargo, professor, nonprofit leader, and proud mom of two grown sons, opens up about redefining ambition, setting boundaries, and practicing kindness toward yourself in both law and motherhood. She shares how “lowercase ambition,” energy audits, and transparent parenting shaped her path, proving that you can lead with strength while still protecting your well-being. Her story is a candid, practical guide for mothers in law who want to thrive without burning out.
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Redefining Ambition And Practicing Self-Compassion With Sue Bunnell
Demanding World Of Motherhood And Law
I am super excited to invite and have Sue Bunnell on the show. She is an inspiration to me personally. She is a role model, a rock star tourney, straight shooter, a motivating mentor and professor, a successful leader and a super mom. We are so blessed that she’s here with us to impart her wisdom and her tips and tricks on making it through and shining through what it’s like to be a mother and an attorney.
I am so excited specially to have her on the show because it is a conversation I had with Sue that sparked my passion to create this show. The conversation I had with her was so impactful and changed my approach to where I was as a lawyer and a mom that I just felt like there’s a need to create a space for all of you out there reading and for myself to learn from the best. Thank you so much, Sue, for taking the time to be here. I appreciate it.
You’re so welcome. That’s an awful lot to live up to, but I’m going to do my best.
You’re doing it. That’s an amazing thing. I met you when I was around seven years old. Even in looking at who you are, I remember you as a bubbly and enthusiastic spirit and someone I always looked forward to seeing. There were a lot of people in my life and you do stand out. It was a little ironic when a good mutual friend suggested we reconnect to see that same spirit shine through. I am so impressed by what you’ve accomplished. Even alone being the assistant general counsel and executive director at Wells Fargo. That’s enough.
Looking at all of the things and all the places that you devote your time and energy for the better of others totally blows my mind. Especially knowing that you’ve also raised amazing grown men. We want to know how you’ve done it. You do have that special quality of telling it like it is and being raised by the original, the OG, Tina Fogliani, with that same philosophy. I would love you to just impart with us. What do you think lawyer moms need to hear even if they don’t want to? We could start there.
The Lawyer Mom’s Dilemma: Perfectionism, Self-Compassion, And Lowercase Ambition
I’m not sure it’s even if they don’t want to. I think our profession is cruel. Our profession starts with, “Everything should be perfect and anything short of perfect is a failure.” We do a terrible job in law school and in the first couple years of practice of helping folks to understand, but they’re learning. It’s okay to not be perfect when you’re learning but if I was talking to a 26-year-old who graduated from law school. I would say start a self-compassion practice. We are a service profession. We are White collar waiters and waitresses. We’re called on to try and bring exactly what was asked for. Sometimes, the kitchen doesn’t have it but the reality is, a lot of lawyers are high-achieving people pleasers.
Motivation is great. The desire to be of service and to do service is fantastic. Certainly, in our early years of practice and in our earlier years of motherhood, it’s often not in service of others and myself. It’s in service of others to my own detriment. I don’t need to shout out. I don’t need to have anything. I wash my hair. All luxuries, but what I would say is learn to try to satisfy. This is good enough. If you’re filing a brief with the United States Supreme Court, go all out.
I’m 31 years a lawyer and listen to it this way. I have a rush from-form problem. Every time I try to check the word from my type form and vice versa. I just said, “If the mediator would understand what I was saying or if the court would understand what I’m saying.” Let’s reduce everyone’s blood pressure in the room. Waiting till something is so perfect that it can’t be perfect or not a word. That diminishing marginal returns is that last 7% or 10% of effort, very rarely brings about much if anything improvement in the situation and that last 7% to 10% of the effort is when you would be sleeping, washing your hair, eating or reading a book or doing a weekly Netflix plan.
I do think we can have it all at the same time. I’m a big fan of pacing. Again, people look at my career and they look back longitude just like you were doing. You were cruelly setting me up. I know it’s all set up. I’m okay with that but I wasn’t a senior leader in a law department, a professor, running a non-profit and having a little side hustle. I wasn’t doing all that at the same time. I talked to college and folks all the time. They’ll look at your LinkedIn and be like, “Oh my God.” At any given moment, I had no idea what was next. I live in a place where I’m asking, how can I make a difference?
We can have it all; just not all at the same time. Share on XI’m lazy enough to say, “How can I make the most difference with the least amount of effort?” Oftentimes I’m like, “How do I take this message and bring it to 100 people and not to one person?” Not to say that one-on-one conversations aren’t powerful because they do. At the end of the day, I do believe that the one-to-one connection is the most powerful of all but it doesn’t scale. I’m one person. I’m a big fan of thinking about how I can get this message out there. A friend of mine is an evangelist for people writing their own book and so I am in stealth mode on writing my own book.
Very stealthy that it almost looks like I haven’t started, Carrie. In my head, I’ve started it. What I would say to these young women and young women lawyers who are moms, is be kind to yourself. The world is going to be cruel enough. You do not need to pile on. You do not need to add one more log to the fire. Understand when you’re in the right place. Even when I was at a place where I had terrible hours and some super challenging work. I was happy to be learning even though I didn’t like some aspects of the job.
When I stopped getting energy from the job, I was like, “I have to do something else.” That’s one of the things I always tell people when they’re in a quandary about what to do. Pay attention to about two work weeks. Not in the minor tasks. Every major task, ask yourself, “Did that jazz me up? Did that give me energy or did that fun me out,” or is it just like something you got to do. Every job has a decent amount of something you have to do. It was a fun time at work.
Job Insecurity And Agency: Navigating A Challenging Market
I love that framing of it and I also am curious. Does that feed into, like you referenced, a self-compassion project. Is that part of that energy assessment? I’ve never heard of that. What is that?
I can’t recall who I stole it from. There are some people who have a terrible boss, and there’s just not a lot you can do. Unless you have a terrible boss who’s totally hands off. That’s about the only way you can have a terrible boss. I’m a big believer that people don’t leave jobs or companies. They leave bad managers. Now, we’re living in a time of incredible job insecurity. By way of example is like Lincoln Public something like on a confidence scale that goes between negative 100 and positive 100. Now, we are at 23 in the job market.
Our profession is cruel. It starts with everything needing to be perfect, and anything less is a failure. Share on XBy way of comparison, you’ll recall how dire things were in the first month of the pandemic in terms of people getting laid off and what have you. We were 30 then, if that tells you how folks are feeling. Federal jobs were still safe as houses and now, you’ve got AI in this corner. You’ve got State and Federal jobs going away and then you’ve got layoffs happening over here. It’s a terrible three-legged tool. The reality is folks are feeling challenged. They’re feeling unstable and uncertain.
When you’re unstable and you’re uncertain, we tend to play small and I get it. Everyone needs to have a roof over their head and needs to feed their kids. If you have a terrible job and that’s what’s available now, I’m not saying walk out and tell people to F you and slam the door. The women who are reading this show are smart, thoughtful and intentional. Instead of just being in it, the best piece of advice I can have is, even if it’s baby steps, you need to start taking tiny steps to feel a sense of control and a sense of agency.
When you’re moving yourself forward however slowly, you feel different about living in this world than feeling like you’re a victim. I get it. There are plenty of things. As a woman for the first twenty years of walking into a room, I was the secretary or the paralegal. I don’t litigate or I probably would have been the court reporter. Again, I was young.
I was a sandwich girl. They’re like, “When is she bringing our food?” I’m like, “I don’t work for you.” It’s okay. That happens.
We’ve all had that experience and I know some of the younger women are going to be like, “That still happens to me.” I don’t know what to tell you. I am the only woman on a senior leadership call and I’m prepping for all of us. What I can say is when you look at your situation, you try. I enjoyed this intellectual pursuit, this type of client and this area of the law. I’m in my 31 years of practice and I have the best client I’ve ever had. I have the best manager I’ve ever had. There are individual projects and aspects of work that are not like, “This is delightful. I don’t need a massage.” I still need a massage, but I’m having more fun than I’ve ever had.
It’s a direct result of some intentional choices about the level I want to be at and the role I want to be in. Some intentional choices about what ambition looks like for me. I had an opportunity to take on a team of 2,530 and it would have been a significant chump of dollars. It also would have been another 25 hours a week and exposure to some senior executives who were. I say this with love in my heart, not my favorite. It’s important.
I’m super ambitious but I’m lowercase a ambitious. I want to do the very best job I can. I want to not just do great in my corporate legal job. I want to do great in my non-profit. I want to do great in my mentoring and as a professor. I have lots of lowercase a ambition. A lot of people think that ambition is only capital A ambition. It’s pointy and it always goes up. That sense of self-compassion and self-acceptance is understanding what ambition means to you. I know lots of folks who are capital A ambitious and I love that for them. I love that.
It just wasn’t me. When you start to feel like there’s one path to happiness, to good or to success, if you’re feeling that way, I would ask anyone reading this to step back and say no, “Not TV, Instagram world or social media lands. What makes me happy?” That’s why that energy audit is so fantastic. You can do it in your regular life, too. There’s some friends you leave and you’re just like, “I’m effin’ tired.” Sometimes you have a friend who’s going through something hard and you’re there for all the right reasons. Sometimes, you have a friend that every time you see that it’s just like, “This is too much.”
I’m not saying people out of your world. I’m saying that you need to be thoughtful about where you put your time and your energy. It doesn’t matter. If somebody says you guys had to dig ditches and you would be giggling, laughing and having a joy. Again, go find the places that fill you up. Now, talking about the uncertainty in the economic and the employment world. I’m not saying go hop off a cliff and hope somebody builds you a feather bed at the bottom. What I’m saying is, standing there with a little T-Rex sound going, “I can’t do anything,” is also not the path. Taking those steps makes a difference, the little ones.
Parenting And Professional Life: Balancing Kids And Career
I agree with that. What you just shared even on ambition is so worth repeating. That was one of the poignant things that got my butt at backing gear I would say to not depreciate my own journey. I wasn’t appointing A. I’m not appointing A and I didn’t even know you could spell it a different way, to be honest. When you share that, it was a mind-blowing moment because I feel like I’ve surrounded myself with curvy people, with the lowercase a that are making such a huge impact.
I’m grateful that you’re a lowercase a, because I do think that’s what has allowed you to bring in so many people into your life that have made your career such a success also. I don’t know if you have a different perspective when you had kids and young children. One was, practicing law was much fun. Were you still aware of the ambition approach that you would take in? You do step back in certain ways. Your priorities are shifted.
I was in a technology company. I was one of a handful of lawyers. I had clients down the hall who would come dark in my door and stand there until they would get served, which is delightful. I’ve learned never to have your clients down the hall from you. My clients are all over the country and world, but they are mediated through. It works out great. When we knew we were going to have a family, I picked a job that was interesting and was challenging, but didn’t have as many hours. I was already in-house. It’s not like I went from a law firm to in-house. I’d already moved in-house.
Again, I was surrounded by people who are like, “I’m going for a partner. I want to be general counsel.” I’m like, “I’d like to see my children.” That was my priority. My kids were in child care. I had lots of friends who were at home taking the position that were like, “I would just hate it if somebody else raised my children.” I did my time because I’m sure it did not come from a terrible place as much as it felt like a dagger to my heart. I know I raised my children. I know that there’s no one else who they want and love more than their mom.
I was thrilled by the fact that they were able to trust in the world and trust that they would get care. All day every day felt like a 10 or 12-person party as opposed to this substantially left fun version, which would be me on my phone bore out of my gourd and them staring at me or them making me read the same book over and over again. I had a limited number of books I could read.
That’s very generous. Letting go of that is a big struggle for a lot of people and some people had their family that were the ones. Some people have them in daycare and giving them the experience of trusting, loving and being loved by other people is just as important as what your needs were. I was a crazy hoarder mom. I’m not going to deny that and I wanted that for myself, quite honestly.
I’m not always certain that it was the best for my kids, but it was my stubborn way of doing it. I look back and I do remember one of my neighbors who was a little older saying, “The most well-adjusted kids are the ones that’ve spent more time in daycare.” She gave a glance and looked at my children who were doing inappropriate things. I’m like, “Thanks for the information.”
It’s funny. The studies from back in the day that would measure like child behavior, age appropriate behavior and all those things. The children in care were measured by the much more objective caregivers. The children who are at home were measured by the parents. The studies that you would read would show that the children at home were much better behaved and the children in care act about a lot more. I was like, “Who’s answering the question?” That’s my thing. Everyone needs to do what works for them but you can’t say, “I’m doing what works for me, but I’m still going to internalize the judgment of the outside world.”
If you’re doing what works for you then be super psyched. There are some trade-offs. There’s some financial trade-offs, for sure. As much as work can be overwhelming, sometimes it also is, we are smart hard-working productive people. It feeds a part of our soul to be productive and to hear thank you. The hardest part for my friend who was at home was that, again the baseline is 100 and everything less than that is measured as a failure. She’s like, “My kids and my spouse would come home. Anything that wasn’t perfect was like, ‘What did you do?’” As opposed to, there’s food and clothes. The house is clean enough. The car has gas. Whatever it is.
People don't leave jobs; they leave bad managers. Share on XYou were never measuring from zero and saw all the stuff that was done. It was always like, “We don’t have Cheese Whiz. I don’t have my nineteen lacrosse stick.” They were always measuring what wasn’t done and so they’re like, “You’re so lucky you hear thank you all day long.” I was like, “I do hear thank you all day long and I loved it.”
I need that and I enjoy that experience. I do think long-term gratification is what I basically sum up as parenting. It may never happen. Sitting around and waiting for that is probably a fruitless thing. Every once in a while, I get a moment and it’s like an injection of energy and joy that I appreciate. I love working because it’s like a controlled environment also and there is that accolade and that uplifting experience. It is hard.
Transparent Parenting: Setting Boundaries And Teaching Consequences
Do you look back to when your kids were young and you were not gunning for a partner but gunning to spend time with them? How did you manage it? Was there ever feedback that you received around being a mom? The tides have changed a little now. It’s more embraced and accepted to be a present parent, which was not the case when I started out the journey. I don’t know what it was like for you to navigate when you first have your kids. It’s going to shift your work experience as well.
I thought being a good parent made me a better lawyer. I was better able to set an edge to set a boundary. I was better able to help folks like, “I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen here, the good and bad consequences.” I’d never let a client break the law, but most of the decisions that I’m in this space for are like, “Here is the range of risks from the range of choices you have.” You make a business decision.
Counseling and helping folks to understand consequences of choices they made are fairly consistent. It’s slightly different languages and certainly different topics but they’re making choices over. Quite honestly, learning how to set a boundary, learning how to be authoritative without being authoritarian and learning how to come from a place. I parent super transparently. I’ll lie to my children and I’ll get to that in a second. I had no problem.
I’m going to tell you the very best lie to your children’s story. I will share it with your audience. If I forget, remind me about it. I would parent very transparently. My kids would come to me and be like, “Mom, can I have ice cream?” I’d be like, “Here’s the deal. I can’t give you the ice cream now because you’re crying. If I give you the ice cream now, I’m going to reinforce for you that crying works. I need you to understand that crying doesn’t work because that’s manipulative. If you’re truly sad, let’s sit with your sadness but I need you to understand I’m doing this intentionally because I can’t have the parent with the kid who cries to get what they want. I can’t have that.”
My kid would be acting out and I would leave a full cart of groceries and say, “Sweetheart, if how you need to act now is more important than us buying this food then I will leave it. That means all the food in this cart is not going to get purchased including X, Y and Z things that you wanted. I need you to make a choice now. What’s more important?” I have these super candid conversations like, “This is why I’m parenting you this way.” I have the same conversations with my clients.
I’m usually very different but I’m like, “Here’s the deal. I’ve asked you to come to these meetings. We’re negotiating this contract. Your input is very clear. I’m going to do my very best regardless of whether you show up. Please understand your failure to show up may mean that your concept isn’t included or the remedy you’re hoping to see isn’t included and we still need to move forward. When I send you the contract and you don’t read it. You say it’s fine and then later you say it’s not fine. I’m going to need you to understand that that’s a choice you’ve made and that’s fine but you don’t get to have your cake and eat it too. That’s not how this world works.” I am crystal clear on choices and consequences. I say it makes me both a better parent and a better lawyer. I think the two feed off each other.
How do your boys respond to that? I can imagine you were doing this supermarket situation with a six year old. I can see a young child getting the lawyer mom approach. How did it affect your relationship? I feel like if you did it so early, which is a smart move.
It would go like this. My kid would be like, “I don’t like this.” I go, “I get it. I don’t like it either. This is embarrassing to me that we’re having this conversation with ten people in line behind me. I get it. Not liking it is perfectly fine. It’s okay that you don’t like it. The question is, what are you going to choose to do?” Again, I had neurotypical children who were able to moderate their behavior. I did a lot of things like the minute we walked into the grocery store. We were always buying bananas.
I gave them a banana and when we went to the checkout stand I said, “Please weigh one banana twice because my kid ate the banana.” I learned how to work them appropriately. I learned how to set up a situation so that I was getting what I needed and what I wanted. When they said I don’t like it, that’s okay. It’s okay for you not to like something and do it. Not everything in your life you’re going to like. Something you just need to do. Each of my kids said I hate you one time. That was my one absolute line in the sand.
You can say I don’t like you now, and that’s what I told them. I said, “You are welcome to say I don’t like you because, by the way, sometimes, my sweet friend, I don’t like your behavior, to be clear but you don’t ever get to say I hate you.” That was an absolute line in the sand for me. I’m like that’s okay and the same thing with bad behavior. Sometimes, you’ll have a client stomping around like a toddler. I often called the mantrums because they typically come from the men that I deal with.
I go, “It sounds like you need to take a minute. You sound very upset, and that’s okay. Why don’t we talk when you’re feeling a little better?” That’s exactly what I would do with my children, which is like, “I’m fine that you’re upset with this. I’m not going to put you in time out, but I’m going to have you go to your room and maybe just play quietly until you’re able to have a conversation about this.” That was at three and four. Did they do it well? No. Did they throw stuff around the room? Yes.
The Cheat Code To Success: Learning From Mistakes And Self-Advocacy
It’s a structure. Some of the lowering mindset that brings in that practicality and takes the emotions out of the whole experiment. It’s emotional to some degree but it’s at a baseline where you can still navigate the complexity of these human beings because you’re doing that every day with adults with different projects.
Would I sit in the kitchen and go? Yes. Sometimes I would but again, I’m a big start as you mean to go on a person like my children. I’ve got two kids graduating college in 2026 or so. I’ve been very clear like, “You need to be setting yourself up.” It’s not that I won’t give them an exit package. I probably will. I said to my oldest, “As you move, you need to be thinking about finding a place that you’re going to be able to afford.”
That’s innovative. That’s not happening all over the place, quite honestly. It’s impressive to set the stage early. Everyone asks me what I want for my kids and I say that they’re employed, literally. That is my number one. I want them to be happy, but I do want them to find and pursue careers that their passionate about and that they will be working for and that’s the fact.
I have an oldest child who’s an artist and a youngest child that’s like Mr. Business. My whole thing is like, I want you to be able to take care of yourself in an emotional and financial sense. I want you to be surrounded by people who love you of whatever flavor, friends, lovers or whatever. I want you to have something that you do that you’re good at and mostly brings you joy. The idea that you’re going to spend every minute delighted is worship.
Planting that seed is important and infusing disappointment, quite honestly, early and often. I feel like it’s one parenting strategy that can help much later because I was alarmed by how disappointing life was later. I had no idea that it was going to be so hard. I didn’t. I was like, “Are you kidding me?” All these sadness and depression. All the things was like new. I was a hard worker. If you work hard, you’re going to be happy and isn’t everybody else? That wasn’t the way, especially when I became a mom.
How was that after school TV special of a life you had, Carrie?
I don’t remember it. We were just running all around. We never stopped and talked about our feelings either, to be honest.
It was discouraged. You’re still firmly Gen X. I’m the top end of Gen X and it’s like, just get it done.
Processing Emotions: The Impact of Motherhood on Adulthood
That helps. It helps with our jobs. As being effective attorneys, that mentality of like, we just do the work without stopping to think about our emotions and our feelings. For me, having a child, that’s the first time the world stopped spinning and I processed emotions. It was a different way to approach my adulthood.
The reality is, as a parent, we all make mistakes. We just make different ones than the ones that were made on us. Everyone throws the weight. Some people throw the weight of a freighter or of a dinghy, depending on the circumstances. Again, the idea that you’re going to go through all of this perfectly is crazy. I had an interesting conversation with my oldest.
As parents, we all make mistakes, just different ones than those made on us. Share on XI was pointing something out that he maybe could be doing better and he’s like, “Mom, I’ve got some ideas about your parenting as well” I said, “If you can present them respectfully, I’d be happy to hear it. If you’re going to present them resentfully, I’m not psyched about that. Everything I’m saying is for what I understand to be your betterment because of my dad.”
I don’t know if you remember my dad but he was an even straighter shooter than I am. He would say over and over again, whatever age you were. Let’s say you’re thirteen, Carrie. He’s like, “Carrie, I’ve been 13. You’ve never been 43. Shut it.” Over and over again, he would say far less charmingly than a person would have hoped at the age of thirteen hearing this from her father. He kept pointing out to you like, “I’m not saying this for my health. I’m saying this because either I did it right and it went well,” or as he has pointed out to us, “I did it all wrong and I’m trying to prevent you from having to knock your head against a wall.”
Some people can learn from other people’s mistakes and some people just have to have a bloody forehead against the brick wall to learn. That’s so much of my personal journey. It’s so much about becoming an expert on professional development, effective self-advocacy and leadership presence. Frankly, all has come from doing a lot of things wrong. I learned the hard way, the hard flow ineffective way.
My whole thing is like I would like to give people the cheat code. I would like to give people a clear easier path than the one that I had to fashion myself uncomfortably over a way too long period of time. That’s the part where I do the teaching and doing the work that I do. I’m like, “Let me please save and give you time.” People go, “Really?” I go, “Yes, I am not taking anything.”
It’s hard to believe in some ways, but then I always feel like experience is the best teacher but the fact that you’re willing to share your cheat and highlight some of the pasts. I feel like motherhood, especially. You only know when you’re doing it wrong. You never when it’s going awesome. I only made significant changes when things were completely falling to crap, to be honest. When I was like, “This is a change management moment.” I wasn’t sure but now I’m super sure. I don’t know if that came across because you built even in the self-advocacy concepts and building even the catalyst. How you’ve gotten people to get that success in their life might have been a place somewhere when you weren’t feeling it that you learn what to do.
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About Sue Bunnell
Sue Bunnell brings over 30 years of experience across legal, operations, risk, and professional development — with a career that’s as eclectic as it is impactful. She’s been everything from tech attorney to enterprise advisor, board member to Executive Director, speaker to coach. No matter the role, Sue leads with kindness, candor, and professionalism — all served with her signature #SaltyWisdom.
Sue began her career in technology transactions, where she led Latin American antipiracy efforts and legislative reform for the Business Software Alliance, even serving as the U.S. Trade Representative to Paraguay in 1997. She went on to advise top tech clients in Silicon Valley, then took on in-house roles at AltaVista and, for the past 20+ years, at Wells Fargo. There, she’s held numerous roles in law, risk, compliance, and operations — now serving as an advisor to the Chief Administrative Office.
As a career catalyst and self-advocacy coach, Sue delights in helping people get unstuck, find their voice, and create fulfilling, intentional career paths. She’s a sought-after speaker and facilitator on topics like confident communication, managing up (without the ick), and the art and science of resumes, LinkedIn, and interviews.
Whether she’s in the boardroom or leading a workshop, Sue is a fierce believer in meaningful career evolution — and sometimes, full-on revolution. She’s also a proud mom to two amazing young men, and brings that same mix of love, humor, and hard-earned wisdom to every part of her life.
