PBN BUSINESS WOMEN AWARDS 2020 INDUSTRY LEADER, PROFESSIONAL SERVICES: Stacie Collier | Nixon Peabody LLP
IT’S HARD TO IMAGINE one of America’s top lawyers feeling less-than.
But that’s how Stacie Collier described a recent moment when she learned an acquaintance organized the seemingly perfect scavenger hunt for her kids during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The professional personnel partner at law firm Nixon Peabody LLP worried she failed her biggest clients – her two sons – because she hadn’t coordinated similar quarantine activities for them.
“As women, we take a lot on and think we have lots to prove,” Collier said. “We suffer from perfectionism.”
But colleagues and clients agree. Collier is not suffering; she is succeeding.
Consider the fact that Collier was Nixon Peabody’s first associate in its labor-employment group when she joined in 2000 and, after making partner in 2005, went on to lead more than 70 lawyers nationwide as co-chair of Nixon Peabody’s Labor and Employment Practice group.
Collier also helped Nixon Peabody win acclaim for diversity and inclusion initiatives – including retaining women lawyers who opt out mid-career – to count among five firms tapped worldwide to redefine their profession’s approach to diversity and inclusion through the Move the Needle Fund.
A 1997 graduate of the University of Connecticut School of Law, Collier has spent most of her career with Nixon Peabody working out of its Providence office.
Experience working for the R.I. Department of Labor and Training during school breaks from Syracuse University – she graduated magna cum laude a semester early in December 1993 – has informed her work.
She teaches clients to avoid liability and lawsuits by creating better work environments. Seminars include harassment avoidance and other subjects related to the National Labor Relations Act.
“Stacie can see the complexities in the situation, but she also can boil it down to the core components that really matter,” said David G. Himsey, AAA Northeast’s senior vice president of human resources.
He and others agree that Collier’s sense of humor is winsome.
‘I’ve gotten to be a very good delegator as a necessity.’
Stacie Collier, Nixon Peabody LLP professional personnel partner
Andrew Prescott, managing partner at the Providence office, said she drew laughs while making her point during training sessions on appropriate and inappropriate ways of looking at someone in the workplace.
“She used her elevator eyes in our demonstration, looking me over from head to toe – depicting an inappropriate interaction,” he said. “People found it instructive and funny.”
Collier also is known for paying it forward – taking the investment others made in her and returning dividends by mentoring others.
“I’ve gotten to be a very good delegator as a necessity,” Collier said. “I’ve learned you need to leverage your team. Being out in front on everything might make me look good – or bad. But it doesn’t help the rest of the team to grow, and it doesn’t give them opportunities. I can’t do everything – I just can’t.”
Following the November 2016 announcement of one partner’s retirement, Collier received the professional personnel partner reins to drive the firm’s recruitment, development and retention of top lawyers.
Nixon Peabody directors and partners from Boston to Los Angeles – and around the globe – turn to Collier for wisdom, making important, yet often difficult, decisions impacting careers of the firm’s lawyers.
To develop cutting-edge policies around key strategic initiatives ranging from management to policy to compensation, Collier travels to confer with other firm leaders – all while counseling and training her clients and representing them at depositions, administrative and judicial hearings, mediations and in other matters.
“Stacie has achieved what no Nixon Peabody firm partner has done in the [professional personnel partner] – or similar – role previously,” said Prescott, who helped hire and mentor Collier. “While holding this key and demanding leadership position, Stacie has maintained a robust and successful legal practice. Stacie could have given up most of her day-to-day legal practice and focused solely on her PPP role. That role is, by itself, a full-time job.
“But Stacie’s dedication to her clients led her to conclude that she would continue on a daily basis to counsel clients, conduct training sessions for employers, and represent clients at depositions … mediations and hearings.”
