Betsy Miller is a litigator, executive coach, author, and academic who brings a unique perspective to leadership development and organizational change in the legal profession. With nearly 25 years of private-sector and government experience, Betsy has earned a national reputation for deftly guiding some of the country’s highest profile investigations and landmark settlements. Betsy’s success leading through complexity stems come from a commitment to curiosity and from integrating the wide range of perspectives she has gained in her roles as a lawyer, strategic advisor, and academic. In addition to coaching at Optify, Betsy is a partner at the mission-oriented plaintiff’s firm, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, where she co-founded the Public Client practice in 2009 and served as its Chair from 2017-2023.  Prior to that, she served as the Chief of Staff and Senior Counsel to the Attorney General for the District of Columbia and, earlier in her career, as Nominations Counsel on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.  Betsy also spent eight years as a litigator at Big Law defense firms.

Betsy teaches advanced coursework on leadership and negotiation skills at Harvard Law School and served as a member of Georgetown Law’s adjunct faculty for many years.  She has published numerous articles on leadership and cultural change, including her most recent piece, “BOTH: The Legal Profession’s Struggle to Leverage Stability and Change,” which appears in the Harvard Negotiation Law Review.  Her other publications include “Ditch the Annual Review“; “Leadership and the Law: How to Fix a Puzzling Quirk“; “Meetings Matter. Make them Better“; “How to Flip the Script on the Annual Review Process“; and “The New Language Needed to Connect Professionally Right Now.” Betsy is a regular commentator on leadership in the legal profession for Thomson Reuters, The American Lawyer, Law.com, and The National Law Journal.

Betsy earned her A.B. from Dartmouth College, her J.D. from Harvard Law School, and certificates in Leadership Coaching and Navigating Polarities from Georgetown University’s Institution for Transformational Leadership.