Matheson Lecture in Corporate Governance: No Straight Lines: Unconventional Choices and the Emergence of Sustainability Law

What do a poetry degree, a year in Japan, three job rejections, and a forced labor compliance program have in common? They're all stops on the zigzag path that led Krisann Kleibacker Lee '03 from this law school to the forefront of sustainability law — a field that didn't exist when she graduated.

In this lecture, Krisann traces her unconventional career from the University of Minnesota Law School through a federal clerkship, Big Law M&A and litigation, a decade building sustainability and human rights legal programs at one of the world's largest agribusiness companies, and ultimately to her current role leading sustainability legal strategy at Amazon’s cloud computing division. Along the way, she made choices that defied conventional wisdom — withdrawing her law school acceptance to live in Japan, switching practice groups mid-career, writing her own job description, and taking a smaller role to follow her passion.

Her story is a case study in what happens when you follow curiosity over convention, treat rejection as information rather than verdict, and refuse to fit a mold that doesn't fit you. With candid reflections on failure, culture fit, and the emerging field of sustainability law, Krisann offers practical wisdom for anyone building a career in a world where the most important jobs haven't been invented yet.

Recommended for law students, alumni, and faculty interested in unconventional career paths, in-house practice, corporate sustainability, ESG law, and the intersection of environmental regulation and human rights.

This lecture series was created with a gift from Dean ’08 and Diana Matheson to honor Dean’s father and Minnesota Law Professor John Matheson and to highlight the value of Minnesota Law's Corporate Institute. Learn more about the Corporate Institute.

About The Speaker

Krisann Kleibacker Lee is Senior Manager, Senior Corporate Counsel at Amazon, where she leads AWS's global legal teams for ESG, Sustainability & Social Responsibility and for hardware Product Safety & Compliance — spanning the full breadth of ESG topics across AWS's global value chain, including data center infrastructure.

Before Amazon (2021), she spent over a decade in a variety of roles at Cargill, Inc., including serving as Sustainability & Human Rights counsel (and program-owner for forced and child labor risk) while simultaneously leading legal for Cargill's global Bio-industrial business. Her portfolio spanned environmental and social supply chain matters across palm, cocoa, soy, proteins, seafood, cotton, green chemistries, and more.

Earlier, as a Senior Associate at Faegre Drinker, she focused on environmental, agribusiness, regulatory compliance, and trial work. She clerked for Chief Magistrate Judge Jonathan Lebedoff in the U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota after graduating from the University of Minnesota Law School magna cum laude (2003). Early in her career, she served in the office of U.S. Senate Leader Tom Daschle, representing her home state of South Dakota.