Chris Apple
Manager, Member Services & Development
Arkansas
The CLOC Member Spotlight series profiles the incredible individuals within our community who are driving transformation in legal ops. Each spotlight provides inspiration, fosters connections, and gives readers a chance to learn more about their peers. By sharing these stories, we celebrate the diverse voices and talents that make CLOC a vibrant and connected community.
Elaine Karp is the Legal Operations Director at State Farm. She serves as a co-lead for the CLOC Chicago-Milwaukee regional group. Keep reading to learn more about Elaine.
About me:
My background is a bit unusual. I was born in Moscow, spent a couple of years in Siberia, grew up in Israel, and moved to the U.S. as a sophomore in high school. I’ve built my whole life here since. I’m also celebrating 20 years of marriage to my best friend, Josh, and together we have three wonderful, smart, and curious daughters: Noa (18), Emma (16), and Lilly (16).
I always knew I wanted to be in the legal field, though at first I assumed that meant becoming a lawyer. After high school, I took a gap year and worked as a paralegal for a private practitioner and that’s when I realized I wanted to go into business instead. After completing my bachelor’s at Northwestern, I landed a role that put me on my legal operations journey, and I’ve been hooked ever since.
Today, I lead legal operations at State Farm, where my team focuses on making our law department run faster, smarter, and more like a business. I’ve grown through legal ops roles at Mondelēz, Kraft Heinz, and Baxter, where I led the legal side of the largest acquisition in the company’s history. Along the way, I earned my Kellogg Executive MBA, which shaped how I think about this work: because legal operations is business operations.
These days I spend most of my time on transformation, whether that is new technology, the smart use of AI, or better ways for the team to deliver. I also serve as CLOC’s Midwest Regional Leader, and this community remains one of my favorite parts of the job.
Why I love being a CLOC member:
I joined CLOC in 2016, back when I was a legal operations team of one. It was a tremendous resource right from the start, and more than that, it surrounded me with like-minded people who were generous with their time and happy to share what they had learned. Years later, it is still that same welcoming community, focused on bringing people together. I am a proud member, and I love connecting with others and hearing about their legal ops journeys.
My advice for other legal ops professionals:
My mantra in life is simple: where there is a will, there is a way. I live by it. There is nothing we can’t accomplish if we set our minds to it and put in the work. So don’t let a setback derail you from your goals. See it as a challenge that is preparing you for whatever comes next.
A fun fact about me:
Around the time I was starting my career, I also started a fitness journey that led me to competitive bodybuilding. I had the privilege of stepping on stage at the regional level three times, and at my last competition I qualified nationally. I owe a lot of my tenacity and drive to that experience. Bodybuilding taught me the discipline of taking on hard challenges, not giving up, and finishing what I start.
CLOC Member Spotlights provide an opportunity to showcase members within our community who are making a difference in their organizations, in their CLOC groups, within the CLOC community and/or the industry as a whole. Do you know of a really cool thing a CLOC member is doing? We invite you to nominate a member of the CLOC Community for a future feature in the CLOC Member Spotlights Series.