🔒At 18, Hartford native Dinora Lopez was a single mom raising twins and her sister; now she’s general counsel of CT’s second-largest bank

It’s no secret women are still underrepresented in top corporate leadership roles.

In fact, women held just 11.8% of the approximately 15,000 senior-executive positions across publicly traded U.S. companies in 2023, down from 12.2% a year earlier, according to a recently published analysis by S&P Global Market Intelligence.

One woman who has broken through that barrier is Dinora Lopez. And it should be no surprise given her history and background.

Lopez was recently promoted to senior vice president and general counsel at Middletown-based Liberty Bank, the second-largest bank headquartered in Connecticut with $7.7 billion in assets.

As Liberty’s top attorney, Lopez advises the bank’s 12-member executive leadership team, which includes three women.

She also provides legal advice to all departments, from helping human resources with employment issues and working with the finance department on tax appeals and complex real estate transactions, to guiding lenders on contract negotiations.

Lopez joined Liberty Bank last year as associate general counsel. In previous roles and at other law firms as a financial services and commercial real estate attorney, Lopez had Liberty Bank as a client.

Now working at the bank, she said she will be able to combine her legal skills with her passion to help promote women who start in entry-level positions rise through the ranks.

It’s a story similar to her own.

Lopez, 41, is a Hartford native who attended the city’s public schools. While still in her teens, she took over guardianship of her younger sister when their mother died.

“And because I’m an overachiever, I got pregnant with twins,” she said, finding herself caring for three young children at age 18.

She was working at the time, in 2001, at greeting card producer American Greetings, making “too much money” to qualify for assistance, she said.

It was on the path to obtaining custody of her sister, and navigating the legal system as a single mother eligible for little public aid, that led her to an interest in studying law.

A long road

Lopez enrolled in the now-defunct Branford Hall Career Institute at age 20, obtaining a paralegal certificate, then worked as a paralegal for a small immigration, criminal and family law firm.

Four years later, in 2007, she attended Capital Community College, then joined Hartford commercial transactions law firm Ford & Paulekas in 2008.

She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Hartford in 2013, with a certificate in paralegal studies, and then went on to earn a law degree from the University of Connecticut School of Law.

In 2020, she was made partner at Ford & Paulekas, focusing on business transactions law.

Lopez joined West Hartford-based Gfeller Laurie in 2022, a 50% women-owned law firm, and she brought Liberty on as a client.

She was hired by the bank in February 2023.

Throughout her life and career journey, Lopez said she faced lots of long nights studying, while overcoming professional barriers and raising a family as a single mom.

When she became a practicing lawyer, she said she found some clients reluctant to work with someone who they knew as a paralegal for years prior.

“It took a lot of extra hours massaging those relationships, and really having to prove to them that I was capable and that I was the attorney now,” Lopez said, adding it took a couple of years of transition for the client base.

Also, proving herself as a capable attorney in a male-dominated field like banking was challenging, she said.

In her new job, Lopez said her focus will include revising all legal forms and documents to minimize future disputes, and restructuring committees within the bank to improve governance and accountability.

Her team will also be negotiating all engagements with outside counsel, while she monitors the workload of her own staff, Lopez said.

Paying it forward

Now as a top woman executive, Lopez said she likes to help other women aspire to follow in her footsteps. And she encourages women to consider a career in banking.

Liberty has programs to help women in entry-level roles consider other areas of banking, Lopez said. That includes a tuition assistance program and talent management process where leaders identify up-and-coming employees for advancement.

Women customarily enter the field as tellers, “but we don’t want to keep them there,” Lopez said, so these programs create pathways and “expose women to the lending departments, the risk departments, or other areas of banking that women aren’t traditionally or customarily considering as a career path.”

Liberty is also launching a new process to help employees more easily understand which roles are available within the bank, what specifications for training are needed and details of the work, so “if they are interested, we can help provide them with the toolbox to that career path.”

Liberty Bank CEO David Glidden said Lopez’s promotion is an endorsement of the immediate impact she’s had on the bank.

Since joining Liberty, Lopez’s legal counsel “has helped us continue to bolster our market presence, generate new customer opportunities and build and maintain valuable relationships, including our strong banking and community partnership with the city of Hartford,” Glidden said.

Looking back on her early career days, Lopez said she’s learned that “nothing is constant, everything changes on a day-to-day basis, and that’s how I live every day.”

“So, when things are really good, I revel in it, and when times are bad, I look forward to them not lasting that long, and I know that it’s going to get better soon,” she said.