Intellectual Property, Storytelling, and Taking the Long View with Andrew Shaughnessy

Welcome to studying. Law around the world. I'm Claudio Claus. In each episode, I talk with lawyers, law students, and professors from different parts of the world to talk about legal education, careers, and what the profession looks like in real life. We talk about the hard parts, the surprises and the decisions. That shaped their paths. Whether you're planning to study abroad, thinking about working in another legal system, or just curious about how law works around the world, this podcast is for. You today I have the opportunity to interview Andy Shaughnessy. Thank you so much for taking the time to be in the podcast today. And to kick things off, I I'd love for you to introduce yourself to your listeners, Andy. Well, thank you very much. First of all, Claudia, for inviting me to join you today. I've listened to some of your podcasts and you've got quite a list of people that you've invited to speak and I'm a little bit flattered as starstruck. So let's get going. So I am a partner in litigation at the Toronto office of Tories in Toronto Wide Practice intellectual property litigation. I have a background in chemical engineering. I graduated in the 80s and when I graduated in the 80s, there were no jobs in the oil industry. So with the degree of chemical engineering did I do, I had an offer with in Fort McMurray, AB in the tar sands that didn't appeal to me. I had an offer at the Bruce Heavy water plant with Ontario Hydro about two hours north of London ON. It's meant the summer there. So I knew kind of what that was all about. And the third offer was from Imperial Oil, a sales job, probably had no business taking it, but it was fun. And then I transitioned to a job with the chemical company in northern Ontario who lived in the Sioux at an office in Sudbury, finished the week in Marathon ON driving a roughly an ugly Crimson Chevy citation wagon full of chemicals. And that was my background and I probably would have stayed in engineering and sales. And then I met a wild and wacky patent agent at Algoma Steel. I was doing a project for my company and this guy with the white hat came out. He literally had a white hat on and asked me what I was doing. I asked him why he was asking and he said you don't get to ask the questions. I do. I'm the patent agent. And they explained patent law to me in a way that it hadn't been described to me in engineering school. And you know, I guess if Cupid had an arrow, that's when the arrow of patent law went into my heart. And so I decided that I was going to leave sales and I went back to law school, drove down one day to Toronto, wrote the LSAT, and then a few months later, I was lucky enough to get into the school where I studied engineering Queens. So that's my origin story. Or that's amazing. And from what I understand you also act as an adjunct today. So are are done it in the previous years. So I'd love to hear a little bit about that having this experience in the today's cholesterol as as you mentioned you've graduated a couple of years back. I'm wondering if you see also big differences of what the experience looks like and even, you know when interacting within counterparts in your farm, if there's a few things that you notice that today's loss shouldn't face that are kind of different kind of challenges than the ones you had when you first started out? Sure. Well, let me start with where you started, which is my work overseeing the Fox Move project at the University of Toronto Law School. And that's a labour of love. I think I've done it now for 16 years and I get 4 students every year starting their their sort of their advocacy journey. Some people were just trying advocacy on for the first time. Some people knowing that that's all they want, do an IP moot. So it's within the big spot of love in my heart. And I really, you know, when I first took the job, I had major imposter syndrome. And I'll come back to that in a second, right, of thinking, what the heck am I doing teaching students or trying to teach students at the University of Toronto? But I've very quickly fell into my groove. It's something I love doing with the students and spending time with them just as help me, especially laterally realize what pressure they're under, right? With the advent of technology. I mean, students to this day of have just got the sense of immediacy about needing to learn, right? Way back when I was in law school, it seemed to think that we had 12 to 15 hours of Class A week, lots of time to read. We didn't have computers. We might have had them in the in the library so we could do quick law research at the time, but otherwise everything was on the print and lots of time to read and think and absorb and, and now everything that comes out the students so quickly and there's a seem to have a need to get the right answer the first time that they're doing stuff. And that's why I think I like the the fox mood so much is the fact that we really get to practice at it and come at it. And that takes me then back to my experience at law school. I walked in being an engineer and a salesman, you know, in with people with political science degrees and history degrees, some advanced degrees. And I think the first thing somebody asked me what was my LSAT score, and I was just completely shellshocked. I've never told anybody else outscore maybe my wife. I don't think anybody should tell anybody ever their LSAT score. And so to be asked this, it really sort of put me back on my heels as engineers didn't read as much as other students did. So that was a real challenge for me was trying to tackle the reading load and, and, and again, to use the, the phrase I used a moment ago, it didn't take me too long before I got my feet under me and I started enjoying it. I went to law school to be a patent lawyer and I got bitten by the litigation bug. I mooted in my first year and in my second year. And I always knew that I wanted to come out then to pursue IP and IP advocacy, which is how things ended up for me. So it was 3 great years at Queens 7, seven years in total. Don't recommend it if you don't make Kingston Weather, but it was a really great experience. That's amazing. And I believe that most of the lawyers that I've interviewed that have worked with IP, most of them have either a Health Sciences background or some kind of engineering background. Thinking about your career and really what you see in the day-to-day practice is, is that today very much the norm or do you see more and more students coming from all kinds of streams into IP and IP litigation? So it's a great question and it really depends on who's given the answer. You know, from my experience, look at Justice Benny, just as he and Benny was a phenomenal litigator, McCarthy E, which is where I suffered an article to practice for two years. He didn't know science degree. Down the hall is Andrew Bernstein, who's one of my partners, litigation partners. He's got a degree from McGill in commerce. So I don't think it's an impediment, but some people will say you have to have some conversancy with scientific subject matter. I think you just have to be curious. I think you have to be able to get down phonetically what the scientists are telling you and then go back and work hard and try and figure it out. And of course, I stand on the shoulders of a big team here, really, really fantastic people and good teachers too, which is what's important. So I'm it's, it's a great question. I would hate to discourage anybody from pursuing IP if that was their their heart. But yeah, you know, there there is a number of us out there that say you have to have a science degree and not particularly one of them, but it can be tough. No, that's amazing. Very, very interesting point. And I like that you use the, the, you know, kind of phonetically translate what the scientists are saying, because I've seen that you mentioned in your writings somewhat of a love for short stories, for poetry, even mentioned some poetry in your posts on LinkedIn. And with that kind of, you know, creative outside and all of that, I'd love to hear a little bit of, you know, if you're found that, you know, litigation satisfies the little bit of that need for, for storytelling. And I think you've even said something about, you know, the, the differences in scientific writing, legal writing versus toiletry and, and how, you know, you can bag questions should the reader and lead then kind of figure out the rest. And, and that's not what you do for a legal writing. So I'd love to hear a little bit of your stance on that as. Well, you know, thank you for asking and, and mentioning my writing. It's, it's a hobby, you know, it's what I do early in the, in the in the morning. Contrary to some of my critics, I'm not retiring yet, but I may take set up later. You know, I think writing had always been there when I was in high school, you know, I, I enjoyed music. I played in the stage band. I took some aptitude tests once and I think somebody told my dad, look at this kid could be the next Neil Simon. I didn't know who that was. I had to look it up. But I wanted to be an engineer, just like my dad and just like some of some of his friends. And that's what I I did do in 2014. I picked up creative writing. I think we're I was going through a very busy time, a very stressful time. And smarter people than me told me, look, find a way to slow down. And I found that picking up the pen, literally the pen then is now my fingers on keyboards and writing stories because I'm not want to keep a journal with something to help me slow down. So that was great. What I like about the stories, the fact that when I'm in the world of my story or in the mind of my characters, I find it deeply relaxing. And what's important for me is to make sure that I give to my reader because they can't get inside my mind. I give to my reader enough that they can world pain and get the point that I'm trying to make. And it's usually a pretty soft point. You know, I'm not a great writer. I just, I want to have some sort of an arc. I can't really see out beyond 2500 words. But we don't have that luxury in law. We don't know if the luxury to give you. Like, you know, I talked about Hemingway and how in Hills like White Elephants, he just gives you a little bit of detail and you've got to figure out yourself. We don't have that luxury in law. And so you have to make sure that the key details are all written down. People ask me all the time, do you think that your creative writing makes you a better legal writer? I said don't think so. I think I've got some very, very amazing legal writers up and down these halls here and I don't think that they do any creative writing whatsoever. But for me, it's just that allows me, it gives me an extra opportunity to put inflection, voice pace sneaks so I can make the writing a little bit more colourful, a little bit more persuasive. And as I like to say, I like to shoot for gas. So I want to make sure that there are no gaps. And let me just give you a story audio in 2001 when I took a trial course in the United States under the auspices of Nida, the National Institute of Trial Advocacy. And I got to do a jury trial in front of a real jury out of law school in the United States. Now that was a fake impaneled jury, but they were there and they had a camera in the jury room. And I was on for plaintiff. And everything was going well, except I had placed the plaintiff all was on the motorcycle, on his motorcycle in the lane at the speed, but I hadn't identified where in particular and laying the motorcycle was. And this suddenly became a fascination of the jury. And they made, they made it up. We can't afford our readers to make stuff up. So you have to sort of pinpoint it. I think to that extent or the two disciplines, greater writing and legal writing and sort of reflect off each other in my world in my mind. And so I think they're helpful. But I quite frankly, I use it as an outlet. It's a hobby. That's amazing. You know, that's very, very interesting to hear. And I think that more and more we've been hearing lawyers sharing a little bit more publicly, you know, what they do for managing stress or, or all of that. And it's it's been very interesting to kind of follow the this sort of movement. Maybe before we didn't have, you know, a platform where people would share that kind of thing, or maybe it wasn't, as, you know, socially acceptable to you to be speaking about mental health and all of that in a public way. But I I'd love to hear a little bit more from you, you know, if, if you feel like there's a, there's somewhat of an important point to be made in this sense of showing a human vulnerable side of, you know, law firm partners that really incentivizes, you know, this new generation of lawyers going into the workforce And, and seeing that there is, you know, regular humans on on the other side. Do you think that the profession is, you know, kind of becoming a place where we can bring and share our whole selves to some extent? And and what are some of your thoughts on that? So I think it's changing. I think we've got a ways to go, but I think it's changing and I think we see some leaders in the field. You know, you mentioned Alan Ritchie, who I was, was one of his LinkedIn posts I reposted the other day. We've got some people were very open about it, like Cody. What? Let's say you walked out of the house tomorrow and on your way to the bus stop or the car or however you choose to get to work, you fell and you broke both of your legs, right? You'd call me and say, Andy, I can't make our meeting because I've broken both of my legs. And I said, Oh my God, Claudia, I'm so sorry. And I find out where what hostile you're in. I'd come and I'd see and they send you flowers and all the rest of the stuff. How is that any different from a mental disorder or a mental illness that comes up and particularly haven't come through the end of the pandemic, right? Where anxiety is rife, where, you know, my, my doctor was saying that he was diagnosed with post or the PTSD or whatever the that I can stalls out as. So how is that any different? And you know, and as I said to somebody once who was suffering from mental illness, not mental illness, but but a disorder, I said, it's not your fault, just in the same way, Claudia, it wasn't your fault that you fell down or broke your legs in my story. So I think it's got to change. I think there's got to be a little bit more understanding. And I think that, you know, I'm happy to see more and more people talk openly about some of the things that they've they've gone through. And I think that the more that we have dialogue and quite frankly, I think the more that hopefully individuals like me at big law talk about it, the more we'll be able to have safe places to have these conversations about something that's, that's really important. Um, because a lot of people go through it and that takes me to LinkedIn. If I can just keep going for a second, I was finding that when I was, you know, scrolling and scrolling through LinkedIn, I was getting anxious, right? There's a lot of not so humble brag on LinkedIn and, and for good reason. There's a lot of people that have done wonderful things with their career and they want to loudly announce it and all of the rest of the stuff. But when you're sitting there, you kind of see it and after a while it just starts to get a little bit anxiety inducing. And I'm a partner, you know, at A7 sister law firm. And so I thought, well, what does a young person going to be doing going through LinkedIn, right? Some, some young lawyers say to me, I can't go on it. It's just, it just triggers me. And I decided that I was going to try and do something a little bit different with the LinkedIn for a different reason. And that's why you probably find that I'm a little bit chatty on LinkedIn. I try to do something every day, but a little bit different. And I'll brag about my writing for my writing community, but I'll try and keep the humble brag in the back drawer so that we can talk about a better things and more interesting things. That's very inspiring. And if I may ask you, I feel like as I interviewed different lawyers throughout the years, I've heard very interesting stories of, you know, I joined the law because of ex. I stayed because of, or, you know, or maybe I started off my career in this area. I kind of transitioned it over to something else because of why, if I may ask you, you said that you were kind of beat by the the litigation bug right out of law school and, and kind of pursue this career over the years. Is it, you know, the, the creativity is it, you know, the very different cases that you have every week? What keeps you passionate after, you know, years doing the same nature of work but. I want to answer this in two ways. Number one, I just want to say that I think I love about my cases is the curiosity. Every new like my my favorite cases is the one I'm going to get tomorrow. You know, my favorite case is the new case because it's like it's like a gift. You open the box and you see all these new things and you get to figure it out. So I love that. And then within IP, you know, I love matching the science to the policy to the law. And then every patent case there is an invention story. And hopefully the invention story is good. And if it's good, then I get really excited about that because now I get to defend a story. But I think that, you know, if I think back, I don't want anybody to really think. Well, yeah, you're talking to Andy, Sean, He's doing this for 30 years. You know, he's a he's a, he's a partner at Tories. It's been easy for him. And I, I want to say no, you know, I, I think way back to you graduating from engineering when there were no jobs and figure out how to recreate myself. I remember my father's worry when I told him I was going to leave my job and and go to law school, which nobody in my family done. And then in the first, like I didn't come to Tories in flowers with my 8th year. And you just have to follow my history on LinkedIn to see that it bounced around a little bit. And there's reasons for that. But it didn't really set until my 8th year that this was really something that I wanted to commit to and follow. And even though after I left Mccarthys in my second year, I started to focus more and more in IP, but it wasn't easy. And I only say that because I think a lot of people are discouraged. You ask me about students today and I use the word immediacy. Everybody feels that they have to immediately be on a track or they have to have their vector set for them, their career plan in front of them and they have to be on their way or else their careers fail from the get go. And I hope that people will look at my example and eyes. Look. It took me about 8 years to figure it out, but it was always there. But there's lots of time to figure it out and get things going. Yeah. I mean, dance your question. Yeah. I love the science, the stories. Thank. You, I have to ask you about something else that you shared recently here. You shared about an interesting concept that I think it goes by the initialism boats, right? Bundling, outsourcing, alternating technology and, and simplifying something that was there on your LinkedIn. And I'd love to hear a little bit about that, about, you know, the, the, I guess the time management aspects of it. Or how do you, you know seeing students, young associates coming in, how can they also apply the the boats method to their legal? Practice so this is nothing in my life as original gaudio everything is derivative and this derives from something that a classmate a law school classmate and then articling classmate Sasha Fraser told me she was at Xerox at the time and in-house counsel and this I think was one of their standard Standard Time management protocols that they taught boats. Bundling outsourcing alternating technology and simple thought simplify. It's a simple rule. So bundling is simple. You know it means that let's say you and I enjoyed each other's company and we also like to walk. Then we would say look at let's bundle those activities together so we can you know we save the time. We can see each other and walk at the same time outsourcing. You saw me post on LinkedIn about a bag of leaves right? If you can find somebody to do something, you know put your money in circulation in the community and have someone do something for you. You save time alternating. I don't watch a lot of TV but I do like to sit down and watch a show with my wife or my daughter. They might watch a show once a week. I might drop in once a month just to see it. I enjoy it just as much. And I've saved myself a little time just by alternating like that. Technology is simple. I dictate as much as I can use to dictate more. I dictate on my phone. That's why sometimes my emails and my posts are so error ridden. And simplify is, is simple. Simplify. Something I taught myself in law school even before boats, which was touch a piece of paper once. I don't have time to go back and read things. And as you become a busy litigator, it's very, very hard to go back and read things. So if you're going to read a case, take the time to sit down and really read it and make a note and, and, and then go back to your note if you need it, not to the original document unless it's important for your fact and for your argument in court. You don't have time to do a soup to nuts review on a case just because you get anxious. So you have to just simplify your life by just deciding that you're only going to do things once or you're going to read an e-mail once. And and quite frankly, simplify for me in many cases. I'll say to my wife, Hey, where's that favorite sweater of mine? Because the one you haven't wanted two years, I threw it out. So I gotta run around the house and touch. Things. Once a year. Otherwise they disappear. That's simplified too. To wrap up our conversation today, I wanted to ask also about another piece of advice that you've mentioned. And I think you said it comes from your late father on, you know, you have to, to go slow to go fast. So we've kind of capped within a topic we were talking about, you know, the, the law student experience, the young associates today, people coming into the, the profession. You just shared a very interesting point on it. It took you a few years to, to get it figured out. And, and we all have this idea that we have to have it figured out, you know, by by the time we leave law school. I think that there's a whole, you know, the recruitment process, all of that really puts a lot of pressure in, makes it seem like if you don't get it now, it might be too late. So I'd love to hear a little more. A little bit more about how that has played the role in your life and how you know sometimes going slow really made you could go faster. So I think, you know, my dad had a lot of great phrases. I think you might have you might have liked him, but and I don't know where you have to go slow to go fast comes from. I looked it up once. I mean, they use an auto racing means you gotta go into a corner slow as you can hit the epyx fast so you have a maximum speed at the end of the pitch. I just take it to mean that if you're running your life at full bore at full intensity all the time such that you're just crashing up against deadline after deadline after deadline, that's just exhausting and you just won't have energy. You won't have the reserve left to have the energy when you need it at something, you know, and a trial. You know, sometimes we do long cases and you have to go to bed at 9:30 or 10:00 at night because you gotta get up early in the morning and you can't, you can't stay up to midnight seven days a week for five weeks at a time. And so I just think that and this, you know, fits into bundling and outsourcing and boats and all that stuff. Sometimes you just got to let things go. So I don't have time to, I'd like to go see maybe a hockey game or a baseball game or a football game or watch it. I've just have to limit it because I, I need to save my energy for myself. And I think that's really what I mean is just make sure you take time for yourself because that's all you have is your time. And if it's constantly being chewed up by other people and stress, it's a really, really tough life to live. But if you're taking care of yourself, if you're sleeping and you're taking time to get some exercise and walking and most importantly spending time with people that you love, then that you can never be faulted for that or or guilty for that. And then when you really need to put the pedal down, when it's really stressful, you'll have the energy to really give. It that's fantastic. I'd hate to leave the podcast today without asking about, you know, your, your experience at the Supreme Court as well. So I'm wondering is, is that something that you know, you've enjoyed quite a bit? Is there a huge difference for you? I'm sure the stakes are higher and, and there's this other parts, but really the the standing on your feet and you know, is there quite a difference for you when you're talking about a Supreme Court case versus, you know, a case that is in a lower court? Do you have any any comments about that? Yeah, you know, I, I've been to the Supreme Court of Canada on my feet once I lost the final or we litigators like to say we finished second, but it's a case that I had won at first instance twice and twice in the quarter of appeal. So to go to the Supreme Court of Canada as a respondent was a really tough experience for me. It kind of set me back when we lost, to be honest with you. And so it's not something I go back to often. I, John Laskin, he was now the Federal Court of Appeal had mentioned to me, we talked afterwards and he I think it was he that mentioned a book by Andre Agassi called Open Andre Agassi. Every time we played tennis and we always face the same competitor in the finals and always was finishing second to him and how he sort of really it ruined his confidence. I read that book after the the, the Supreme Court of Canada. I'd like to go back there. I'm not sure if any of my cases are heading there times anytime soon. I will say this, the most joy I've had has been in the Federal Court of Appeal after I've lost the case because you don't get that pressure anywhere else having lost. I've also been in the Federal Court of Appeal having one below and being the respondent and I enjoyed that. But I think really I enjoy your cases at first instance where we put the stories together because you kind of have to match up the truth that comes from warming to get the science right with the 51% nature of the balance of probabilities and civil litigation. And that's where the real storytelling and the, and the, the trial techniques come in. I will say this, you know, I think, I think in the future, the professions can split a little bit in Canada. They have appellate practice in the United States and you're starting to see them now in Canada. We have a very good appellate practice here with some of my partners down the halls, some of whom do IP. And I think that'll, that'll change overtime. But I think you'll find people will say, I'd rather be a trial lawyer or I'd rather be an appellate lawyer. I think now that I've headed into my 60s, I think I'd probably say I'd rather, I'd rather the trial court. It's a little bit more fun, a lot more work, but a little bit more fun. Well, thank you once again for for your time and for all the wonderful insights today and you really appreciate having you on the show. Well, Claudia, thanks again so much and just really enjoy what you're doing.