Startups, Strategy, and Legal Innovation with Yonida Koukio

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. This episode of Studying War Around the World is proudly sponsored by ITL Prep from imant Exam Prep, the comprehensive resource designed specifically for internationally trained lawyers preparing for the Inca exams. We understand that the NCA accreditation journey can feel overwhelming. You can face many obstacles getting to success Courses that cost too much, offer too little, or leave you more confused than when you started. 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Visit imans dot C today. That's emond and use promo code ITL 50 to claim your 50% discount on NCA exam preparation courses. Today I have the opportunity to interview Yoneda Tokyo. She is corporate lawyer and has a very, very interesting practice both in corporate and intellectual property law. She also is attack in innovation enthusiast. She works closely with innovative startups at all stage of their business all the way from a transactions inception up to going public transactions as well. So super excited to get, you know a little more about her story and her background and to start our podcast today. Wanted to thank you once again for joining us today, Anita. And I wanted to ask you if you could introduce yourself to your listeners. Absolutely. Thank you for inviting me so you don't need I'm gonna need to make corporate and technology lawyer at Ozzie Law, which is a boutique a technology law firm in Toronto. I work with startups at all stages of your business from inception after an exit with work that includes structuring their business, raising capital, restructuring up to up to a or go back to transactions. That includes a lot of the times that graphing technology agreements for them, employment, privacy, everything that they require to to grow and to exist. They may come to us with unique questions. So we're trying to always be ahead and anticipate their needs at the same time. I also lead the firms innovation projects, which includes testing software, implementing software, coming up with legal solutions, go back solutions internally that's our clients can benefit from and trying to structure legal services as a product. So clients know about can predict fees and you know exactly what they're getting with more predictable. Fees. Amazing. And from what I saw in your profile here as I was preparing for this podcast, I saw that you've practiced law both in Greece and Canada. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about, you know, this path from Athens to Toronto, and also what cultural or professional lenses you bring to your practice today. It wasn't a fast transition I would say. I mean, when I was it was 2015 and Grace was born July financial crisis and me and my friend down were considering options and when we looked online we're like, OK, it seems like there's an NCAA process there's some exams we'll write them and then what do we have to do some articling That's fine we'll do it. I mean it was like that easy scenario in our minds and when we moved here it was everything but that. So we had to navigate the the national committee accreditation process apply told that we are coming from civil law jurisdiction doesn't really sound not going to be as straightforward as we expected. And because we didn't study in chronology jurisdiction, we asked us to write to basically go back to school and we had just completed an LLM degree at that time and were like, do we really want to do another one? And so we did because it made sense at the time we did that. I then proceeded to try to navigate the system to find party cleaning. And then I ended up doing the low practice 1 placement. So it basically transitioned from litigation that was practicing back home to the corporate. And it wasn't an easy transition because people, basically people treat you in any event when you move countries that you don't, you don't have Canadian experience. So you're really starting from scratch. But even when you're more than when you're transitioning practice areas, they really treat you like someone who has no experience. And I think that's a mistake because when you practice before, you're bringing in that maturity and that's independent of work. And that translates to working with clients, even if you're in a different practice area. And that's not really recognized any law firm that I worked there, like I'm treating you as a junior. You don't know anything. I'm trading training from scratch. But you think that that maturity comes through. So I always tell employers to think about who they're hiring because they're coming with experience. So it's up to them to use that experience and instead of treating them and so on. So I feel like in terms of culture, cultural and professional lessons, besides the fact that this is a personality trait, but I feel like the responsibility that comes with you taking on a task and following through and building trust, being reliant on like when someone gives you something, you go ahead and do it and you don't reach that trust. Being some motivated throwing initiatives are really important. And I think those are things that I used to do back home that helped me grow in my career here as well. And you just mentioned the the matter zone on technology and law that you do in your current role and also Altro your career. So I wanted to ask you a little more about, about that. You know, you have a specific point that that, you know, you could say that it's when you first became interested in innovation or that has developed over the years. What's your experience like with, you know, innovation and technology? And how does that play a role in your practice and and in your approach? And the work. So I asked myself the same when did it start? And I think the earlier I can think about was when I graduated from law school, there was a team of us that we're trying to think in an entrepreneurial way. And at the time, police did not have a centralized system where you can search up recent legislative updates like case law. So we tried to digitize it. But there was some of us, one of us had security domain name and there was a team of us who whenever something published, we went and we updated. So it was like a big team. It was a volunteer initiative. It started kind of died because there was no funding. Everyone had a job. So kind of dropped it at the end. But I think that behind it came the realization that all of us were interested in, in more innovative way of practicing law, because at the time, you just go and find a journal that was published and find the case and read about it. And then moving forward, I had moved to Toronto when a team of us was based internationally got together and we're like, let's come up with the startup idea. So the idea we, we thought that there was a need in Greece at the time was connecting lawyers with other lawyers because the Greece is predominantly law firms are mostly small law firms. So they're not like big law firms that you will see here, like national firms, like 80% of the lawyers practice solo or in a, in a small setting. So when someone needs to delegate some work in a different city, they had to travel. So we're like, let's disconnect those wires into the platform. And this is how we came up, woke up. So which was lawyers connected through a platform. So we designed platform we had a developer we working OK, so crazy funds. All those issues have come up like founders disagreeing. We actually got some awards until that. I love that. Of course, the fact that everyone was based internationally different time zones that they do help and having multiple founders more than three I realized is an issue at some point there is friction and well that didn't last long, but I was left with great classes and at the time I was at Osgood and Osgood had launched this Institute for the future of law practice program partnership with the universities in Chicago and Colorado. So I had the opportunity to be the only LLM student that attended this I flip Institute for the future of law practice period would come at the Northwestern law in Chicago was an amazing program and we were speaking with the most forward-looking lawyers, our people in legal tech at the time. We did some coding. We were trying to think about how to solve solutions in legal in law through legal tech. So it was amazing. So when I came back, I'm like, well, this is however I should practice. It's more efficient fines are expecting predictability, all of that. That didn't really help me with OC's because I was talking in a language that no one understood. So in the end, after many rounds of PCI, I didn't really like fall into the traditional law student category. So that didn't really work out, But I knew that this is something, this is a way we can acts like being overlooking and implement technology in a way that's all solutions to those problems, but not necessarily not being the only solution. So I can explain a bit more what I mean by that. But generally after that stayed, I was, I did a couple of internships when Jones and the Mccarthys. And then after those were completed, I stayed on uncharted to do my law practice program placement to get qualified. And after I was qualified COVID heads. So I wasn't hired back. And then I found myself trying to navigate the, the Canadian legal market, the hidden legal market. And I was speaking with many lawyers and I was trying to understand the system and to see where I fit because I didn't see myself as a traditional lawyer, but I wanted to practice. So that's why I met when I met the magic partner at the firm that I'm at now, Alan Ozio. So we were talking about invasion and technology and he had built like this amazing law firm. Everything was automated. He was he was very forward-looking at the time, like Zoom meetings and everything before Zoom became like the only way to have meetings. And when we asked me, he said, OK, what if I give you an opportunity to work here? What would that be? I said, I think it would be a hybrid role where I'm like 80% or protect lawyer and 20% and innovation specialist. So he's like, OK, let's do it. So ever since I'm here and it's been a great opportunity, but I think this is my fifth year. Fantastic. What a story. You know, I'm sure that many professionals like me look up to you. I, I just, I mentioned to you that I had the opportunity to watch a panel in which you're presented back in 2022. And I still remember hearing a little bit about your story and how really in a way you carved out the role that, that you have today, which is so amazing. And I wanted to ask you thinking about early career professional. If if someone asked me about my advice, I would say generally don't follow any advice because sometimes that advice can be well meaning, but it can be discouraging because people aren't trying to tell you look out for this and that. If I eat one piece of advice that I would give is that don't be afraid to take up space because I speak with many foreign trained lawyers and they think that they are taking up my time or like I don't, I don't want to bother. I don't want to intrude. I I don't wanna reach out to this person. They're not going to respond or they're busy. Let that person decide you If you have to do one thing, you know what you want to do because you you are definitely going to take someone's time. So you better be working. I as people foreign trade lawyers all the time. I booked those mentoring calls and sometimes they're like, I don't know what I want to do and I'm like, I think you should figure that out because employers don't have time to sit with them and say, let's see what's what you find interesting. They really want you to be like, I did this back home and I enjoyed it and I want to keep doing this or I did this back home and I know that I'm not going to do this here. So I've tested XY and Z and I know that I will act like X and you do X. That's why I'm talking to you. So be specific. Don't be afraid to take up people's time. When in 2020 when I was networking like 2 full time jobs, I was meeting with practice group leads on Bay Street and their hourly rate was over 1000. And I'm like, you know what, you promised me half an hour I'm going to take. So during that I was specific in exactly what I'm asking them those professional, but I did not feel sorry or I did not feel apologetic or taking their time. So This is why I tell don't be shy, go for it. Know what you want and go for. It amazing advice, absolutely. And I know that beyond your professional practice or, or as a part of it as well, you're very much involved with multiple initiatives, including one that is called accelerate grease. So I see that there is like an innovation ecosystem, startups and all of that happening and, and I find it so awesome to see this kind of initiative happening in the city. So I wanted you to ask you a little bit about, you know, this, what excites you the most when you're working with founders, when you see people trying out and, and I guess you had that bang founding founder experience a little bit as well. So what is that like for you? So I think that there are two questions there, Accelerate Greece and working with founders or Accelerate Greece. This was a program that was launched by Peter Polidor, who is a entrepreneur investor. He's an, he's amazing and he built this program where he allowed break scale ups to apply. And she's basically the program selects 3 companies that can benefit from attending a weeklong program in, in North America. It used to be in California. Now we brought it to Toronto and we structure it as mentorship sessions. And in Toronto, we have partnered with Elevated as we allow our companies to, to access Elevate and, and their network. So investors, founders, etcetera. I think it's a great program because looking back it's from the cause. I've kept in touch with funds in Greece, companies in Greece. And what I'm seeing is that they are great at taking companies up to the next level, scaling like growing them, but the scaling is a different conversation. So then they don't have as many examples, which is more common in North America. So what we're thinking is, OK, let's put together our networks and see how we can help them make their products or services, introduce them to North American markets, create those partnerships, spend their presence, not necessarily leave Greece, but create another channel distribution of their services and products. And from the people that we've received so far, everyone's finding it very officials. When I left, I said, OK, I wanna get to a point in my life where I can give back because I wasn't I wasn't born in Greece. I was moved there when I was 10 and I really felt that hospitality and people giving to me. So when I left Greece in 2015, felt like I really want to get back. And this is a way of me getting back and working with founders and companies and technology companies because this is what I do on a day-to-day basis in my job. I felt like I could bring the perspective of, OK, let me tell you if she needs to do this properly, if you need it, not exit, but expand from Greece. What to investors want to see how are you structuring those agreements with the partnership agreements. So and I I love being part of their journey. This I feel like there are this stage where they need people, they need allies and I love being part of their growth. What is from working with companies, what I found like the most common thing it'll pattern that comes up when I represent clients is that they don't necessarily need a lawyer. They need a business advisor. And they come to you and they say like basically unload whatever, whatever problems they have that they think they have. And they're like, OK, I have these issues and I'm just bringing them to you. You structured them into what you think that should happen and tell me what to do. So. And as a lawyer, you don't, they don't necessarily care to say, OK, the law stands for this sense here or there. They need to know what is the best business decision. And sometimes they tell them this is what the law says. This is what makes sense from a business perspective perspective. And to get to this point, I feel like it has been the most rewarding part of my journey is lawyers just being lawyers. I feel like there's only so much 4th place you can get becoming a business advisor. You can be someone who's indispensable. Fantastic. And I'd love to hear a little more about come On this date today practice and what that looks like. So you mentioned a little bit about this work we founders and we've talked about some of your work with technology and so forth. And, and I was curious to know too, is there such a thing as you know, a few common threads that you see that either in the legal side or in the advising slash strategy side for, for tech startups or or really startups in general, but when they're either entering or expanding in Canada? There I think there are some patterns and you can see them more and more obvious pattern when they are coming from civil or criminal law and this kind of goes against my advice to for entry and others when I tell them when you're interviewing stop emphasizing the differences focus on these similarities and to me having practiced in both ways civil law jurisdiction and common law. One I the way I explain it's like you, the judge, judges issue a decision, although in the Commonwealth system the decision becomes law in a civil authorization so that the law that judges of lower courts can disregard it because it's not law, they still follow it. So it's still used from an interpretation standpoint. Essentially, it's what it's how you recognize this decision. The effect is the same. We know the law, but it's still guiding guidance in how we interpret. Essentially, these systems are not any different. This is what I tell explain the differences when I'm interviewing or when when I speak with to inventors mentorship last session. At the same time, when I'm representing clients, I can see that when they're coming from a civil law jurisdiction, their agreements are much simpler. They don't really focus so much on the agreement because they can always rely on the Civil Code to interpret everything to when they come here, I tell them, OK, this is treat this as a more formal system of like everything needs to be in writing that agreement that you just it's like a two page agreement in your country. Here needs to be a 20 page document because here every decision court becomes law. So that affects how you interpret that agreement. So you have to be explicit. So this is 1. The second one is understanding the system. They might come. I think great Grace is it is a system where there's a lot of bureaucracy on how you achieve things like so like layers of approval. But at the same time, at times it seems more informal here. It seems like everything has to go by the book. So I tell them, like if you, if you want to, for example, to establish a subsidiary, there are ways for you to do this. If you want investors to treat you seriously, your structure, your IP, your value, you need to need to be clear in this subsidiary when when you're expanding here. And because you may have investors in your country back home or you might have assets in that company, you have to think about like strategically how you want to divide that value. So thinking through those considerations. Is what makes my job interesting. Also something that comes up a lot is pitting, but they come to me and they think that they have a clear idea and this comes up a lot in the countries in the companies that come through race during accelerate race. They think that what they sell is pretty clear. So on and tell them what you're in the business of what and they give me something and I'm like, what what does that mean? I don't I not in the industry, I don't understand and they keep it elaborating that doesn't add more clarity. So tell them there's a very easy a formula in what you're trying to describe. So you have to understand that formula on based on North American side. Good thing is another thing. And as I mentioned, understanding what your partners here, your investors here, your clients here are expecting to see in terms of standard of service or the way you structure those agreements with them, like your terms of use on the website, I don't know, less than agreement subscription shares, who's part of this company, how you cannot just be like a registered that you write names down. You have everything to happen properly improper agreements. So understanding those differences feel like it's it takes some educational component when you when you interact with those clients, you'll oftentimes takes more time to like and a lot more hand holding to bring them here and to help them succeed. Thank you for sharing that. I also wanted to ask you through your role on innovation projects and testing software and all of that, you know, what have you learned about bringing innovation into a law firm environment? You did mention that you joined a firm and was already known for being innovative, that they already had lots of automation going on. So I'm really curious, you know, what, what that felt like. I think that before I should preface this by saying that the firm that I joined was already ahead of what I was seeing out there. Jenna was speaking though, because I was, I was a larger firms before and we were testing automation tools or we were testing client service innovation in general, like how how you can be more innovative when you're serving your clients. And I think the difference is between between those larger firms and the smaller firm is the layers of approval. So you think about something, there are many layers of approval because there are many stakeholders involved. For example, in your large firm, you want to bring in a tool that that's the time that lawyers spend on drafting in half. How are you going to bring that revenue that will be missing if you do the work in half the time? So these are the things that you have to think holistically before you bring in technology at a smaller firm. At the same time, we're dealing with clients that's larger firms have clients have usually don't push back on bills. And now lately they have. So that's why they have thinking outside the box and to to bring more value to them. But so they are responding back pressure. But smaller firm always had that pressure because they're dealing with clients that don't want to be the flowers. So I'm I'm dealing with startups for bootstrap and they come to me and they say I need to know exactly how much I'm spending on this. Otherwise, I'm hiring you and as a lawyer that I'm as a lawyer as and I as an innovation specialist. I, I try to be accountable to both the client comes to me and they say, you said four or five hours. I'm not paying for more. So figure it out how you're going to make that happen and accountable to the firm because I cannot go and spend 10 hours and then write down my time. So that's, that's where the the conversation starts for bringing innovation in. How can we cut the time that basically is admin work like a president that we can perhaps automate with a simple questionnaire that has conditional logic that can just give you the first draft where you don't have to control F and replace the name of the client and spend half an hour on things that could have had the president ready. So because in any event, that time you could not have no fields to, to these clients, to the startup clients and how you otherwise bring value where you tell them, OK, this is a suite of documents. It took me 0 time to prepare because I can automate it and I can bring you the value of like spending the time on advising you instead of working on templates that in them by themselves, they don't really bring enough value if someone does not know how to use them. Generally it's and then thinking about what clients really need. They need, need business person. So you have to think as a business person where they come to you and they say, I'm going to keep you along in my journey. But you also have to understand that there are going to be times that I cannot really pay for your services. And those times are usually before they fundraise. So you have to think about how to help, I mean, those waves of before the fundraising or when they're bootstrapping. So I feel like this has me as more entrepreneurial. So when I implement technology of the firm, what I have in mind is the client and also which wants to get value for and pay less and the people that we're trying to help to give the value to the client. So it's our people. We don't want it to spend work time at work and they, they do admin work. They don't feel incentivized. They they could just be doing this anywhere else. You want them to eliminate all that admin and let them focus on the actual. So this is what we're trying to do when we're implementing tools, we're like, let's see, does it add value? So let's create a team of early adopters. Let's test it, let's get feedback and then let's, let's adopt it. And when we adopted, let's just have those recurring meetings like annually or whatever to see does it work? Does it not? What can we push back on? And this is like the exciting part because you're saying that you're making a difference in your clients life and in your. Colleagues life fantastic. Well, to to wrap up today's episode, you gave already a really, really nice piece of advice for people who are looking into occupying space and and really finding and carving out those opportunities. But I also wanted to ask you specifically in technology, intellectual property law, what trends should young lawyers be paying attention to if they want to build a future in this space? Are there a few things that you think that they should be looking into as early as possible? Types of like industry trends, I feel like they are always very visible. So in the couple of years ago it was metaverse NF's, now it's I so you kind of I think it's impossible to miss the, the advice would be just follow those queues and keep being curious and read about them. See how they affect generally how we practice law. For example, I now there's a big focus on AI, see how it affects privacy laws, cybersecurity, IP for all of those legal aspects and see how you can bring value from your experience. Like if you, if you have something in your background or in your prior legal experience that has touches on these areas, trying to see how you can find that angle, find that niche and bring your expertise into that. And for example, these are like industry specific, but if I'm talking about like technology or corporate and technology law, what I would say is like if someone is trying to get into those areas, a lot of other privacy, a lot of times people come to me and with buzzwords and they say, I like technology and I'm like, OK, So what do you think that I do? And they don't know. And that was me in the past where I approached lawyers and I said, I want to do startup law and I wanted to technology law. And then like, do you really know what that is? And I had a very big idea of what it was. But by speaking with them and getting concrete answers about what it was held me one find a job because I was knew what it meant. And to you to be more specific that I may not necessarily just want to do that. And initially I said that I would just want to start up law and technology law, startup law, it's basically heading to the start of things. Startups, the minimum they need to get started and go because they will fix everything when they fundraise, even if they have the absolute minimum 5 product in terms of legal documents, they will update everything when their products and technologies master service agreements as agreement, all of these things. How many of those do you want to prepare in your lifetime before you get bored? So I'm like, OK, now I understand that I like these not as a focus on the parts. So what I tell lawyers come to me and they want to get into space, know what you're talking about, speak with lawyers who are doing this. So you, you come out as more knowledgeable and knowing what you want. And now going back and after speaking with experts, like if you, it's easier, especially when in times of crisis, like during COVID, it's easier for you to sell yourself as a, as a generalist at the time, especially if you're a junior, because you are ready to wear whatever hat is needed to find a job to help the firm generate revenue. So understand what brings that revenue. And it might not be understood law, it may or may not, but more often than not, it's usually or restructuring. So those are the things that really create. So be open to doing all corporate work. So be ready to do those things and then you can specialize as you go. So I think it was the biggest lesson because I was always like niche innovation technology. And now it's like, let's go back to basics, corporate, commercial, know that well and apply that as you progress and you become an expert in your narrative. Fantastic. I really appreciate you taking the time to come and answer a few questions here on the test and thank you all for tuning into today's episode. Please thank you so much for inviting me, I hope everyone found it useful and everyone feel free to reach out have any questions.