Resilience, Curiosity, and Reinvention with Pauline Chan

Welcome to your 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. So many of the guests on this podcast have talked about how important it is to have strong writing skills as a lawyer. It's true, written communication is essential in this profession, but it can also be one of the trickiest skills to master. If you find your writing feels a bit clunky, or you're getting a lot of edits on your work, or perhaps you're breaking into an English speaking jurisdiction for the first time, Grammatica International can help. I'm Rebecca Lockwood, the lawyer, mediator and educator behind Grammatica, and we help lawyers and law students to write more sharply, speak more clearly, and advance their careers with group training and one-on-one skills coaching designed just for legal professionals. I have worked with so many lawyers like you who are exceptionally smart, qualified and capable, but need a bit of guidance to stand out in a competitive legal market. And I get it myself, having lived and worked in five countries during my 17 years in law and education. Whether you're looking to sharpen your writing skills, generally refresh your CV, or draft an application for a law program, Grammatica can help. Visit gramatica.co to learn more. Today I had the opportunity to interview Pauline Chan. She is the head of Lawyer Experience and Lawyer in residence at Good Lawyer, a technology company that is transforming how lawyers and businesses work together. She has had multiple different roles and worked in different industries even. And I wanted to thank you so much for taking the time to join us today and share a little bit about your experience. Pauline. Well, thank you so much for having me, Claudio. It's very exciting to be here. And yeah, looking forward to talking to you about all things law related. Awesome. So to start us off, I did a very brief introduction, but I'd love for you to introduce yourself to your audience as well. Yeah, for sure. So yeah, my name is Colleen obviously. And AS Claudio mentioned already, I am head of lower experience and low in residence at Good Lawyer. Aside from this, I also spend part of my time right now practicing fractionally as a lawyer. And so I do practice as general counsel, as in-house counsel, supporting other, supporting a legal team. And aside from that, I also have some random side businesses that I also run here and there with my husband. And then I have two kids as well. So 10 year olds and a 7 year olds. And ultimately, I guess the bigger back story of how I got here is I started, I started practicing in house at a big firm like I think many law students do as you leave the at least the Canadian law school experience. And so I started at a big firm. It was definitely not quite the right path for me. And so it took me a few years to recognize that, even though I try really, really hard to, to make it work for me, but ultimately it did not. And I recognize that. And so I moved on. I ended up working in some in-house roles, which I really, really love doing. I was very, very excited to be working right next to the business with the sales team, with HR, with whatever other business units. It's really something that I've, I realized that I love very much. But in that specific case, I would say I was a little bit burnt out, I think, after my experience at the firm. And so it was just not a great time, I think for me. And so ultimately I sort of thought to myself, well, I guess I might be done practicing entirely. So I went out and I opened up a fitness studio with my transition plan to get out of the law. Funny enough, it was actually through this transition plan, everything was going good. I was just sort of getting ready to run off into the sunset with my, with my fitness studio. And I got a message from good lawyer asking me if I, my small businesses was interested in getting some legal advice. So I said, well, no, thank you because I'm a lawyer, But also I was very curious about what they were doing. So I started talking to good lawyer. They convinced me to try out some clients with them. And then before you knew it, I had written a note to our cofounder saying, you know what, you've changed my life. Everything is now before a good lawyer and after a good lawyer when it comes to my practice experience. And so here I am, which is ultimately where it led me today. So I'm practicing part time working with good lower part time and then also on the side running some other little side hustle businesses. That's fantastic. Well, I'd, I'd love to, you know, dig deeper into that experience. So I saw that sometimes as you were sharing content over social media and in different engagements, you did mention something along the lines of a new way to lawyer. And I'd love to hear, you know, what that means to you and maybe even why do you think our profession needs some more of that? Yeah, well, you picked a topic I'm very passionate about Claudio. So I would say we are, I, I feel like the new way to lawyer is sort of a much more supportive way for lawyers specifically. I think at a very high level, our profession tends to not focus on us. We are always focus, which makes sense. We're always focused on doing the right thing for the clients and pretty much everything else. I think in the business of practice and how we set ourselves up, how we, how we run our practices, how we do the work and all of that is all really set up and geared towards how do we please the client in all of the different ways and how do we ensure the client is happy. I think the new way of lawyer fundamentally is looking at ways to practice that focus on how do we make this better for the lawyer. It's kind of funny because I, it seems like it's such a different and revolutionary thing, but in my mind, it's not because we're ultimately focused on making the lawyer happy. I think that many of us who go into law school, who get the degree and start working as lawyers, we want to help. And I think it shows very much in all of the ways that we try to do the right thing for our clients. But I also think that the structure of how we do this work has not always been in such a way that is supportive of the lawyer. And so then we see problems where lawyers are not happy with the structures in which they work. And maybe this is the simple piece of I don't want to have to be in person at an office. It works so much better for me and my life and my practice to be able to do this from home whenever I want. It could be that simple or it could just simply be it is the entire way that practice is set up from the billable hour to the tracking of, you know, whatever. I have to do all the marketing and I have to do BD, but at the same time, I also have to do all of the legal work to a very, very high level. Maybe it is all the structural things as well that really kind of contribute to an environment where I just don't think lawyers are able to do their best work and able to continue to do their best work sustainably. I just think that the structures don't allow for that in the current paths that are available to lawyers. And so I think this new way to lawyer is definitely one of those ways where we're looking at some other things that can support the lawyer doing their best work sustainably on an ongoing. Basis Tastic speaking about this so-called revolutionary way that really in the end might be a way that's not that's just a way that really supports the lawyer and the experience. I also found very interesting the way you describe yourself as a lawyer. So I saw that you call yourself a drummer, a serial entrepreneur and a fractional lawyer. And as I said, not not what you usually read out there. So I'd love to hear a little more about, you know, how do you got, how did you get to this point where you in a way permit yourself to build legal career on your own terms? Yeah, I think, I mean, I don't know, I, I don't know that I've permitted myself to build this legal career on my terms. I, I mean, I guess at some point I did permit myself, but I feel like the start of it was actually just a lot of I'm not happy, I want to be happy. How do I do that? And, and how do I and, and yeah, how do I do that? And so as I start thinking about how I'm going to do this and the initial thing is immediately, well, OK, for starters, do I like being a lawyer? What do I like about it? What do I not like about it? And then I think in that way, you're immediately sort of into the dreaming world, right? Where it's like, OK, I don't like these following things For these reasons, but there's also all these other things that I really do like about the law. How do I dream up a way to do this so that I can actually take the things that I don't like, turn them into things that I don't have to do very often or somebody can support me on this, or it can be something that is very minimal and I don't have to think about it too much, so it's OK. And then do more of the things that I actually like. So I feel like the dreaming part is actually sort of what led me to realize like there's a million different things that I can do now. What do I actually want to do? And so you start with the dreaming of, you know, it's essentially idea storming where you're coming up with 8 million different things that would be fun and interesting and potentially amazing. And then you go down that path and sort of try them out. And then it's funny, as I sort of started getting into, OK, what do I want to do next? I thought, OK, so I'm a lawyer, I work with businesses. And because of this, I actually feel like I have, I also have a business background, I suppose in schooling before I went to law school. But I think because of the business background and then also the legal background, I started thinking to myself, well, wouldn't I be kind of well suited to be an entrepreneur, assuming I can stomach the risk and you know, all the other stuff, It feels kind of like the natural progression. So that's again comes back to the dreaming. Well, what would I do? Like what kind of business, what would be something that would be interesting and exciting to me that I would want to do on a day-to-day and that doing down to day-to-day is not going to turn into a nightmare that I'm like, oh, it turns out I don't actually like this at all. So there's a lot of like soul searching, I would say. And so I think a lot of the dreaming part comes from that dreaming of all the possibilities and then slowly whittling them back as you think through, OK, I want to be an entrepreneur. What are the things that I can reasonably maybe set up as an entrepreneur with all the different restrictions that I might have in my life? For example, having two kids, it's going to be hard. I don't know that I can do this all. So maybe there's a specific type of business that's more suited to a slow build versus like, you know, just jumping right in or something like that. Yeah. And then I guess adding on the last part about being a fractional lawyer, it's actually the fractional lawyer piece that allows me to be, I think, a great entrepreneur, a great lawyer supporting businesses because I know what it's like to have, I've started one. And then frankly, the fractional lawyering is a part that helps pay the bills so that I can then go do these other things with my family, dreaming of new businesses to start up or working on the ones I've already started. So it's kind of a funny, it sounds like you're right. Most lawyers don't describe them that way, but themselves that way. But I also think that a lot of lawyers should be thinking about describing themselves in this way. To be honest, I don't think it's unusual for lawyers to be dreamers and entrepreneurs. That's fantastic. I love to hear that and and you very much spoke about how you know that plays a role in your, in your action with business, talking about your background with business as well. But I'd love to go on and, and talk a little bit about resilience as well and about, you know, these other factors. So you you've spoken in the past about being an unfairly fired and how that experience helped to shape your journey into law. If I may ask, what do you wish more young lawyers knew about bouncing back when things fall apart or don't really go as planned? I think that I would tell young lawyers that like you have been trained for this. This is actually almost exactly what you have been trained for in in school and in in your early days of practice, which is what happens when Plan A falls apart. What is the Plan B and what does that look like and plan D&D and all the other plans really like, I think that this is exactly what we trained for. We've looked at, we look at the if this, then this that that we've split out all of these potential options or, or things that could happen and how do we deal with them? That's what you do in a way in your practice, right? And so to me, it's just about taking the same learnings and applying it to your life. And I think to start with, we all know, I think maybe deep down inside, maybe it's been buried by by many years of law school and and, and training in the law. But deep down inside, I think we all know nothing really ever goes to plan. And so it makes sense to sort of make the plan and then add on some other plans. And then honestly, at some point you just have to jump in and take the risk. And I think that maybe as lawyers were, or maybe the group of us is, you know, statistically less likely to take risks. I don't know, maybe, maybe not, but it doesn't matter. We've all taken risks before. Like, frankly, going to law school with the risk, wasn't it Because maybe you would go to law school and find out you didn't actually like it at all or find out, Oh my, you know, maybe you did it because you thought you were going to use it for something other than practice. And then you're like, oh, I really want to practice. So even to go into law school was a risk. It's just about doing the calculations and making the plans, right. And then I would say like the failure and resistance, resilience, resistance, the failure and resilience conversation. We're always, we're having this, I think, conversation from day one, have this with my kids every single day. And I remind myself about it every time something doesn't go to plan and it looks like a failure. We're always going to fail. And in some ways, we're not learning if we're not failing. And so there's nothing wrong with failure. It really is what I say to my kids all the time and I try to implement. For me, it's not about the failure. It's always about what happens next. What do you do next? What are you going to do to get better? What are you going to do to avoid that mistake? What are you going to do to learn from that mistake? What are you going to do to make that same mistake again, but slightly pivot it so that it's actually not a mistake in the future, right? So it's very hard, of course, but, and I think that our profession makes it harder in some ways with this silly standard of perfection. There is no such thing. No one is perfect. We are all making mistakes. Whether or not I jump up and tell you about it is one thing, but I am making mistakes. But really, I think the goal is always, let's not focus on the mistake and how how we got there, unless it is for the purposes of doing better next time and making a note for yourself how you can avoid it next time. Or sometimes you learn from mistakes as well and that you're just like, well, I made a mistake and I went down this path. Turns out I don't like it. It's not really a mistake. Maybe we need to be more gentle with ourselves about whether something is in the state. If you learn that something is not what you like, that's not a mistake that actually gave you a check mark to put in the column of I don't want to do this again because I don't like it. There's nothing wrong with that. You're learning about things you like, but you also have to learn about things you don't like so that you can sort of start to whittle out the pieces of the path that you're like, not relevant, don't like that, don't want that. So is it really a mistake? I think we actually need to be a little more gentler about ourselves, whether it's a mistake or not. Story Claudio, you're on mute. Thank you so much for the heads up. I'll make sure to cut this out. Yeah. I find myself, you know, trying not to use the word fantastic every after hearing every single answer you give. But that's that's the only word I'm finding right now. And as as you speak about all these things, I also wanted to hear a little more about, you know, your experience in your current role as part of the lawyer experience team. I'd love to to hear a little bit about like, what are you hearing young lawyers today that maybe surprises you? Or also that, you know, lawyers are saying, hey, I need more of these. I need less of that so that they can feel really that they are, you know, that they belong, that they are having a fruitful career and that they are enjoying themselves. 4 I would say flexibility and I'll, I'll bundle remote work into this, even though it's not the only piece of flexibility, but I'll bundle remote work. But flexibility remote work is definitely something that I hear the most often. In fact, I did a, we did a poll on it, I think on LinkedIn a little while ago. And by far that was the winner of the poll. I think that I feel that a lot of lawyers, many, many of us are very like we're driven. We're, we're obviously not in all ways, but we are Taipei very chasing the chasing achievements. We're very, very focused on doing an excellent job in all the things that we do. I think that this flexibility and remote work push from lawyers really comes from the fact that we all are focused on doing 100% and more for our clients in every single piece of work that we do. And because of this, we need varying amounts of, say, varying amounts of being in quiet places where we can do focused deep work and all of that stuff. But the key is that I think we all just work differently and in different ways and during different times of days. Yes, we understand that there are core business hours that we need to be available to do certain work and meetings and things like that. We're different. We're all born differently and work differently and focused differently. We learn and do work differently. Why should we not have the ability to be able to do this in a way that suits us, that suits our personality and whatever sort of accommodations we might need for whatever reason, whether it's I have kids or I'm neurodivergent or whatever, there's a million different ways that we are different. We are all still going to get the work done though, and to a standard that I think is frankly beyond what most people would expect given that that is how we're going to perform. What we ultimately want is we just want some freedom and flexibility and when, how and where we perform this work. And so I think that makes a lot of sense. I'm hearing this from lots of lawyers. The second piece that I'm hearing a lot actually is that lawyers, we want variety. And I think in-house roles are generally really excellent for variety because you are right in the middle of a business. You know, one day it's the HR team asking you questions about a higher that they're planning to do or policy on discrimination or something like that. Another day it's sales teams talking to you about the various contracts, or it's the procurement team talking to you about how they're wanting to bring in a new supplier and running a bid process. There's variety all the time. You're dealing with all kinds of different things, which is wonderful. But even for in-house lawyers, I think after you've done this with whatever, it could be one company, it could be, you know, 10 different companies. Once you've done the work with these companies, it starts to look very similar and you start to be able to make all these different cross connections from different clients, different types of businesses. All the work starts to look similar. And yes, it's always going to be a little bit different. There's always going to be creativity required and and and complex their problems, but I think ultimately what lawyers are looking for is more variety in clients, maybe that they serve at a time, which in an in house model is typically not available. You're a full time employee of one company and that's what you do. But then when you've gotten further in your career, you actually are like, well, I could actually help two or three different companies at a time doing similar type work. It's not exactly the same, but actually the cross connections between different types of clients or different clients and the Saint similar type of work is actually what is so engaging and interesting and offering the variety that I'm looking for. So I do think that like in this model specifically, I would say the fractional in-house legal model, which is. Good lawyer does I think that it's offering both flexibility and freedom, but also variety and complex work that I think hasn't always been available. It it, it sort of felt like, you know what you're going to do, you're going to do the work. It's not that complex. You've done it before, but that's good enough. Well, I think a lot of lawyers we got into it because we crave complex problems and we want to help people and we want to solve. And then we get further in the career and we're like, well, I actually need more complex problems. There's something new to apply it to. And I think that the variety that we can offer at the same time is actually something very new and that it helps keep lawyers brains going. I think it's it's, you know, you're learning new things and it fires up old connections. It fires up new connections, which is ultimately, I think, what we all love to be doing. That's amazing. So now, now an interesting question that comes into mind here. As you were talking about that that process, I see that a lot of the lawyers who are in this path, they they basically went through a very scripted career. If I if I say, if I may say that myself, but something along the lines of, you know, going into law school and then starting maybe they're under all summer working at a big law firm articling if that's the case of the jurisdiction or anyways, starting their licensing and being an associate for a couple of years at a big law firm and then transition into this kind of roles. But I know that that's not the reality for many lawyers, but they might be interested in, in going through that. If so, I, I'd, I'd love to ask you a little more about like, what are some insights you might have for people who might not have had the, the incredible training? You might get A at a big firm or you know, the, the amount of work that that really trains you well and that gets you prepared and maybe confident to, to assume an in house position. What are some of your thoughts on that? I think that there's actually so, so much that we can learn from experiences where we don't see them as traditionally being valuable. I think in, in our profession or maybe once we get into the practice of law and everybody's at their firms and, and doing their work, we tend to see, I think only the one path that will get us those skills. But what I would say is that when I went, no, I'm not suggesting that everybody needs to go out and become an entrepreneur and open, open up their own business to be a better lawyer. But to be perfectly blunt about it, I learned so much when I went out and did that for myself. And I think that it's, it's you're seeing the world like, I think a lot of lawyers, we go through the path that we go through. And so we learn about the law first. Let's say in your path, for example, the big, the big firm, you learn about the, the law a little bit. I would say in, in some ways, in a vacuum kind of, and then you go into an in house role and then you're like, OK, this is actually what it's like to be in the business and how law intersects with the business when you're in it. And so I think that's one path for sure. But I also think that when I went out and opened up my own business and suddenly I'm just being thrown into the business and in my head, it's still all the legal stuff I'm thinking about. But I'm like, OK, This is why I actually don't care at all about this thing that I thought was such a big deal before I had done this. But then now actually what I do want is these following things. And so, yeah, I think the changing of the perspective is really important. And so I think like to the extent that lawyers, younger lawyers could do this and you have time, which I actually run into a lot who I think are doing this. So I think it's a good thing. Work with your friends. Like, I mean, you've got to know you've you've got to know a friend who is starting a business. Everybody's starting a business and everybody is out there, you know, doing their own thing. Go hang out with your friend for days, see what they do all day long and learn and think about that from your perspective as a lawyer. But you know, get deep into what they're thinking about every day, what they're worried about everyday work with your friends. If they'll pay you, great. If they won't pay you, that's fine too. You're learning lots, right? I think also meeting up with even going with a friend, if you feel like you need to go with a friend, go to a networking event for an entrepreneurs networking event. Learn from them instead of going there to to sell them your services. Learn from them, you know, ask them what the biggest problems they're facing are in their business. This I find is just so super helpful because it really starts to help you shape what it's shaping the work that you may want to do in the future. Now, again, just like I said earlier, if you're talking to to entrepreneurs and you're hearing about all these things and you're like, oh God, that doesn't sound like something I'm interested in at all. Like I don't want to do that. I get checked on your list and now you can pivot and move to something else. But if you're like, wow, this is amazing. Not only are you learning so that you can become a better sort of practical business minded lawyer, but you're also now in the ways that you're learning and you're showing interest and potentially you're like, Oh, I know a little bit about that. I can help you with that. You're also giving back to entrepreneurs. What a beautiful way for you to potentially be setting a path for yourself to start your own practice 1. Day fantastic. Well, you, you mentioned a few different things here that I really enjoyed and I was wondering if there is a specific things that maybe you could pinpoint that were fundamental skills or habits that really helped you to go from being a corporate lawyer to, you know, legal, tech, entrepreneurship, all of these things. I would say learning, loving, like really loving learning about things and, and just really digging deep into things and three things. Loving, learning, because that's always going to be part of anything that you do as a lawyer. And even if you pivot into something different, once again, you're going to need to learn to make that pivot, even if you're not going to be a lawyer. So loving learning, learning to love it or learning to love what you like to learn about. And then focus on that. Don't focus on the stuff you don't like. Focus on the stuff you like because that is always going to get you more mileage no matter what it is that you're doing. The other habit I would say too, is that be back up, back up and look at the bigger picture. I find that getting you stuck in the weeds is definitely interesting in some ways. Get very, very deep. And you know, like I did actually just say, get very, very deep and figure out what you like to learn about. But then also back up, back up and look at the bigger picture. I think like we, I think that what happened to me is that I got really, really sort of focused on narrow focused, right? When I got into law school, Everybody's like, OC I, this is when it's happening. This is what you need to do. So immediately my view got narrowed to something super small and I was like, OK, that's all I have to focus on. That's all I need to think about. What I've learned over time is that if you back up and look at the bigger picture, it's so much easier to see where something fits. And so like, if you're like, I really, really like this one thing, OK, back up. Are you actually going to be able to get into some kind of work that that is in that category? If the rest of your life looks like XYZ, whatever you just had three new, you know, you had triplets just now. And then you also have you also have someone that you're caregiving for, an adult and elderly person that your caregiving for. Is it actually possible for you to do all those things that you're really interested in writing? Maybe not. And so if that is the case, there's nothing wrong with that. That's just a matter of making a list for yourself of this is things I go back to later and I can revisit when I have these following things in place so I can actually do it. So I would say backing up and looking at the bigger picture is really, really important as well so that you can weave in what you like, what you don't like. But then also that fits into this bigger picture. And then when you back up and see this bigger picture, you also then have a much better view of what that goal is that you ultimately want. And when you come back up and see whether these things fit, then you're going to have a better idea of how much you want to pursue it. Or maybe that's not a right now thing. The last skill I would say, or the last sort of thing that was really helpful for me was to be open minded about all of it, Don't I? I find that we, or at least I did, was judging myself very, very, very harshly when I was like, OK, I don't want to be a lawyer anymore, what am I going to do next? And then the judgment of like, why would you ever do that? That's ridiculous. You spent so much money and time and energy and it can still help you and it'll pay the bills, blah, blah, blah. Lots and lots of judgment. But keep an open mind. Keep an open mind because you know what, ultimately, what is gonna make you happy may not be something that your parents, your professor, your mentors, your siblings, your friends, whoever coworkers, doesn't matter. It might not be for them. And so there's going to be, there's going to be disagreement, but ultimately, keep an open mind. What makes you happy is what makes you happy. You're the one who has to live your life. You're the one who actually has to do this day in, day out, even on the bad days. And if you pick something that you're not actually passionate about, you're not, I have news for you. You're not going to have the energy to do the things on the bad days. So you need to pick something that is going to actually give you energy, even on those bad days. That's what's going to make you happy and feel good about it, not anybody else. So who cares what anyone else thinks? Keep an open mind, do what makes you happy, do it how you want to. You are a smart person who got this far in life making the decisions that you have made, so why can't you continue to do that for yourself? You will get there. It's just about staying focused and doing what works for you. That's incredible to hear. I love that you gave some encouraging words on the sense of if you can't do it right now, write down a list and maybe in a couple of months or years, you definitely don't need to give up on maybe those those dreams of goals because of the current circumstances. And I think that that's just so powerful. But also, you know, we've talked a little bit about your role and, and how it's, you know, helping with the legal experience and all of that. I'd love to hear a little bit about what the day-to-day looks like for you nowadays. And then also, if I may even ask, you know, how how much technology also helps you in that mission. Oh. Yeah, yeah. The day-to-day, the day-to-day, I spend a lot of time talking to lawyers and wanting to know where they are at essentially in their career and what's next for them. And some are, you know, just getting to the beginning of that journey and realizing, wait a minute, there might be something else out there that I'm missing out on. And others are definitely farther along. And you know what? This is what I want to do. This is what makes me happy. And, you know, I just want to work with killer lots of different conversations. Some it's about sort of giving people helping give people the space to think about what's possible and what, you know, they could possibly be doing with all of their experience and and, you know, qualifications and all of that. But also I would say that some days it's also about telling lawyers, a sort of essentially telling lawyers that there is 1/3 path and we are making this new path. And these are the following things that we thought of that actually solve all of the problems of the other paths for people. And so it's funny because I do a lot of sort of educating, I would say, on what this new path looks like and how it is quite different than what we're used to seeing. And the, I think actually what I do a lot of is addressing the fact that it all seems like it's too good to be true. And so I'm often like, I know it seems like this is too good to be true, but I am living it. And I'm telling you, yes, there are some downsides. And here are the downsides. There's not many of them, but here are the downsides. But there really is not a lot at all to the downside. So I guess I'm addressing a lot of anticipated objections, I suppose. So in a way it's still sort of using legal skills, right, and dealing with anticipated objections. So the day-to-day is very much about talking with lawyers and explaining this new path because for many it's just not fully understood because it's new. And then I would say the other piece of it is sort of also about shedding what my experience was in, in the profession so that I can better come up with new ways to improve the lawyer experience. So how do we get you into mandates? Once we get you into mandates, how can we support you in a way that makes sense for this, this new path, which is different than being in a law firm and is different than being permanent full time salaried in-house employee? How do we build things and how do we support lawyers in a way that makes sense in this specific model? One of those things is definitely technology. I would say The funny thing is like in the specific way that we run our, our model, which is fixed fee mandates for lawyers working with clients. Technology is actually this beautiful, wonderful thing because in our model, the goal is for lawyers to become lean and efficient, which is completely different than what we've seen before in in the firm model. And the obviously when you're working under a fixed fee model, lawyers are incentivized to become lean and efficient. And so how do we support this on the good lawyer side? We can certainly support this with tech, whether this is about specific, whatever invoicing or BD or marketing or whatever, we can support this on the back end with whatever we choose for tech, but also in the ways the lawyers are practicing. One of the things that we find often is that lawyers are chit chatting amongst each other all the time about different types of tech tools that they can use, whether it's contract drafting or whether it's how do I intake clients or, or, or whatever, a million different tools out there. Lawyers are chatting about this all the time because again, it is a way for them to be more efficient. They're still going to provide value to their clients and they'll provide quite a lot of value to their clients in building out different, for example, different contract management systems, using those to help build out, you know, a really great sort of contract flow for your client, but also helping the lawyers save a good solid chunk of time in their contract reviews and revisions. When you can sort of get the basics scratched off the list with a tool. And then you can go through, of course, you will still review it, but it's prevented you from dealing with the situation of what clause should I be using, what language? Oh, I have this favorite language. I can't find it. I don't know, things like that. And so tools are 100% the way for lawyers to build a practice that is sort of, I would say like a future, a future type of practice, which is all about being lean and efficient. And so do I think that technology is going to help? Absolutely, it's going to help. Can it hurt if not used properly? Absolutely. But that's just like any other tool that we've ever been given. I mean, I could use my, I can drive to my office going to work and use my car incorrectly and get into an accident. That's not great. But if I use it correctly, generally is going to be fine, right? Absolutely. So Pauline, to wrap up today's episode, I've, I've read a little bit of what you wrote in the past, as I mentioned, and I also saw that one of the things that you've mentioned a couple of Times Now is that you're not afraid to try new things. I love driving reading that about you. So I wanted to ask you what's giving you the most energy right now, whether it's, you know, your legal, creative, personal, in, in, in, in this month, this summer, what's been on your mind? Well, I couldn't have heard anything more exciting. So that's awesome. Very, very, very fun to hear and once again, really appreciate getting the opportunity to hear your insights. I'm sure audience will love it as much. Thanks again. Really, really thank you. Absolutely. May this be just the the one of many. Thank you all for tuning in, and we'll see you all in the next episode.