Speaking Up, Moving Forward with Kirby Chown

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 imand 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. That's why Inland Exam Prep created ITIL Prep as martyr, more reliable way to succeed. Our module based self study courses and expert LED review sessions are designed by actual law professors, many of whom are Itls themselves or teach at international law schools. They know the Inca process, they understand your journey, and they've built these courses to guide you clearly through the NCA syllabi, helping you gain the understanding you need to be at your best for success on your exams. With ITL Prep, you'll gain confidence and clarity, whether it's foundational concepts or your tackling specialized Canadian law topics. It's affordable, it's flexible, it's built with you in mind. And right now we're offering something special as an exclusive offer for the Studying Law Around the World podcast listeners. ITIL Prep is offering 50% off all courses for the 1st 50 purchases. Simply use the promo code ITL 50 at checkout. Casebooks and other resources must be purchased separately. Visit imams.chtodaythatsedmond.ca and use promo code ITL 50 to claim your 50% discount on NCA exam preparation courses. Today I have the opportunity to interview Kirby Chao. She's a trailblazer in Canadian legal profession. She has served as the Ontario Regional Managing Partner at McCarthy Tetro until her retirement time and has remained deeply involved in advancing women in law. She's the co-author of Breaking True Tales from the Top Canadian Woman General Counsel. She's also a member of the Ontario Review Board and continues to mentor and supports the next generation of legal professionals across Canada. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you, nice to be here. Really appreciate it. It's your starter podcast today. I'd love for you to introduce yourself to your audience. Well, Claudio has already outlined a little bit about my legal career, but I was a teacher and that's important, as you'll hear a little bit later. I think I was a teacher for five years in the Scarborough board in Toronto. Then I went back to law school as a mature student and I practiced as a lawyer for 27 years and the last part of my career was in management. Still continued with the practice, but was in management and in retirement. All the joy of retirement. But in retirement, I've done some coaching at law firms and kept in touch with lawyers, so my fingers are not entirely out of the pot. Mentioned here that Kirby was one of the very gracious and generous lawyers that participated in the 75 Lawyers Initiative that I conducted last year with the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. But continuing on with our interview here, let me ask you, you've made a remarkable career in private practice and beyond, and I'm wondering what originally drew you to law? You just mentioned you were a teacher before and also what kept you engaged in it for so many years? Well, I think that's a really interesting question and cause me to look back because sometimes when you're taking steps, you don't realize what's prompting you to do them. So I was at university for undergrad and a masters in the 60s. So it was a time of big change and on many fronts, but one that particularly caught my attention was the advancement of women generally in the workplace, but in such professions as law. But I'd always wanted to be a teacher, so that was the path I was on. After I did graduate work, I thought, well, I don't really want to try and teach at university, so I'm not going to go on and get it PhD. But then I went to teach high school and that while I enjoyed it, particularly the students, I really realized this was not something that was going to keep me engaged professionally for the rest of my life. I was too young and inexperienced to have one of the more leadership roles in teaching a consultant, A principal, et cetera. And those consultant interested me. Being a principal did not. So I sort of cast my mind around as to what I really wanted to do and law came into my mind. My family did not have big connections with law. My grandfather who died, my maternal grandfather who died before I went into law and I never knew him, died before my birth. He was a lawyer in small town Manitoba, so doing real estate and so on. So that was my only contact. But I decided law and naively I thought, oh Lord, it's so great. You can just change. You could be a real estate lawyer and then the next year you could be a criminal lawyer and the next year could be a corporate lawyer. Of course it doesn't work that way, but I didn't know. But I thought so flexible. So then I went to law school and I sort of after teaching, I thought teaching after being at university in the 60s, I thought teaching was sort of predominantly male. So the principles were all male, the big consultants were male, people at the board were male, the chair of the board was a male. So I was kind of surprised that women's excellent teachers were clustered at the teaching level and didn't seem to rise. So that was my first experience of saying there's something about this that's not right. So when I was in teaching, I started this sort of group of like minded women where we were first of all trying to support other women to apply for these jobs outside of the classroom. And then to support them while they were doing it, we also started a newsletter. So I wrote the newsletter and we featured women in it and that went to every single teacher in the Scarborough board at the secondary level. And thirdly, I went around and I did speaking. So this was something new for me. But it was, you know, high schools who had invite us in to meet with their teachers. And what was this whole thing about women? So I was right into speaking about that issue. So after, you know, going into law, I thought, oh, law, it's going to be so much more progressive than teaching. And no, it wasn't. And so I had already developed this interest in women advancing in the workplace. So I carried that into law. And I think one thing that really helped me was being a mature student. First of all, I felt more bulletproof. So I can put it that way. If the law firm that hired me didn't like me, I knew I could get another job. I wasn't feeling I had to fit in and be liked in order to succeed. And that gave me a lot of confidence. And it also, again, as I said earlier, having already spoken up once about the issues affecting women in the workplace in teaching, I now really said, look, law needs some of this same work. So most of the partners in law firms were male, but women held a very small percentage of the lawyers in firms. And I thought, given that women do so well at law school, is there something wrong here? If you're an internationally trained lawyer or law student working in or trying to break into an English speaking common law system, you know that legal writing is one of the biggest challenges and one of the most important skills to master. That's where Grammatica comes in. I'm Rebecca Lockwood, the lawyer, mediator, educator and founder of Grammatica International. We help lawyers and law students to write sharper, speak clearer, and land more interviews with on demand online courses, live workshops and one-on-one consulting designed just for legal professionals. I have worked with so many lawyers like you who are exceptionally smart, qualified and capable, but need some guidance to really 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 CD, or draft an application for a law program, Grammatica can help. Visit Grammatico to get started. But the thing I liked about law per se, leaving that issue aside, was it's perfect for someone like me. Shortest attention span. So if you're a litigator, you've got a case. If that case might be about bricks, all of a sudden you're learning all about how you make bricks, then it's over, it's settled, It went to trial, then you're on to something else. So it was constantly learning something for a specific, and I really enjoyed that. These weren't necessarily topics I would have chosen, but you know, once you got into them, they were interesting. And so that there was enough in the legal profession, the day-to-day work that interested me, but boy, a lot of work to keep me there. But then having this sort of sideline of working on bigger issues, particularly focused on women, that also gave me a different purpose to sort of look at my profession of law from standing back, what could we do? And I started to replicate some of the things that we had done in or I had done in teaching, and that included reaching out to women, encouraging them not to leave the profession early, talking about partnership, speaking to other law firms, etcetera. And I really enjoyed that work. Now, happy to say, although the pace on this is pretty glacial now, it's more of a topic that is common in law firms, but in these, I was called in 1981 to the Ontario bar. It was something people weren't doing. So it was really getting in on the ground floor, which is easier in some ways and harder than others. And again, given a very successful financially and professionally culture of law that's mainly male, it's a bit of a challenge as well. And most male lawyers at that time had non working spouses. So they had the built-in support system for them to work as hard as you're required to in law. They weren't going through childbirth. They weren't primary responsibility for their children. It was a challenging field, but it was something that allowed me not only with the work which I liked, but with this kind of concept of working for women in law. To me a really well balanced practice. Amazing. And building off of that, when you look back, were there a few specific moments early in your career that shaped the kind of leader you became later on? Well, I think what I noticed right away is that women tended to leave law if they were about to have a child. So if they were pregnant, why? Well, they felt they could not balance carrying in a way that they wanted to caring for a child, raising a child and also being a successful lawyer. And I was seeing colleagues at that point who were young who weren't yet partners. And there were very few women partners. But, you know, weren't even in that consideration leaving then, you know, and I know the difficulty, but law is it's, it's an acquired skill. And if you step off the track early, it's quite difficult to return because you're older and you've lost the opportunity for years of experience. So that I think it was really watching women that I knew that were strong, strong lawyers leave because they felt it was incompatible with the other part of their life they wanted to pursue as a parent. And again, this is, you know, somewhat old news these days. They really need it on the home front, a supportive partner, whether male or female, to assist them. This was not something they could do alone and in the law firm situation, they needed to be judged on their merit. They needed to be given experiences. Whether you're studying law in Mumbai or practising in Manhattan, Rev can help you transcribe and analyze all your case materials with verifiablecitations.learnmore@rev.com. And you asked about a particular experience. I remember it was a litigator that one of the more senior males asked me if I wanted to go on this trial. And it was very interesting trial going to be a couple of weeks. And he said, well, I have to caution you, it's out of town. And I'm thinking to myself, why is he telling me that? And well, obviously for two reasons. It was well, you as a mother, I had twins in my first year of practice. So I was up on that front. Well, you won't be able to leave your children for two week and not talking on a practical but is an emotional basis because you're a mother. And secondly, what male female out of town? I'm looking at going no, no. And I said no, that won't be a problem. You know, I had good childcare and a supportive partner. So I think those, you know, observing myself and observing other women in situations where I thought they weren't being encouraged to develop to their full potential really pushed me to start doing more women's stuff. I didn't go into law saying, oh, good, you know, I'm going to wave that flag. But nothing was being done because why fix something unless it's broken would be the view of most male managing partners at that time. So I think it needed an outsider, so to speak, like me, who was saying you're losing something here. And you and I also know that there are more lawyers applying for positions at a law firm. So if a woman left, her position would be filled very quickly, usually by a male. So it was something that law firm. So while you leave, OK, you leave, we can carry on. So those were the sort of impetuses. And I found not only did I find practising law rewarding, as I said, sort of on a learning intellectual sense, you gotta have so many skills, you gotta be able to get along with the client and you gotta deal with judges and so on. But I also found it inspiring in a different way to work for a cause, to say he can make this profession better and that we're not saying, well, there are women, the poorest students at law school, take them out of pity. We're saying here is a really great opportunity for you have top notch lawyers, but they have different challenges. You gotta think about how you're gonna meet. Them. No, that's fantastic. What a story. I'm sure it was a life of firsts in many, many ways for you. And if I can ask you a little more about the book you wrote as well, I'd love to hear how that idea came about. And then maybe you have any specific stories that you still carry with you? Do I do so the book? I have to give full credit to my co-author Carrie Mandel. Carrie was trained as a lawyer, graduated from Princeton, a mom with kids, and she had read an American book, which we, in essence, took the same idea that had come out the year before we got into ours, which focused on general counsel. And she said, I didn't know her. She and I were on a panel together. After the panel, she came up. She said, I know we've never met. I've got this idea. She told me about the book. I did. And she said, would you do that with me? And I said yes. And I liked her enthusiasm, very infectious personality in the sense of, you know, this will be fun and it'll be interesting. It's up my alley. And so we became friends over this. She was working full time. She actually did practice, but now she's in legal recruitment, still working, She's working full time. And I'm thinking, Oh my goodness, you know, this will take us forever. No, So she drove us. And you know, I had, we went to this rule. Unlike the US, as you may know, Canada's not keep statistics about women in corporations to hold the position of general counsel and so on and so forth. We decided we would focus on Canada's top 20 companies and we wanted to have it across Canada, not just in one province. Sorry. So we looked up these companies online and then tried to look and see if their GC was identified. And obviously, you know, having an unusual, somewhat ambiguous name myself, you can't always tell from a name. I mean, if the general counsel was Susan Smith or George Stone, we could say, oh, male or female. Sometimes no name was given or sometimes the name was ambiguous. We had to reach out and sort of refine the list. And then we had to develop questions. What did we want to do? And we thought we didn't want to have a dry, let's do a profile, headshot profile of X, headshot profile of Y. We wanted to really get from them. How did they end up as a GC? What did they like about it? What advice did they have for women in their careers? So having a selfish all that, we went out and interviewed people and one story to Sound of Music, we ended up winning a prize for this book, illegal prize. And the woman who presented it to us, you know, in front of some big group of lawyers was on our list. But she never responded to our invite. And then all of a sudden she's handing us the prize saying, you know, this is great and it's had a big effect. And then she said, I'm really sorry. I never responded because of course, no one had heard of me and no one had heard of Kerry. We were just too lawyers. I don't know whether people thought we weren't serious. And you know, GC's are, are busy people. The people, the women who replied to our invitation, again, not knowing anything about us. I think we're very pleased with the way it came out because it was interesting. Different paths and part of it, you know, as you may know, lawyers in private practice again at that time used to think being in house, that's really, that's not a real, you know, legal job. You want to be a lawyer in private practice. You know, their practice doesn't work for everybody, and there are some real opportunities here. And of course, if you're the GC of a big corporation, you'll have much more influence, perhaps even at a younger age, than you would in private practice. So I think part of it was wanting to hear what made them leave and what did they feel when they were there as far as their career paths. Now, it was interesting to me as a litigator, and Kerry was also a litigator. Most of the women had a background in corporate law, you know, the most conservative part of law. And many of them said, you know, I didn't feel I was part of a team in the law firm. You know, I could do the work, but I wasn't, you know, invited to go golfing. You know, I didn't go out to client lunches. And I thought, wait a minute, I'm a contributor, but I'm not really being welcomed. And so they saw these positions in companies as obviously again, quite male dominated, but they were on the team already and they were there and they got to make big decisions. So that was a bit of an important insight. There were a few litigators in the group as well, and they were people who were just looking for a different kind of challenge. That's amazing. Well, taking all of that into consideration, would there be any kind of advice that you give to a woman lawyer today who is ambitious but not sure if she could thrive in the traditional firm environment? You know, as lawyers do, we all love giving advice. I would say it's not easy now, but it is easier now. But I think first of all, on the personal side, whether you're on your own, whether you're in a partnership, you need a partner who's going to be supportive of you. Law is a demanding, long hours career. I'm not even talking about adding children, I just being in it. If you are with a partner who expects that you will be supporting his or her moments every day and doing this, that's not going to be realistic. So law firms have their difficulties, but also I think in our personal lives, we have to make choices that are going to work for us. Second part of that is obviously family. Law firms are way better now. I mean, when I had my twins and I was a first year lawyer at McCarthy Tetrault, I thought, I wonder what I do? And I went in to see the head of human resources, a guy and he said, oh, well, you'll go on. And I went, OK. And I left and I went back and then I get a call about the next day, go back and he goes, well, I spoke to the managing partner and you know, maybe you're the second person in Toronto has ever had a baby. So no, no, no, we're just going to continue to pay your salary. So it was an evolution for them and me, but I didn't know, I didn't know what happened. So I think for women who are looking for jobs initially that I think it's fair to ask along with, you know, what are my opportunities? What about partnership? What about this? But also what, what's your practice around maternity leaves? How does that affect my advancement to partnership, etcetera, etcetera? Because you wanna know this and lots of law firms are a bit ad hoc. You know, we'll do things to help you, but you know, we'll see. But it makes a difference I think. And if you're a talented person, you will have a choice. And you may say, well, I really, I prefer this. If you go in and never find out these things, you may be sadly disappointed when you actually need them. So I think, I think that. So my advice would be check it out. And secondly, if you're a hard worker and do well, which most women do in law, when you're in your firm setting, again, you are representing not only yourself in these situations, but you're representing women who will come on behind you. So get a little courage, good practice for all lawyers and sort of say, well, this is about me and you've never had someone take maternity leave or you're doing this. Would you consider this? So feel that you have some power, Although of course, people around families tend to be younger lawyers where they may. I don't feel they have that confidence. But I guess I'm saying these are all attributes that you need in your profession. But in this case, use them. Your best client there is yourself. So don't eliminate that. Tastic, well, as I mentioned reading your bio earlier as well, you've mentored many lawyers over the years. And I was wondering, on the other side of the table, as a mentor, are there a few things that you always look for when you're deciding whether you're able to mentor someone or in a way decide to invest your time mentoring someone? Are there a few qualities that you look for in future mentees? Well, I, I think, yes, I think that that's a very interesting question. Sometimes myself will, and particularly now that I'm retired and I have more time to do this, but I will see someone who I'm saying there's a young lawyer, really smart, does her work really well. She's in this position now. She appears to me to be stagnating. I don't know her well enough to know if that's a choice or whatever. So I will often see someone that I believe has potential that she is not using. And this isn't just about having kids, you know, advancing in the firm that she happens to be in. And I have mentored men too. So, but talking about this. So I will often reach out to the person and say, I'm just curious, are you really happy where you are now and what you're doing? And if they say yes, I am OK, I'm the mentor. I'm not in the firm Go OK, great. Just wanted to check because I think that's satisfaction so important. Like for instance, I know that male, young male lawyers will move very quickly. They don't like what they're getting. Their second year lawyer, they're gone. Women don't know whether it's loyalty or you know, many want security, etcetera. So they'll stay on where they're not unhappy, but not really reaching what they want. And they'll also often stay in situations in which they should be moving up. But they are now really helpful to a more senior lawyer who it's working well usually for him that this person is doing the research of the organization and this and that. But it's not really helpful for that person. But you're in that kind of weird thing where you're getting praise for what you're doing, but you're not stepping back and saying, but it's not advancing me. And my experience over the years is sometimes women need a little push out of that situation where men will be more requesting earlier on. Thanks very much. So I'll help you on that. But I'd really like to be able to examine a witness and not just that wasn't offered, but I'm going to ask it because all that can happen is they can say no or I'm not really liking it here. So I'm going to go out and, you know, get another job. So I look for people where I think they aren't acting to their full potential. And then I sometimes also just from my own experience in my own firm, when they're in a firm that may not be supporting them, this would be particularly around like maternity leave and so on. I don't have a hesitation and not saying anything about the woman herself, but saying, oh, I'm just kind of curious what you're doing on this and really, well, you know, have you thought about this or that? So if someone is really happy doing something that I think they have considered their options, they're happy, they don't appear to be bored or stifled, it wouldn't be what I would be doing, but my job is not to talk them out of it. So I'm looking for those people along the way that I think perhaps aren't doing what they want. They may need a little push. Often women find it difficult to be advocates for themselves, to be confident and express it. And, you know, having seen that in the law firm and then as the managing partner, having women come in and say, I'm leaving, this is too hard, I can't do it. And I say, well, OK, let's hear, let's talk about this. I, I'm much bolder now where I'll say, well, you know, there are some other paths here. Maybe they won't work for you, but let's talk about it. So I'm interested in right person, right time in their career and willingness to do something. My job is not to convince people to be something they're not or push them in a direction they don't want to go, but help them to see that actually there's other opportunities out there. It's always in private practice, you know, in companies, no different in colleges of, you know, College of teachers or college physicians and surgeons. There's lawyers are everywhere. They're at newspapers, you know, so on and so forth. So, so I enjoy that part, which is, I guess in a nutshell, helping people to either recognize and embrace more closely some direction that they're dreamily drifting towards to sort of say, good idea, let's let's enhance it. You know, as we've been hearing from lawyers around the world on this show, one thing that's universal is the challenge of managing massive amounts of case materials. Whether you're dealing with witness statements in Sydney or reviewing contracts in Chicago, the volume can be overwhelming. That's why I wanted to tell you about Rev. Instead of analyzing documents one at a time, you upload everything to 1 Workspace. PDF's, audio recordings, video depositions, transcripts, Revs. AI analyzes them altogether and spots connections you'd never catch working file by file. Every insight comes with clickable citations that take you right back to the source, so when the AI finds a contradiction between witness statements, you can verify it instantly. Whether you're a law student or practicing attorney building your international career, Rev Insights gives you that edge our guests always talk about. Check it out at rev.com. Absolutely amazing. Something that just came to my mind here, as you were saying that, did you also notice maybe a, a difficulty for younger associates and, and maybe women or maybe in general on this, This needs to step up from doing the work to also being more involved with, for example, business development. Because what you, what you said just sparkled a few thoughts here on, you know, sometimes you really need the, those associates who do the, the groundwork people get that together and that will free up the time so another person can maybe focus more on business development and all of that. And, and not that that's necessarily a bad thing, it kind of has to be done. But what was your view on that? And how do you incentivize people to be able to put in the word and be able to to do some business development as? Well, I think you put your finger on something. I'm doing some coaching at a small litigation firm and these are first year associates who I'm working with and of course they are obsessively focused on, Oh my goodness, I'm trying to learn how to be a litigator and I've gotta, you know, come up with these hours and all that and the business development terrifies them. And so I'm so one of the things that you do and actually just did it this year. As I say, you know what business developments not easy. Actually, I think if you think about it as blind date, it's actually similar. You know, you got to be able to talk. You would do this. I said I'm going to suggest that we the group of first year associates and I asked actually a fifth year if he would share the meetings. I was there to give advice, but I didn't want it to be me. We'll do a group event because at your stage you're too young, you don't know, you're not going to phone up somebody senior. So group events are great because you get to hide. So we did an event and everybody had, you know, they worked out the job and we did a panel and they invited clients and they designed the invitation, etcetera, etcetera. And my goal and we just had our debrief on it. My goal was to say I want doing a group event, not necessary. It's cumbersome actually, not that many people. But if you do it once, you'll see there are these little steps and you do it and then I say, and you could redo this by changing it slightly. Set these. This is something you can do as business development on your own or with a friend in the firm for the next couple of years. It's only when you're about fourth or fifth year that you're really going to get clients that are important enough that you might take them to lunch. So it was a big success, I think gave this group confidence that it's, there's lots of little things, but now everybody had a template. And so, you know, I'm saying, well, I hope what you might do is maybe you'll do another Group 1 next year. Well, you know, now and you know, I'm like the timing you got to get those invitations out and lawyers are terrible at responding. But so I think that it helps them calm down. So when they're in fourth or fifth year and, and business development becomes even more important, they've done two or three events. And when we did our debrief, you could say, well, actually, you want to do this in this way because that's, you know, your, you wanna know who the clients are and you want to know what company because that gives you something to talk to. You have to go and talk to them all, but you're in a group. So it was practicing the possible and learning what you need to do. So I think experiences like that. And the problem with most senior lawyers and firms is they are they're well ensconced with clients, You know, sports tickets as, you know, being the big currency, think, well, that's not everybody's cup of tea to, you know, go to a sporting event. But you know, if you're a first year lawyer, who do you know that senior enough that you're going to get front row seats at some basketball game? That's not going to happen. And it's too intimidating. And also the senior person's going to go. I've been asked out by a second year lawyer at firm X. You know, they're going to go, no, I don't see how that's helping me. So I think there's a law firm, but this is an example to me of where I think law firms need to help people more to understand and prepare for the experience. Then they can take it. But it's not something any of us ever did before we were in law firms and learned well, we were supposed to do it. And the senior lawyers forget what it was like when they were first or second year, like you don't know anybody. I said, get that list of everyone in your law school graduating class and find out where they are now and keep in touch because those are the lawyers who four years from now, they may move from firm X in house at TD Bank. Wow, chatted them up and had a coffee for four years. And then, you know, Congrats on your new position. And maybe your firm has never done any work for TD Bank and they do have a huge in-house group and council. But there's how an opportunity is created. It's not created by calling up someone cold who you've never met. Don't do work for saying let's get together. I think, I guess I'm rambling here, but it's like any skill that can be learned but has to be titrated to where you are, what you're capable of. And I think in this case, the senior partners in this firm were pleased with seeing them engaged. And I said, you know, and at the end, because they partners applauded them some money for this event. You want a nice little report that goes in so they remember you did this and they involve them in it. Budget wise, you now know what these things cost, so you'll know how many people you need to have. Yeah. And I think that, like, I saw a lot of confidence. They were really pleased at the way it went. Talking about the in the same general topic, but as I was researching for this episode, I saw that one of your advice is in the past was about going with your gut and forgetting about security and career path. And my main audience right now is young lawyers, either first, second year associates or people who are finishing up their law school. So it's that that age range. And I'd love to ask you, for those who are listening to this podcast today and who want to build a career that feels meaningful, even if they don't follow that straight line, is there any additional advice you'd like to give the audience? Well, I say that very specifically, and I would never have character characterized myself as a big risk taker, but there's sometimes when something affects your gut. So it was like me in teaching. I like teaching. I found teaching rewarding. It was something that I've always wanted to do. But after five years, I thought, really, do I want to do this for the next 30 years? And the answer was no. And so I said, well, I'm quitting. People's reaction to that was for me, you're leaving teaching and all those holidays in a secure position and you're going to go back to school. So you're going to have like drop in income and all this sort of thing. And but I knew in my gut it was right for me, Although, as I say, I didn't hate, there are people who hate teaching. I did not hate teaching and actually have done a lot of teaching and being my legal career too. So I think I see with young lawyers is it's so competitive and you're working on getting into a good firm and then you're working on, you know, getting good reviews and advancing and you're working on trying to be a partner, etcetera. And I see people who are really unhappy, smart people, but they're not moving. And whether it's because the prize of being hired at a law firm is so big, they can't, well, maybe I'm going to look around and do something else. So that's what I mean by go. I could have stayed in teaching and I would have, I think, become unhappy and found it routine after a certain period. And I did not find that in my law career. So for me personally, the impetus was I need something that is engaging me better. I think in law people find they either don't like people in their firm, they don't see their firm is going anywhere and those things make them unhappy, or they're getting, you know, I think we're sort of improving now, maybe with artificial intelligence and other things, but, you know, huge document cases. So I went to law school. But now what I do for 10 hours today is I review documents for this big litigation. I am bored to tears. I've lost the big picture. I don't wanna do this is not what I thought I'd be doing. So I think there's two things going with your gut is law. Younger lawyers are afraid to complain because they don't want that label. But I find that squeaky wheel gets the grease. So that's a true aphorism for law. If you say, look, I'm happy to help on document review. I know we need it. X is an important client. I'm prepared to do this for a maximum of three months and I'm prepared to train someone halfway through that to bring on. But after that, I'd really like more litigation opportunities. Young lawyers don't say that, but they they're unhappy and they don't go away. So that would be 1 case. Another case where I think people would need to be braver is they will be in a relationship, as I averted to earlier, where they're really the good support person for a more senior lawyer. They're getting lots of praise from that little thanks. What would I have done without you? Boy, this is a great summary. You thought of that thought of this, and I call that perhaps a slightly sexist term, but sort of the handmaiden syndrome. I am, you need me and look how well I'm doing and you're praising me. But at the same time that lawyer is sort of feeling, well, wait, I'm making someone else look great. I'm not really working on what I need to do. So I think asking yourself, am I doing work that I'm, I'm personally funding, rewarding and everybody has to do some crappy work and law and not for sure, but have I allowed that to take over my life? And I do say to lawyers when I'm working with other law firms to have somebody on a document review file for six months or more. Why? Well, it's easier, but you know, if you're able to say to people, this is a 2 month assignment, we realize it's a sacrifice that we would hope that at the end of that we'll bring somebody else in so you're not trapped. And then at the same thing, if someone is working exclusively with ex, there's learning, there's benefit in that. But is there a point at which if the two of them don't realize this is not actually that great? The firm sort of steps in and says that it up. But back to gut. You hope that the handmaiden, so to speak, would be the person would say, you know, I really, really enjoy working with you, but I think it's time for me to work with more people because I want to develop some other skills and styles. So fear is not the best motivator for a satisfactory life. Amazing folks, your Rep up today's episode. I wanted to ask you you've helped shape how the legal profession talks about inclusion and leadership, and they wanted to know what legacy we hope to leave for the next generation of lawyers. Well, particularly of course for women. I think women bring so much to the table in the way that they approach things and the way they can juggle many, many balls, which may include a very rich personal life as well as a legal life. And law firms are changing glacially. But to see more women in management, more women dealing with clients, more women holding positions of responsibility, etcetera. I think the awareness of the profession on this topic, you know, since I, my first year of practice was 1981. So, you know, we are well, many years past that now and things are changing. And I would hope that my legacy is to inspire people that, yes, you can't like, you know, I ended up being managing partner with my firm. It wasn't raising these issues didn't make me say, oh, well, there's a person, you know, we don't want her around. But I think it showed my firm that. Whatever idea I had mine focusing on women, there were things that we could do and how you manage people and not everybody agreed with me. There were many people who thought this was the dumbest thing in the world. But you know, could see that there might be some business benefits. You know how to pick your best. So I think that the legacy I leave is speak up, speak out because feeling unhappy or seeing a boy, it would be a lot better if we did this. But you don't tell anybody takes courage. And I had the advantage of being a bit older, having gone as a mature student of law school and having the confidence that I could get a job. If this firm didn't like me, I could get a job elsewhere. That was a good cushion. But without that, I hope my legacy is to say this is benefits us all. It makes for a stronger law firm. It makes people feel more engaged, which makes them feel more positive about the firm. So making changes. And I focused on women. There's many other, you know, if you just look at not only gender issues, but racial issues, etcetera, in law firms where you're looking at equity initiatives and diversity and so on. Those are all very big cultural things for law firms and they need to be led and they need to be led by people who understand what they're doing. So I hope focusing I could focus on women. That was a big issue then. I was not denying that there were other issues, but I knew I couldn't be spread too thin. I had to get into one issue, sink my teeth in it, and I guess that's advice. You may not want my issue, you may have your own issue, but make sure that you go deep rather than than broad so that that would be what advice I would give to young lawyers. Amazing. Thank you so much for taking the time to join today's podcast and thank you all so much for tuning in and listening. Great. Well, thank you. Appreciate it talking to you.