Building Success on Your Own Terms with Alex Klyguine

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. 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. Today I have the opportunity to interview Alex Glickman. He's a tax lawyer and also the founder of Taxpayer Law. Thank you so much for joining us today. Alex, my pleasure, Claudia, thanks for having. Me amazing so she start today's episode. I'd love to hear a little bit about your story. So can you introduce yourself to our audience and share about your journey through law school based treat and also starting your own firm? Yeah, sure. I mean the genesis of it, I was born abroad, you know, single mother parent, came to Canada with a couple of kids and it wasn't any easy life unnecessarily when I started off. But you know, lots of people go through the immigrant experience, so it's nothing crucial for Canada. And so then I did my undergrad at York, I guess because I didn't really want to change the, the design on my wall in terms of the degrees. I wanted to make sure all the degrees look the same on identical. I continued my journey at York and I got my JD, MBA, York. So all my degrees are from York. So now they look really nice and polished on the wall. And yeah, that's kind of been my educational journey. Went to Osgood and graduated. Wasn't really sure what to do with, you know, with, with, with my life, but I didn't really want to provide for my family. So I, I got a job on B Street. I worked at one firm for a few years, then worked at another firm for, for, for a few years, But I was fully an entrepreneur by nature. It's, uh, it made sense for me to do my own firm. I, I think it was kind of always within me. I always had my own clients I found and I always, you know, had the drive to build something in my own, whether in law or elsewhere. I started a business when I was, you know, he could say 6 year old. So like I've, I've sold things, I collected golf balls and golf courses and sold them, you know, did all sorts of little things kind of to make, make some money. So I was always kind of entrepreneurial by nature. So kind of made sense for me to go and start my own law firm. And I don't think the big law path would necessarily give me the flexibility to do what I wanted to do. And I didn't necessarily want to do just law. I wanted to build a business, I wanted to do investment stuff. I enjoy reading, so I wanted to spend some time reading as well. Until, you know, having your own firm, you kind of you're, you're free to do whatever you want to do. If you want to do a podcast, you can do podcast right, which which is great. This episode of Studying War Around the World is proudly sponsored by ITL Prep from Emond Exam Prep, the comprehensive resource designed specifically for internationally trained lawyers preparing for DMCA 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 a smarter 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. The checkout casebooks and other resources must be purchased separately. Visit imans. Today that's. Edmond.ca and use promo code ITL 50 to claim your 50% discount on NCA exam preparation courses. Amazing. So I, I've, I've read some of what you put there on on LinkedIn for context, a lot of my audience here in the podcast. Are early career. Professionals or law students, a frequent question that ends up coming over and over again is how do you decide your area of practice? So I wanted to ask you, what made you choose tax? And I've, I've read a few of your comments saying that it offers electoral challenges, work life balance, satisfaction. But was there a specific moment or experience that made that click for you? Or was it more of a realization that you had over the years? Well, I think when I worked at a large law firm, what was helpful is that you're able to experience multiple practice serious something that you don't necessarily get a smaller boutique shop where there's one practice here. So I tax is not something necessarily I thought of until I worked in the tax group. At the time. I did take it a few tax courses and I thought they were great. I also were like tort law, though. So my first summer I spent in the tort department, the group's called the store group. So I was able to experience that. But what really attracted me to tax is just kind of it aligned with the way that I think. And I'm more of a logical numerical thinker and tax in the basic essence of it. You know, the Income Tax Act is, you know, a formula. It's it's it's very, you know, long formula and, and, and written with using a lot of words. But at the end of the day, it is a formula. So that's that's why I was attracted to tax. There's other areas, as I said, I'd like tort law, but I don't think it really, you know, while I liked it, it didn't really make sense with my background. I kind of had a business undergrad, business MBA. So, so tax kind of made sense with that background. And I can also see myself working in competition law. I like a comics on competition. Well, I think it's another area that that that's quite interesting to me. So yeah, I, I think there's no backgrounds, but the reason why I chose taxes because it just made a lot of sense to me. And, and you're right to point out that tax lawyers seem to be happy. You know, multiple surveys and studies suggest that tax lawyers rank often the most in the most satisfied to most, most satisfied legal professionals out there. And I think the reason for it is, is probably, you know, the fact that it's the Tax Act is like a puzzle. You got to try to figure things out. It's a, you know, the laws always changing. It's impossible to know it all. You're always kind of digging, digging through it. You're always learning, you're attending CPD events, You were able to publish a lot, you know, kind of challenge yourself and, and, and, and try to kind of find and answers sometimes the questions that he answers that don't exist. And you're trying to kind of come up with, with those answers using, using whatever information is out there. And so it makes, it makes it quite interesting. And I kind of prior to this podcast, did a little bit of research and it seems that, you know, results have showed that tax associates have the highest job satisfaction of all practice areas, which is pretty awesome. And there was a survey which was done with the question of would you choose your, your practice area again as a metric for happiness? And 89% of tax attorneys said they would choose the same job again. So the highest of any practice group, which, which is, which is pretty remarkable, but I've seen this before. So it's, it doesn't really surprise me. It's not a surprising outcome, but what I think it shows is that it really is a terrific practicer out there in terms of work life balance. Again, in fewer and tax litigation, you were, you have a, you know, you have trials, of course, you have various, you know, various discoveries, etcetera, but you have a calendar by which you follow. So it's kind of structured and predictable. Tax planning is also, it could be hectic, but there's an element of predictability there. There isn't a lot of overnights I'll find in working as a tax or which also really helps with with happiness and satisfaction. No, that's amazing that that might, you know, give some some food for thought for people who are deciding which practice area they wanna go into and going forward. You know, another of the facts here that I wanted to ask you about is about building a practice as well. You build your own from the ground up. And I'd love to hear, you know, a little bit about what are some of the hardest decisions you have to do. I know it's not always easy to leave the comfort of staying in a firm and then also maybe like the learning curves that you have in those first years. And then also, what would you say to somebody who's considering the same path? I think first thing, it would be helpful to our a few years behind your back, regardless of whether you're in tax or another practice. I mean, I think it's really difficult to start a fire without having any practical experience. Law school doesn't teach you a lot of practical skills. And I think, you know, having that experience very helpful, especially in tax where the learning curve is much greater. So I think that's the first thing that somebody considering going out on their own, I would suggest that they go and work somewhere so that it's so they can gain those skills and experience. That's the first thing. But just starting it off on my own for what were the challenges? I think one challenges kind of to stay within your circle of competence. Right? When I started off, I had 0 files. I, you know, I left the work, You know, you, you want to drum up some work, but you also want to drum up some work that fits within your circle of competence. And I'm using the term Warren Buffett that's using the investment world, but I think it also applies to the legal profession. You don't want to necessarily double outside what your comfort zone is an outside. What should you do when you're starting on your own 0 files? Of course, there's, there's, you know, potential pressures there too, to go out and just get work for the sake of work. But I think my, my advice to anybody starting off on their own would be to stay within your circle of competence and reject the work that doesn't make sense to take on. I think it's, you know, helps with limiting potential liability and builds that expertise that, that a lawyer has on a certain practice here. And that of course, not building upon that expertise is kind of a flywheel, right? You get better and better at something and then you can get more work within that circle of competence and and and continue that flywheel. 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. So that those are kind of, you know, the, the, the basic things, I think from a business perspective, you know, you want to make sure you monitor cash flow, right? Because when you're starting off and you have no files, even if you get one file, you're, you've got to do the work, you've got to send the bill and you got to get paid. So if you think of, you know, doing the work, how long will that take you? A couple of months, right? Sending the bill, you sent it out, let's say at the end of the couple months, takes you a couple months to get paid, right? So all of a sudden there's no cash for four months in my example. And, and that's a, that's tricky. So the first year is very difficult from a casual perspective. So it's as a result, it's important to kind of keep your costs down when you're starting off referral. We didn't have an office physical office at the time and just had a mailing address at the time when I started. Got your own laptop law for insurance practice management software perhaps and some other tools, but very, very limited. You don't need a lot of resources to run the offer effectively nowadays. The barriers to entry into the legal profession are fairly low. After you get your logic, you're actually opening up your own farm isn't necessarily that hard and order to what you got to do in order to start up firm. It used to be much more difficult, right? There were a lot of administrative hurdles, but there's software tools now that enable you to send the bill seamlessly with absolute ease would enable you to track your time, you know, seemingly with ease. It is much easier than it used to be to just try to offer your firm, hang your own shingle and start doing the legal work. I remember talking to a practitioner who, you know, really started in these in Rennison from the 80s or 90s, right? And one of the things he complained about was that, you know, it was just too hard, too much admin burden and running our firm nowadays that had been Burton was just lower. So it makes it much easier to start keeping costs low. Don't be afraid to fire, but hire careful. I think that's another piece of advice really, you know, otherwise you'll stay by yourself all the time. And it's, it's a lot more fun to work in a team to build something. So we're fortunate to, to, to be growing into being some very, very good growth and to have a team with us that's, that's exceptionally strong for a smaller firm. And that's probably another challenge is how you build a team that's exceptionally small, strong firm. And you know, we, we just have to be very careful with their hiring, recruiting selection process. And, and that's what worked for us kind of relating to keeping costs low. And, and that, that, you know, cash flow crunch is, you know, you gotta build time only when you, when you, when you're running and especially at the beginning, right, you do want to get cash for, and I think that's another piece of advice. You want to have a regular cat cadence for billing. So we bill monthly, for example, every month, you know, at the beginning of the month, somebody goes into the bill, sends them all out. And then and it's, it's, it's a routine and everybody enters their dockets sometime. And we, you know, we send an e-mail around the firm saying, you know, stand the month after your doctors because we're billing and you need the cash in order to keep the fire going and keep the firm growing. And it with the growing firm, of course, that's a challenge because you, you know, you need the cash not just to kind of satisfy current obligations, but if you're growing, you got to ensure that you have enough cash for working capital and other things that you're investing in order to like, if you want to hire somebody, you hire them today, you gotta pay them today, but it might take a few months for them to, to, to generate any revenue, right? So you got to pay today? Amazing. That's fantastic. I think those are all things that people who are considering that path should keep in mind and tell very much about the practical side of it. So thank you for for going into those details. I think that can be quite straightforward when you have the right guidance and the right business mindset. But maybe it's a little bit daunting when you first notice all the big list of things that you have to do. It is, it is, and I find that really set us apart. Well, you know, because, you know, law firm is a law firm, but I think if you, you got, if you're creative in the way you do things, that really pushes you to be different and that really makes the difference. I think in terms of, you know, whether it's a highly successful firm or not a successful firm. So we're pretty creative and marketing. We're pretty creative and hiring the way we approach, for example, we don't do regular OC I, we just don't go through the process because you're competing with everyone else. And we just decided we're not going to compete in that process. There's no need for that. So we hire differently and we and we do marketing differently. And, and I think that's one of the key reasons for our success. So that's my, my advice to anybody starting your own forms, kind of think outside of the box, think how you can do things differently. Try to take, you know, see if there is any paths out there that nobody's taking before perhaps, but there are and and and perhaps they'll work really, really well if you do take that. Fantastic. And on that same note about creativity and all of that, I've read quite a bit of what you put out there on LinkedIn on work life balance, parenting and so forth. And out of curiosity, I'd love to know a little bit about how do you manage running a growing firm while staying present, you know, both as a father, a partner. So is there any kind of like routine or boundary that is specifically help you or, or it's kind of everybody's on board and you know, type sometimes they're busier at the firm, sometimes they're busier in family. How do you specifically manage that? I mean, I think it helps that I don't, it doesn't work, doesn't feel like work. I mean, that's the first thing to me. Work doesn't feel like work. So I don't really notice when I'm working, when I'm not working. It's just, you know, every day is a good day. And then and I kind of just keep going at it. And, and, and I think another thing that was really, really important is your team, right? Like, I mean, the team that we have at the firm is just so terrific. And maybe that's why I worked doesn't feel like work is because everybody is just so great and just does their part. And honestly, if it wasn't for the team, I don't know what we would do, what I would do here. I mean, I'm, I'm, you know, without them, I'm nothing. My partner Igor is also, you know, a terrific, terrific lawyer and the terrific team member. So I mean, I, I don't know if it's really just, yeah. So work life balance, I think from that perspective, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a mixture of kind of how you feel about it. I mean, if work doesn't feel like work and then then you know what, what is work life balance, then, you know, to me, that's all life. I think that's what, that's one aspect of it from I guess a practical perspective, we are a firm that has a 1200 billable hour target. I mean, that's a very, very low and reasonable target compared to a lot of firms out there. They have much higher, other firms have much higher target out there. So that enables people at the firm to, to have, I think a, a work life balance. And the fact that we work from home is another aspect, right? If you think about how long people spend and the commute, if you're going half an hour to work, half an hour from work every single day, 50 work day working days per year, you're spending 250 hours in traffic. We're on the train or something like that, that we are, you know, virtual for him. First. We do have some physical offices where people can come in, but that's entirely optional. So that saves a lot of time and that enables people that work here to have a real work life balance. You know, when you, when you have a lower billable hour target, when you have, you know, no commute, it really adds up and makes it for a really enjoyable environment to be in. And and and for non work obligations, non work things to to to to to the part you know that enables people to take part in things that they might not necessarily have time for otherwise. That's fantastic. No, I love that. Beyond the DIS aspect, I think another aspect that can be quite important is also mentorship and how you start that early on and how you see people who you admire and sometimes will give you some tips and advice, whether through like a formal mentorship or just really true being helpful. So I'd love to hear a little more about that in your perspective as well, if, if you had big influences that mentored you and helped you early on, and then also how that translates into into how you try to be a mentor to others today. Yeah, I think is there a phrase that you're a product of like the five people you spend the most time with, So I think it's helpful to surround yourself with. Great people that you can learn from and they can challenge you. I think that's that's important. And I think again, having a great team around me is, is phenomenal. And, and you know, we all mentor each other in some way, shape or form as by virtual working together and helping each other out. In terms of maybe like more formal, you know, maybe not formal, but more, more people who I look up to, you know, people like Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger are probably some of the people I really, really admire, not for necessarily their financial acumen, which is which is great, but just for the way that they live their life and the values that they uphold. I think that's really important. You know, it's just, you look at Warren Buffett and you know, he lives very, very simple life, very humble life. And, you know, at the age of 94 that he still goes into work and he, you know, does what he loves doing. I've, you know, I, I love what I do. And he, he, you know, he talks about skipping into work and I'm, I'm grateful that I have the same kind of experience skipping into work myself. So it's a lot of fun to do what you enjoy doing. So I, I really look up to people like Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger just for their life lessons and principles that they're willing to share, obviously not directly, but through their, you know, writings and, and just watching videos and their experiences. You know, it's always a good idea to, to learn from the experiences of others. I, I tried to do that on the legal front. I mean, I worked with some incredible lawyers in my life and you learn a lot from the lawyers that you work with. Now, a few names that come to mind. Goss currency was, for example, he taught me something incredibly valuable. You don't always answer your phone call, right. So if you got a phone on, you get a call from the client answer call clients really appreciate that. You have Pat Marley, for example, who is just not only incredible technical lawyer, but also an incredible, you know, rainmaker. So, and there's, there's lots of examples that, you know, you admire and, and learn from people, all sorts of things that Helen Kennebeck, another lawyer who, you know, you, you notice how he treats students and how he treats partners, etcetera. And everybody's treated the same. And I was just, you know, you observe that me saying what a gentleman and in, in the way that he approaches things. There's lots of just terrific lawyers out there who I was fortunate to work with at some point and to observe. Also, you know, I can't necessarily call them all my formal mentors, but there there are people that inspire me to be a better lawyer and who have taught me a lot along the way. I love that. No, I really like that you that you mentioned that especially when people might feel, you know, that they they need to have those formal mentor relationships. Mentorship can really be found anywhere. It can be found in books that can be found through, you know, seeing how other people live their lives. So I really appreciate that it doesn't necessarily come from a one-on-one conversation of somebody who's continually checking on you and all that. So really nice insight that one. 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. To to wrap up today's episode, I was wondering if you have a piece of advice that you'd like to give to law students or lawyers who are just starting off their careers. These podcasts main audience are people in that demographic right now. So I'd love to hear what kind of thing maybe you wish you had heard earlier in your career or something that looking at the market nowadays you notice. Love to hear some of your thoughts. Yeah, sure. I mean, I think law students have a lot of options. So they could go and work at a large firm, a small firm, they could work in government, but they cannot pursue career in law. I think it's all subject to individual preferences, right? And it's not for me to you tell anyone what what they will enjoy doing. And I think it's important for people to consider what they enjoy doing and making that decision. Yeah. You know, I, I always thought that, you know, I want to live my life in a way that minimizes the number of regrets that I have. And the path that I'm following is, is the one that that that allows me to do that right? That if if I'm old, I want to say I live the life the way I wanted to live, live it. And I find that sometimes people don't do that. Sometimes people do things for procedure, for money or for other things. And they don't necessarily enjoy their life and, and, and, and they are not happy. I would rather be, have no money and be very happy and what with what I'm doing there rather than have lots of money and big miserable. That's kind of been my general approach in life. And I think it worked really well for me and I hope it works well for others. As I said, I skip into work every single day kind of like we're involved with this. It's, it's, it's, it's a lot of fun. I enjoy opening up emails. I look forward to Mondays. I mean, it's just some weird things for, for potentially for some people, right, But but not for me. And I find that if you enjoy what you're doing, if you enjoy the people that you're working with and you get the right spouse, the rest of the life doesn't really matter too much. Get those three things right. The rest is easy. So that's kind of my parting devices that are trying to focus on and on on those three things as students get a job or do what you enjoy doing, work with people you enjoy working with and and and and and find the right spouse and then the rest should just take care of that on my. Mind, that's fantastic. Well, Alex, really thank you so much for taking the time to be a part of the podcast today. Really appreciate. It my pleasure Claudia, thank you very much for having. Me Thank you all for tuning in and we'll see you on the next episode.