The Power of Showing Up and Building Bridges with Peter Hawkins

Welcome to studying law Around the world. I'm Claudio Klaus. 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. 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. Today we have the opportunity to listen to Peter Hawkings. Peter spoke a lot about networking in the past and who is a great mentor to people who are wanting to learn more about it. Thank you so much for joining us today, Peter. I am delighted to be here. Thank you very much for inviting me. To introduce you to our audience, would you mind introducing yourself? Sure, I'm happy to. So I am the co-owner of who is the Brazilian in the mix. I am Co chair of the Brazil Canada Chamber of Commerce, which I just got reelected, which is always nice. And I'm a mentor to newcomers, women reentering the workforce, new grads and really anybody without a network. What I found was in my own career and then with Mellanox specifically, we hire newcomers and in fact I'm the only Canadian born person in the company. Everybody is from somewhere else. And since they had terrible stories of how they got here and and what they had to go through, I decided I would make it my mission to tell people, OK, this is what you can do. These are the strategies you can use so you don't have to go through all that terrible crap to get here. And I've actually spoken to lots of young lawyers and, you know, Brazil has a real sophistication when they're bringing, when lawyers are immigrating here. And those who have actually done all the training to be both legal in Brazil and legal here are really, really good, really sophisticated. However, everybody needs help networking and I'm happy to do that. That's amazing. Thank you so much for your willingness to be here in the podcast today and also for all the work you do for for people all around the globe really who are coming here to Canada. And I've, I took the liberty of, you know, putting some questions together here. I watched a few of your previous podcasts as well, and I love learning about your story. From what I understand you, you grew up in somewhat of a countryside, part of the country and, and came to an industry that you didn't know much about. So it's amazing that you've, you know, just really built that for yourself and solve that first. Hand Well, you know, it's funny. I come from New Brunswick, which is a small province. I actually, it's funny I say that, but I only lived there in my teenage years. As a kid, I lived in Nova Scotia and then I went to Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. But in those formative teenage years where you build your friends and you build your connections. And it's quite funny because it is a very rural area and my parents had retired by that point, living in a farm and my sister has an organic farm next door. But when when you know, Facebook, suddenly I was reconnected to all the people I graduated from high school with and they went on to have successful lives in politics and business and in farming. It was wonderful to reconnect with those people, but it was also wonderful to see that the world now could connect online. It didn't have to be there. And then in the next part of the career move is I came to came W to Ontario because everybody comes to Toronto looking for jobs. And once we're here, I found myself, you know, at odds and did all the bartending jobs and all the waitering jobs and all that stuff. And I got a job at McClelland Stewart Publishers, a very beautiful publisher with lovely books. But we did The Handmaid's Tale. We did The English Patient Wants a big, big, lovely books and bright and early played a small part in them. And it worked there for 10 years and loved it. And however, we were brought by a German company and suddenly I was 40 years old, was out of a job and I was really overpaid in a dying industry. And so, you know, said, look, I want to start this straight forwarding company and I need you to be there. And so we started it and he actually started it. Then I, I sulked for four months and then I joined. And then, so then it's, it's funny, I barely knew what freight forwarding was. And then I owned the company and so it was, it was crazy to learn about international shipping and how it works and all this kind of stuff. And, but ultimately then as we started hiring people, we realized what we needed and what we needed was that international expertise. We needed people who knew the home markets. We needed people who had a great facility with language. And once that all got in place, I realized that my real value too was helping those people and others negative navigate what happens here in Canada, how we do business, you know, being kind of the gringo and the mix it. And we've never looked back. It's been 20-3 years and it's been a wonderful ride with the company. And in addition to that, though, and it was Brazilian, and so they had lots of access to Brazilian stuff, and that got me volunteering in different organizations, including the Brazil Canada Chamber of Commerce, the BBC, and other communications. And that's been really rewarding as well. Sometimes careers are completely accidental, no matter what you do, no matter what you try to do. Absolutely. And going into the topic of today's podcast, I'd love to hear a little bit about your views and your commentary specifically starting up on online presence and LinkedIn. So I've, I've heard some of your great comments about, you know, people should do this and that for a picture on LinkedIn, people should do, you know, different, different things. And I love how practical those are. So I'd love to start by asking what's something lawyers often do on LinkedIn that maybe looks strategic but could backfire when it comes to, you know, building trust, actually getting work, getting business? So there's a couple of things here that I think are very interesting. COVID was the great equalizer. Once COVID kicked in and people are working from home, you no longer had to reach out through the people who keep the gates closed. You suddenly could access the actual decision maker. And with that in play, I found more and more people could access the decision maker, but they weren't ready to access the decision maker because no matter how professional you were in person, no matter how good you are person, if your online presence doesn't make you look professional, then when you're reaching out, the other person is thinking, my God, who is this? You know, they're just dying a little bit. So I try to get everybody to understand that we do judge a book by its cover. And so you have to make sure that your LinkedIn and your other communications are all completely professional. And I am a big believer in understanding what you can control. You can control this. These are, you know, people say, oh, well, it's out of my control. No, it's not. If you spent two hours on your LinkedIn profile, two hours, you could change the way people perceive you. Alright, that that is it Because while you're sleeping, people snooping and they're looking at your LinkedIn. But if you're LinkedIn is incomplete or if it's got links on it that don't connect to anywhere, if you've got, you know, some portfolio you haven't checked in ages, if you yourself haven't posted in weeks or months, that that's all ridiculous. And so I always say, first of all, do the background banner image and that's that long horizontal image. It is 20% of the profile we see on the screen. So if you are a lawyer and you are an internationally trained lawyer who can work in Canada, then I want to see your home flags. I want to see Canadian flags. I want to see handshakes. I want to see images that reinforce that. OK, I do not want to see nature, don't want to see flowers, don't want to see ME buttons, don't wanna see a quote from Nelson Mandela. I want to see something that really does make me think that you are a lawyer. OK. And we're talking about law in this particular case. The next thing is the photo. Lawyers always do that very severe non smiling pose and and with the hands folded, right? They always do the hands folded. And I'm always saying, OK, that's not the lawyer I want. I want the lawyer who is welcoming to me. And so I say smile, keep your hair under control. Wear a jacket. For guys that's a white shirt and maybe a tie and a dark jacket. For women it is a simple blouse and a jacket. Jackets are what professionals wear. And then and just a pleasant warm smile. And all that does is make me stop two or three seconds longer on your profile when I'm shopping around for lawyers, if I'm shopping around for staff, if I'm shopping around for somebody who is professional, I want them to look professional. And so in the names, I want one first name, one last name. Brazilians have a gazillion names. And you know, when I look at the list of the BCBA, which is an organization I love, and then I see those names that I'm thinking, Oh my goodness, who the hell has five names? Well, plenty of people here. So one first name, one last name. And then very important too, on your headline, which is the characters under your name or something else. LinkedIn doesn't really like it, but I like it. Put your credentials, your, your, the, the letters of your degrees right beside your name because I want to see it front and centre what you've trained, been trained for because that shows me that you have the dedication to do it. So I want to see that right beside your name. Then under the underneath your headline, you have 260 characters. I want to see the keywords, you know, if you, what kind of litigation you do, what kind of networking you networks you belong to. I want to know if you're multilingual, all of that stuff. Don't put your company name and your school name. Again, that's already going to show up on the right hand side of your profile. So in that 260 characters that goes to 4 lines. You can jam a lot in there. Then under contact information, fill it out. Please give me a phone number, please give me an e-mail. Don't give me your birthday, not gonna send you any gifts. I always said when I see people put their birthday and I think, well, I can steal your ID now. So don't put your birthday in. And in fact, I know plenty of people when your birthday comes up, that's when they delete you, OK, because you've got so much activity on your profile and you're not going to notice. So don't, don't give reason people a reason to say no. I also it's, it's funny, I've seen plenty of people who say, Oh, I don't like that person. They're Capricorn. And so if you have, you know, don't give people a reason to say no, That's what I say over and over again. So good contact, complete contact information. And then from there, I think everybody should just remember to have a complete about essay. And we really want to know something about you. You can have it both in paragraph form and in point form and just the key things that matter to you and make it long enough so that when I click read more, the algorithm of LinkedIn shows that you are that there's activity on your profile. Alright. And so you need it to be long enough that that happens. And then otherwise you're going to put your experience on there, you know, in reverse chronological order. If you have some outstanding volunteerism that happens at the very end of your profile, put it up in your essay and maybe even reference a little bit in your headline. OK, because the BBC is my volunteer work, but it's very definitely one of my key credentials. So I put it up at the very top and make sure that that is something front and centre that people can see. But it's, it's funny, I mean, I'm giving all these very practical comments, but I want to remind people why they're doing LinkedIn. All right? Number one, you're doing it so that people can find you online and it'll be more likely they'll look there than they will on a website for your law firm. And the other thing that I think is super important for people to remember is that you can pick up all kinds of clients and business by having that profile there, OK? I think that's something that's very, very important. 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. Perfect. Well, something that I, that I taught you go forward is also in this context of being a law student, right. So there's multiple different ways of being a law student right now in Canada, be it an internationally trained lawyer who is currently going through some additional credentials in Canada in order to become a lawyer here. And that doesn't have a lot of experience back home or in Canada. And you know, there's all these different scenarios that we could put up here. But overall, what I hear a lot from law students is that they feel like they either don't have anything to post about or they can't post because they don't have, you know, a specific point of view or something like that. And, and you just mentioned that it would be important to keep up to date, you know, having posts going, have, you know, some activity going on. So I wanted to ask you, what's 1 type of post that maybe could work better for people who don't have necessarily some work experience or some specific point of view or something to, to necessarily teach? Is there, is there anything you've seen people doing that works? Or is there something in your personal experience you believe that would be beneficial? I see people all the time post. I've just been promoted to this. I've just learned this certification. Great. However, I believe that if you were to post a decision just came down on X and I think that they clearly considered these issues as being more important than something else. So if in other words, you're posting a commentary on some decision that's in the news, alright, that makes you thoughtful, it makes you interactive with the LinkedIn algorithm. And I can't impress upon you how important that is because just because you're on LinkedIn doesn't mean your name is going to come up for anything. The algorithm works that the person who is more active on LinkedIn will rise higher than ones who aren't. So the best qualified person is not the person who gets the job. It is the person who has the balanced amount of activity. So I think if you spot someone else who has posted something about some topic that is hot, that is in the news, that is relevant, then sharing that with your comments. And so you know, saying, I'm just trying to think of a decision that might have come down. It can be anything from green space to there has been an increase in unqualified people claiming to provide what could be conceived as legal advice. It, you know, how useful is small claims court, What are the differences? You could even talk about what the differences are between Brazilian law and Canadian law or any kind of law around the world, because I think the topics are actually endless. And here's the thing, ChatGPT is your friend. And So what I would do is certainly put in some prompts of your opinion, your viewpoints and see what Chachi BT generates. And I can tell it ChatGPT article right away because it's 1000 words or it's 500 words, but you want the post that is 75 wins. OK. And then you're gonna look and see what CPT generates. You're going to tweak that to make it. And really you're looking for the structure that it's providing. You're going to tweak it. And I think in 20 minutes you can have a post and doing 20 minutes once a week, you can have a very interesting post on something. So you know, you're going to cut and paste part of an article and you're going to say, I would like to comment on this. I agree. And I think they consider the following points and then see what it generates. And then you have a post because people are always saying I don't have time. And they're also saying I'm worried about my English. The fact is that you do have time because everything is being done for you nowadays. And in my communications, I have 3 or 400 mails a day. No one can deal with three or 400 emails a day, not at all. So I am whipping through things as fast as possible. And I absolutely have many AI templates that I use for different communications to make sure that things are speed up as quickly as possible. Because by and large, people have the same kind of problems. But in terms of the posts that you can do, and you can even do a post about your international experience, the fact that you came to this country, why did you come here? You know, because if we're talking about Brazilians, we're talking about people who love their country, but they came to this country for some reason or other. So let's hear why. Let's, it can be good and bad. It has to be short, it has to be relevant. And so you can do plot leadership, which means that you're going to write an article about something new. You can do commentary, which means you've seen an article and you're commenting on it or you've seen someone else's post and you're commenting on it. And I will tell you that's a great strategy because that is also the way that you do connecting that your network. So let's talk about that for a second. The the way to network and online networking is really effective as you start identifying who you want to target, whether it's a law firm and someone in that law firm or it's a large organization and you were looking to be their counsel or whatever it is you're looking for. You find those individuals and if they post, you're going to not press connect or not. You're going to follow them, but you're not going to press connect and you're going to comment on whatever they posted. It is going to be thoughtful, it is going to be upbeat and it's going to have an open-ended question, non yes or no question. So somebody posts, my company is now doing XXX and you know, it's one of those banal, you know, boring posts and you're going to comment. It's so exciting that you moved in that direction. I have often thought that that would be the next thing you would do. What made you come to that decision? OK, And suddenly you're having a connection with this person. If they answer, then you actually have a warm connection when you press connect, OK. And so this is how you are treating it like a conversation and you're being a human being. And the, the how question, how did you come to that response? How did you feel when you, when this particular thing happened? Whatever it is, you can, you're, you're, you're really engaging people and you should do two or three a day, OK, Because again, the, how much you use LinkedIn and how much externalization and how much LinkedIn members come to you raise your profile. And I talk about LinkedIn all the time because it is our professional profile. Like people say, well, I'm a lawyer and a doctor, I don't really need it. Yes, you do. People are looking. People are looking. And so make it as professional as possible so that we can understand what you're doing. And it is a great way to connect with people. When you do the connect request, you're always send a note. And that note is never resume. That note is always asking its greet. Hello, Peter Hawkins, Compliment. You're terrific. And ask for advice. I would like to know how to get a job in Canada, whatever it is. OK. So yeah, it's great. Compliment, ask for advice. But before you do that, you're going to thoughtfully comment on their posts. What do you think of? That sounds amazing. That sounds like a great framework and as I said, so very actionable. That makes it especially valuable for people who are listening to this and who are maybe have exactly those objections, you know, thinking, hey, I have to juggle my billable targets. I have exams to take care of, but these are just small, consistent habits that can build up connections and can build up that network. And as you said, thought leadership commenting, so many options. You can get a good mix of everything there, right? I thought you just transition here moving forward to the end of our conversation today. I wanted to ask you also about we do build those connections and start getting people kind of rolling into my LinkedIn page, getting those conversations going. What's the good point of it? Do you feel like most of these conversations as they're fruitful and all of that, they should be moved into an into an in person interaction after that, should we, you know, be scheduling coffee chats and then getting to know those people in one-on-one settings, in person and all of that? Is that what you feel like the the natural transition should be and what young Laura should be striving for as they connect to more people? I'm going to say yes or no and I'm going to start with the no. I get asked to have a coffee chat five times a day and I don't have time for any of them. And they say, well, you drink coffee. Yes, I drink coffee at my desk. And So what I try to do is if a group of people want to contact me, I say, let's set up a zoom And even, you know, I can tell you a date and we can recruit everybody and you can all we can do a group Zoom and you can answer your basic questions there. And then we can decide what to do next. Because sometimes the coffee chat is an informational chat. They're not asking for job, they're looking For more information. But people do want that personal touch. I'm one person and I can't talk to everybody. You know it, it has been, I've actually mentored more than 10,000 people in the last 15 years. And so I, you know, I don't have time. That's all there is to it. So I don't think an in person meeting is valuable unless there is a real movement forward in some particular action. You're up for potential interview, you're doing some coaching, there's something you can work together and you'll have to remember too. It's a give and take. You can't just be asking for something, you have to be offering something. And what people do to me, which I just die over what they offer me is more people who need help. I'm always like, don't do that to me. You help them, now you can help them. You don't need me, you can do it. And so that is something that makes me cringe. However, on the other side of things, where the, the, the connection is really valuable is if you identify an event where you both can go and meet at that event. OK. And then in those cases, when you go up, be sure and say your first name and your last name. The number of people who come up to me and say, hi, I'm Shuang. And I say wonderful. I know more than 30 Swans. Which one are you? And because I've only met people online or on Zoom and you look very different in person. And it is going to those introducing yourself and again, looking like your picture. So don't do a glamour shot with all kinds of makeup. Look like your picture, OK? If you wear glasses, wear glasses in the picture. And so then you can come in and make that connection and say hello. And then people see if they really like you. And that's when, of course, you need your elevator pitch. And your elevator pitch is also the first line of your European essay. So Hi, I'm Peter Hawkins, and I was a lawyer in Brazil, and now I'm studying here, Osgood, and I am looking for opportunities here. OK, You make it very, very clear and very short. 5 seconds, OK? Because it's how you greet yourself and how you greet the new person. So for instance, Claudia, how would you cover yourself with if I came up and you saw me and you were coming up, what would you say? I'll probably. Say hi, I'm Claudia Claus. I was a lawyer in Brazil and now I'm student at UFT and I'm about to start my articling in real estate and corporate law and I'm really interested in knowing more people in the. Field. Fantastic. That's it. Simple. I know exactly who you are. Nice smile. That's that's all you need. But going to a networking function, going to any public function and not shaking the hand of every person there means you failed. OK, I don't know if you ever saw me in action, but I say hello to everybody. I was going to ask about that, you know, to wrap up today's episode, if that was natural to you. If you put an effort and now it's it happens more and more and how can more people do that? You just do it. You everybody wants to meet somebody. If you stand in the corner and talk to the person you came with the entire time, you failed, OK, At every event. Hello. Hi. I'm Claudio Claus. You know, I was Laurie in Brazil and now I'm at UT, you know, and you know, especially interested in real estate if you bought a house lately, you know, and just talk to everyone, shake their hands, ask a follow up question, OK. It's a minimum 2 questions and it's a minimum of 7 minutes with each person, OK? Which makes it hard to shake hands with everybody, but you're still going to work the room. If you're a 2 hour event, you have time to shake hands with everybody in the room. OK. And the other thing too is I break up groups. Group is talking. I break in. Hi, everybody, I'm Peter. Shake hands and I just take over. It is and then I go to the next group and then go back talking about whatever they were talking about. But the fact is I am their networking. Everybody will know who I am and I finished in that room. Everybody should know who you are. Everybody should know who everyone is and your audience, OK. That is what networking is, making sure they know who you are, they know what you have to offer and they like. You, and I must say this to people who are listening and who are maybe going to go to an event where Peter is, he's amazing at introducing you to other people too. I've, I've found that you have that superpower of being a connector. You're like, oh, you're studying. Well, let me introduce you to the lawyers who are here in the event. And you just did that. It was just fantastic. I'm so glad you said that because what I tried to do with everybody, when we do organize those events, I have these ambassadors, the, that my volunteers who were all trained to do just that too. They find, you know. Oh, so you're a lawyer. Let me introduce you to somebody else. No one should stand alone and you should never, you know, be talking to the person who brought you. OK, So we go ahead and just pull them in, have a conversation. And I try to give that in, you know. So what do you do? Oh, I sell widgets. And what do you do? I do contracts and I say, great, he sells stuff. You create contracts, have a conversation. And are you, you know, are you looking for a place to sell? Maybe they have some contacts there too. And then I just walk away and let them do it because again, as a connector, I'm not the guy who's going to run the conversation. I can, but it'll be about me and it should be about you. Well, that's amazing. Thank you so much for all these insights, Peter. Much appreciated to to get to know a little more about know your thoughts and how you operate as well in that that scenario that feels like you're a very natural chew. So really appreciate your thoughts and and really appreciate your time to be here in the podcast today. Claudia is my absolute pleasure and I, I hope people find it valuable and it's been a real delight to talk to you and to learn a little bit more about you. I was actually at a BCBA call and people were saying the nicest things about you. You know, congratulations, you're, you're doing something right. That's, that's very good to know. Thank you so much and thank you all for tuning into today's episode and we'll see you on the next one.