The Business of Law with Y. Jay Baykara

Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of Studying Law Around the World. Today I got the chance to chat with UJ about his experiences in studying abroad, building his own practice and business as a law professional in Canada. Thank you so much for joining us today, UJ. Thank you for having me. It's kind of, it's going to be fun, Claudio. I'm super excited for this. And, you know, to start off our conversation, I'd love for our listeners to get to know a little bit about you. So can, can we start this off by you telling a little bit about your career journey and also your education? Like what, what, what does your resume look like? Oh, the 11-second elevator pitch. I'm currently The CEO of KSI Law, which is a leading creditor rights and creditor services firm in Canada. We have multiple offices and we service essentially the entire credit cycle for every major corporation and business in Canada. So that's, that's the simple thing. But the flip side of it is I was a government-trained litigator. I articled there, I worked in ministries and whatnot, ventured into private practice, started my own firm. I have multiple businesses that I started on the side because I've always had an entrepreneurial flair. I ended up becoming a partner of a large mid-sized firm in Toronto and the GTA. And timing worked out that it was better off to go and start KSI and kind of like the big, the big corporation of that. Amazing. And I remember from the first conversation we had, you mentioned that you got the chance to study for some time abroad. Can you tell us some more about that? The simple story is this, and I'll tell this one because it has a fun flair to it. My best friend and I were sitting in a bar when we decided to go to law school, and he's a big surfer, and he was like, let's go to Australia because we didn't want to go to any of— sorry, I'm going to say it this way— the boring schools in Canada. Look, no offense to those ones. And it just kind of correlated because we were in our mid-20s and we wanted an adventure in a sense. And Australia was way too far at the time. I was like, nope, I'm not sitting on that flight. So a friend of mine ended up going to England and he ended up in Manchester. And I've been a diehard Manchester United fan since I was a child. So that's kind of where that stemmed from. And when we were doing the research for it, they had a wonderful, I'm going to call it like a joint program. It's kind of like, it's a merge of an exchange and a joint program. So what ends up happening is the, in your second year of law school, you get to go to another law school. So I was fortunate enough to go to the University of North Carolina in my second year of law school. So I got to do England and the United States all in one shot. So I had that experience, which was really, really cool. And it was actually a championship year for UNC that year, and Duke ended up winning. But for the people that watch college basketball, because it's March Madness right now. And after that, I knew that NCAs were something that we had to do, which a lot of people who are probably listening to this podcast actually end up doing. So We thought of this brilliant idea that we should go do a master's degree in law and compensate out the credits that we would do in that instead of the NCAA. So instead of getting just an NCAA diploma, we get a master's degree as well. Kind of worked out for me. So I'll take it as a win. That's fantastic. And speaking of that, that experience abroad, then do you feel like some of how you think about law and business, that perspective Do you think that also was like heavily influenced by your experiences abroad? How do you see that? Yeah. How do I say this? Like, because you're being exposed not to just a different culture, right? Or a different continent or anything like that. You have to kind of adapt to the norms of those places. And I think it makes people stronger because it forces you to get out of your comfort, right? When, when you're kind of in the place you grew up or dealing with the people that, you know, you kind of feel comfortable and boring. It's boring in a sense, right? When you're jammed in a room with people of different cultures and different ways of doing business and different ways of education even, right? It forces you to adapt that. And I think that forced me and led to my own success where you could walk into a room and force yourself to introduce yourself to anybody, right? Because when you show up to a new country, you don't know anybody. So how do you meet people? You literally have to introduce yourself. And I think that is, is, is a big, big factor that kind of helped in this situation. I know that you've mentioned before a lot about like how you've, how you felt in yourself that you're a very entrepreneurial person, right? You've, you've noticed that from early on. And I'd love to hear a little more about, you know, what does business mean to you beyond the, the traditional or legal definition of that? This is going to be a controversial opinion. So I'm going to, I'm going to put an asterisk and a warning because some people might not like this, but that's okay because You know what? It's, it's a free country and we get to say what we want. I think a lot of people forget that business and law are no different from one another. Lawyers are the service provider. The commodity is the lawyer. You're providing that service where the law societies will try to teach you that it's the practice of law. You're practicing to be a practitioner of that. But ultimately, when a client comes to you, they're expecting a business service for something that they cannot do. And I think that there's been a lost generation in that. And what I mean by that is if you speak to lawyers who are called and practiced in the 1970s and the 1980s, like pre-technology, they understand that it was a practice, right? They define that service. And then when you speak to lawyers who are kind of in that digital conversion phase of the '90s and the early 2000s, they realize Their practice started to become more of a service. And right now I think there's a big divide, especially in the legal field, of that practice versus service. And if you go to any major firm, any large firm, any global, like multinational, they're a service provider. The lawyers just provide that service for them. And if anyone coming out of law school, new to their, new to the profession, you know, a young lawyer can understand and differentiate that they are the service provider to market that service, they'll be very, very successful in their career. I feel like there's this whole idea of like the honor of the profession and how it should be seen in this special way, but I like to give it a practical aspect. I know that it has, I'm sure it has to do a lot with like the history of how law developed itself all through, you know, the world and how much it was even an inaccessible profession in many ways. So there was all this, you know, care for it to be almost a priesthood of some sorts. But I think it's— Okay. I'm sorry. On that question, if you, if you go to the traditional English definition of that, I think you're very, very much on the point, right? Because in, in the traditional common law systems where I don't think Canada falls into this one, when you become a legal practitioner, you're either a barrister and a court officer. Or solicitor, which is, quote me if I'm wrong, some form of a Latin derivative of a service provider, right? And the practice of law, the art of law, I think falls more in the litigation aspect of it. You're right. You have to present a case. You have to stir that emotion. You have to get a jury to buy into the story because ultimately it's 2 sides presenting one story to a group of individuals. And the only way to change that is the show. Right. Great. But if I'm the business person and I go to a solicitor side, I'm going to do a real estate transaction. I'm going to do an M&A. I'm going to do a private equity loan. Those are straight transactions, an A to B transaction. That is not really a practice. It's become mechanical in a sense. When you purchase a house here in Ontario, there's a flow of how to purchase that house. No offense to the people that do that. Where's the practice? Where's the practicality to that one? It's just a service and there's nothing wrong with that. And I don't want your listeners or anyone to derive of a demeaning statement. There's not. We need that service. That's a necessary service. And I expect it at the high level that the profession puts themselves at. Absolutely. That's why people go to school. That's why. But to lose that aspect of it, and from a business standpoint, To lose that and just say we are a practitioner that provides a practice, well, I don't know what that means. I really don't. I want a service. I want a consistent service that comes with some level of consistency, like any other business. Right. And if I may ask then, digging a little deeper into that, great, we understand the difference then, or we understand what the view is on business. But when did you first realize that, that law has to do, you know, with business as well, that it's like beyond a profession, but that you have to do business to make sure that the profession is done? Also controversial. When I interviewed at a big law firm, when they ask you the questions of the type of lawyer you want to be and the type of practitioner you want to be, if you read between the lines, they're not really asking you who you want to be. It's actually the flip side. It's, can you be the practitioner and the service provider that our company or our firm provides our clients? And I was in Vancouver and I'm not going to name the firm, but it was a very large, you know, sister 7 downtown firm where I realized this. And again, at the time I didn't appreciate it because I was a very young lawyer. Now, many years later, decade, a decade later, gonna date me a little bit. I now understand that because I respected it. I, I don't just— I respect it 100% because those large firms, any firm has a client base that provides that service. And when you as a junior lawyer want to go and learn that, you have to mold into that like any business. You have to say, I can meet the standards that this firm has. And if you take the emotional aspect of it, because I know there's probably some of your listeners who are like, I want to interview at a big firm, I'm not good enough, it nothing to do with that. It has nothing to do with the individual's ability to do that. It has more to do with, does you, the practitioner skill set, meet the service that this firm provides? And can you provide it at that level? And that's the moment I realized that. Well, that's so interesting. And then moving on, you, you started our podcast mentioning that there was just a point in your career that you noticed it would be, you know, you would be better off doing your own business in that idea of the word of the conversation where you were staring at. So You know, how did that come about? Was it by observing what other lawyers were doing in firms and the whole, you know, financial system involved with law firms and the practice? You know, what was the mindset necessary for that, for, you know, starting up on your, on your own firm? Yeah. What were some of your thoughts on that? So that's kind of two-sided. So if I'm going to answer the second half of it more first, it's what I do and what my firm does and our brand and everything is very, very niche and very tailored to creditors and creditor rights and what we do in that one. So to provide that level of service and the expectation and the client experience and the things that I want to do in a business to do so, I couldn't do that in a traditional firm fashion. I tried that. I did that for a very long period of time, very successfully. But in its long-term iteration for that to grow, it's very difficult to say, hey, firm that's been around for multiple decades, let's change the way you do business. Let's go back to the previous question of, Does the service that I provide, will it meet that standard? No, that's what bridged out to that one. Where I kind of in the beginning half of my career realized that is when I got into private practice, you kind of starve in a sense. And what I mean by that is you go out in the world, you have a law degree, you have a robe, you got called to the bar. Yay. Everyone does that, right? And I'm not discounting that. What I— don't take that statement. It's a very monumental point to get there. It's very difficult. There's a reason why law schools and the bar exam and the law studies do that. It's, it's, it's a very important, like life-defining point. But a lot of people forget what comes after that point. You work up to that moment, you get your robe and you cross the line at, at, at the ceremony and you, great. And then what? That's really the question. And then what? And this goes back to my point of the commodity and the service provider. You are ultimately the service provider. You have to go out in the world and say, hey world, I need to provide this service. And everybody's version of that is very different. What you will do as a service provider is different than what I will do as a service provider. And some people might take 5 years, some people might take an entire career. And that's kind of you finding your way and finding about that. And it really came to a point in my early end of the career saying, I don't want to define myself in the places I work. I want to define myself with the people I work with and the service I provide. And that's kind of how I got into this, right? It's not a noble idea. It's more of what you want to do, how you want to do it. And everyone's story is different. And that's why we share our stories, right? And there's no one in the same. So it ultimately comes down to how is it that you want to be the best at what you want to do? And I know that sounds general and very father-like of a statement, but there's nothing really wrong with that. That sounds so interesting. I feel like in a way, in many ways, there's lawyers who would like to be more entrepreneurial, but maybe there's lots of things preventing that from happening. Did you have any, you know, fears at first when, when you were going to start your own entrepreneurial idea? Basically like. How do you, how do one get over that kind of, you know, self-objection in a way? That's a great way to look at this. It's probably one of the scariest things you can do. And what I mean by that is when you, when you work hard enough and you, you go to a firm that's established and has a client base and does what it is, you're, you're already given the opportunity to work, right? So you get a little comfortable. That's how I look at it. In the entrepreneurial world, which I learned this before, you lose that safety net. You don't know where the next paycheck is coming from. You don't know how to put food on the table. You don't know how you're going to make your car payment because nothing is guaranteed. So I'm going to sound like a crazy inspirational Instagram post right now, but you have to bet on yourself. And I think everyone has that ability, especially in the private sector, to do that because If you bet on yourself to get through law school, you can keep betting on yourself for the rest of your life. And then there's nothing wrong with that. And where I realized something about that is different. I'm, everything I do is my fault, good or bad. And if I'm the one in control of that, if something bad happens, I can only be mad at myself. If I work for somebody and they lose a client and I lose my job and I can't put food on my table, that's not my fault. That has nothing to do with me. So why would I want to lose that control? of my own autonomy to somebody else. I would rather put that in my own hands and say, this is the way I want to build something and the business. And this goes back to, again, we keep going back in circles, back to the service I want to provide. So it's ultimately all my fault and there's nothing wrong with that one. But I will say this to everyone in here, you will lose sleep. You might lose your hair. Thankfully I did not. You will be stressed out for hours and hours and hours, but Like any good example I can use, like a farm, if you plant the seeds and you nurture it and you take care of it and you mend and tend to it, it will eventually grow. Fantastic. That's a, that's a great way to look at it. Um, and, and, you know, I really like what you just came to say, you know, about basically, if you could put it in better words, it would end up being, you know, the whole mission and vision statements. But I guess we just don't need to call them that, you know, but, but when they truly are there, that's how they come about. So if I may ask you about how do people get clients? I feel like you become a partner at a big law firm by bringing in business, right? That's like one of the big parts of it. And then how do you even build a book of business? But how do you do that early in your career? So I'm just interested to hear about, I'm sure being entrepreneurial, being very outgoing. You were in a way doing that for other people, if I understand it right, before having your own firm. So do you have any tips, any ideas for, you know, young lawyers looking into starting that? Maybe you don't want to go solo yet, but you want to get better at business development, quote unquote, as it's officially called. What do you have to say about that? So that's funny because you, you use the word solo and I, I wouldn't say that it's limited to solo practitioners. I think the business development side of it. applies to all lawyers across the board. And that goes, goes on to the idea that you still always want to develop your business. You're never going to be satisfied with the client base that you have. So you've got to keep building it. Now, the benefit you have as a young lawyer, and again, it doesn't apply to everyone because everyone's family circumstances are different, but use this idea. You spent all that time in law school learning the law. You spend all that time studying, you spend all that extracurricular time out of class, and you put that into practice, and then you get a law degree and you do that. So when you flip that in the business world, the actual equation is the exact same thing. Your daytime job becomes the class that you're at, and your nighttime job becomes the getting yourself out there in a sense, right? And that's essentially the answer to anything. And the word partner only comes into play is that when you can self-sustain your own book of business, that you become a partner to the business because you're paying for yourself. And the only way to do that is to get yourself out there. Now, I'm going to also put an asterisk on that. That might not be for everybody. And there's nothing wrong with that either. And I don't want people to misinterpret that statement. And right now, let's use an example because Suits is back on TV and people love that television show and they think that life is like Suits and all. There is a necessary In any business of the operations people or the, essentially the solicitors. And then there's the rainmaker people that bring in the business. Both of them need each other. It's a harmonious existence because I might not be good at something, but I'll bring somebody that is, and that person might not be good at what I do. So they bring me, they, they both coexist and it's both important. So for the people that are young in their career and want to be in control of their clients, get out there. Get out there, introduce yourself to every single person that you can absolutely do that to and meet and shake their hands, look them in the eye, understand their business, understand their problems, because you might not be able to provide a solution today, but I guarantee you'll be able to provide a solution tomorrow. And that is kind of how you build it, because if it's memorable enough in that conversation, they will call you, right? Everyone has a problem, so you can't beat yourself up because you couldn't get that deal closed today. But promise you, if you keep doing it, like the farm example, over and over again, and plant as many seeds as you possibly can, they will all grow all in time. And time is really the answer to that question. Fantastic. I just really like to start up, you know, what, what you started saying, that business development is ongoing. It doesn't stop at any point. You always want to, you know, either grow bigger or improve quality or, you know, bring more clients and all of that together at the same time for most instances, I'm sure. Taking, taking all of that into consideration and just the The good advice you just gave to young lawyers, to people finishing up law school and so forth. Going back into your first part of the experience into studying abroad, people who are, you know, thinking about, you know, either pre-law students or people who are still early enough in their law school career where they could, you know, use the 3L to, to take some time out of the country and all of that. I was wondering, after all these years after school. And seeing, you know, how much school and work really correlate, would you still, you know, be a big advocate and be somebody who endorses and thinks that the idea of studying abroad really is beneficial for anyone or for most people? Well, there's 2 parts to that question you asked. Is it abroad and does the law degree help? So let's start with the law degree. A law degree helps anyways because it teaches you a way of thinking, right? The practical application of that is ultimately up to you. Can you apply it to business? Yes, because it's an analytical And an abstract way of thinking. So any lawyer is trained to solve a problem. You might not know the answer, but you're taught in law school where to find an answer and to kind of correlate that into a solution. Try to argue against that. That doesn't apply in every scenario, whether you want to do, go to be a medical practitioner, a business person, an entrepreneur, a philanthropist, it doesn't matter. I think the law education in itself is beneficial, right? I think the part you have to take away is I don't want people to watch Suits and think that's what your law is, law career is going to be off the bat. It's not. It won't. Your career becomes what you make of it. Where you start your career doesn't define where you end your career. Something good or bad that happens in the middle doesn't change anything in the end. It's ultimately what you choose to do with it. In my case, I, and I'm going to date myself because it's 2025. I went to law school abroad in the late 2000s. And to be fair, coming back to Canada, there was some degree of classism of, of, you know, the law students in Canada are better than the ones from abroad at the time. I am going to give the kudos to all the people that have changed that over the years, right? It's been 15 plus years for me that I've been just observing it and I know the International Trained Lawyers Association is having a conference in Calgary coming up in April, and they've done a wonderful job of kind of advocating for foreign lawyers to come and, you know, benefit the Canadian legal system. There's been more, you know, education and understanding, or individuals like myself who've, you know, gotten into positions that don't really discriminate on the level of education. And what I mean by that is I've litigated in my previous iterations of my career against some of the best that came out of the big schools in Canada. And damn right, I beat them really badly because it's not about what you learned in school, right? But this goes back to the practice of law. But there is a better chance now of getting into the places that people want to be. Regardless of where they're trained from. And I think that's purely from individuals like yourself who are going to go and spread the education of it to individuals in the school system that are doing that, to individuals who are in the big firms sitting in those seats of power that see the value in that. Because if you could go and finish a law degree or a legal education in a comparable system anywhere around the world, why wouldn't that make you a commodity or a benefit to any business? Absolutely. So go and do it. Go and do it is my answer to everybody. If you want to, you can do it and do it and make sure you're the best at what you do. That's great. That's amazing. And the cool thing too is that these days you, or I mean, there's things available from a long time ago, but anyways, you don't necessarily need to go internationally to do that, right? Nowadays, more and more. As part of a Canadian JD program, you get the chance to spend a semester abroad or do a summer abroad and so much, so much more. I think the numbers of some of the schools in Canada now also, you know, send about 20% of their graduates off to New York to work in their first year. So they, you know, they don't need the articling experience to be licensed there. There is, you know, a very interesting financial component to it. So there's just, the world is pretty limitless on opportunities for, for internationally minded people, I guess, who are looking out for those opportunities and see what fits them well. And yeah, I really appreciate you taking the time to, you know, share a little bit more about your career, your international study experience and what that has been for you today. And also your take on business, business development and so forth. Really appreciate your time. No, I appreciate the conversation. Well, thank you all for tuning into today's conversation, and we'll see you on the next episode.