Presence Over Perfection, The Happy Lawyer, and Writing for Children with Shani M. King and N. Jeremi Duru

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 evening, I have 2 special guests in the show. I have Professors Jeremy Duru and Shaunnie King. Thank you both so much for making the time to come on the show today. And to begin today's episode, I'd love for you to Each introduce yourselves and share a little bit about your journey from, you know, law school to your careers as legal scholars, educators, and now children's book authors. Sonny, go ahead. Go first, man. Okay. Well, so journey, I mean, I guess sort of my sort of journey to a children's book author has a lot to do with my interest in advocating for children. And that, and that probably starts, you know, way before law school. People ask me all the time why I have an interest in advocating for children and why that's been my focus. And I'm not exactly sure. I was raised by a single mother. I never remember having— thinking that there was any ceiling on anything that I could or couldn't do. And I think that's because of sort of how she raised me and the opportunities that she provided me and the belief that she had in me. And so I think from an early age, I think I understood how much believing in children could mean for them. And then at a certain point, I was watching TV and I was really into those legal shows. And now I'm going to date myself. I was into Law and Order and I loved the show. And so there were 2 parallel things going on when I was a kid. It was, I was really into these legal shows and I had this sort of passion to advocate for children. And these things sort of continued. And even after college, I worked for a school for kids that had gotten kicked out of the public school system because I wanted to advocate for children. But I had already applied to law school because I wanted to be a lawyer. So it hard— so when Jeremy and I met at Harvard, I was trying to figure out how to combine my interests in being a lawyer and advocating for kids. So I was taking some courses at the Harvard Graduate School of Education thinking I may want to go into educational policy. And so I tried to do that after graduating from law school. I worked for a year in the Dominican Republic advocating for kids there, and I couldn't figure out how to parlay that into like an advocacy career. And so then I Ended up working for a law firm for 4 years in New York City, then moved to California for reasons that had nothing to do with my professional life. And when I moved to California, I was really— had a great opportunity to work for a nonprofit that represented only kids. And then I was a kids' lawyer and that was a fantastic job. And I absolutely would've kept doing that for my entire life if I hadn't gone broke. But we're a nonprofit and I'm not independently wealthy. And then I was trying to figure out, okay, what do I do now? And actually, I don't even know if Duru knows this, but like I was looking around thinking about what I wanna do and I was like, oh, well, Jeremy's a law professor. Maybe I can do that. That's a great way to continue to advocate for the populations that I care about. And so I ended up becoming a law professor. And then, so I was doing that. And then there was, it was probably 2015 or 2016 where I wrote a love letter to my kids. And I had done legal scholarship, right? All that, you know, teaching in the classroom is continuing my advocacy. But I wrote a love letter to my kids and I posted it on Facebook, right? Again, I'm dating myself because the kids these days, right, they don't use Facebook. Facebook is for old people, right? So, and then one of my wife's cousins said, Shawnee, could you turn that into a book? And I said, I don't know. I have no idea. I don't know how to do that. Like, so I looked for an illustrator and found one. And ended up self-publishing my first children's book with that illustrator. It's called Have I Ever Told You? But then a publisher picked it up. And then I started, I just continued writing for children. And it's been, it's really been such a blessing and a treat because it really is such a wonderfully pure form of advocacy and it brings me such joy. Yeah. So it's been a blessing for me too, to write this book, but I, my journey has been very different from Shaunie's. I wanted to be a civil rights lawyer. focusing— not that I didn't want to focus on children, but it wasn't my focus. My focus was generally discrimination suffered by people of color and how we remedy it. And I began to develop that focus in, quite frankly, middle school when I first studied the civil rights movement. High school, college, I wanted to do it. Went to law school where— Well, Shaunie and I actually met in college at Brown University, but we're roommates at Harvard. And at Harvard, same focus, Came out of law school, clerked for a judge in Detroit, Michigan, Judge Damon J. Keith, great civil rights judge, extraordinary person, same focus. Left the clerkship. And also I was broke. And so I had to go to a big firm. And so I did that for a couple of years, learned a lot, became a better lawyer, but didn't really love it. Went to an employment discrimination firm to do discrimination work, which I always wanted to do. And shortly after I got there, I was told, hey, listen, we're representing some coaches in the National Football League of color who feel like they're being held back from head coaching positions. And can you work on that matter? And I said, I'd love to. And that began kind of the crux of my professional life, which has been sport and discrimination and that intersection. And that's what I've done. My only really engagement with children was through being a parent and through being an uncle and, you know, totally away from my professional life. But it quickly became, once I became a parent, the biggest part of my life. the most valuable and most meaningful part of my life. I mean, so I had this world where I was pursuing my professional goals, which I loved, and I was pursuing my professional, my personal goals of being a father, which I loved. But the two, you know, did not intersect at all until Shaunie had actually asked me to read one of his previous children's books just to get my thoughts. And I was honored to be asked to do it. And I gave him my thoughts. A book came out as a fantastic book. But then about 4 or 5 years ago, Shaunie asked me to read something else that he'd produced, which was kind of like a poem. directly to his kids, written to his children. Um, and I just thought it was fantastic. I mean, I told him that, and I really felt honored that he asked me to look at it. And then he asked me if I wanted to work with him in turning this into a book. This is different from the first work he'd done. He'd written multiple books before this, but he asked me, a novice, I'd never done anything in children's picture book writing. He asked me if I wanted to be a part of it. I was honored. I accepted. And then we started over the course of what really ended up being 4 years writing the book, securing a publisher who we trusted. with that publisher, securing an illustrator who we trusted, and then releasing it to the world Father's Day, a few, you know, about a month ago. That's incredible. What a story. I really enjoyed that you mentioned that, you know, the friendship of yours have been going on for quite a few years now since college. You know, these are some topics that I think we don't get the chance to speak about as much. We don't talk as much about, you know, fatherhood, but also not enough about, you know, friendships as well. And it seems like You both have moved all over the US with your careers as well, but you kept the friendship going and, you know, making time to stay in touch and all of that. Can I ask you guys for a few comments on that as well? I'd love to hear a little more about, you know, that experience. Sean and I met freshman year. We're classmates at Brown University. And, you know, we met early on. I think we became closer friends as we got to the end of Brown. Our kind of our concentric circles of friends interacted. And so we were good friends at the end of Brown. But then when we both found out we got into Harvard Law School and would be starting in the same year, we agreed to live together and then became even better friends living together over the course of 3 years. And I think a couple of things. One, Shaunie's just a great dude. One thing I've learned about, you know, maybe this is a pessimistic perspective on life, but I've learned as I've gotten older that like there aren't that many really good people. You come across people who, you know, who may not have your best interests at heart, who may be vindictive. You meet someone who's a legitimately good person, it's valuable. Yeah. And so I always wanted to stay in touch and stay close with Shaunie because he's such a good person. And then back in law school, we talked about wanting to be fathers one day. And so as we grew into our careers, you know, we'd stay in touch when, you know, I remember I had an event in Tampa Bay when you were down there in Florida. He drove up, we got together, came to DC where I live. We got together with our family and we kind of stayed in touch in some ways through being fathers and talking about fatherhood and you know, talking about our families. And so really, it ended up being kind of, in many ways, a perfect segue into writing together about family and about fatherhood. I agree with all that. Obviously, when Jeremy says I'm a really good dude, you know, of course I agree with that. Who could disagree with that? Nobody could disagree with that. You know, Drew is a great dude. It's really interesting, you know, the older you get, you know, sort of the things that you tell your kids are really important in terms of their friendships that they don't really listen to and can't really understand until they learn it from themselves hold to be true, right? And so, you know, you always want your kids with other kids and you want to be sort of friends with parents who you're— who have shared values, right? And so I think, you know, it's— Duru and I, we have shared values. We have mutual respect for each other. Right. We trust each other. You know, Guru and I are never competing with each other, right? Whatever he accomplishes, I applaud. And whatever I accomplish, even if it's, you know, often less than he accomplishes, he applauds. I have admiration for Guru. I have respect for him. I trust him. He knows this, but I've told him this many times, right? He's just a solid, solid dude. And so I think— And we have talked about being fathers. And, and from afar, I've always admired and respected him as a father. So this collaboration, it felt natural. It felt right. Having this collaboration with Guru, right, would amplify the message. That's amazing. Fantastic. What a, what a good example that is just for our listeners here, you know, finishing up law school and remembering to keep up with those, you know, good friendships that you got the next few years of Your careers will probably be very busy, especially those first ones in practice, right? But there's definitely ways as you prioritize staying in touch and keeping up with those that you enjoy the company of, that you share values with. So just really appreciate you both mentioning that. And, you know, specifically talking about the book, You Are My Favorite Story. First, I wanted you, for you to tell our listeners a little bit about what's the easiest way. Do they get it on Amazon? Do they look it up on Google and find, you know, a specific website? But I also wanted to ask you a little bit, you know, what kind of message do you hope that parents, especially fathers, will take away after reading this book? And I'm assuming they should be reading it with their children too. I want parents to understand the joy that we have as being fathers. It's really such a joy for us. Presence over perfection, right? And so much of being a father is about the little moments that you are with your kid that in which you may not be perfect. Right. And it's not— your kids don't really expect you to be perfect, right? No one's perfect. Your kids don't expect you to be perfect. Pretending you're perfect wouldn't be beneficial to them, right? And so it's just about being present for your kids, right? They know when you're present, right? They know when you're not really paying attention to what they're saying. They know when you're thinking about something else. They know when you're thinking about work, right? So it's really presence over perfection. Another thing that I think kids are really perceptive, all brilliant about knowing when you're doing something for them versus for yourself, right? And like, it is like every single day, like, it'd be like, yeah, I'm gonna do this. And your kid would be like, yeah, you're— Dad, you're really doing that for you because that's what you like to do, right? And this is about you. So it's not about perfection, right? It's about being present. It's about doing for them. It's not about quantity of time, right? Even though I know that that's hard for parents who work a lot, right? It's a lot easy, you know, for someone who can spend time with their kids to say, well, it's not about— I get that, right? Because my wife works a lot, right? She works a lot. She works more than I do. It's more about the quality. So listen, be curious, be engaged. You remember, I mean, I remember like random moments that are the most special things. Right? So for example, you know, Matthias, when he was little, he was walking out of the room and like he hadn't talked that much. He just said BRB and then he walked away and we were like, it was like, what? Why did he just say BRB? It was the best. And like, and when, and when Soraya was little, she was trying some meatballs that my mom made. She goes, hmm, these taste like dog food. And she said it so matter-of-factly and we were like, And then everybody's got to laugh, right? But it's like, it's being present, right? In the moment that allows you to live those moments with your kids. Tell your children that they're loved, right? Like I do that all the time. I'm like, have I told you that? Like, I really do that all the time. And they, they're like, yeah, like too much, Dad. Like whatever, whatever. I mean, so I guess one way to connect it to the book is that the most joy that I get out of writing children's books and this book in particular, is that my kids know that they are my favorite story, right? And so that's what it comes down to, is your kids knowing that you are their favorite story and repeating that over and over and over again. Yeah. One great thing about the book, Claudio, is that it really was born of the synergy. We didn't have one argument about the writing process. This really— one of us saying, hey, this really has to go in, and someone else saying no. We didn't have— and I think a lot of that is we really do have similar philosophies about our relationships with our kids and goals. Enjoying the small moments, what we might consider small moments, everyday moments, and recognizing that really those are the most precious moments. Those are the biggest moments. And that's a big thing that I want people to take away from the book. Be expressively emotional with their kids in ways, you know, I tell my kids I love them all the time too. They hear it all the time, every day, every time I talk to them. But not every parent or every father is able to do that, maybe because of the way they were raised, maybe for other reasons. But they feel that love, but it's hard to express it. So one thing that we really want, you know, the book to serve as is perhaps a conduit for fathers who have a hard time saying that. They can say it through the book. You know, they can read the book to their child, and in doing it, they're expressing that love and desire to spend those moments with their child. And then maybe through reading the book over time, they then will become more comfortable with doing it. If there are fathers out there who have benefited in that way from this book, then I feel like we've accomplished a great deal. And as to where to get the book, Claudio, it's wherever you get your books, brick and mortar stores. It's there. It's on all the online outlets. It's there. Our publisher is Fair Share Publishing. Nathan Bond is our publisher, fantastic publisher, done a great job with the book. And so you can also get it from Fair Share Publishing. And it bears noting, Claudio, that if you go to Fair Share Publishing and you get it there, you actually are able to, you can hear it read by Shawnee and you can hear it read separately by me. So there are these different audio features and some other read and learn features that exist there, Fair Share Publishing. So that's a great place to get it, but you can get it anywhere you get your books. Amazing. Amazing. Now I wanted to ask you a little bit on a, on a different angle here. It's funny. I feel like in this conversation, we can see how really, you know, our personalities, our careers, all of that really comes through together, right? There's no, you know, separate the lawyer, the father, even though we might like to say that we're putting the lawyer hat on or, you know, but as we switch through the hats in this conversation, I wanted to ask you, you know, you, you've spent quite a few years now, both of you, you know, writing legal scholarship, writing as lawyers, writing for judges, persuasive, right? Writing, the different kinds of writing you can do, the academic writing. And how is this experience, you know, of writing a children's book different from writing for this very, very different audience that is that professional one? For me, it's been totally different. You know, it's not just that I haven't written a children's book before. Shawnee has written several, but it's also that the, when I'm writing my academic scholarship, it's had nothing to do with children. Whereas Shawnees, it has. And so for me, this was totally out of my, quote unquote, swim lane. It was a totally different approach, a different creative approach. It felt different. I've come to view it as an oasis, Claudio, over the years, being able to put down my academic work and turn to this book. One, because as you point out, you write it differently. It's a different audience. But two, my academic work is about discrimination in sports. And so it's often somewhat heavy. I'm right now writing a book about racial abuse of athletes. I mean, it's heavy. It's heavy to talk about, heavy to think about, heavy to contemplate the consequences. And so over the course of the last 4 years, when I've had the time to put that down and turn to this, it's been— it's like a breath of fresh air, cool water. It's an oasis. It's what it's been for me. It truly has been a blessing for me. It's a more pure form of advocacy for me than I think, other kinds of advocacy that I engage in. It doesn't mean that the other kind is not rewarding. So, you know, like as a lawyer, a children's lawyer, it was a wonderful job, right? But, you know, you're, a lot of your energy is focused on things that are not the ultimate result, right? Like procedures, court rules, judge rules, like, you know, in a large civil case, you're dealing with discovery, right? Deadlines. As a professor, you're dealing with, You know, citations and conventions and like all of that is important and has its place. But I sort of feel like, you know, a children's book is your— all of the effort that you are utilizing is going to the thing that you were trying to do. And so it doesn't mean that it's more important than the other things, but it's just a completely different, I think, more direct form. of advocacy than being a lawyer or being a law professor. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. And I'm sure over the years you've, you know, maybe felt it yourselves or saw it in the lives of your students and other people you interacted with. But I feel like a topic that we'll always have to bring up and talk about is, you know, the whole life work-life balance and, you know, balancing that demanding career that is that of, you know, lawyers, legal scholars, anyone really in the legal community with that family life. And I'm curious, you mentioned you already had that plan of becoming a father. You, you know, had good experiences growing up and seeing maybe role models, but how did becoming a parent then change how you thought about success, how you see, you know, leadership, how you see even the concept of the legacy you want to leave behind? A father impacted me dramatically in this regard. Even before I became a father, once You know, my wife was pregnant with our first child. I began to think about how do I want to manage, you know, my life going forward. And my uncle, one of my uncles, my mom's immediate older sister's husband, Bill, Uncle Bill, he used to say, and this goes to the core of what Sean and I were talking about with respect to the book. He was, he used to say, just be there for them. That was it. That's what he used to say. Be there for them. Talking about his kids, be there for them. Got to be there for them. Maybe you show up and you're there and you're not at your best. You know, but you're there for them. You're always there. And I felt like I wanted to be a father who was there for his kids. Being the best father I could be was my top priority. And I believe I've been able to balance my family life with my professional life in a way that's allowed me to be successful professionally. I personally feel successful professionally. I've enjoyed my profession. I feel gratified in it, but there was, I was never going to make a decision that backburnered my family life for my kids, for my profession. I just wasn't going to do it. Everybody makes their own choices around that, and I make no judgment about anybody's choices. I set out to have the most impactful professional life I could have while at the same time having a deeply meaningful personal life. And that's just the balance that I demanded of myself. You know, it's changed my, I guess, definition of success completely. I mean, I don't know if I had this definition before, and I just It applies to me differently because now I'm a father. But, you know, before it was about me, it was about the things that I would accomplish. And now life isn't about me. It's about, it's about them, right? Like success in my book, for me, is about their opportunities. It's about them doing whatever I can to make sure that they become, they have the opportunity to become the best versions of themselves, inspiring them and supporting them. And Everything else is secondary. And so you mentioned, you used the word legacy. I don't think about my legacy at all, other than being someone who did whatever they could to create the opportunities for my children that I had. That's it. If I have tried as hard as I can to do that, then I'm happy. That's amazing. Thank you for making the time to put that into words. It just, it's just so very meaningful to hear it from other people and I understand that must have inspired a lot of young professionals, other fathers in different age groups as well. You know, those who became parents before you, and you even must have given a good example to them, but also surely to the future generations and, you know, to us young lawyers thinking about how we want to, you know, balance and think about our careers as well. And, you know, thinking about those listeners right now, as I had mentioned to you, a lot of my listeners are young lawyers in their first few years of practice, or even law students, you know, still getting ready to go. Is there a piece of advice that you'd give, you know, to those who hope to build a meaningful career, who want to make sure that their family is also part of, you know, their life schemes? They do have a career, but they also have, you know, family and they make time for those that matter the most. They leave that, we're calling it a legacy, I guess, of, you know, giving good opportunities for your children, giving them the time. And, uh, and the affection and affirmation they need. It's so many people have written on that. It's a hard question to answer in some respects because, you know, different people have different opportunities. And so some people have no choice but to work long hours and be away from their kids, right? Some people have to be overseas away from their kids. I know my wife right now, she quit. She quit yesterday if she could, but for supporting our family, right? She tells us that every day. She's like, I'm done. I'm done. I'm good. You know, it's always a hard, I think, question to answer, but I think sort of the way that I try to think about that is it's sort of like being present for your kids, right? Do what you can to appreciate every single stage of their life. There's no perfect balance, right? Be intentional about your family life. Do whatever you can to protect family time. You're not always going to be able to do it, but it doesn't mean, right, you should give up trying to protect it because you have to. Right? Other— no one else will, right? Be— do what you can to be present when you're there so that you can hear your kids say, Nana, your meatballs taste like dog food, right? Right. You know, this is going to sound sort of corny, but I really do think at the end of every day that I'm conscious about this, right? I do whatever I can today to live for my kids instead of for myself. Right. And so, and that's sort of being intentional about it. I mean, it's really, it's really not about the amount of time. It's about, it's about how you use it. So that's the advice that I would give and that has, I guess, allowed me to not be a perfect father, right? Not always be present, but allowed me to have a wonderful journey thus far as a, as a, as a father to my kids. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I couldn't agree more. I think, you know, as Sonny pointed out, Even if you're intentional about crafting your career in a way that's going to make you available for your kids, there are going to be days when you're not. There'll be days perhaps when you're traveling, days when you've got a big workload and you won't be able to be. You want to structure yourself in a way you can be available. Parenting, you know, parenting advice, Claudio, because everybody has to, you know, take their own path. And again, there's no judgment at all. But one thing I would say is even if it's only 20 minutes that you can spare on one evening, Make that 20 minutes count. Like that 20 minutes, totally attend to the child and engage with the child rather than being halfway in your phone and halfway on the email for those 20 minutes. So, you know, probably 20 minutes of full attention is probably better than that. And the hour of looking back and forth to your emails and working on the documents, that's one. Then the other one, it's kind of more of a fundamental one is, you know, I tell my law students. I teach civil procedure in addition to sports law courses. And so I'll say, listen, I'll say, try your best to be a happy lawyer. You know, there are a lot of lawyers in this world who are unhappy. There are a lot of lawyers who are doing things they don't want to do, and they're doing it for various reasons. When I say that, I don't mean I'm a lawyer, I practiced for many years, you know, I don't want to do this particular brief. Of course, that's always going to be there. But I mean, like an area of law, do something substantively that Speaks to you. And don't just do something because someone says that's the fad to do it that way. Or right now, this is what all the lawyers are doing, or, you know, making all your decisions based on how lucrative an opportunity is. I shared that I was broken. I went to a law, a large law firm because I had to. You have to do what you have to do. But if you're able to try to pursue your passion in terms of the sort of law you practice, I think you're going to be a happier lawyer. Yeah. I think you'd be a happier person. And I think that's going to make you a more available and happier parent. One of the things that I'd piggyback on that you just said is when he talked about sort of, you know, 20 minutes with your kids, I'd say absolutely if you have that, but something like, for example, I was at my wife's office today and our daughter was there and our son was there and our son was in my wife's office and our daughter was up at the reception area. And And I knew that, that she was reading and doing, you know, her summer reading. And I just went up to the front and I just said, hey kiddo. And she looked at me and she said, hey. And so it's not only the 20 minutes, it's just that being intentional about taking moments to connect with your kids, even if you only have that moment. And I remember from that moment, the look on her face and she cared. that I came to connect with her, right? And honestly, when I think about my entire day, right, one of the things that I remember most is that moment. And it wasn't like she wasn't in particular need. It wasn't, she wasn't asking me for anything. We didn't have a long conversation, but it was an intentional attempt to connect with my kid. And so that's another piece of, piece of advice is just if you can Do that because it will matter to them and it will matter to you. That's fantastic. Well, I really appreciate you making the time to come on the show and share some thoughts and pieces of, you know, really true wisdom. And to wrap up today's episode, I also wanted to ask, is the idea to continue on collaborating in other books in the future? What does that collaboration look like going forward? Well, I'm going to say yes very quickly to not give Duru a chance to say no. I hope so. It was, it was great. We had wanted to work together for a long time and we finally did. I hope that this is just the beginning. Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. I mean, you know, it was a ton of fun, very gratifying, but also, you know, if I may say, I think we produced a good book. I think we put something out into the world that's positive, that adds value. And, you know, I'd love to do more of that. So absolutely. Amazing. I wanted to thank you both so much for making the time to come on the show. And thank you all listeners for listening to today's episode. Thank you, Kardio, for having us. Thank you.