Law, Business, and Mentorship with Jacob Murad

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 Jacob Murad. Jacob is the President of KP Lawyers, a full service law firm in Mississauga and also the Managing Partner and General Counsel of Blue Star Equity. Today, we'll be speaking about his endeavors in law, in entrepreneurship and also in mentoring. Thank you so much for joining us today, Jacob. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm happy to be. Here, absolutely. And I did say a little bit of an intro about you, but I I'd love for you to introduce yourself to your audience. Yeah, sure. So I I was called to the bar in Ontario back in 2015. So I've been a lawyer for almost 11 years now. I've mostly focus on corporate and MA mergers and acquisitions work mostly in in private mid market businesses, but I've also done going public transactions as well. And I've done it mostly with a private equity office, our family office called Blue Star Equity. And I've grown the legal practice through the acquisition of other law firms from retiring lawyers. I've done. So I've done about 8 Closings thus far and integrated it. And I've also integrated with some of our other professional service firms like accounting, insurance and wealth planning so that we can be a one stop shop for our clients. So yeah, that takes me to. Today that's amazing and love to hear a little more about leading both KPA Lawyers and Blue Star Equity. What does a typical week look like for you as you manage both legal practice and the private equity work together? Yeah. So I look at the private equity work as almost like a client. I personally don't practice unless there's a particular complex file. I mostly managing the law firms and working on private equity. So private equity, I consider it a very high paying clients, we'll call it. So I give it my utmost attention, provides the largest return. The other part of my week if I'm not working on these transactions is focused on, I go to the various offices that we have. I have 5 offices, so I'll drive to, I'll pick an office, I'll drive to that office and I will help solve any issues that there are and also meet with the various people and, and top clients. And on the side I'll also do kind of business development as well. So my typical week is a lot of business development client work on the private equity firm and then kind of people management and and oversight. That sounds fantastic. I, I saw that one of the points that I read here on your resume preparing for this interview is about the extensive experience you've had with M and A transactions and I'd love to hear a little more about you. What do you think that makes an acquisition successful and a little bit about your experience with that? Acquisitions there, there is very much they're very flexible creatures. I mean, at the end of the day, there's there's a very high stress periods of time and you always have to make sure that you're being flexible with all the various stakeholders involved from broker. Sometimes there's a brokers is accountants, there's lawyers, there's sometimes several lawyers and there's the parties themselves. So you're all you're kind of in a way being like a general contractor managing all the various interests to to carry everyone through to the finish line. And that that's what what makes a successful acquisition in the sense of closing post acquisition. OK, well, now what do you do once you you've done it is the, the secret then becomes about integration. So what do you do after closing? And that's when you're involved in making sure you're, you're taking over all the files, you're dealing with the staff, you're dealing with the goodwill and the reputation and the, you know, continual the continuous running of the business. So it continues the next day. So those are probably the two biggest features that would make us successful acquisition. That sounds incredible. And many of our listeners are law students, early career professionals. So I, I feel like it's always interesting to have these interviews, especially thinking about those who maybe once you get a little bit more involved in this field or you know, understand the, the other sides and possibilities and all of that. But thinking about this specifically your work with, with different areas of law, with development, with really the, the whole management point of it. What kind of advice would you give to someone who wants to work, especially at this intersection of law and entrepreneurship? Yeah, I mean, I can, I can speak for hours on just to answer that that topic. But I would say the, the, the number one thing I would say to someone who's a, a law student or an early associate would be to learn as much as you can and not just about the law. Obviously you have to learn about the law and you're learning doesn't stop after school. You have to continue learning and not just about 1 area of law, but other areas of law too, because they all intersect. There's too much specialty nowadays where people say they want to be a family lawyer, but family law intersects with corporate law. When we talk about, you know, people get a divorce, alright, but then how do you value a business? And now you're into corporate law a little bit, right? So if the, if the parties own a business, that's just one very basic example. If you're in real estate, you have to learn about probate. So really understanding from a general sense the law and how it intersects with all the areas of law. That's just step one. But if you want to get into business and acquisitions and, and private equity and, and like you said, get into the intersection of almost like a different area, maybe working in the house, then you need to learn something besides the law. You have to learn about business. You have to learn about financial statements, interpreting financial statements, a little bit about banking. And certainly you have to learn about the actual business that you are trying to sort us. Well, it depends on whatever you're interested in, whether it's construction or engineering or law firms themselves. You have to learn about the actual intricacies of, OK, well, how does this business work? And maybe you didn't take Business School, but life is kind of the best teacher when it comes to business. So really spending that time learning about other areas is the that that would be the best teacher if you want to elevate to a different area. 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. Again, I actually got the chance to watch some of your other interviews, read a little bit of what you put out there, and there's something that I thought was very interesting and it was a few of your points on, you know, a vision for the future of law firms. So I'd love to hear a little more about that. What's your vision when it comes to the future of law firms? Yeah, sure. Something I, I talk about a lot because it's, you know, article artificial intelligence and technology is, is in the news, especially in the legal industry news quite a bit. There's a lot of people speaking about how it's going to replace lawyers, for example. And in my view, what I always tell people is technology has already replaced lawyers that have not been providing real value. It used to be, for example, that lawyers were the only ones that could draft a contract or a will. They were the keepers of a very particular set of knowledge and skills. And now everyone can just kind of draft their own will or make a contract. Now, whether using artificial intelligence or using any other precedent software that has been in existence since the early 2000s pair of law firms, though, why technology has not replaced lawyers today is because what it can't replace is the customized strategy that a lawyer provides when people go to an office. Yeah, the the will is valuable or a contract is valuable, but it's a lot less valuable as we've seen with technology, as is the customized solution, though the one point of contact where you are providing good customer service and a good strategy to help you in your life. So the future of law firm is is yes, utilizing more technology, which has always been the case. Law firms have always, you know, ones that have survived at least have always upgraded their technologies, but they, they, they mostly will survive based on what service can they provide to the client to maintain their rate. And the service should be very customized and it should maybe even provide for services that are outside of the law. And we're starting to see that with major accounting firms like KPMG starting up law firms where they're trying to do a one stop shop between accounting and law where you can call one person and you get that bankers are doing that as well. That's really the future, being able to call up one person as opposed to several. And that person can help you with all of your problems that overlap, not just the law. So it's not simply I'm going to call a lawyer and make a will, I'm going to call a lawyer and get a full estate plan complete with insurance and, and you know, accountant. That's really the future of where law firms and frankly, service professionals as a whole have to go. I remember that recently you took part in an OB program focusing on acquiring law firms in rural or smaller communities. And, you know, I think that also intersects with this idea of the future of law firms servicing people the best way possible. But but speaking about this context is specifically how do you see this kind of servicing should be different From what I've been hearing more and more is that, you know, in smaller communities, there's much more of these, you know, face to face interaction. A lot of the clients like to come into the office and, you know, meet their lawyers, Whereas maybe, you know, when you are in the Miller metropolitan area, clients are trying to, you know, do as much as they can via e-mail and and trying to, you know, optimize all that time. Is that true? Are you actually seeing that? Is that the reality that you've been observing? OK, well, I, yeah, 100%. I've, I've acquired 3 practices in small town communities and they're, they're extremely lucrative, but the expectations are very different. I mean, some of these communities, you know, certain farmers, for example, they're way behind when it comes to technology and in some cases because there's cultural differences, but also because maybe there's no good service Internet that has been installed in those areas. So it's, it's just a, you know, it's a matter of life. But so when, when they're meeting a service professional, they're looking to go into an office and meet with a person that's going to solve their problems. And So what you see in rural communities is exactly what I'm saying, the future of law firms should go back to they were once, which is a person goes in to see their lawyer and they're hoping that they will help them with all of their problems. Either them the lawyer will help themselves or they'll refer them to someone else in the community that can help them. So again, it it, it goes right into the future where, you know, there is an aging service professional population and they're looking to retire and the next generation of service professional that's going to operate in those rural communities. Yeah, sure, bring in technology. But you, you know, you still have to continue that local cultural feel of, hey, I'm going to help you. I'm part of the community and I'm here to stay and I'm here to help you with your problems. So I, I certainly wouldn't shy away from these communities. They, they're the most lucrative opportunities that I found because they're, they're simply less law firms or accountants and so forth. There's less of them in those communities and those that are there are, are starting to retire. So I think there should be a more concerted effort to go into those communities, both from a business aspect and also an access to justice aspect as well. Fantastic. And when you say that, I understand that should be, you know, big opportunities involving these these communities, but also if I may ask a little more about what are some of the the challenges that involve, you know, buying and expanding into smaller regional firms? Yeah. So one of the challenges that cultural difference, when I see cultural difference, I mean, you know, you have mentioned before in the GTA, you know, people don't want to meet in person necessarily. They wanna do things using Zoom or Teams. Certainly ever since COVID in, in rural communities, they still wanna meet in person. So the idea that you can wake up and sit in your pajamas and, and do legal work, that's just not a thing that you can do. You have to be in the office as well. You have to actually be physically present in order to meet the clients. And so that's, that's a challenge in terms of a cultural difference, let's call it. Also what you talk about is a cultural difference as well. Maybe your political views, maybe you're just general day-to-day views. You have to understand a little bit more about the community. So one of the challenges in order to be more set into one of these rural communities, you have to live there and be part of that community. So to operate a business there, the challenge is, OK, you have to now find someone who is maybe someone coming out of school or someone who's looking for that kind of more rural life. Those are the people that you have to find in order to work there. A lot of people want to come and work in, in the city, you know, in the GTA. So there's just more people, more talent and the talent pool and so forth. And it's a lot harder to recruit. But if you're able to recruit or if you yourself want to live there, then that challenge is automatically mitigated and then you'll be just fine. So it's, it's that that kind of a thing. It's, it's you have to be part of the community. It's a challenge, but it's also an opportunity. I love that in this sense. Then I think we, we spoke a little bit about this whole of the law firms being a little more of a one stop shop and all of that. But how do you see the the row of lawyers involving in private equity and and as you know in business ownership as a as a whole over the next few years? We're, we're already starting to see certain trends. This goes to the issue of we'll call it non lawyers owning law firms. And we're seeing certain trends around the world, certainly in North America relaxing that rule. So right now there's the rule that says only lawyers can own law firms. And what's happened is in certain states in the United States like Utah and Arizona, and also there's certain pilot programs, even with the loss, many of Ontario trying to free up this restriction a little bit so that non lawyers can own law firms. Once you've freed up that restriction, then private equity firms who are already getting involved in other regulated industries like dentistry and veterinary services, accounting, private equity firms will also start getting more involved in law firms because they are also lucrative businesses as well. Now there's a, there's always been a counter argument and why regulations should be strict about ownership, because the idea is law firm shouldn't care about profit. They should care about serving the community and the rule of law. But the problem is that regulation, by restricting just lawyer ownership, you're, you're actually causing the very harm you're seeking to prevent. That's to say you end up having a number of lawyers that when they want to retire, they have no succession plan. So they, they just retire as opposed to selling their firm and seeking some equity out of it. Or, and if they just retire, then their clients have nowhere to go. And that this happened the most in rural communities where they hang up their, their, their shingle. And then if you have a will in that person's office, you need to find another place for it. And who else is going to help me with my will, my real estate and when I want to buy a house and so forth. So already you're opening up more doors for succession. You're also opening up more doors for capital. A lot of law firms would work much better if they had greater access to capital. They would also have greater access to operational talent. Law firms are not business people. They're also not bookkeepers. So there are a lot of problems with law firms getting into trouble about maintaining their trust accounts and balancing their books. But that's just because they're not bookkeepers. They're not accountants. But if you were to get some of the top people to help with that, they would require equity ownership. So you can give, you know, top operational people to come in, provide capital to law firms, help them run their business like a real business, like any other business would, providing stock options and so forth. And that will help as well. So by doing that, you will indirectly help service the clients because now the law firm itself is being operated more efficiently not-for-profit, but to help service the client and then they themselves will appreciate the law firm more. So I'm very much pro restricting the regulation on a law firm ownership. I think that the trends are already getting there and and they should definitely go there. And that that's really where I see law firms in the long term. Of course I could be. Wrong, but that's interesting. I can't wait to see how that plays out. 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. Going through to another topic here, I know that you've taught law in the past and you're also part of the yellow SO coach and mentor roster. So I wanted to ask you, why is mentorship important to you and what do you try to pass on to the next generation? Yeah. Sure. I, I, I'm also a tutor for the lost society for the barrister and solicitor exam. And I, I post videos on YouTube on how to pass the, the examination. Why it's important for me at least, is because I, I attended law school in Michigan and then I, I had to come back to Canada. That's where my family was and my future wife and I had to get my accreditation and I had to pass the bar exam and I had nobody to help me. Yeah, quite the opposite. Whenever I ask for help, people would say, oh, you're never going to be able to, to do this. It's too hard. And so I, I think it's important when you, when you learn a skill or gain experience to pass on this experience to the next generation. To me, that's a form of, of quite frankly, a form of charity. You know, it's one thing to, to give financial charity, give donations, but sometimes you don't know where the donations go or whether it did any good. But when you pass on your time and experience to someone at no cost, whether you're helping coach them through their career, whether you're helping, helping them pass their licensing exams, this is something that you can't quantify. And as a form of charity, I think it's our, I think it's everyone's obligated to do something like this. And I certainly feel that way. So, so that's why I, I always make sure to do that. And I hope that the people that I'm helping will feel that same impetus to do the same. Fantastic. And to wrap up today's episode, you, you basically just gave, you know, what an incredible piece of advice here. But would there be anything that you know, if you could go back in time, give your younger self a piece of advice or piece of a career advice? What? What would you tell yourself maybe 10 years or more ago? I guess I would say first and foremost, just be patient. Be patient and things things will work out. You know, being a lawyer is hard, especially when you, when you first get your license and you think you wanna do everything and learn everything. And it's just, it's really hard. It's a grind that the beginning, especially when you're learning everything that you can, which by the way, would be my other piece of advice as a digression, learn everything you can. You don't know everything. Learn it, whatever you can. But going back to patients, just be patients that some things take time and they take experience and going through the motions and the repetitions, meeting with clients, sitting in our meetings. Don't say anything, but be patient and, and your time will come after a period of time and, and, and you'll be able to to be that person that you're, you're hoping to be, but just keep working at. It fantastic. Really appreciate you taking the time to share these insights today. Yeah. Well, thanks. For having me. And thank you all for tuning into today's episode, and we'll see you on the next one.