Law Firm Realities, The Generational Gap, and Building a Portable Reputation

I love that.

Thank you so much for taking the time to walk us through a little bit of your career.

And I find it fascinating all that you've done and the roles you've taken on as well.

I'm curious here, you know the audience of studying law around the world is very much early career professionals, is very much law students who are looking for optionality and knowing what they can do with their law degree.

And after all of these experiences you've had, I'm curious to hear what do you think law students and new lawyers are misunderstanding the most about how law firms actually operate?

There's probably a couple of things.

I think the first one is that law firms are a business.

And certainly that is my perspective.

That's where I spend all of my time is working on the business of law.

And there's so many components.

It's a very complex ecosystem.

And it's not just about the practice of law.

If you only practice law, there's only a few positions, a few firms where you can be successful in only practice.

practicing law, where you don't need to concern yourself with clients, with relationships, with developing business, etc.

There's just so many other components to it.

So understanding that law firms are a business, I think is one of the big ones.

Another one is that law students come in and they sometimes believe that others are responsible for feeding them work for the long term.

And some firms are okay with that.

Some partners, they have a practice where it's institutional work.

It keeps coming and they are filling plates and it's just, you know, the workflows.

But with a lot of firms, that's not the case.

So students and new lawyers really need to start concerning themselves with the long run, how they're going to develop work for themselves.

So it's not just getting your articling or internship position.

It then becomes, how do I develop the practice that I want for myself? And that's a whole other podcast in and of itself.

But the long run, taking responsibility for the long run is the second thing.