What Keeps Us Up at Night?
Swainson Miki Peskett LLP Partners, Jordan W. Smith, Ryan C. Kemp, and Graeme R. Swainson discuss what keeps them up at night. Join us in answering these insomnia-inducing questions keeping us up as both lawyers and business owners.
SMP | A Legal Podcast is a business first legal podcast discussing trending legal topics with the occasional help of top industry professionals. SMP | A Legal Podcast is hosted by 3 of Swainson Miki Peskett LLP’s partners, Jordan W. Smith, Ryan C. Kemp, and Graeme R. Swainson.
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Transcription
Graeme R. Swainson
“Welcome back to SMP | A Legal Podcast. My name is Graeme Swainson. As always, I’m joined by Ryan Kemp.”
Ryan C. Kemp
“Graeme.”
Graeme R. Swainson
“How you doing, Jordan?”
Jordan W. Smith
“Good. Hey, Ryan. Hi, Graeme.”
Graeme R. Swainson
“Jordan Smith. You know, we have a fun topic today. Bit of a provocative topic. We’re going to talk about what keeps us up at night, which is a general enough topic that I’m going to have to keep you guys on the rails here. But, let’s start with you, Ryan. What keeps you up at night?”
Ryan C. Kemp
“Well, it’s a good question. I think generally speaking, I can probably put it into kind of two baskets. The first basket being things that are sort of relevant to our business, our firm, and then those that are sort of attributed to, or a combination of the various roles that I have both personally and professionally.”
Jordan W. Smith
“So, you wear a lot of hats, don’t you?”
Ryan C. Kemp
“I wear, I wear a few hats, you know, follically challenged. So, it keeps the dome warm. I guess sort of on the strictly business side, I think it’s fair to say for those with a solicitor’s practice, I suspect that this is a fairly common source of anxiety, for lack of a better word, is sort of where your next file comes from. Like I don’t want to, it’s not necessarily eat what you kill but there’s, I think it’s just the nature of the work that we do. There’s ebbs and flows. There’s of course, you know, headwinds that impact our business, the volume of work that we do. I use the analogy we’re like farmers in the sense, you know, farmers beholden to the climate. Beholden to factors outside of their control. I think solicitors similarly are subject to some of those headwinds. So that’s certainly one thing that keeps me up at night. When you close one deal, where’s the next one going to come from? Because it’s never, you know, it’s never certain, it’s never guaranteed.”
Graeme R. Swainson
“You can’t really force your clients to go out there and do another deal.”
Ryan C. Kemp
“No, you can’t. No. With interest rates climbing and they’re sitting on the sidelines, cause they want to have some certainty, I mean, that’s of course their prerogative, but that impacts their workflow.”
Jordan W. Smith
“Yeah, no it’s his spell. I think that’s common amongst, you know, most lawyers and certainly have that same experience. And preparing for this, the very first thing that came to my mind, for me, it’s the kind of juxtaposition between getting more work and doing the work. And I find that it ebbs and flows. It’s that tension between I’m super busy, how am I going to get all of this done to, oh my goodness, you know, I need more than this. From one stressor to the next. You know, I, again, I think that’s common amongst, as you say, most solicitors. That’s kind of how it can go. The thing that’s interesting to me is in the years that I’ve practiced, I don’t seem to be getting any smarter about this because it still seems to be the very first thing that concerns me. When I know ultimately, it does always seem to work out. You know, I get the work done or the firm gets the work done, whether it’s me or others. It gets done and it gets done well and properly and clients are happy. And it’s incredible how that goes too. It’s building these habits that you follow to get the, and sometimes to the analogy, the farmer’s analogy, you’re doing all the right things or something beyond your control. Good or bad, actually that impacts it. And that’s the point is sometimes these fears of the worst case scenario. And frankly, there’s lots of times that new work comes, may just, it come through referrals, it comes though, current clients that just have something else pop up that was on my radar. There’s all of these and then you think, oh my goodness, I spend a lot of time worrying about it, when really I understand this, the thing that’s interesting to me is , I spend, I think, too much time worrying about the things that probably are less important than the things that are really important, which as we go on, I can share. But it does seem like the immediate workflow is the thing, I think about first, right?”
Ryan C. Kemp
“But I think, you’re well served to have a little humility and a little hunger and not to, you know, rest on your laurels because it’s, you know, it’s great that there’s usually as you say, sorts itself out, but certainly you want to always have a sharpened spear and have hunger and drive to try and want to get the next file in the door.”
Graeme R. Swainson
“Yeah. I think we always say, you know, practicing law, there’s never a perfect amount of. You either feel that you have too much on your plate or you’re trying to fill your plate up with more. And so there’s problem A and problem B is problem A, is the work that you have on your plate right now and trying to make sure that you’re getting deals done and, you know, client’s taken care of and all that. And then there’s problem B, which is once I’m done with problem A, yeah, where’s that next file? What am I doing after that? And to your point, Jordan, we lose sight of the fact that if you really focus on taking care of problem A, if you do really, really good work, and you take care of your clients and you make sure that they’re well represented, then problem B hopefully will not take care of itself but, a lot easier to deal with because I can tell you if you neglect problem A, problem B is a much bigger problem. If you’re not doing good owrk and you’re not getting a good reputation and getting good referrals in that, then yeah, you’re not getting much more work after that. And os that’s on e of the things I think we often try and focus on doing good work and that, and so for me, you know, on the topic of what keeps us up at night, it’s a lot of that. It’s a lot of the deal that I have in front of me right now. And yeah, I think we all are up at night thinking about the future of, you know, our firm or the legal profession, the industry in general. But I think what usually takes precedent is that, I think on the forefront is the deal that you have closing tomorrow or this week or what have you. And I stay up a lot at night. I don’t know about you guys, and I want to hear what you have to say about this arguing with myself, and who is, you know, generally, not me. No, and it’s, you know, you have an issue on a file and you’re up basically in the middle of the night just thinking, and you’re anticipating the arguments that the other side is going to make. And I find I am often up at night arguing with myself. How about you guys?”
Ryan C. Kemp
“Well, I think it’s, you know, one of..I guess one of the indicators that you like what you do is how engrossed and how invested you can be in it. And guess the downside to that is, I don’t know how many times you roll over in the middle of the night and your mind just rockets right to what you’re doing. You’re like, oh, did I forget that? How did I deal with that? Yeah. And then if you’re like me, For fear of losing that thought altogether by the time the sun comes up. I’m emailing myself in the middle of the night. But again, that’s part of, I think that’s part of certainly the sort of day-to-day stresses. But if you truly enough whatever it is that you’re working on, like it’s earlier to get engrossed and really invested like that. And then again, you find yourself in downtime. Your mind just, I don’t know about you but my mind will just often shoot over to that, you know, whatever is on my desk at that, at any given time.”
Jordan W. Smith
“Well, and yes, and one of the things you’re both kind of hitting on is, my clients’ issues keep you up at night. The things they’re dealing with in their work, so obviously we, you know, we pride ourselves in giving pragmatic, strategic, kind of value adding advice, being part of strategizing next steps and what, and not only just putting deals together of course, but larger kind of strategic issues about developing, you know, like we see on the corporate side. For me, I can speak to, you know, bringing key employees into ownership. You know, looking at key projects or joint ventures that have significant long-term impacts. And when you’re doing that, you obviously, you have to understand your client’s business. You have to understand what is going on in that business, what outcomes are looking for, what the timelines are. There’s a whole bunch of things. And of course, at any given time you have clients that are in different cycles and it’s, you know, obviously you have certain clients that are on the upswing. You have certain clients that are. You know, treading water and you have some that are going the wrong way, right? There’s all these things happening, and I care a lot.And so I do find myself, I get really invested that way. And so a lot of what I’m processing too is the interplay of the legal issues that they’re experiencing with the operational and strategic and governance, whatever other issues, and then interplay. And when you say what, arguing with yourself, Graeme, I do find having these conversations with my client about these types of things and the advice that I want to give my client. You know, and so for example, obviously we’re connected to the litigation department are you guys are, and there’s files, sometimes I want to say files, but there’s matters that come up in your client’s lives that things go sideways or something happens and you’re involved in that end of things. And of course, litigation’s always a difficult process and whatever desired outcome, it’s never perfect. Yeah, and so you’re dealing with, for example, shareholder disputes and you’re so much strategy involved in that. And so yeah, I find myself bantering with myself about those sort of things.”
Graeme R. Swainson
“Well, something we always talk about as, you know, lawyers is that ideally, especially in the areas that we practice in primarily acting for private businesses. Ideally we become more kind of those trusted business advisors. On top of just being a lawyer, client will call us up and say I’m thinking about doing this. What are your thoughts? How do I structure this deal? And that’s amazing. It makes it more enjoyable for us, I think , to do the job and that we feel more involved, with our clients’ businesses. And it makes us care more. And that’s fantastic. And I think it makes me enjoy the job more, a hundred percent. That being said, it makes us care more and we’re more invested and that, you know, I sometimes I wish I was a robot and I didn’t care as much about my clients are in the outcomes. And that being said I don’t, I’m always going to feel this way, but a hundred percent I am up at, and sometimes it’s almost, you think you care as much, if not more than the clients themselves because you want to see them succeed and you see how much work has been put into it. And no, Jordan, it’s easy to represent a client when everything’s peachy and you know that things are going up and growth and deals and all that good stuff. But then when that client kind of comes in, renders some hard and all of a sudden you’re up all night thinking, how the hell am I going to help them?
Ryan C. Kemp
“Yes, basically stay afloat and survive and get through this because you get invested. And again, I am okay with that. I want to be at a place where that is the norm. And again we’re not robots and just spewing out legal advice. No, we want to be those trusted business advisors that care, but yeah, it comes with some sleepless nights which is fine. So yeah, so I think suffice it to say, what I’m hearing is that there’s certainly things sort of in the moment, whether it’s that client, it’s that transaction, it’s where does the next one come? So a little bit more narrowly focused, but also of course there’s more macro issues that our profession faces. I mean, even in the 10 years that I’ve been practicing, Jordan, you and I were talking about this. The amount of technological advancement just in the last 10 years. And of course, I know this is probably a topic of conversation around every law firm, water cooler, around the world is what does the practice look like in the next five years, 10 years, 15 years? How do I fit into it? Because, you know, I think a lot of the advancements that we’re hearing about in the news cycle right now seem like they could have significant impacts on the way that we practice and the way that we deploy our resources. And so for me, that’s another thing that add to the list of things that keep you up at night is what does the profession look like? And as I said, five or 10 years and what’s my role in it and what’s our people’s role in general.”
Jordan W. Smith
“Like what does that look like? And I’m not, I haven’t reconciled that well. That is when I said that there’s become immediate concern about getting work, doing work, and I suggested that there are bigger issues for us to be worried about. To me, this is the top of the list. And when I say worried about it, maybe that’s a little bit of an overstatement because we have to be cognizant of them. I, we have to be adaptable. So, I think one of the issues with this though, in law firms is that lawyers generally pride themselves on working hard. This isn’t about working hard, so you know, it’s working smart and sure you have to work hard anyway, but you’re not going to just work harder to get through this. So, I think that’s one of the challenges. And I even have it for myself sometimes when in my own practice, when my first solution is usually working harder. Well, I’ll just work harder, I’ll work more, I’ll read more, I’ll do this, I’ll do that. And obviously, there’s in this case reading more is probably a good thing. But reading the right types of things, being open-minded again, being adaptable, checking the ego at the door and realizing that you actually, there’s a lot you don’t know and you need, you need to know. Those are all important things. I think, you know, in that scope of the other duration of my career, this absolutely has impacts for sure. I think it has even greater impacts on those starting their career. But all that being said is it impacts all of us. And when you said, you don’t, I think you generally, if I’m paraphrasing, said that, you know, you’re not sure exactly what the solution to all this is or where it all goes, and I don’t know that anybody a hundred percent does, but some of it we do already, which is quite clearly the AI is going to change things. Having people in strategic positions to be able to do certain other roles are going to change the way legal services are provided. Clients are wanting a different model. They don’t want to just pay for time, they don’t want to pay to train junior lawyers or any lawyers for that matter. So, there’s a need for efficiency. There’s, I think also for lawyers, there’s this idea that in the working harder, you know, well I need to do this. And that’s part of the other check. And the ego part of it is, there’s a lot of things lawyers do that they don’t need to do and they can, I mean, I don’t know, Graeme, I mean your department has done a great job, I think, at having files managed in a way where you’re utilizing lawyers and non-lawyers in certain roles, right?”
Graeme R. Swainson
“Yeah, a hundred percent. And it’s about being more efficient. And again, just making everyone better in order to better service the client. We talk about that all the time and yeah, a hundred percent. This is something that I think if the client stuff worrying about deals and worrying about files is what keeps me up at night. This stuff is what wakes me up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, thinking about what the future of this industry looks like and whether or not, as our firm, positioned well enough, but also just like if lawyers as an industry are adaptable enough, to steal your phrase, Jordan, to embrace this stuff. And again, it’s something we talk about all the time within these walls is adaptability and, you know, just embracing change. Just not being scared of when new technologies or new systems, come up as a way of doing things. And not to change for the sake of changing but, let’s look at better ways of doing things and how to be more efficient. Again, looking at things, do we have to bill by the hour all the time? You know, on some stuff, yeah. That’s kind of the only way to do it. But on other stuff, mostly kind of transactional stuff. Yeah you can get away from that. And why wouldn’t you want to be more efficient and quicker at doing things? And again, embrace change in oder to make yourself better so that you can better service your client. Because that’s at the end of the day, what we’re trying to do. Going back to the idea of what we want, we’re pretty invested in our client success and so, if we’re able to help them out in a better way, why wouldn’t we want to do that? But it is scary a little bit when you start really going down the rabbit hole and looking at this AI stuff coming in and whether or not this whole industry is going to be turned upside down and whether or not we’re all going to be replaced. I think we had a kind of conversation off camera podcast before about the fact that no, like it, it’s not going to replace anyone. It’s going, what it’s going to do is make everyone again, more efficient. Better at what they’re able to do and more productive. And hopefully everyone benefits from that. And so, that being said, it is terrifying in a lot of ways in this industry that. Oh, it’s very traditional and it’s been done a certain way for a very long period of time. And this is going to you know, it’s a bit of a buzzword and I don’t like saying the word disruption, but it’s a bit of a disruptor. That’ll come in, especially, I’m just particularly talking about just AI and essentially just some of the software that’s going to be introduced. It’s going to be a bit of a disruptor and going bak to that kind of adapt or die, you know, you embrace it or you’re going to be catching up in a few years. And so, yeah, I lay awake a lot at night thinking about that stuff and whether or not we’re doing a good job about embracing hat. And it’s a lot on top of, I got to get this deal closed tomorrow. Yeah, I got to learn this whole new way of doing things in a few years kind of thing. And so yeah, it’s a lot.”
Ryan C. Kemp
“Yeah. You know what? You took the words out of my mouth. I think, I guess we’ll see what the scope of the industry’s use of these technologies. And if the reality is look, if law firms are leveraging it and delivering quality, better quality legal service at a lower cost in a more time efficient manner than it is, it is either adapt of get ran over by it. You’re going to get left behind. I mean, there’s it’s really, I think it’s going to be pretty binary in that respect. I think, you know, going back, I think you made the comment about ego checking. You know, we’re, I think we’re a prideful group, as a profession, and maybe we’ve tricked ourselves into thinking that our skillset is truly unique and a cut above, and we’re the only ones that can do this. So, I mean maybe it is, a bit of exercising humility, for myself personally, what few talents I have, I thought one of them was being able to negotiate and being able to craft text like a draft. Those are, that’s what I can do. It’s just, it’s a stark day when you realize that everybody you know can be replaced to a certain extent. Right?”
Graeme R. Swainson
“But the big thing too is again, even with these AI programs, they’re only as good as whatever instructions they get, right? And so there’s still, again, I think there’s still going to be a differentiation amongst people that are really good about, again, being concise and you know, to the point, and again, things that we pride ourselves on as. You know, kind of not wasting time in negotiations and knowing what’s important and what’s not important. Again, I think all of that stuff is going to be tied into all of this new technology that comes in, because again, all these AI programs, they’re only as good as, the instructions that they get. And so, right. They’re still going to be a good way to differentiate ourselves. And I think there’s always going to be, there’s going to be good lawyers and there’s going to be not bad lawyers, not as good lawyers.”
Jordan W. Smith
“And yeah. One of the things, I think about all of this is, you know, it talked about the future of law, is the role of a lawyer I think will change.And some of it might be for the better. But there will be some challenges, I think. So here’s an example/ What you guys are both saying is that more mundane tasks might be accomplished by AI, the strategic vision and business advice, everything I was talking about, which has an element of interpersonal play to it, it has an element of trust. It has an element of you know, taking a number of different bits of information and kind of taking a view of it and applying the law to these things and the outcomes of whatever the client’s wanting. That’s for me, to me, the most enjoyable part of the job, at least, you know, and so the challenge with that is how do young lawyers get there? Because it takes a long time and you don’t graduate law school and you’re not able to just do that. So I think, you know, that is a challenge is how do those young lawyers, what does their career look like? How do law firms find talent, attract them? Cuz you’re competing with other industries. You’re looking at, you want bright people, you want personal people, you want top talent. Well, that top talent can do lots of things. It doesn’t have to practice law. So that’s a challenge that I haven’t worked through. Like, Ryan, when you were talking about what this all looks like how do you, because I think there might be less, who knows for sure, but I kind of wonder if there’s less legal positions but just those positions. The job that’s done is just a different job than we’re doing today, but a really good job. And maybe there’s more of a longer call articling process or internship process, whatever you want to call it, learning process that frankly, you might not be able to get paid as much as you get paid today because, or maybe I don’t know how that’s going to work. It might take a little longer to get there, but once you’re there, maybe it’s just a great job. Because again, the advisory piece, kind of the advisory services, and I’m talking that context of what we do as business lawyers. Other paths and law might have a different take. But, to me, that’s kind of what I wonder, that comes out of this and to the client end, you know, maybe it’s really great because I mean, you know, if I’m the client looking for that, you’re going to get the best part of what you want from your lawyer, right? Like that advisor piece and the time that you have there. And then again, not that agreements are simple or whatever, but having an automated component of delivering this other product, well maybe you get a little, you know, it’s a little cheaper than it used to be but your actual value add is huge because you’re not spending the time going through the nuts and bolts of how to do drafts and this and that. You’re actually now into more of the business world than advice.”
Graeme R. Swainson
“Yeah. And again, I think going back, the value that we’re adding is going to be the exact same. It’s just, we’re going to be a little more, we’re going to be able to be more efficient doing it. We’re going to be better at doing it, and it’s just going to make our output greater.”
Ryan C. Kemp
“You know what, maybe I like, points well taken, maybe I’m coming at it with a bad attitude as opposed to maybe looking at it like, yeah, brighten up a little bit. As an existential thread to what we do, maybe it’s more correctly characterized as just another tool in the toolbox. No different than when typewriters started getting used or computers started getting used. Like again. Those are advancements that at the time may have given people cause for concern because they thought that their role was in peril. But if you just find a way to use it and leverage it, use best you can. And it’s just another tool in the toolbox when timeline demands have never been greater.”
Graeme R. Swainson
“I think, particularly, lawyers like to get deals done quickly. So again, we’re under an immense amount of pressure to be more efficient in order to basically just get things done quicker. Because you know, I don’t want to sound like an old man here but in the day and age of the internet, one click shopping, all that, people expect things to be done really quick. We have all lamented about, I kind of wish I could go back and practice in the 1970’s when everything was don’t through mail correspondence and deals took a few months to come together. You know, it seemed like, you know, a classy way to practice. Now it’s like, you know, you got a deal in it’s going to get closed today or tomorrow or yesterday. So for us, a hundred percent, the more that we can be, more efficient, the quicker that we can do things, there is still pressure on us to be more efficient and be better at things. And so again, I don’t think it’s a matter of us being replaced or obsolete or anything. It’s just these pressures that we’re under to get things done quick. This is going to allow us to get that. Yeah, that’s my eternal optimist coming out once again, in the last half like that.”
Jordan W. Smith
“No, I agree. I mean, so it’s interesting. Yeah, but just it’s along the same kind of lines, but one of the things that worries me, or I think about quite a bit is, you know, attracting talented people, and I talked about that, in terms of helping lawyer positions may be the future of our firm in particular. And you know, we’re a people business, right? And the services provided, the legal services are, I mean, as much as you use technology, you know, we’re a people business. And in order to deliver our services, we need talented people. We need bright people, we need people who are motivated and happy. We have our opportunity and everything else. And so, you know, one of the things, and it blends into technology and it’s again, adapt, you know, the adaptability piece. And I think, one of the things we think about at our firm is, we’ve bought into is you do need to be adaptable and change is inevitable and it’s not scary. Let’s embrace it and let’s kind of attempt to be leaders in doing that. And implementing what we can to be better at a job. So, again, in this new, world, how do you bring people in? How do we mentor them? How do we give them the, reps, the opportunity on files? How do we do all of that? And that goes to the staff, paralegals, lawyers, it goes to all of it. So one of the things again, is for me, is, and again, that people piece. It plays into technology, but it also, it is just, it’s a set apart item as well, is I spent a lot of time thinking, what can I do better to work with the people I work with to be more efficient with them. Not just the clients, but yes, with the clients, but internally to be more efficient, internally to train better to ensure that there’s opportunities for everybody. You know, the internal training. There’s all of these things and to me that’s a big part of what I think about as well.”
Ryan C. Kemp
“And I would assume that challenge is, I don’t necessarily say as great as it ever has been, but you know, over the last few years, I think the expectation of young adults that are just entering the workforce has changed dramatically. And you talk about adaptability, but you know, there are sort of old habits. Old school ways of thinking of your role in the office, your presence, routine, what have you, and I think the more that I interact with sort of that younger generation, the more I’m realizing that maybe the way I envisioned those routines, like it’s just, it’s at odds with it. So you say that that’s something that you think about a lot and I would have to think that, especially now. Because again, the expectations and attitudes I think have, they’re somewhat divergent from what we kind of traditionally envision as what some of the expectations are at work. So I’m just wondering, like, is that, are you seeing that, is that concern that you have more pronounced now than it has been maybe in the past?”
Jordan W. Smith
“Uh, wow. Yeah. I think yes, I think absolutely it is. And I mean, as I , as my hairline suggests, I’m getting older and I feel young, I don’t look young, but I feel it. But yeah, I’m talking to students when I’m whether little law students or articling students, I always try to connect with people. At whatever stage of life, I don’t care if you’re 70 or 17, I try to connect where they’re at, try to understand them. I’m obviously a relational guy, I care about people. I care about people I work with greatly. I care about my clients. I’m just, again, I’m a relational person. But I do find and I agree with you, Ryan, there’s times where it’s not good enough to say, I don’t, I kind of don’t understand that. And I think for some colleagues of mine or my industry, or clients of mine, uh, I think it can be easy. Sometimes it’s three hands and go, well, they don’t know, they don’t care. Or they’re different, and the reality is again, about adaptability is here’s a reality is, again, we’re in the people business. We need to be adaptable. We need to understand, what do they want out of this career? What are they looking for? And I think, you know, I have a current articling student and he’s great.”
Graeme R. Swainson
“Shout out to Sarmad.”
Jordan W. Smith
“He’s awesome. And I probably should take Sarmad for coffee more frequently. You know, cause I’m sometimes frantic, like a math professor running around my office and I come in and talk to him and he’s a great guy and to be honest with you, at the core of it, he’s not, I guess, that much different than I am. And I guess that’s part of it, is the human experience. I mean, I don’t know, there’s some variation. I think the whole work, work from home, work at the office. I mean, there’s some obvious kind of hot topics I guess, that are still, kind of, and that’s a whole other story probably, but the reality is, I don’t know that it was any different when i was starting. I’m sure Roger or Al or Bruce probably said the same things about me.”
Ryan C. Kemp
“Right. So, I do, sorry, I just quickly, and you know, when you had mentioned adaptability, and I think your point is good, I think you gotta take a broader definition of what that means. And if you want to adapt to new technologies, similarly. I think you have to adapt your business to fit the new labour market. And you’re right, I don’t think it can be a top down thing. I think that it has to be communicated in both directions and then you have to find kind of that sweet spot.”
Graeme R. Swainson
“Yeah. And it like, again, on the theme of what we’re talking about again. Yeah, it keeps me up at night. How are we developing people? How are we doing this properly and are we doing a good enough job? And how easy is it going to be in the future to bring in new people and develop them properly? And I think, you know, we talk about being more efficient. We talk about again, trying not to do things the way they’ve always been done, and to do things better. I think part of that, and I am just being honest, I think for all of us, is part of that is to achieve a better work-life balance. We’ve all heard stories from lawyers in the past, and frankly not, it’s not even a lawyer thing, it’s just every, you know, it used to be a point of pride that I got into the office at 5:00AM and I worked until 10:00pm. And that’s fantastic, work ethic is something that is absolutely a good thing and something to be sought after. That being said, if I’m able to get that work done in a shorter amount of time and go home and enjoy some time with my family, or friends, or enjoy a hobby or what have you, I think that’s a good thing. And so when we’re looking at people entering the workforce, the fact that they value having this work-life balance. I think that’s a good thing. I think, yeah, they’re not just going to do things the way that they’ve always been done. It’s like someone coming along and, you know, this is a crude example, but someone having a house with a dishwasher and they’re parent or whatever giving them shit because, you know, they didn’t have a dishwasher when they were your age, and so they hand washed all their dishes. Now, we have dishwashers. Now, you’re going to use that. We have more, better technologies now. It’s not going to take you four hours to draft a brief or it’s not going to take you all day to draft up a purchase sale agreement. Like, again, we’re going to be more efficient, we’re going to be better. That’s going to allow people to have better work-life balance and to do their thing. Let’s embrace that. Embrace change, be adaptable, try and meet people where they are and again, I’m not a big believer in we need to do it this way because this is the way that it’s always been done. And I think that’s what we’re all trying to get away from. But yeah, it’s one of those things going back to what you guys were saying about people in the office or not in the office and all that kind of, that’s what keeps me up at night is like, yes, I want to be adaptable and I want to, you know, embrace this work-life balance and allow people to work from home a day or two a week, if you want to, make sure that they have time to enjoy themselves. That being said, I think we’ve all talked about this as far as even just working remotely versus being in the office. You get a lot more out of things by being present and being around people. And that is, I think what I struggle with is, you don’t want to be a hard ass with people and say you have to be in the office at the same time. I think it’s just a message that you have to deliver and say you’re going to get more out of this the more you put into it. And not to say, I always say we’re not a, pardon my french, ass in the chair firm. It’s not impressing anyone, if you’re here at 5:00AM and stay until 10:00PM, if you’re work output isn’t showing the hours that you’re putting into it. And so that’s the struggle between making sure that you’re giving people a good experience, giving good people mentorship, giving good people instructions. Without forcing them to work ridiculous hours or do ridiculous things. And so, yeah, maybe it takes a little bit longer to bring someone along than it used to, but if that’s the balance that you have to get to, then again, you have to embrace it.”
Ryan C. Kemp
“So, balance man, is that ever the complex topic? I have it here on my notes as well. Like, am I striking the right balance? And I guess a couple things come to mind. You know, we were talking at the very outset about the file work you have in front of you and where the next one comes from. I think if you don’t have a practice that you have, a high level of certainty that the workflow is going to be there. I don’t want to say no matter what, but you don’t have those questions. I think there’s maybe something fundamentally at odds between balance and how you sort of manage that anxiety, not knowing where the next one comes from because I think if you are always concerned about where the next file comes from, you’re always hunting. It’s always, it’s always generally more and more and more, right? Like that’s, I think it’s just kind of ingrained. So with that sort of what I’ll call like a solicitor’s mentality, like how to you balance that with balance? Your pie chart…if today like, mine looks like, whatever proportion work, whatever portion family. And you know, I ask myself quite often like when you’re in the thick of things and you’re engrossed in a file and like, are you smelling the roses? Like I want to be present, I want to be more balanced with my family. Like I want to do that thing. So, I’m always over analyzing whether striking that right balance. I don’t think I’ve found it. If you guys find it, you let me know where it lies. But man, is that something that I do think about a lot – how am I carving up that pie the right way to both, achieve professionally, contribute to my firm while being a good dad and a good husband and that to be honest is something that keeps me up at night.”
Jordan W. Smith
“It’s tough. It’s up there on my list too. And it’s interesting that we arrived at very similar sort of topics to talk about here. But I think, I think part of all of this though is that as lawyers we’re or at least when I think through law school, I think through the lawyers that I’ve worked with. We place such a high expectation on ourselves. There’s, I think, it’s part of the culture. Working hard is really valued. It’s heavily valued. And I don’t, it’s interesting, I mean they, I’m not saying I was lazy, but we went to law school because I wasn’t.. at the same time, I don’t think I thought of working hard as a badge of courage. Some prior to going to law school like in and of itself like, but somehow there aren’t many lawyers you talk to who say they aren’t busy. Well, I don’t have to work very hard, you know, look how well I do it. I hardly have to work. It’s almost like they’d rather, you know, not do as well than work hard. Like working hard is in itself the pinnacle. I don’t know where that came from – that might be an interesting thing to ask some of the senior lawyers about their own experience with that, because it’s probably even more so. But, as an aside, I remember sharing with one of the lawyers here and he was saying there’s stories about this particular lawyer working so hard until three in the morning. He’s like, oh, he was on the whiskey form 10:00PM so like, really, I don’t think he was working. So, doesn’t want to go home. I struggle with it, but at this same time, I look at it and go, I think I don’t try to keep every file and not give work out, I want to empower people I work with. I want the work done in the firm properly by the proper person. And so I do what I can to have a balance where I don’t have to be turning the wrenches till whatever time. So again, I’m doing what I can to be efficient. I still struggle with it. I cannot imagine what it’s like for those lawyers and there’s lots of them. I think friends of mine that don’t do that and they feel they do need to do everything right. And you know, maybe I go home, I have dinner and more often than not, I get my laptop open and I’m still working in the evening a little bit. But I am able to go home most dinners, not all the time. But it’s a struggle for me, I can’t imagine the struggle for those lawyers who still feel like they need to do it all.”
Graeme R. Swainson
“Well, it’s this weird, and I don’t think it’s especially unique to the legal industry. I think it’s that grind mentality. Again, going back to my ass in the seat example. I’m in super early and I stay super late and I’m grinding away. Yeah, sure, that’s good for you. This is talking about the work-life balance and all that is it’s interesting for me talking to you guys about this because you both have young kids. I do, I struggle to find a work-life balance where, you know, I have a wife and two beautiful dogs and I feel as though I don’t give them enough attention because I am at work a lot and I can only imagine how parents feel and all that other stuff. That being said, the idea of this perfect balance between work and your personal life, it’s a facade. It’s just not, not a reality. Like I don’t think you can strike a perfect balance between both because again I think you’re either really grinding away and you’re working really hard and you’re not really getting as much out of your personal life as you should. Or, you feel as though you’re constantly torn away from work with personal stuff and you feel as though work’s getting neglected. Well, life happens and I think we all have to be nicer to each other. I’ll go on this rant about social media nd it’s evil effects on the world, but I think there’s a lot of pressure, especially on young professionals, especially I think young professional parents. They need to be the best at their job and the best parent and the best spouse and all this kind of stuff. And it’s just, I think it’s unfair to people. And so I think we all have to be nicer to each other and realize that there is no perfect work-life balance. And sometimes you’re going to be drawn more to work and sometimes you’re going to be drawn more to home. And that’s fine. And that’s always what I tell people, this is why we work as a team, so that we can have other people there to back each other up. Again, when life happens, there will be someone at work to help you out and cover for you. But it is a really difficult thing to talk about these days because again there’s this expectation on people that they have to do everything. Then you have students and younger people coming up and I think it’s good for them to be setting those boundaries right away and saying, you know what? I’m going to have this balance. And yeah, somebody’s going to grind away a bunch of hours and maybe they progress a little bit quicker in their career. If somebody wants more work-life balance and they become a partner, a law firm after nine years, versus someone that absolutely grinds away and they become a partner after six years, there’s nothing wrong with that. And I think people need to realize people are going at their own pace. That being said, I think we very much encourage, go have a social life, go socialize with people because you know what? That makes you a better lawyer and a better asset to our firm because you’re going to establish relationships. Now Jordan, I want you to go to your son’s hockey game because guess what? Number one, I want you to watch your son play hockey and it’s good. I want you to be a good dad, but I’m not immune to the idea that you’re probably going to run into someone at your son’s hockey game that maybe has a business that needs some legal owrk done and like that’s just a good, you want people out in the community. That’s a good, and I will say also the whole idea of people grinding away at their jobs the whole time. We’ve talked about this before, if you don’t have that balance, you’re doing yourself no favours professionally. We’ve all gotten that email at 2:00AM from some poor lawyer working at a big firm in, you know, Toronto, Vancouver. That email is full of typos and the docs are wrong and you just read the email and say, go to bed. Like, you’re not doing anything productive right now. And so, again, I don’t really know the answer to the work-life balance question. It’s tough, but I think my answer is that there is no good answer.”
Ryan C. Kemp
“Yeah. It’s, you’re right, it is elusive. I think it’s one of those things that you could hopefully aspire to but never achieve… I don’t think it’s an issue that’s unique to legal professionals. I don’t think it’s unique to people that, whether you have kids or you don’t have kids, I don’t think, I think it affects everybody the same way. And part of the, I guess sort of the catch 22 is like enjoy what you do. You’re engrossed, you’re invested, I think by definition. Then when you hit the parkade and you’re driving home, the switch doesn’t flick off like that, right? If you guys have a better way of managing that or addressing that, let me know. I’d be interested to hear it. But that’s part of it too, your hours in the office are one thing and you could say, I can, I’m going to look to strike a balance just based on time expended, whether it’s at the office or home. But it’s that it’s, the time it takes to disengage, to detach from work. That I find again, that makes it a little bit more challenging.”
Jordan W. Smith
“One thing I was going to say about that, I agree, Ryan. One thing to say about that is that’s reflected in our clients, right? And so the one thing that I guess when I think about the last half full aspect of all of it, where I have that issue of not turning off my mind. The balance and dealing with it, lots of times I’ll have lunch or drink coffee with the clients. We’re talking about things and I mean, you know, we’re business owners. They’re business owners and we’re just talking life. And it’s the same for them, I mean, part of it is, again, obviously I’d rather care. I’d rather be in a situation where I have exciting work and I feel like the work’s exciting. I enjoy working with business owners. I enjoy hearing about their business. I enjoy helping advise them on the legal issues and again, the interplay of that, the outcomes that they are working for. And so not shutting it off and part of that is just part of it is working through and someone’s almost kind of debriefing is to kind of go full circle. Graeme was saying at the beginning and talking to yourself, that’s part of it. When I drive home lots of times, yeah. I will have my radio on a certain sports channel, but I’m half listening because my son will get in my car sometimes and say dad, why are you listening to this? Because he wants whatever he wants. I’m only kind of half listening because part of it is, again, I’m having this conversation about the work-life balance in my head. It maybe sounds like I’m a bad dad because my kids in the car. Maybe I’m driving to hockey, but I’m thinking about work. But when I see ’em thinking about work, I’m often talking to a client in my mind or I’m going through some advice that I’d want to give or just processing some of the challenges they’re having a transaction, how we can kind of negotiate this or whatever we can do. Again, part of that is just caring and part of it is frankly having an exciting job in a lot of ways. It is exciting and the reason it’s exciting is because of our clients have exciting things that they are doing.”
Graeme R. Swainson
“Yeah, the choice between caring and not caring. I want to care, a hundred percent of the time and it does lead to some sleepless nights, some conversations with yourself in the car of in bed or in the shower or what have you. No, it’s just that proves, again, you’re passionate about what you do. You care about what you do. You care about your clients. You care about the outcome of the issues that they’re facing. I wouldn’t have it any other way, as stressful as it is.. Like I said, caring’s better than not caring. So guys, anything else that keeps you up at night that we haven’t touched on here?”
Ryan C. Kemp
“We literally ran through my list. So, I’m good. I don’t have anything.”
Graeme R. Swainson
“I mean, I don’t want to get into all the stuff in my personal life that keeps me up at night, so, maybe that’s a good way to end it here. Again, thank you so much for listening. This is SMP | A Legal Podcast.”
