Monthly Musings Edition #5

‘Tribe - a group of people who are loyal to you, care for you like family’ (Urban Dictionary’s definition of ‘Tribe’)

Hello everyone,?

For my fifth ‘Monthly Musings’ edition, I’d like to share my thoughts on why finding a ‘tribe’ has been so important to me throughout my time at Legally Yours .

Back in 2015, when I entered into this world of ‘#newlaw’, I hadn’t been in the legal industry for over 10 years.?My passion for fixed-fee pricing had come about because of 2 life changing experiences.?The first was witnessing the devastation my parents faced when they were battling a commercial litigation matter back in my teenage years that resulted in the loss of their business and our family home. The second experience was when I was admitted to practice as a junior lawyer and I was exposed to the toxic billable hour culture, where my entire value to the firm, and to my clients, was equated down to how many 6 minute increments I could bill per day.

So, armed with just my passion and a gutsy determination to help more clients access fixed fee legal services and to disrupt the billable hour business model in the legal profession, I ‘hit the pavement’ and started speaking to law firms about why they should price their legal services beyond the billable hour.

It didn’t take long before I realised how difficult a task this was going to be!?The majority of law firm partners I met in those early days didn’t think their clients had a problem with the way they priced their services, often telling me ‘as long as clients pay the invoices, we don’t care if they like it or not’.?There was many a day in the first few years of my time with Legally Yours when I felt like a lone disrupter shovelling mud up a hill!

And then I started to find my ‘tribe’. ?

Meeting John Chisholm provided me with the inspiration to keep disrupting, no matter the adversity I faced.?Meeting Jennie Pakula provided me with the confidence to keep persisting with trying to change the business model of law firms to a fixed-fee pricing model.?Meeting Madeleine Dupuche and discussing why it was so important for lawyers to have a ‘whole life balance’ was inspiring.?Meeting Melissa Lyon and learning about legal design thinking was mind blowing.?Meeting Carl White and sharing his passion for client experience and customer service in law firms was energising.?

Meeting Rugare Gomo ????? ???? ???? taught me how to be vulnerable and authentic in a conservative industry. Meeting Andrea Perry-Petersen CF opened my eyes to the world of pro bono legal services and educated me on the correlation between access to justice for the ‘missing middle’ and legal technology.?Meeting Eric Chin and his introductions to the Australian legal technology community, enabled me to find my Aussie Legal Tech tribe and inspired me to join the Board of the ALTA - Australian Legal Technology Association (ALTA) and more recently to take on the role of Committee Chair of the Women of ALTA (#WALTA) and find my WALTA Tribe - Jodie Baker , Amanda Fajerman , Lisa Dowie, GAICD , Kathy Constan and Morag Latta !

From there, my tribe just kept growing, and today I’m so lucky to be surrounded by so many creative, innovative and brilliant people in both the #legalprofession and the #legaltechnology industry.

So why was finding my ‘tribe’ so important??It has provided me with the motivation to keep persisting, especially through the challenging and difficult times.?It has enabled me to expand my knowledge and mindset.?And it has gifted me the opportunity to collaborate and partner with so many progressive #lawyers and legal professionals, as well as build strong relationships with the brilliant businesses who support the progressive #legalindustry, both here in Australian and internationally.

I’m often asked by law students about the best way to ‘network’.?For me, it wasn’t about networking, it was, and is, about building a ‘tribe’.

Thank you for reading my ‘Monthly Musings’ for September!?I look forward to sharing more of my insights and learnings about legal technology and the progressive legal industry with you all next month.?