The Power of Open-Mindedness (and some appreciation for the team at Gowling WLG)

Since starting 4L Academy last year, we've spent a lot of time talking to law firms. We've also spent a lot of time talking to law students and junior associates.

Lots of our early conversations would go something like this:

• Articling Student/Junior Associate to us: "I'm just feeling so lost. I wish we had better training. It's really affecting my mental health."
• Law firm they work at to us: "Our firm is really unique. We have robust training and we haven't received any negative feedback. Plus we're a great firm so we know how to train people."

And so would begin the realization that until these firms could acknowledge that they either had a problem or were missing out on an opportunity, there was pretty much no hope that they'd be willing to work with us.

But not every firm was like that. Some firms really grasped things right away, and that kept my spirits up.

The one firm that really got it right away was Gowling WLG (Canada), and I'm incredibly grateful to have worked with their team for the past year.

They're a shining example of what is possible when you're dealing with leaders who care about their junior lawyers, recognize they don't have all the answers, and are open to trying new things.

It's been just over a year since Brent Winston (my 4L Academy co-founder) and me got things started with Gowling WLG - a relationship that led us to run Canada-wide training for some of their junior associates in 2022 - and I figured it would be interesting to show you a glimpse of what happened behind the scenes.

Things moved incredibly quickly - especially for the legal industry.

The end result (spoiler alert) was some incredible courses, amazing feedback from the participants, and us putting plans in place to continue working together in 2023.

It's what happens when you're able to focus on what could go right, instead of just what could go wrong.

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August 2021

I reach out to a contact at Gowling WLG who is very involved in the legal tech space and who I figure may be interested in what we're building. After all, we integrate legal tech into our classes, and I know how challenging it can be for firms to adopt legal tech tools.

We jump on a call on August 30 and it's pretty clear there's some interest. Gowling WLG is focused on gathering feedback on their internal courses and have identified their existing strengths and weakness (while you would think this is normal, you would be surprised at rare this is or how little data most firms have).?

Sept 20, 2021

We jump on a call with a broad group - including members of their learning and development team, their innovation and knowledge team, and their talent team.

They clearly aren't messing around, and neither are we.

Gowling WLG asked us a lot of great questions

• How will we tackle different jurisdictions?

(all good - we build Canada wide courses, and they're M&A focused, so the provincial differences are pretty minor. We've already worked with people all over Canada)

• Are we CPD/CLE eligible?

(yup)

• Do people get handouts after each class?

(absolutely - this way, nobody needs to take notes and can just be focused on learning)

• Each firm has their own precedents - how will we handle that?

(we'll work with yours - we want to make sure the course actually reflects the reality of your junior lawyers)

October 12-13, 2021

We jump on a call with Gowling WLG, and the buy-in is pretty clear. Everyone is ready to get moving on making this a reality!

We follow-up with a detailed list of next steps, so that we can make sure the course is tailored to the target market (their first year, second year, and some upper year Business Law associates across Canada)

Nov-Dec 2021

With an NDA in place, we get to work on making sure that our ideas of what these courses should include are aligned with what they actually need

• We review their internal competency framework for associates at each stage
• We review their precedents, which will form the basis of some of our interactive drafting classes as part of our Closings course
• We run 3 focus groups: 1 for partners; 1 for senior associates; and 1 for the target market (the focus groups were a huge part of what set us up for success)
• We build out a diagnostic (about 20-30 questions that the target market can answer anonymously, so that we can gauge how much they actually know vs. what they think they know)

All of this in advance of building a single thing.

In case it's not abundantly clear already, we spend a ton of time building our courses. And we haven't even got to talking about the actual building of the course yet. This is just the research phase!

Winter Break 2021

Lawyers don't get winter break, but I spent plenty of my 'down time' over the holidays actually building our first course for the firm, which was a Due Diligence (M&A) one.

I'll take you behind the scenes on actually building the course in my next article - it involves a lot of chaos, but it's what makes our classes so unique and so well received.

Jan 10, 2022

Gowling WLG announces the class internally to the target market.

Jan 11, 2022

It turns out, people are actually really excited about our course and have an overwhelmingly positive response. Our course - just to remind you - is about due diligence on M&A deals. Frequently known as the most boring part of a deal.

March 2022

We wrap up the course. Quantitative and qualitative feedback is ridiculously positive.

Most of all, we delivered on what we intended - practical insights that make people better lawyers, all delivered in a really engaging way.

Spring 2022

Brent and I build and deliver a Closings course for the same target market. Like with our Due Diligence course, we integrate a bunch of legal tech and create some really practical activities.

August-Sept 2022

Apparently partners at the firm are asking "when are you offering these courses again?"

Given some of our initial conversations with other firms a year earlier, this puts a smile on my face.

Many firms were not willing to take a chance on us to start. We were unproven and we were asking established, highly-respected firms to trust us with their incredibly talented junior lawyers.

To their credit, Gowling WLG was not one of those firms. They were open to new ideas, they moved quickly, and all they were focused on is 'how do we help our associates?'.

I'm thrilled that we'll be working with Gowling WLG again in 2023.

It's been an absolute treat to work with the Gowling WLG team, and I'm excited to keep building and teaching more courses for their firm in the coming years.