Latest / The Wellness Esquire Podcast: Happy, Healthy, Successful Lawyers / AI, Anxiety, and the Myth of the Perfect Lawyer with Colin Levy

Transcript

AI, Anxiety, and the Myth of the Perfect Lawyer with Colin Levy · The Wellness Esquire Podcast: Happy, Healthy, Successful Lawyers

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Wellness Esquire podcast.
0:01
SPEAKER_01: I'm Ariella and I'm so glad you're here for this conversation with Colin Levy.
0:06
SPEAKER_01: Colin and I connected on LinkedIn during COVID because we were both showing up super authentically.
0:11
SPEAKER_01: I was talking about my physical health story and he was talking about his mental health.
0:15
SPEAKER_01: We talk about Colin's experience with anxiety and depression and how learning to ask for help and speak more openly has changed the way he shows up in his life and his work.
0:23
SPEAKER_01: We talk about perfectionism, self-criticism, and the pressure to hold it all together.
0:27
SPEAKER_01: We talk about grief, how it shows up unexpectedly, and how we continue moving through our professional lives while carrying very real personal loss.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: And we may, by the way, sometimes have an off day, believe it or not, and that's okay.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: We also talk about the role of people and relationships in the legal profession, as well as the role AI plays and why it's so important to approach it as a tool to enhance our work, not as a replacement for human judgment.
0:51
SPEAKER_01: This was a really great conversation, and I'm incredibly grateful to Colin for having it with me.
0:57
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: Remember to rate and subscribe and enjoy.
1:08
SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
1:09
SPEAKER_01: Hello.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: I had no sound on.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: Can you hear me?
1:12
SPEAKER_00: Hi there.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm so sorry.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: I a meeting ended literally at one, so I was running.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: Well.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: You're so sorry because you're like maybe even 60 seconds late.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: I hate being late.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: It drives me nuts.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's because I grew up with parents who are always late to everything, and it drove me up a wall.
1:31
SPEAKER_01: Ah, you know, so first of all, I don't care.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: You're fine.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: So if you're feeling any sort of guilt that you need, you know, to release, please do.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm the same way about myself.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: I I don't like being late.
1:45
SPEAKER_01: I but when other people are, most unless you like do it routinely, I'm like, what are you doing?
1:51
SPEAKER_01: But we all have other stuff going on.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, I put this in the same category I I think I would have told you, but but I might have forgotten.
2:00
SPEAKER_01: I've I've started to proactively tell guests, you are welcome to reschedule as many times as you need to, including super last minute.
2:07
SPEAKER_01: And I started doing that because so many people had to reschedule and sometimes really last minute, because life happens and they would feel so, so guilty.
2:17
SPEAKER_01: And here I am, you know, with a podcast where we're talking about well-being and life and the hard things, and including how hard we are on ourselves.
2:26
SPEAKER_01: And it feels a little ridiculous to be like, no, no, you can't have life happening.
2:32
SPEAKER_01: You know, you can't have personal stuff, you can't have health stuff, you can't have work stuff.
2:35
SPEAKER_01: So um that is all to say, you're I'm gonna call you on on time and it's all good.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: I I appreciate it.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, funny, funny quick story.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: I actually had a um I had a call with someone, and I've never seen this before ever, in any booking page, who had a fee that you had to agree to pay if you canceled the meeting, I think within like 24, might have been 48, something like that.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: Hour.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, who does that?
3:11
SPEAKER_01: What kind of a meeting was this for?
3:13
SPEAKER_00: Or who it was for a potential service.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: Um, like it was kind of a it was a it was um kind of a feeling out call to see if this service would be useful.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: I ended up not going with it, but just for that initial call, there was that fee.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, do you send like first of all?
3:34
SPEAKER_00: I don't think as a lawyer, I don't think that's really binding per se.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but I wouldn't want to test it.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: But secondly, who does that?
3:45
SPEAKER_01: I I'm sure there are weirder things out there, but I don't know.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm sure there are that I really don't want to know about.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: Right.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, I've there's all sorts of ways to be a person.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: And you know, I I can understand, you know, I I I once um I had to reschedule something, I think three times for very legitimate reasons.
4:08
SPEAKER_01: But um I was trying to, I wanted to meet with a potential vendor, and um and you know, that I didn't know, we'd never spoken.
4:18
SPEAKER_01: Um, and that vendor, you know, is trying to build up, you know, he's got a business and he's got things to do.
4:24
SPEAKER_01: And so on his end, he got a little bit, maybe a little bit more than a little bit, bothered by my I think three times of rescheduling.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: Um, and one of the times was actually he had missed a sort of an instruction that I had given about when I needed him to do the rescheduling, whatever.
4:40
SPEAKER_01: Um and then, and he's now one of my vendors because we had an interaction, I explained, he apologized, you know, we had a whole just communication about sort of values and priorities and where things went wrong.
4:55
SPEAKER_01: Um, and and then I thought, well, I love this guy.
4:59
SPEAKER_01: Um and so I, you know, I say that to say I understand when people well, I understand sometimes when people get peeved for when someone does reschedule because it's your time.
5:11
SPEAKER_01: I personally feel like, well, it's not like I have a shortage of things to do.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: Right, exactly.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I mean I just I look, I'll give people a graze period, I'll give people benefit of the doubt in terms of showing up for things.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: Um I only the only time I'll get a little miffed is if they don't show up and then I don't hear from them.
5:36
SPEAKER_01: Right.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: That's when I'm like, okay.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: I don't care what it is, you could have told me the sky was falling.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, that's not true, but that's fine.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: But I would have taken that over silence, you know.
5:48
SPEAKER_01: I agree.
5:49
SPEAKER_01: And to me, so much of it is simply about communication.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: If you don't communicate, you're out.
5:55
SPEAKER_01: If you do, even if it's like a little bit of an awkward situation, okay, you communicate about it.
6:00
SPEAKER_01: We're all awkward sometimes.
6:01
SPEAKER_01: It's fine.
6:04
SPEAKER_01: And and you know, I I given that some of what we're gonna talk about today are, you know, things like anxiety, there's so many of us just within the industry who who struggle with different forms of you know, self-criticism and anxiety and you know, perfectionism, maladaptive perfectionism and feeling like we're not good enough and like all of these kinds of things.
6:27
SPEAKER_01: And then we go and get mad at people and sometimes mean toward people who, you know, when when a life thing happens and they either fall short, or maybe they just fall short in some way, either because they did show up and they really couldn't do it well and they needed to have said, I really can't do this right now, or they didn't show up and then you know, whatever there's all sorts of versions of this.
6:49
SPEAKER_01: Um, but we don't help the those negative, you know, self-feelings when we create an environment where people are afraid to say, hey, this isn't good for me right now.
6:59
SPEAKER_01: I need to change it.
7:00
SPEAKER_01: So sorry for the last minute change, whatever.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: And um exactly.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: And and this actually podcast comes up on a good uh good time because I actually was literally texting a friend the other uh today that yesterday I was feeling just kind of a little down and depressed, and it wasn't really for any particular reason.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I there are reasons I could be feeling that way, but that wasn't it because I know myself.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's just part of I think just having like anxiety and these issues is just that happened to just kind of pop up at times.
7:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
7:41
SPEAKER_01: And it's for all of us, you know, whether whether these things pop up.
7:48
SPEAKER_01: We're human.
7:48
SPEAKER_01: I know like a lot of your posts are just like, hey, we're actually what I love about your posts, even you know, from when we first connected, which I think was in the COVID days when we were, I think, both starting to just talk about like, hey, we're humans.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: This is I think that's true.
8:03
SPEAKER_01: Um But I love that you're also talking about just our humanness, even when you're your focus on AI and technology, which we we tend to forget that we are human.
8:14
SPEAKER_01: So I want to get into all of these things, but before we get into the the uh juicier personal stuff, um, or maybe maybe this will have some juicy personal stuff too.
8:23
SPEAKER_01: Tell me what led you to go to law school in the first place.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I went to law school because um there were a couple things that really were of interest to me.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: Um one was um the sort of interdisciplinary nature of law and the fact that it touches so many different areas of life and also incorporates so many different subjects in some ways, um, which drew me to actually transactional law because that sort of even more so touches upon a lot of different areas.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: Um I like reading and writing, so that is also a reason.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I also like to challenge myself, and and um you know, practicing law is definitely a I think a challenging profession.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: Um but I think what I didn't necessarily um understand at the time and now understand a lot more is that a challenge is not necessarily the law or applying it.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: It's actually just understanding people and managing people's behavior and understanding people's behavior.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: Because as a lawyer, you're often people's therapist, counselor, all sorts of things that they don't really kind of talk about or bring up a whole lot in um in law school, um, which arguably they should.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: That is such a good point.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: When did you start to hone in on that and understand that as being such a huge aspect of what the job is?
10:03
SPEAKER_00: I think my first job at a law school, my first full-time role, I I immediately understood that to be the case because I was dealing with people of all sorts of different personalities and realized that the challenge I was facing wasn't a lack of knowledge or anything along those lines.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: It was more a matter of just managing people's personalities and not letting personalities get in the way of the work that needs to get done.
10:32
SPEAKER_01: Man, I wish that I had had the framing that you just said years ago.
10:38
SPEAKER_01: That hits home so well.
10:40
SPEAKER_01: And it you touch on things that I I figured out over the years in little snippets, but never framed it exactly that way.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna have to sit with that a lot later.
10:51
SPEAKER_01: That's fantastic.
10:52
SPEAKER_01: So tell me uh in a nutshell about your your you know, some of the jobs starting with, you know, shortly after law school, up until the work that you do now.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: And as part of that, like how did you become so focused on legal tech?
11:10
SPEAKER_01: Was that always of an interest to you, or did that pop up along the way?
11:15
SPEAKER_00: So I went out at the beginning, but yeah, well, well, let me answer sure the first part of your question first, which is um, I have to go back actually to prior to law school.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I worked for a firm in New York as a paralegal doing um supporting e-discovery and creating e-discovery databases, um, which gave me my first sort of taste of legal technology.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: And that was what really kind of piqued my interest in the space, um, even though I found the the technology not challenging, but the work itself was challenging to some degree.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then prior, and then after that, I went to law school.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: There was very little talk about technology, and I thought to myself, well, okay, there's this clear gap between the tech world and the legal world when there shouldn't be, because the tech world needs the legal world, and they're intersecting in closer and closer ways, and that has proven to be especially true over you know the next number of years that followed, and certainly today.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I realized that if I wanted to learn about that space, I needed to uh reach out to those who were actually talking about it, doing something about it, i.e., creating products or teaching about it.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: And so that's what I did.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: And those conversations then helped kind of set me on this path.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: At the same time, um, you know, the I struggled to find a full-time job immediately upon graduating from law school because at the time it was sort of the Great Recession, the tail end of it.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I had to kind of just find temporary jobs, uh, which I did, but gave me some exposure to some more technology, um, but also gave me exposure to the types of work that used the skills I knew I needed to refine to be an in-house lawyer.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: And then when I became an in-house lawyer, uh, one of my tasks during that time was actually to help co-create a rudimentary kind of document review/slash management system pertaining to non-disclosure agreements, and that project further reinforced my interest in technology and its impacts upon law and also my desire to work more in the tech industry, which I have since done with a variety of in-house roles.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so um those two things combined eventually led me to being connected with folks in the legal tech space who then helped me get the job that I have now uh with Malbec.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: So that's sort of a shortened version of that career journey, but it really was one that um was unexpected and wasn't necessarily fully intentional.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: But looking back, all the things that I've done and the jobs I've had all kind of were in some ways connected to one another and being stepping stones towards what I do now.
14:12
SPEAKER_01: What do you think a lot of lawyers don't understand about legal tech?
14:18
SPEAKER_01: Just in general, before we even get to AI.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think a lot of lawyers probably don't understand the fact that we're talking about technology that is not we're not talking about technology that is legal literally under the law, meaning that, oh, this is approved by a lawyer and therefore you can do it or not.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, tools that exist would have to be that way for them to be sold and used.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: But really, what we're talking about are technologies and tools that are both meant to augment how you practice, but also meant to augment sort of what it is you do on a daily basis as a lawyer.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: And so I think people really need to understand the fact that legal tech is not just about the technology itself, but also about the processes involved that embody those tools and the people that use those tools and the broader impacts upon both.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: Um and that's how I kind of view uh legal tech in general, and I think that's what a lot of people tend to miss.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: They tend to be focused, especially these days, on the tools and not upon the the other elements that help make those tools as powerful as they are.
15:33
SPEAKER_01: Okay, now same question with AI.
15:36
SPEAKER_01: What do you think a lot of lawyers don't understand about AI, and in particular in a way that makes them afraid of it?
15:46
SPEAKER_00: I think that people don't tend to, or people tend to get shiny key syndrome, especially with AI, and think that, oh, well, someone's using this tool, so therefore I should use that tool or this tool without really thinking about the why.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: About why do you want to use that tool?
16:04
SPEAKER_00: Why are you even looking at AI in the first place?
16:06
SPEAKER_00: What is your intended goal?
16:08
SPEAKER_00: What is the problem you're trying to solve?
16:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, those things tend to get a little bit shoved to the wayside by virtue of people just being drawn to the shiny beauty, if you will, of AI tools.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that had been the case before with legal tech, but is especially now the case with AI, I think in part because we're so bombarded with AI marketing and the fact that AI seems to be everywhere all at the same time, and everything seems to have an AI component to it.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: And so that that noise and that hype tends to lead people astray or get them distracted.
16:47
SPEAKER_01: How do you think lawyers can use legal tech and AI responsibly?
16:56
SPEAKER_01: Um, I know you you just put out a 72-page guide, um, and it's sort of like for for the novice or for someone who's been in it and just like needs some more attention.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: Um how do you think about that?
17:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I think that you know, using AI effectively and and ethically, I think starts with having a clear idea of what's driving you to use it.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: You know, what are you who are you trying to support, who you're trying to help, and how.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and also comes from a point of understanding kind of to some degree how AI works, and that it's um at its core essentially a powerful pattern recognition tool.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: So it's not really thinking so much as matching up patterns.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, and and that has some limitations to it.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: So you need to understand those.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I think in addition, you need to understand that these tools are not, like any tool, are most powerful and useful when the people that are using them have an understanding of why they're using the tool.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: In other words, they know what how to use the tool.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so that I think is an important component as well.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: And all really this comes down to is um, and this drives largely the you know, why I put out some of the content I do, like the guide, is to help people become more sort of cognizant of those limitations and uh and the benefits benefits of using these tools and understanding that it's not a they're not neutral, but they're also not sort of a foe or a hero.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: They're kind of somewhere in the middle and can be used for a variety of different purposes, and it's up to you to figure out how it fits into what you're trying to accomplish.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: I also think of it as just like another version of it's just it's a tool in a in a way that's sort of similar to an associate or a colleague is a tool.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: When you're working with another human, you don't just say, hey, go do this.
18:57
SPEAKER_01: Okay, great.
18:58
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna use my own brain.
18:59
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna just like submit it and hope you did a good job and whatever.
19:03
SPEAKER_01: Like we still expect to use our own brains.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: Same thing with the tools that come in the tech form.
19:09
SPEAKER_01: You use it for what it is.
19:11
SPEAKER_01: Go ahead.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: Oh, sorry, I was just gonna jump in because you got me, you have me all excited.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: Um talk about this stuff all day long.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: But yes, um, exactly.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: They are they are tools, they're here to augment and supplement what you do rather than complete completely kind of take over what you're doing.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that has you know been a been a debate and a cause of some controversy, uh, because I think as humans, we tend to take a us versus them type of approach to a lot of things, especially things that seem to be competing with us when when that's really, I think, a short-sighted and or misguided way to look at AI.
19:53
SPEAKER_01: You know, I as you said that, it made me think that maybe a lot of us in law, and I'm sure other industries kind of have a scarcity mindset going on about this of, you know, well, what's it?
20:05
SPEAKER_01: Because I I I hear and see, you know, in the industry, people, well, you know, it's gonna take my job.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: What if it takes my job?
20:11
SPEAKER_01: And then I've seen other people say, well, if it's if it's gonna take my job, I'll do something else.
20:15
SPEAKER_01: Like it'll be fine.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: And if it's if it's if I'm doing a job that it really can take over, like what does that mean about the what I'm delivering at this point, anyways?
20:25
SPEAKER_01: And then just you know, let's get creative, look for other things.
20:28
SPEAKER_01: It it's it's not like we haven't dealt before with industries changing.
20:32
SPEAKER_01: We we can do it.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, we can we can do it for sure.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: And in some ways, this is kind of uh harken back to how it was when the internet first arrived and it was clunky, but we also were kind of like, well, what do we do with this thing?
20:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it definitely dramatically changed things, but it didn't completely have the complete transformational impact I think some had feared.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, and AI in some ways is like that, although AI arguably I would say is moving faster than the internet did.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: But the truth of it remains the same, which is that it is here and it is changing and sometimes dramatic of the ways in which we do our work and what we do versus what AI does.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: But it is not a matter of kind of completely replacing what it is that we do.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: And the reason why I've grown more confident in that view is because of the fact that humans have this inherent need to be with other humans and be connected to other humans, and AI cannot yet replicate that sort of almost indescribable kind of embedded feeling or sensation.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: Uh, will we reach a point where it can?
21:49
SPEAKER_00: I think I would be foolish to say that's never gonna happen.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: But when, I don't know.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but we're certainly, I think, a ways away from that.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: Uh so I I do think there is.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Sort of a need to kind of remind ourselves of the fact that we need to be with others, we need relationships with others, and that is unlikely to change anytime soon.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: And certainly when you know COVID was at its height and there were lockdowns and things, we were, I think, you know, really had a stark reminder of that fact.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: How do you think about AI or legal tech in general and efficiency?
22:27
SPEAKER_01: In I guess in general, but it more specifically in the context of lawyer burnout.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I think first of all, yes, it can make lawyers more efficient.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: In terms of helping lawyers not burn out, um you know, burnout's an interesting thing.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a function not just of the amount of work you're doing, but how long you've been doing it for.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: And some people have a higher tolerance and a lower tolerance.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: Me, for example, I can't imagine myself not working, but other people are like, I would be happy not to work.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: Um so I I think that you know it's an it's a complex question because I don't see the efficiency gains from AI necessarily having a one-to-one impact upon people's people becoming less burned out or people working longer or what have you.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: I think it's gonna be kind of more of an individual case-by-case basis.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: But if I had to say definitively, or to some degree one way or the other, I would imagine that it likely would lessen burnout to some degree, but I would argue perhaps not to the same degree that some would argue in terms of it being this, you know, really widespread dramatic tempering of burnout.
23:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I think I'd agree.
23:48
SPEAKER_01: I I think I I don't see it as like, oh, it's not like it's gonna solve the burnout issue.
23:54
SPEAKER_01: I sometimes wonder about, you know, when we see uh, you know, stories of lawyers and they've filed cases and with you know hallucinated case law and things like that.
24:05
SPEAKER_01: And I just wonder, as we all do, like, how did that happen?
24:08
SPEAKER_01: And of course, sometimes, you know, they explain, like they didn't understand it wasn't like Lexis or something like that.
24:14
SPEAKER_01: They just didn't understand what they were using.
24:16
SPEAKER_01: But I also end up wondering, like, you know, a lot of the time, it's it's sometimes it's partners, it's sometimes it's it's lawyers who've been doing this job for a long time, they know what they're doing, you know, and it it's to me, I don't know them, but I from the outside assume it's not about laziness.
24:32
SPEAKER_01: And I just end up wondering, well, how much of it was you were looking for a shortcut because you were out of time, you were out of energy, you know, something like that.
24:41
SPEAKER_01: And you just thought, oh, let me try this tool.
24:43
SPEAKER_01: Oh, this seems really cool, and you didn't understand, you know, its limitations.
24:48
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I often just uh wonder or assume that it's you're going in that direction because you because you're looking for that kind of, I'll call it bandwidth help.
25:01
SPEAKER_01: And so is it does it end up being like one of the tools in the toolbox to just help people not fall off a cliff sometimes?
25:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I I think that um, well, number one, AI tools being hallucinating is not, I would argue, not a flaw.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: I think it's just an inherent part of these tools and just something you have to get used to because they're probabilistic and so um they're likely to come up with an answer that seems probable and plausible, but may not be completely accurate.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, a because of the limited data set, but also because of the fact that it's looking for patterns in uh any mathematician who's a uh specialist in probability would tell you that the trying to calculate the probability of getting a certain answer from one of these tools is pretty close to impossible given the number of different probabilities that there are.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, I think that um so that's the technical piece of it.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: The less technical piece of it is that folks, frankly, I think are sometimes a little lazy, but also think that they don't need to double check their work, which they definitely need to do because these tools are imperfect, they're created by humans, humans are imperfect, so it follows that these would be imperfect.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: And um no tool is gonna do things exactly right.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: I mean, even take a hammer, for example.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: Yes, a hammer, if you if you you know hit it just right on a nail, it's gonna move the nail in.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: Great.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: But isn't always gonna do that?
26:37
SPEAKER_00: No.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: Is that partly your fault?
26:39
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: Is it partly the hammer's fault?
26:40
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, there is there is that piece of it.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: And it which brings me to this topic.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't want to go too much into it given I'm sure there are other questions to discuss, but you know, there have been some studies that have come out that have shown a little bit of the danger of what's called cognitive offloading, meaning you're giving up too much of your cognitive ability to AI, which can have a detrimental impact upon yourself and your ability to think through things.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: And we don't want that.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: We we need to prevent that from happening.
27:09
SPEAKER_00: So I think that AI, again, needs to be viewed as a tool in your toolbox, but not as the only tool and not as your sole resource for doing literally everything.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
27:22
SPEAKER_01: Um, so you you touched on uh you know human imperfection.
27:28
SPEAKER_01: So I want to ask you, what has been your relationship over the years with perfectionism?
27:34
SPEAKER_00: Um I would say that uh for a large part of my life, perfectionism has um been unfortunately a very big influence on my life.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: Um that probably helps explain why I'm a lawyer in part, because a lot of lawyers also are perfectionists.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: Um and and for me, there it goes back to just the need to always be doing things the best and be the best.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, because I am inherently a fairly competitive person, even though professionally I'm not.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: But you put me in any other environment, I'm pretty competitive.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, so there is there is that piece of it.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and also I'm just always driven to improve, to be better, to um always be doing things exactly right.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: So I hold myself up to a fairly high, often, I would say, at least historically, unrealistic standard.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: So perfectionism definitely has driven me in part, um, sometimes to my detriment.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: So it's it's been a battle to kind of accept the fact that um, you know, you can't be perfect, that perfectionism is just not achievable.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: You you talk on LinkedIn um and elsewhere about your mental health.
28:48
SPEAKER_01: And we mentioned briefly before, I think that's how we ended up connecting uh during COVID.
28:53
SPEAKER_01: Both of us were in our own ways just starting to simply show up more authentically and talking about the things that we often have been either explicitly told or implicitly guided that, you know, certainly in our industry we're not supposed to talk about out loud.
29:08
SPEAKER_01: And then we both went, I think I'm gonna try this out.
29:12
SPEAKER_01: And here we are, and we still we talk about it.
29:14
SPEAKER_01: So why did you start talking about your mental health?
29:19
SPEAKER_00: You know, I started talking about A primarily to help me get some of these thoughts out of my head, um, but also to help show others that it's okay to talk about it because mental health is just as important to our overall health as any other piece.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: And so uh there's long been sort of not sure necessarily stigma is the right word anymore, but there was this sort of feeling of like, oh, maybe you don't want to talk about that because you're gonna come off a certain way or what have you, which is the whole reason to talk about it, to combat that that sense and that feeling.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: And also to come off more authentically and show that you know we all struggle, and that's just an inherent part of being human, and it's okay.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: It's okay to struggle, it's okay to you know not be perfect, it's okay to have hard days for whatever reason, and okay to have feelings, sometimes feelings you can't necessarily rationalize or what have you.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: So that's why I I talk about it.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: Um and I I think you know, I have gotten messages from folks who have expressed privately, as well as those who've commented on my post publicly, that they appreciate it.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: And to me, that drives me to want to continue to do it to help just support others and and just show that it's that this is okay and it's okay to not be okay.
30:39
SPEAKER_01: It is okay to not be okay.
30:42
SPEAKER_01: When did you first either start experiencing anxiety or depression, or and or if you aren't sure, when did you become aware that you were struggling?
30:52
SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, I mean, hindsight is 2020, of course, but I would say that I've always had anxiety and uh depression, just didn't really know how to verbalize it or kind of explain it.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: Um and it luckily came out, I think, you know, abundantly clear when I partly when I was in law school, and then when I first started working as a lawyer just because of the stress and all that, and me being an anxious person, it just kind of all sort of just bubbled up and needed to come out because um for a long time I was very um good at just keeping things inside, which was not a great approach.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, I definitely would not encourage that to anyone.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: Uh so once it became abundantly clear to me what was going on, I tried to be proactive about working through it and addressing it.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: And it's uh ongoing and hasn't been easy at all, but I am a completely different person now than I was, you know, I'd say 20 years ago or more when these issues were definitely more present and more controlling, I think, of me and my behavior.
32:02
SPEAKER_01: What did it look like, if you don't mind sharing, what for it to be abundantly clear?
32:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I don't want to go into sort of too much obviously.
32:13
SPEAKER_01: We can move on if you don't want to get into it.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm happy, happy to chat to some degree.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, look, it it came out in the form of um having some serious feelings that uh were detrimental to my well-being, and we needed to take some time off from working and um you know seeking therapy.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so um I did that.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but it was really hard for me to, I think, acknowledge the fact that I needed help and then actually seek it out because I also was someone who was who's long been very um very much my own person and wanted to forage my own path and thought that I didn't need help or that help was um not necessarily a good thing.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: And now I take the opposite of you where I think help is a sign of strength and a sign of you being cognizant of yourself.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's been a it's been a journey, but I'm glad that I've had it because it's definitely made me both in part the person I am today, but also way more cognizant of my own feelings.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: Now, am I always great about talking about them?
33:23
SPEAKER_00: No, but am I better at it than I had been in the past?
33:26
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
33:27
SPEAKER_01: I think that's that's all we can hope and ask for, right?
33:31
SPEAKER_01: Is to just keep getting better at it.
33:33
SPEAKER_01: I there was the point when I um I started working on my own perfectionism uh since sometime during COVID.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: My husband had pointed out that I was like so empathetic, so kind to everyone else but myself.
33:52
SPEAKER_01: And so that led me on um uh a very focused year of like of say like self self-compassion practice, and that was like my my foray into working on my perfectionism.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: And I remember um at some point early-ish on in that uh, you know, and working on that when I thought to myself, where where something happened, you know, I've been really trying to be kinder to myself and I was being so much nicer to myself when I wasn't perfect.
34:23
SPEAKER_01: And and then I had some some some other context come up where I hadn't been practicing the self-compassion.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: And I just remember thinking, oh my God, there's another area I have to practice self-compassion and I'm not perfect at this yet.
34:37
SPEAKER_01: Oh my God, this is gonna go on forever, and then was able to shift that from, oh great, okay, so I can I can keep getting better at this, and there will always be work to do.
34:46
SPEAKER_01: How lovely, instead of I'm never gonna be done.
34:51
SPEAKER_01: It it's tough.
34:52
SPEAKER_01: It's you know, there's there's always more self-work to do.
34:56
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think for me at least, I've been able to develop a a positive relationship with that work.
35:04
SPEAKER_01: How is that for you?
35:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, you know, for me, I definitely have now a much healthier relationship with work, um, mainly because I'm passionate about what I'm doing and enjoy it.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't feel like work as much, but also just the recognition of the fact that um boundaries are important and I'm better at establishing boundaries between work and and not work and being a little more in control and not being shy about being a little more in control how I spend my time.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: Um and so all those things kind of play into um sort of the relationship I have with work and um how I view things and and how I just kind of manage day-to-day.
35:54
SPEAKER_01: How how do you how do you manage, you know, on a on a on an average day, um you know, where maybe the anxiety and depression isn't isn't too extreme.
36:05
SPEAKER_01: What are the things that you'll do for yourself to just kind of keep you even keeled in the way you want to be able to navigate your day?
36:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so you know, writing for me is definitely one of those ways of kind of getting thoughts out of my head and kind of relaxing a little bit.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: Um I also just take time to um, well, sometimes I'm demanded to do this by the cats, but I also take time to attend to the cats that we have and make sure they're happy-ish.
36:37
SPEAKER_00: Um and I also just, you know, if I need to step away from the computer or to just walk or what have you, I do that.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, because I do spend a lot of time in front of a computer screen, but I also try to make sure that I, you know, am being a little bit better at it.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: Um that's a work in progress, but that's another thing I I do.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: And if I can, I go for, you know, walk outside maybe a little bit, or go for a drive or what have you, just to kind of mix up my day and get myself out of the house a little bit.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: Um so it really depends on on each day.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: But um certainly those days when the feelings are a little bit stronger, I try to, if nothing else, at least acknowledge the fact that I'm feeling that way and so kind of go through my day with that understanding that, okay, you're you're feeling a little bit stronger about these things, so just you know, be a little more cautious about how you approach things so as not to exacerbate those feelings.
37:42
SPEAKER_01: When you started posting online about your mental health, were you concerned about you know what your colleagues were gonna think or what um just how you know how others would perceive what you were sharing?
37:58
SPEAKER_00: I was to some degree, but at the same time I said, you know what, if they're if they're gonna express anything besides kind of just like want to make sure you're okay, if they express something else like, you know, I don't think you're you know right for this, whatever you that would tell me all I would need to know about you know not being at the right place or what have you.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: So um I was concerned to some degree, but I also thought to myself, you know what, I'm doing this for me, not for them.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: So it's it's just there.
38:29
SPEAKER_00: And that is something I also have grown to be better about doing is doing things more for me, so to speak, not in a selfish way, but more in a self-care way.
38:41
SPEAKER_01: How have you learned to do that?
38:44
SPEAKER_01: Like maybe about a an intentional practice, or is it, you know, what what has that looked like?
38:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh frankly, it's been a matter of uh therapy, um, helping me to have tools to manage that, as well as um just support of friends and family, and just have knowing that they're there for me and knowing that um I need to do things as much for me as much as much for others.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: So there's there's that, you know, sort of having a little more balance in my life.
39:18
SPEAKER_01: Have you always, you know, you you mentioned a couple of times that you're the importance of asking for help and support.
39:26
SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, it's it's one thing to understand that that's a good idea.
39:31
SPEAKER_01: It's another thing to figure out how to, you know, pick up a phone and call someone and actually say I'm not okay.
39:40
SPEAKER_01: H have you always been like how how did you become someone who could say, okay, I'm I'm so okay, not okay right now that I actually need to call someone and say, you know, your version of those words?
39:53
SPEAKER_00: I think kind of being encouraged and supported about seeking help and being in kind of frankly told, like, it's okay to get help, and you know, it probably will be good for you and me accepting that from you know the friends or family that uh have been encouraging of that.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: So I think that's kind of where it came from.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: And then after that, it's just a matter of repetition of reminding myself that it is that way, and now it's kind of just embedded as a part of how I think about things.
40:26
SPEAKER_01: So uh you meant you you posted a few weeks ago that you had a loss in your family, and you tell me if you want to talk about it or not.
40:35
SPEAKER_00: No, happy to happy to talk about it um to the extent to which I feel okay talking about it.
40:43
SPEAKER_01: First of all, I'm just so sorry.
40:46
SPEAKER_01: Um and second, to the extent that you want to share who you lost and any combination of the impact it's had on you and and just how you're how you're coping.
40:59
SPEAKER_01: Because you know, so many of us we we've got we're super ambitious, we show up to do our jobs, we you know, people have high expectations of us.
41:09
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we've got these real lives going on in the background, and some of it's filled with a lot of pain.
41:14
SPEAKER_01: For me, just to have you not being the only vulnerable one, we're we're recording in April.
41:20
SPEAKER_01: April is a very hard month for me.
41:23
SPEAKER_01: My dad died when I was 17, that's next week.
41:26
SPEAKER_01: He went into a coma.
41:29
SPEAKER_01: So the 28th is when he died, 14th is when he went into a coma, his birthday was eight, you know, the eighth.
41:35
SPEAKER_01: We've got things around pests.
41:37
SPEAKER_01: There's just it's a lot of pain.
41:39
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, sometimes I'll tell people that, sometimes I'll I'll be mindful about carving out time to be quieter and I'll allow myself to have less on my calendar or you know, make more exceptions or boundaries or whatever.
41:54
SPEAKER_01: So but most people don't know that that's going on in my life.
41:57
SPEAKER_01: I certainly do, a couple people do.
42:00
SPEAKER_01: Um and so I I share that just to you know kind of give give you someone else to saying, there's a lot of pain going on behind the scenes, and then we show up and we try to kick ass.
42:13
SPEAKER_01: And then we we also then want to go, you know, cry afterwards sometimes.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, well, first of all, very sorry to hear that.
42:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh and and hope that you manage okay.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: Um as for my loss, um, well, thank you for your kind words.
42:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, it was uh my uh stepfather-in-law, um, and he died suddenly doing what he loved, which was skiing.
42:47
SPEAKER_00: Um so literally just out skiing and then just collapsed, and that was kind of it.
42:54
SPEAKER_00: Um and so on the bright side, he died what he what he was, you know, doing what he loved.
43:01
SPEAKER_00: On the flip, it was, you know, relatively I mean it was just completely shocking and unexpected.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: So it's been it's been hard, but I think that if anything, it's um reinforced something I talked about earlier, which is kind of making the most of the time that I have every day and and being thankful for what I have and what I'm doing.
43:23
SPEAKER_00: And you know, some of the usual things that come from sort of a grief process, but also recognizing that every person's grief process is different.
43:33
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, uh initially after it happened, I was not in a great place.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I am better now, but I also know that I'm likely to have feelings again seemingly at random over the next, I don't know, indefinite period of time.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: And that's just part of it, and I need to accept it.
43:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, and all I can do now is just be there.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: for um for others which is really what my primary goal is with respect to this and um and yeah but it's I think it's just shown me again just the fact that uh unfortunately loss is just an inherent part of life itself really you know and and the unscheduled grieving part that you mentioned just it feels so inconvenient I'm it it does feel inconvenient but you know what you're not in control it's not it's uh you have to accept that it's just not something you can control so um how do you manage that part you know as you know someone who I assume likes a decent amount of control as as many of us lawyers do correct me if I'm wrong about about that oh no I I am a I I'm a control freak and I um not shy to about admitting it but yeah you know I think it's just a matter of kind of you know accepting the fact that just you can't control everything and that is one of those things you just can't control.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: Has like this loss or your experience with anxiety or depression you know it impacted the way that you think about your your work your career and the priorities you put on it and sort of you know the the the way you think about what's important and where you put your energy and where you'll make exceptions and and um you know I guess ultimately just about the way you think about building your career inside of your life yeah I mean it's certainly I think given me um a renewed sense of focusing on what makes me happy and what I want to be doing and how I want to be most productive and and um and all that.
46:01
SPEAKER_00: So that's certainly I think been a been a part of it.
46:05
SPEAKER_00: And again I think for better or for worse it's it's just another stark reminder of you just can't control everything.
46:13
SPEAKER_00: What does make you happy uh a lot of things I mean certainly you know doing what I do in legal tech writing about it helping others learn makes me happy um my husband makes me happy being outdoors in the mountains makes me happy the cats make me happy for the most part um except when they don't but it's all right um cats have taught me a lot about patience too um playing video games makes me happy those are kind of the things that you know I do just kind of to unwind um I I'd say you know a variety of things make me happy and all of them combined just kind of make me who I who I am if you had a magic wand and you could change anything about the legal industry whether it's about legal tech or the way we talk about and kind of you know navigate or care for each other around mental health or anything else what would it be it would probably be to have lawyers be ever mindful of the fact that we're all human and as humans we're emotional creatures and for better or for worse that sometimes influences how we make decisions.
47:31
SPEAKER_00: So we have to kind of account for that and not pretend as if it's not a thing.
47:37
SPEAKER_01: How do you think you really learned about that?
47:39
SPEAKER_01: Because I I it's to me again back to what you were talking about at the beginning of the conversation it's amazing that you had that awareness and insight the way you did and the way you frame it now from early on go ahead.
47:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah um well I would say it's come over time it certainly didn't just kind of show up one day and all of a sudden I was like oh I get it it was more a matter of working and observing and dealing with people and just understanding that piece of it and how big a piece how big a role that plays in and being a lawyer and managing people and managing projects and how that's often the much more difficult piece of it than the legal work it it itself is.
48:25
SPEAKER_00: And so that's kind of where it comes from um but again the benefit of hindsight is also kind of looking back and observing and learning from from sort of the journey that's been how do you I mean with your team and in your own work environment how do you how do you kind of enhance the the environment and and you know for for yourself for people around you so that there can be that awareness around yeah like the technical stuff we're doing is challenging but like the people part that's key and we've got to learn how to communicate with each other that's more of the job than we realize and that's part of success here.
49:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah um for me it comes from just building relationships with people building strong rapports with people building you know establishing trust and having those relationships where everyone is trusting one another and able to kind of you know just know that working with others things will get done and that's really where I think it comes down to and I argue that's especially important in my work environment where we're all remote working from wherever we are and so you know really what makes a difference are those relationships and building them and and maintaining them.
49:38
SPEAKER_00: And I would argue in general relationship building is probably a huge marker of success is your ability to do that.
49:45
SPEAKER_01: Do you have one top tip for remote culture relationship building?
49:52
SPEAKER_00: Checking in with people just making time out of your day just say hello check in with people say you know see how things are going work-wise or otherwise that that's I would say a really important thing to do.
50:04
SPEAKER_00: What a wild idea right anything else you want to share uh something we've touched on or something we haven't yet touched on um look you know I I would just say that at the end of the day your life is your life so live it the way you want to you want to live it I like that that's a good place to stop.
50:30
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much I'm so thrilled we we ended up finding a time to do this.
50:36
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely yeah my pleasure thanks for having me looking forward to uh sharing and I really enjoy this conversation so thanks again.
50:44
SPEAKER_01: Excellent thanks for listening I hope you got a ton of value from this conversation and that you will check out the links in the description to learn more about the guest and the wellness esquire and I hope you take even just one minute to do something for yourself today.
51:00
SPEAKER_01: Maybe right now drink more water, say no, call a friend, do something that makes you happy have a 30 second dance party find something to make you laugh.
51:09
SPEAKER_01: Also be sure to subscribe and send the podcast to a colleague and if we're not yet connected on LinkedIn please fix that.
51:16
SPEAKER_01: I'd love to know you.
51:17
SPEAKER_01: See you next time