1 00:00:12,880 --> 00:00:14,880 Welcome to studying law around the world. 2 00:00:15,020 --> 00:00:17,870 I'm Claudio Claus. In each episode, I talk with 3 00:00:17,880 --> 00:00:20,850 lawyers, law students, and professors from different parts 4 00:00:20,860 --> 00:00:24,730 of the world to talk about legal education, careers, and what the 5 00:00:24,740 --> 00:00:26,410 profession looks like in real life. 6 00:00:26,420 --> 00:00:29,470 We talk about the hard parts, the surprises, and the decisions 7 00:00:29,480 --> 00:00:32,270 that shaped their paths. Whether you're planning to study 8 00:00:32,280 --> 00:00:35,520 abroad, thinking about working in another legal system, or just 9 00:00:35,530 --> 00:00:39,650 curious about how law works around the world, this podcast 10 00:00:39,660 --> 00:00:40,590 is for. You. 11 00:00:44,580 --> 00:00:47,530 So many of the guests on this podcast have talked about how 12 00:00:47,540 --> 00:00:50,550 important it is to have strong writing skills as a lawyer. 13 00:00:51,080 --> 00:00:54,480 It's true, written communication is essential in this profession, 14 00:00:55,190 --> 00:00:58,070 but it can also be one of the trickiest skills to master. 15 00:00:58,730 --> 00:01:01,480 If you find your writing feels a bit clunky, or you're getting a 16 00:01:01,490 --> 00:01:04,319 lot of edits on your work, or perhaps you're breaking into an 17 00:01:04,330 --> 00:01:07,440 English speaking jurisdiction for the first time, Grammatica 18 00:01:07,450 --> 00:01:10,560 International can help. I'm Rebecca Lockwood, the 19 00:01:10,570 --> 00:01:13,840 lawyer, mediator and educator behind Grammatica, and we help 20 00:01:13,850 --> 00:01:17,060 lawyers and law students to write more sharply, speak more 21 00:01:17,070 --> 00:01:19,920 clearly, and advance their careers with group training and 22 00:01:19,930 --> 00:01:22,700 one-on-one skills coaching designed just for legal 23 00:01:22,710 --> 00:01:25,020 professionals. I have worked with so many 24 00:01:25,030 --> 00:01:28,480 lawyers like you who are exceptionally smart, qualified 25 00:01:28,490 --> 00:01:31,500 and capable, but need a bit of guidance to stand out in a 26 00:01:31,510 --> 00:01:34,480 competitive legal market. And I get it myself, having 27 00:01:34,490 --> 00:01:37,680 lived and worked in five countries during my 17 years in 28 00:01:37,690 --> 00:01:40,400 law and education. Whether you're looking to 29 00:01:40,410 --> 00:01:43,660 sharpen your writing skills generally, refresh your CV, or 30 00:01:43,670 --> 00:01:47,000 draft an application for a law program, Grammatica can help. 31 00:01:47,280 --> 00:01:50,030 Visit gramatica.co to learn more. 32 00:01:55,130 --> 00:01:59,440 Today I have a special guest here I have torn McIntosh saying 33 00:01:59,490 --> 00:02:03,400 he will be speaking about his experience in England, Canada 34 00:02:03,490 --> 00:02:07,140 and also now as an entrepreneur. Thank you so much for joining us 35 00:02:07,150 --> 00:02:08,919 today. Than well, thank you very much 36 00:02:08,930 --> 00:02:11,780 for having me Claudio. It's a look forward to talking 37 00:02:11,790 --> 00:02:14,220 to you about my experiences. Amazing. 38 00:02:14,310 --> 00:02:16,500 And just started off. I'd love to hear a little more 39 00:02:16,510 --> 00:02:19,140 about your story. So can you introduce yourself to 40 00:02:19,150 --> 00:02:22,060 your audience and also share a little bit about this journey, 41 00:02:22,070 --> 00:02:25,300 you know, Losco practice and quadratic dots? 42 00:02:25,690 --> 00:02:29,820 Right, so I'm currently a legal tech entrepreneur. 43 00:02:29,870 --> 00:02:35,530 My goal is to make it easier for Canadians to access and use our 44 00:02:35,540 --> 00:02:40,750 civil litigation system and I have been building several tools 45 00:02:40,760 --> 00:02:45,350 aimed at achieving that. But before switching into this, 46 00:02:45,360 --> 00:02:50,890 I was a commercial litigation lawyer for over 4 years in 47 00:02:50,900 --> 00:02:53,670 Toronto. I first started at a boutique 48 00:02:53,680 --> 00:02:57,990 called Laxdal Sullivan Lysis Gottlieb LP and then I was at 49 00:02:58,000 --> 00:03:02,750 Fasken for two years. Before that I did my training 50 00:03:02,760 --> 00:03:06,730 contract, which is the articling student equivalent in England, 51 00:03:06,740 --> 00:03:09,510 at a law firm called Morrison and Forrester. 52 00:03:09,600 --> 00:03:13,650 So spent two years there training as a lawyer and then 53 00:03:13,660 --> 00:03:17,490 four years being a lawyer in Toronto, and before that I did 54 00:03:17,500 --> 00:03:21,120 my law three at Kings College London and my undergraduate 55 00:03:21,130 --> 00:03:23,780 degree at McGill University in Montreal. 56 00:03:23,850 --> 00:03:25,900 Amazing. So you've worked at top 57 00:03:25,910 --> 00:03:29,880 litigation firms both in Canada and England, and I'd love to 58 00:03:29,890 --> 00:03:33,280 know a little more about what were the biggest professional or 59 00:03:33,290 --> 00:03:36,660 cultural differences that you've noticed between practicing law 60 00:03:36,670 --> 00:03:40,040 industrial jurisdictions? Well, I would say that because I 61 00:03:40,050 --> 00:03:45,020 was trained as a solicitor in England, I wasn't able to do the 62 00:03:45,030 --> 00:03:50,180 barrister work, which is a different system than we have 63 00:03:50,190 --> 00:03:53,600 here in Canada because in England the profession is split, 64 00:03:53,770 --> 00:03:56,290 right. So you have the solicitors and 65 00:03:56,300 --> 00:03:59,760 the barristers and the barrister are the ones who are able to 66 00:03:59,770 --> 00:04:02,670 make or submissions for the court. 67 00:04:02,760 --> 00:04:07,250 So that part of my career was missing and after moving back to 68 00:04:07,260 --> 00:04:11,430 Canada, I was able to do almost exclusively barrister work and I 69 00:04:11,440 --> 00:04:16,089 was very lucky to have appeared in many different courts in both 70 00:04:16,100 --> 00:04:18,230 Ontario and part of our Federal Court. 71 00:04:18,240 --> 00:04:22,710 System and was there something specific that sparked that 72 00:04:22,720 --> 00:04:25,300 change from you? So just start off, I'd love to 73 00:04:25,310 --> 00:04:28,530 ask about this specific point you just mentioned on being a 74 00:04:28,540 --> 00:04:31,530 solicitor in England and then becoming a litigator in Toronto. 75 00:04:31,820 --> 00:04:35,490 But also moving forward, once you become a litigator here and 76 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:39,550 act for all those years, then you notice something with the 77 00:04:39,560 --> 00:04:43,570 system or or what really inspired you to start course 78 00:04:43,580 --> 00:04:46,650 ready to. Right, So my first switch was 79 00:04:46,660 --> 00:04:50,010 from a solicitor to barrister and it was purely based on my 80 00:04:50,020 --> 00:04:54,770 observations that in England in a litigation litigation context, 81 00:04:54,780 --> 00:04:57,510 the solicitor would do all the prep work. 82 00:04:57,800 --> 00:05:01,890 They from evidence gathering to talking with the clients, to 83 00:05:01,900 --> 00:05:05,990 developing the legal strategy and to writing some of the legal 84 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:08,830 submissions. But they don't get to argue it. 85 00:05:09,020 --> 00:05:13,250 So imagine if you do 20% of the work, but when it comes to the 86 00:05:13,260 --> 00:05:16,890 opportunity to make those submissions before a judge, you 87 00:05:16,900 --> 00:05:20,230 won't be able to do that. And you know, I don't know the 88 00:05:20,240 --> 00:05:24,280 exact reason why that split profession still exists, but I'm 89 00:05:24,290 --> 00:05:26,540 sure they have a good reason for it because, you know, England, 90 00:05:26,550 --> 00:05:30,670 they've been doing common law for many, many, many centuries. 91 00:05:30,800 --> 00:05:34,190 So then I thought, well, if I could do 90% of the work, then 92 00:05:34,200 --> 00:05:36,770 it makes sense to just do the last 10% as well. 93 00:05:36,780 --> 00:05:39,790 And in Ontario is, as you would know as well, the profession is 94 00:05:39,800 --> 00:05:42,770 not split. So if you're in litigation, you 95 00:05:42,780 --> 00:05:45,810 get to do both the 90% and the 10%. 96 00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:50,530 And I find that it's easy to be able to prepare the case the 97 00:05:50,540 --> 00:05:54,390 whole way as we have it here, instead of handing it off almost 98 00:05:54,400 --> 00:05:57,750 last second to a barrister who would then make submissions on 99 00:05:57,760 --> 00:06:00,400 your behalf. So that's the first transition 100 00:06:00,410 --> 00:06:04,570 between solicitor and barrister. Now the bigger one, which is why 101 00:06:04,580 --> 00:06:07,850 I decided to leave private practice altogether. 102 00:06:07,960 --> 00:06:13,850 And the answer is I can do more for the legal system outside of 103 00:06:13,860 --> 00:06:18,220 it than being inside of it. Now, that seems a bit of an odd 104 00:06:18,320 --> 00:06:21,580 explanation because you might naturally ask yourself if you're 105 00:06:21,590 --> 00:06:24,250 inside of it, you can do more, But if you're outside of it, 106 00:06:24,260 --> 00:06:27,450 you're just an observer. And the answer to that is I was 107 00:06:27,460 --> 00:06:31,410 a lawyer for for four years. I've worked at 2 amazing firms. 108 00:06:31,460 --> 00:06:36,670 And because of that, I see how the process works for a client 109 00:06:36,680 --> 00:06:41,790 to try to navigate the legal system, both as a barrister, as 110 00:06:41,800 --> 00:06:44,770 a lawyer, and as an advocate before the judge. 111 00:06:44,860 --> 00:06:48,010 And you have this insight. And this insight teaches you 112 00:06:48,020 --> 00:06:55,070 that our system is not designed to handle as many cases as we 113 00:06:55,080 --> 00:06:57,700 have today. So then the answer becomes, 114 00:06:57,710 --> 00:06:59,790 well, what are we going to do about it? 115 00:07:00,160 --> 00:07:06,560 And the, and the answer I found is to adopt technological tools 116 00:07:06,610 --> 00:07:08,550 as part of the litigation process. 117 00:07:08,560 --> 00:07:10,120 And I'm not even talking about AI. 118 00:07:10,130 --> 00:07:13,880 We don't even need AI to, to, to accomplish this is to make 119 00:07:13,930 --> 00:07:23,120 differentpiecesoftheprocessquickersooneexamplethatwebuild@courtready.ca with a very good friend of mine, 120 00:07:23,130 --> 00:07:25,780 Adam Marciniak, a great coder as well. 121 00:07:25,870 --> 00:07:29,860 He and I thought about, well, right now in, in, in Toronto, as 122 00:07:29,870 --> 00:07:34,060 an example, if you want to find court dates, hearing dates for 123 00:07:34,070 --> 00:07:37,540 certain types of events like emotion or a before an associate 124 00:07:37,550 --> 00:07:41,060 judge, you use a system called Calendly. 125 00:07:41,230 --> 00:07:44,400 Now, if you go to calendar right now, you see that the first 126 00:07:44,410 --> 00:07:49,450 available date is in 2026 March, February, May, July. 127 00:07:49,620 --> 00:07:52,710 And this is the issue you're waiting for more than a year 128 00:07:52,720 --> 00:07:56,950 sometimes to have a 75 minute court event before a judge. 129 00:07:57,020 --> 00:07:58,570 So there is the issue with the delay. 130 00:07:58,580 --> 00:08:02,770 But what we thought about was, well, OK, yes, there are dates 131 00:08:02,780 --> 00:08:05,730 very far off in the future, but what if someone cancels? 132 00:08:05,740 --> 00:08:08,230 As you know, Claudio, cases tend to settle. 133 00:08:08,300 --> 00:08:10,210 What happens when those cases settle? 134 00:08:10,280 --> 00:08:14,170 Those dates get brought back into the system for people to be 135 00:08:14,180 --> 00:08:17,550 able to book, but you don't know about it unless you're manually 136 00:08:17,560 --> 00:08:20,370 checking this website once a week. 137 00:08:20,380 --> 00:08:22,330 And this is a personal experience of my right when, 138 00:08:22,340 --> 00:08:26,230 when we have the same issue at fast when we're booking a motion 139 00:08:26,240 --> 00:08:30,090 date and we were asking some of the articling students or some 140 00:08:30,100 --> 00:08:32,900 of the the system to manually check the cores website. 141 00:08:32,909 --> 00:08:34,880 And I thought, well, there has to be a better way. 142 00:08:34,929 --> 00:08:39,780 So that's an example of we, Adam and I, we built this tool that 143 00:08:39,830 --> 00:08:43,820 automatically monitors the system for every dedicated 144 00:08:43,830 --> 00:08:46,240 interval. And then as soon as a date comes 145 00:08:46,250 --> 00:08:50,660 up, you can sign up for a notification so that you can be 146 00:08:50,670 --> 00:08:53,160 notified when the dates you want become available. 147 00:08:53,170 --> 00:08:55,700 And this is what we build at courtdates.ca. 148 00:08:55,830 --> 00:09:00,080 But that's just one example when tiny example of what we can do 149 00:09:00,150 --> 00:09:04,820 outside of the wall to make the justice system easier and more 150 00:09:04,830 --> 00:09:07,660 accessible and hopefully reduce some of the delays. 151 00:09:07,730 --> 00:09:10,660 Amazing. So just so I understand your 152 00:09:10,670 --> 00:09:14,370 product correctly as well, so you you're developing mostly 153 00:09:14,380 --> 00:09:18,370 focused on lawyers, mostly focused on helping people the 154 00:09:18,380 --> 00:09:21,830 court system declined themselves, who is kind of your 155 00:09:21,840 --> 00:09:24,730 main audience? Well, the easy answer to that 156 00:09:24,740 --> 00:09:27,730 question is everyone, right? Because even though lawyers 157 00:09:27,740 --> 00:09:31,930 could benefit from these tools, more and more people are 158 00:09:31,940 --> 00:09:35,690 deciding to take their own cases to court without hiring a 159 00:09:35,700 --> 00:09:37,610 lawyer. Now there are many reasons for 160 00:09:37,620 --> 00:09:40,690 this, one being that legal services is becoming more and 161 00:09:40,700 --> 00:09:44,200 more expensive, unfortunately. So the things that we are 162 00:09:44,210 --> 00:09:48,270 building not only focus on helping lawyers, but also help 163 00:09:48,280 --> 00:09:50,570 anyone who is using the justice system. 164 00:09:50,650 --> 00:09:52,330 Fantastic. That's amazing. 165 00:09:52,380 --> 00:09:56,110 And talking about, you know, being an entrepreneur, recently 166 00:09:56,120 --> 00:09:58,020 I've had other entrepreneurs in the podcast. 167 00:09:58,090 --> 00:10:00,530 It's always been so interesting to hear, you know, the the 168 00:10:00,540 --> 00:10:04,070 building process it and so forth, even for, you know, 169 00:10:04,080 --> 00:10:07,290 people could go off and become a celebrate practitioner. 170 00:10:07,330 --> 00:10:10,850 But I'm wondering if there's any, you know, surprising lesson 171 00:10:11,130 --> 00:10:14,110 that you've learned or that you've observed seems to 172 00:10:14,120 --> 00:10:17,360 becoming a tech founder. The biggest lesson I've learned 173 00:10:17,370 --> 00:10:21,830 thus far is you can do a lot with existing tools. 174 00:10:21,900 --> 00:10:25,330 By that I mean, I mentioned this briefly, you don't need AI to do 175 00:10:25,340 --> 00:10:29,190 a lot of this stuff, right? Because in legal tech, there 176 00:10:29,200 --> 00:10:34,010 tends to be a tendency to focus on the most advanced thing, 177 00:10:34,200 --> 00:10:36,710 right? Using AI to do whatever. 178 00:10:36,760 --> 00:10:41,150 But my philosophy has, are there things that you can fix without 179 00:10:41,220 --> 00:10:44,320 using the most advanced tool out there? 180 00:10:44,370 --> 00:10:48,100 Now with the core dates etc. In monitoring system, there's no 181 00:10:48,110 --> 00:10:51,180 AI involved. It's as test to technology that 182 00:10:51,190 --> 00:10:54,460 solves an immediate issue. Another example is what we've 183 00:10:54,470 --> 00:10:59,980 built a part of the court ready.ca is this prejudgment and 184 00:10:59,990 --> 00:11:02,240 post judgment interest calculator. 185 00:11:02,290 --> 00:11:05,350 So for those of you who are not familiar with that concept, 186 00:11:05,360 --> 00:11:09,690 let's say Claudia, you sue me for 1,000,000 bucks today, but 187 00:11:09,700 --> 00:11:13,060 you don't get the judgment until a year from now. 188 00:11:13,130 --> 00:11:16,300 Between today and the year from now, you are entitled to 189 00:11:16,310 --> 00:11:18,610 interest. Now, normally when people 190 00:11:18,620 --> 00:11:22,500 calculate that interest, they either use an Excel sheet by 191 00:11:22,510 --> 00:11:26,030 looking at the course website or in the in law firms we handed 192 00:11:26,040 --> 00:11:27,950 off to to close and other people. 193 00:11:28,000 --> 00:11:30,250 Again, there has to be a better way. 194 00:11:30,300 --> 00:11:34,270 There is no reason why this process cannot be made quicker 195 00:11:34,280 --> 00:11:36,970 by just a calculator. So and that's what we built and 196 00:11:36,980 --> 00:11:41,440 and this is another example of we're not using AI to do any of 197 00:11:41,450 --> 00:11:44,390 this because we don't need to. There are so many low hanging 198 00:11:44,400 --> 00:11:48,020 fruits that can be billed to help and that's where we're 199 00:11:48,030 --> 00:11:51,160 going to be focused on. Amazing Oh, moving forward to 200 00:11:51,250 --> 00:11:54,970 another topic here within this episode, I'd love to to hear a 201 00:11:54,980 --> 00:11:57,930 little more about, you know, personal insights from your 202 00:11:57,940 --> 00:12:01,050 experience as well in the field. And I wanted to know you know 203 00:12:01,060 --> 00:12:05,030 what have you learned about the legal profession that maybe lost 204 00:12:05,040 --> 00:12:09,140 you dance and junior lawyers often done hearing cool and that 205 00:12:09,150 --> 00:12:13,680 it takes a few years in practice during you aware of and she 206 00:12:13,690 --> 00:12:17,290 really means. Well, the immediate one that 207 00:12:17,300 --> 00:12:23,020 comes to mind is how difficult it is and how much of A toll it 208 00:12:23,030 --> 00:12:27,310 can take on one's health, both physical and mental. 209 00:12:27,450 --> 00:12:31,980 There are many reasons for this, and I can see why this is not 210 00:12:31,990 --> 00:12:34,280 really taught in law school because you don't want to 211 00:12:34,290 --> 00:12:39,840 encourage people to go into the legal profession without giving 212 00:12:39,850 --> 00:12:43,600 them too many warnings as to why they shouldn't or they should 213 00:12:43,710 --> 00:12:47,640 think twice before they do it. That said, I do believe that 214 00:12:47,650 --> 00:12:50,960 when you were getting into something, you should know as 215 00:12:50,970 --> 00:12:52,990 much as possible, we're getting into it. 216 00:12:53,040 --> 00:12:57,390 Obviously, it's a rewarding career if you believe in in the 217 00:12:57,400 --> 00:13:01,330 justice system and if you believe in, in this idea that 218 00:13:01,380 --> 00:13:04,750 you should speak out on behalf of others who may not be able to 219 00:13:04,760 --> 00:13:07,870 do so themselves. But the cost, the personal cost 220 00:13:07,880 --> 00:13:11,490 on lawyers, and this is not just those in private practice, in 221 00:13:11,500 --> 00:13:14,750 house, big or small firms are like, it's immense. 222 00:13:14,800 --> 00:13:18,480 As a junior lawyer, your first, second year, third year, you 223 00:13:18,490 --> 00:13:21,370 need to start getting used to Casling plans with people and 224 00:13:21,380 --> 00:13:24,650 having fewer friends. And when you start to do that, 225 00:13:24,660 --> 00:13:29,720 obviously it doesn't make you feel good because you of course 226 00:13:29,730 --> 00:13:35,320 have this hypothetical idea that I'll be busy, but not at the 227 00:13:35,330 --> 00:13:37,620 cost of those personal relationships. 228 00:13:37,630 --> 00:13:40,900 Second, we talk about mental health a lot. 229 00:13:40,910 --> 00:13:44,160 And the concrete example I can give you is the legal 230 00:13:44,170 --> 00:13:46,740 profession. And again, only as a junior 231 00:13:46,750 --> 00:13:51,100 lawyer especially you don't have much control over the work. 232 00:13:51,350 --> 00:13:55,030 You're being given assignments as an example, a research task. 233 00:13:55,040 --> 00:13:58,130 You do it, you hand it back. Then you don't know if there's 234 00:13:58,140 --> 00:14:01,080 going to be another task coming or there will be follow up 235 00:14:01,090 --> 00:14:05,620 questions because you might not be copied in the chain of emails 236 00:14:05,630 --> 00:14:08,560 that actually gives you better insight of what's going on. 237 00:14:08,570 --> 00:14:12,360 Is that is because you don't know what happens next. 238 00:14:12,430 --> 00:14:15,040 That causes a lot of people anxiety. 239 00:14:15,130 --> 00:14:19,090 Now, is this something that you can probably get used to? 240 00:14:19,140 --> 00:14:22,550 Yes, there are ways to deal with it, but things like this are not 241 00:14:22,560 --> 00:14:26,210 taught in law school, and they should really be taught because 242 00:14:26,220 --> 00:14:29,930 once you're entering this, either the corporate world or 243 00:14:29,940 --> 00:14:32,830 in-house, you're dealing with people, you're dealing with 244 00:14:32,840 --> 00:14:35,170 expectations. And in a way, none of that has 245 00:14:35,180 --> 00:14:40,120 to do with the practice of law or the knowledge of law that you 246 00:14:40,130 --> 00:14:43,110 need to have, but is about how to deal with people in difficult 247 00:14:43,120 --> 00:14:44,760 situations. Fantastic. 248 00:14:44,770 --> 00:14:48,390 Thanks for bringing that very sincere point as well. 249 00:14:48,500 --> 00:14:52,750 And if you could change one thing about how legal education 250 00:14:52,880 --> 00:14:56,530 is thought globally with your international experience, what 251 00:14:56,540 --> 00:14:58,890 would it be and why would you choose to change? 252 00:14:58,900 --> 00:15:02,420 It yeah, I wouldn't comment on globally because I've only been 253 00:15:02,470 --> 00:15:07,860 educated in two countries so I can speak about perhaps Canada 254 00:15:07,910 --> 00:15:12,230 and he also focus more on Canada and England just because I'm 255 00:15:12,240 --> 00:15:16,730 more familiar with those system. I think it's to tell people and 256 00:15:16,740 --> 00:15:21,840 to teach people what they can do concretely with the legal degree 257 00:15:21,850 --> 00:15:23,930 because so much of the law degree is focused on the 258 00:15:23,940 --> 00:15:26,290 knowledge of law. But again, I talked about mental 259 00:15:26,300 --> 00:15:31,110 health connected to that is what kind of careers can you actually 260 00:15:31,120 --> 00:15:33,850 have with with with the practice of law? 261 00:15:34,200 --> 00:15:37,830 And that's important because you get into loss where many people 262 00:15:37,840 --> 00:15:41,530 have a very sad view of what it is that that they want to do. 263 00:15:41,540 --> 00:15:44,770 You know, some people want to become a corporate commercial 264 00:15:44,780 --> 00:15:49,920 lawyer, criminal lawyer or human rights, but actually the image 265 00:15:49,980 --> 00:15:53,470 in their mind about the day-to-day work of the people 266 00:15:53,480 --> 00:15:57,120 they try to emulate once they graduate from law school might 267 00:15:57,130 --> 00:16:01,150 be very different in reality. It's about, again, going back to 268 00:16:01,160 --> 00:16:04,380 the theme as the theme of making sure people know what they're 269 00:16:04,390 --> 00:16:08,010 getting themselves into. If you want to be a criminal 270 00:16:08,020 --> 00:16:10,810 lawyer, that you should really, really learn about the 271 00:16:10,820 --> 00:16:14,650 day-to-day of that person. And I think that's something law 272 00:16:14,660 --> 00:16:18,910 schools can do a better job at. Teaching the student is not just 273 00:16:18,920 --> 00:16:23,110 the the knowledge of the law, but the practicalities of being 274 00:16:23,120 --> 00:16:26,170 a lawyer. Very, very interesting and that 275 00:16:26,180 --> 00:16:30,280 always keeps me engaged and it always gives me so many thoughts 276 00:16:30,290 --> 00:16:34,320 about how we approach it and also the different ways that lot 277 00:16:34,370 --> 00:16:37,880 education is delivered as well, sometimes by practictioners, 278 00:16:37,890 --> 00:16:42,680 sometimes by academics and all that that entails. 279 00:16:42,750 --> 00:16:46,800 But going forward here to wrap up today's episode, I'd love to 280 00:16:46,810 --> 00:16:49,220 hear a little bit of an advice from YouTube. 281 00:16:49,290 --> 00:16:52,430 So if you were to give some kind of advice right now to lost 282 00:16:52,440 --> 00:16:57,560 students are graduating in 2025, getting into the market now or 283 00:16:57,570 --> 00:17:02,440 if you have foreign pay lawyers who once you really carve out a 284 00:17:02,450 --> 00:17:05,859 place for themselves in this field in his career, what would 285 00:17:05,869 --> 00:17:08,440 you tell? Them so again a limited Canada 286 00:17:08,450 --> 00:17:11,640 as well because as you know I work with quite a bit with the 287 00:17:11,680 --> 00:17:13,329 NCA. So the national committee 288 00:17:13,339 --> 00:17:17,390 accreditation lawyers were trying to make it to start or 289 00:17:17,400 --> 00:17:20,950 continue their legal career in Canada. 290 00:17:21,060 --> 00:17:27,250 And so I think the tip there is how, well, well, let me take it 291 00:17:27,260 --> 00:17:31,150 back, how much of money, how much money a law firm spends on 292 00:17:31,160 --> 00:17:35,170 marketing may not have anything to do with how good they are as 293 00:17:35,180 --> 00:17:37,510 a law firm. What I mean by that is you come 294 00:17:37,520 --> 00:17:41,390 into the legal market in Canada, you have certain views about 295 00:17:41,400 --> 00:17:44,410 which firms are good, which firms are not as good. 296 00:17:44,420 --> 00:17:48,270 You may think a firm in a tall building in downtown Toronto is 297 00:17:48,280 --> 00:17:53,070 necessarily better than than the one that's further north from 298 00:17:53,080 --> 00:17:55,990 downtown. But these perceptions actually 299 00:17:56,040 --> 00:17:59,330 often are incorrect. And this is where I think when 300 00:17:59,340 --> 00:18:03,130 it comes to research and firms is critical because there are 301 00:18:03,140 --> 00:18:06,460 now more and more specialist firms out there and they tend to 302 00:18:06,470 --> 00:18:08,390 be smaller. They don't have the large 303 00:18:08,400 --> 00:18:12,570 advertising, large advertising budgets, but they're very good 304 00:18:12,580 --> 00:18:15,220 at what they do. And I always encourage NCA 305 00:18:15,230 --> 00:18:19,470 students to look beyond the 2 kilometer radius from downtown 306 00:18:19,480 --> 00:18:21,830 Toronto where any big city for, for that matter. 307 00:18:21,920 --> 00:18:26,850 And I will admit, sometimes it's hard to change that perception 308 00:18:26,900 --> 00:18:32,250 because perhaps in other places the higher your offices, the 309 00:18:32,260 --> 00:18:34,630 better you are. But that's not necessarily the 310 00:18:34,640 --> 00:18:37,250 case anymore. Amazing what it what an 311 00:18:37,300 --> 00:18:40,180 insightful piece of advice. I really appreciate you taking 312 00:18:40,190 --> 00:18:43,350 the time to share this with her listeners and also thank you so 313 00:18:43,360 --> 00:18:45,090 much for being in the podcast. Today. 314 00:18:45,100 --> 00:18:46,570 Well, thank you so much for having me. 315 00:18:46,660 --> 00:18:49,140 And thank you all for tuning into today's episode, and I'll 316 00:18:49,150 --> 00:18:50,250 see you on the next one.