LegalTechTalk Uncovered Ep 10 – Idin Sabahipour

Transcript

Robert Hanna: Welcome to the Legally Speaking Podcast, LegalTechTalk Uncovered mini-series powered by Clio. Please introduce yourself.

Idin Sabahipour: Hi Rob, my name’s Idin. I’m the founder of LittleLaw.

Robert Hanna: And it’s a pleasure to have LittleLaw on the show. I’ve been a big fan of your work and everything you’ve been doing for a long time. And I know we’ve been connected in the online world, but it’s nice to do this in person.

And how are you finding the conference?

Idin Sabahipour: Yeah, I’m loving it. I didn’t really know what to expect, but it’s blown me away. There’s a lot going on, and yeah, meeting a lot of new people, really enjoying it.

Robert Hanna: Good stuff, good stuff. So can you tell us a bit about what you’re focusing on?

Idin Sabahipour: Yeah, so LittleLaw is, in a sentence, trying to make business news fun for aspiring lawyers. Love it.

Robert Hanna: And then in terms of challenges, everyone is trying to build something, do something. I love what you’re doing at LittleLaw, but what is the main sort of challenge that you’ve identified in the legal sector, and how are you going about addressing that daily?

Idin Sabahipour: Sure, so the challenge that I face myself and that I think exists in the legal sector is that firms always want applicants to have commercial awareness and understand business news and understand what law firms do and how law firms work. And this is a challenge because there’s not a lot of good resources that can help people at the student or graduate or at any stage trying to become an aspiring lawyer to understand these things. And as well as that, I think it’s a diversity issue.

A lot of the time when people are from generations of lawyers or parents who have been lawyers have a leg up on these things. And so it’s really important to have free, high quality resources that can help people break down news stories, understand them, figure out how law firms work and how they get involved. And that’s effectively what we’re trying to do at Little Law. 

Robert Hanna: Yeah, and it’s so important, isn’t it? Because it’s the chicken and egg, you know? And so what would be your advice to people in terms of who maybe haven’t seen Little Law?

What’s the best piece of advice in terms of getting curious about commercial awareness? Obviously, it comes to your platform, but any tips generally to help people?

Idin Sabahipour: Yeah, so I would say a couple of things. First of all, it’s starting an industry you have an interest in. So let’s say you like gaming, you can delve a bit deeper into the commercial elements of gaming.

So read about transactions that have taken place, like there’s a Microsoft Activision big deal that’s happened, that’s kicked up a lot of regulatory issues. So you can stay in an industry that you find fun yourself and learn the wider business impacts that are taking place there. And a framework we use at LittleLaw is the three L’s that is, in summary, it’s to look out, look in, and look at law firm involvement.

So the framework is once you look at a new story, look out, look at the wider impacts, the big picture things that are taking place for that story to take place, like economic factors, social factors, tech factors. Then look in, put yourselves in the shoes of the decision makers in that story. So if there’s two companies, one buying the other, think about why is one selling, why is one buying the other one?

And then finally, law firm involvement. If it is a transaction, think about how the law firm get involved. Sometimes you can even find law firms writing about the deals and telling you which teams are involved.

So you can learn a lot more that way.

Robert Hanna: I love that, three L’s. That’s a great little bit of wisdom you shared. Any other little tips that help people?

Idin Sabahipour: Sign up for Little Law is the main one, I think.

Robert Hanna: Yeah, I mean, when we first connected, I loved your videos. I think the way that you were breaking concepts down and explaining them, because the key is not only acquiring it, it’s then being able to put that message across, isn’t it, in an application stand out, right?

Idin Sabahipour: Yeah, and a lot of the time, people use the stories they read on Little Law. It gives them more confidence in their applications or in their interviews. And one thing we’ve added to the website is that we’ve added a filter for firms.

So whenever we mention a firm, you can filter by firms mentioned. So if you’re applying to FirmX or FirmY, you can quickly filter and read what we’ve written about those firms, which helps people have more confidence when they go into the firms and speaking to them in person.

Robert Hanna: Yeah, and again, if you’ve got a particular interest, it keeps you tracking, researching them and all of that good stuff. Love it, love it, love it. So where can people get in touch with you?

What are the best social media handles, websites? Feel free to give them a shout out. We’ll also make sure we share them in this episode for you too.

Idin Sabahipour: So, if you want to follow LittleLaw, head to littlelaw.co.uk and my name’s Idin. I’m the founder. Always want to chat to people who are interested in LittleLaw and getting into law.

So just search up I-D-I-N on LinkedIn. I think I’m a rare Idin in the world of LinkedIn. So there probably won’t be loads of us, but yeah, search me up on LinkedIn.

That’s the best way to get in touch.

Robert Hanna: Definitely the only Idin that’s the CEO and founder of LittleLaw in the world. So definitely use that and you’ll find him. It’s been great having you on the show, doing this in person, doing it at a conference.

Really enjoyed it. But now from all of us, over and out.

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode. If you like the content here, why not check out our world leading content and collaboration hub, the Legally Speaking Club over on Discord. Go to our website, www.legallyspeakingpodcast.com for the link to join our community there.

Over and out.