How do you break into Big Law while building a brand that empowers others? This week, I’m joined by Steph Lartey, Associate at White & Case, Founder of Success with Steph and Co-Founder of Doceo.

Steph shares her journey from law student to global markets lawyer, the barries young professionals face and how to build resilience in the face of rejection. If you’re looking for career insights, success strategies and real talk about making it in law, this episode is for you.

So why should you be listening in? 

You can hear Rob and Steph discussing:

– Resilience and Persistence in the Legal Industry

– Authentic Networking and Building Key Relationships

– How to Break Out of Imposter Syndrome

– Steph, Doceo and How They Achieve Social Impact

– Maintaining an Effective Work-Life Balance

Connect with Steph here – https://www.whitecase.com/people/steph-lartey

Transcript

Steph Lartey  0:00  

You can really be anybody, so long as you put in the work, you can succeed and you can make it one of the easiest ways to avoid burnout in such a high intensity industry is to make sure that I have that separation between what I’m doing for work and then what I’m doing personally, I stick to what I know makes me comfortable, but I still build those relationships. And I just wanted to encourage other people to not feel like they have to feel uncomfortable or feel like they have to change themselves. Just figure out how to make things work

Robert Hanna  0:28  

on today’s legally speaking podcast, I’m delighted to be joined by Steph larti. Steph is an associate in the global capital markets practice at White and case in London. She is the founder of success with Steph and co founder of Doceo, a social enterprise providing Employability Skill training to young students. Steph is dedicated to helping individuals live a journey of success. So a very big, warm welcome to the show. Steph,

Steph Lartey  0:52  

thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited to be here today, and yeah, I’m really excited to share my wisdom, hopefully, yeah. And

Robert Hanna  1:00  

before we get into all that amazing wisdom that you do have to share, we do have a customary icebreaker question here on the legally speaking podcast, which is on the scale of one to 1010, being very real. What would you rate the hit TV series suits in terms of its reality of the law? If you’ve seen it on a scale of one to 10?

Steph Lartey  1:19  

Okay, I have seen suits. I’m very much a Jessica Pearson Stan, so, yeah, I think if I’m racing it on the reality of how law is in the UK, yep, it’s gonna have to be quite low, maybe like a three, if we’re being honest. Writing as suits makes it seem but the outfits, I think the outfit wise is definitely like a 10. I definitely see some really cool outfits in the office, and I sometimes think they are just copies and inspired. So yeah,

Robert Hanna  1:48  

there we go, a very justified answer, and with that, we’re going to move swiftly on to talk all about you. So to begin with, Steph, would you mind telling your our listeners a bit about your background and career journey?

Steph Lartey  1:59  

Yeah, of course. So my name is Steph. I am an associate. I am currently a capital markets and sustainability associate. In terms of my background into law, it’s quite traditional, I guess, in the sense that when I was very young, I decided I wanted to become a lawyer. At the time, I didn’t know much about the varied options or roots into law. So I just focused on kind of doing humanities, History, English, economics, that sort of thing. And I applied to do law at university. I ended up going to Durham University to study law for three years. Loved my degree. I feel like I’m one of the few people who actually comes out after a law degree and says that, but I actually found the theory of law really interesting, so I’m glad I did a law degree whilst I was at Durham. I, as many people do in university, applied for lots of vacation schemes, lots of training contracts and with white and case, which is where I’m at now, I actually applied for them about three times, and got rejected each time. And finally, in my third year, I applied for a winter vacation scheme, and I was successful. And then at the end of the vacation scheme, you are invited to a training contract interview. I mean, I guess the whole two weeks is an interview as well, but there is a specific training contract interview at the end of the vacation scheme. So I did that, and I was successful in converting that into a training contract. So I trained that white in case did my four seats. First seat was in debt finance, then I moved to capital markets, then corporate private equity, and then we have a guaranteed fourth seat out in Houston. Well, it’s not out in Houston, but it was an international seat. And I went to Houston to do project finance, and then I qualified back into the Capital Markets team with a bit of a focus on sustainability work as well, which is really exciting. So yeah, that is, that is my journey.

Robert Hanna  3:47  

Yeah, and what I really love about that is, you know, I always say a no is not necessarily a No, never. And you’ve given a great example there where you had those three rejections and you still managed to make it happen. So there’s some real sort of inspiring words in there for anyone else who might be trying to think about, oh, I’ve had a rejection, or it just doesn’t seem to be happening for me, then rejection is just redirection, or reach out on that energy, reapply whatever it is. And let’s fast forward then to today, because, as you’ve mentioned, you are an associate in white and case in their global capital markets practice with that focus on the sustainability side. But for those who might be unfamiliar. What type of work do you do in the Global Markets team? And perhaps just give us a bit of a day in the life? 

Steph Lartey  4:26  

Yeah, of course. So specifically, I’m a structured finance associate, and I find that when a lot of people think about capital markets, they’ll tend to think of ECM, so equity capital markets, IPOs, that sort of thing, or maybe DCM debt capital market. So bond issuances, that kind of thing. I’m one of those niche associates that does something called structured finance, which is still on the debt side. So it is still debt capital market. So we do still look at kind of bonds and that sort of thing. But the way we structure our products, I guess, is what’s quite different. So in terms of my day to day, it. Depends on the type of deal that I’m on, I guess. But very generically or very broadly speaking, it will look like drafting what we call the offering circular, or the offering memorandum. So that’s your main document that you have in these deals. And then on the structured finance kind of side, we’re looking at specific provisions or specific areas in this offering memorandum which makes the product a bit more structured, so it can be quite technical. It can be, you know, a lot of attention to detail, but I love it. It’s very interesting. The team is really, really nice. Outside of that, I do a little bit of due diligence, probably not as much as you would do in a corporate team, but there is still a little bit of due diligence involved in capital markets work and then, yeah, it’s really just cranking out documents, so it’s very transactional focused, but it’s the kind of work that I really enjoy.

Robert Hanna  5:48  

Yeah, absolutely. And has there been a memorable case you’ve worked on that you can share with us at all?

Steph Lartey  5:56  

Oh, a memorable case. Which ones are memorable? That’s all. Memorable. I personally didn’t work on it, but the team speaks very fondly often about the Aramco IPO, and I’ve worked with that particular partner who did that, so it sounds like it would have been an amazing deal to be on. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in the team at the time that they did that deal. So that’s, I would like to think the only reason why I didn’t do it sounds very interesting,

Robert Hanna  6:28  

yeah. No, absolutely a huge one as well. Of course, you know, absolutely gigantic has to be said. And obviously you’re doing some of the best quality work over in your current firm. I want to go back to the international experience you had the Houston office, you know, you spent time there, you know, advising, I think was on a project finance matter, I think so. How was your experience working abroad, and was there anything that you particularly learned from that international experience that’s helped shape you as a sort of global capital markets lawyer?

Steph Lartey  6:56  

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think even when I was applying to white in case. Obviously, I knew white and case was a global, international law firm, and I did have that experience right from the offset, from when I was in my debt finance seat, in my first seat. But I think going out to Houston and experiencing a different office that obviously still had that white and case name, it really made me a, appreciate the truly global nature of the firm. But B it made me understand how that kind of cross border work actually worked in practice. Whilst I was I was out there because I had, you know, finance experience. I did a lot of work with the London office, but with various different finance teams. And it was really interesting to kind of see how, you know, even though I’m not in the London office anymore, at that particular point in time, the work that it was still one firm, you know, it was still white and caves, that was really, that was really cool, but it was also a really good way to kind of broaden my professional network in the States as well as in other areas that we worked in as well. So we did quite a lot of Latin America work. So I built up my my professional relationships over there as well. So just overall, really good experience. I’m very glad I went and the food was nice, and Houston was just a great place to be in, to be honest,

Robert Hanna  8:09  

yeah, and that’s the whole beauty, isn’t it? Of going to, you know, join these international firms as well, you get those opportunities. But as you say, equally, which I think is so important for any aspiring lawyer, current lawyer building a practice is that network, you know, and building out that contact base and all the great stuff that you’ve been doing, um, in terms of qualification decisions. What was it about, sort of the the global markets practice, or becoming that sort of structured finance specialist? What was it about that that attracted you to wanting to move in that direction? Give us a bit of your thought process behind that. 

Steph Lartey  8:39  

Yeah, sure. So when it came up to qualification time, for me, at that point, I felt like my only options were the first three seats that I had done. Not that project finance wasn’t an option. But I think even though it is one firm, regardless of what office you’re in, I’d hadn’t trained in the London team of the project finance team. So for me, I just kind of, I felt like I only wanted to make my choices based off of where I had actually trained. So I was thinking of debt finance, corporate equity or capital markets. And then my next thought after that was, well, what work did I just really enjoy, you know, with the skills that I think I am stronger at. So for me personally, it’s things like organisation, time management, problem solving, but then also that kind of creativity with problem solving. I think that’s something that’s quite strong for me. Where did my skill set align? And with that, I kind of weeded out debt finance, and I was left with private equity and capital markets. Then I started to look at more. Okay, well, what deals did I do whilst I was training? What do I think I learned? And also in terms of the continued training that I would get, where did I think I would want to be with, you know, specific partners or specific senior associates who would be pivotal in me getting that training. And that’s kind of how I ended up with capital markets or. Kind of a process of elimination. But I definitely started off with, will I like this work, which I think is one of the most important things that you actually have to do, and then from there, kind of think about the skills, think about the people as well, and then make your decision,

Robert Hanna  10:13  

yeah, absolutely. And you’re right. I think you need to have a passion, or be really interested, and like you say, then you’ve obviously gone a step step further, and actually really looking at it from a skills perspective, and where you think you’d be best suited, and you know, hence why you’re flying. And it’s great to to hold this conversation with you today in terms of, you know, other associates in, you know, not this is necessarily in capital markets, but in your opinion, in terms of within firms, how, what do you think partners particularly appreciate, in terms of, you know, a proactive associate, or things that you think makes associates stand out, particularly in sort of large international law firms, given there are a number of associates, but what do you think are some of the things that can really help you stand out?

Steph Lartey  10:54  

Yeah, sure. I mean, this is actually a conversation that I have with with one of my mentors quite regularly. So off the back of what he has suggested is helpful for him as a partner, I would definitely say having that curiosity, I think being willing to just put your hand up and ask questions is always really refreshing. If I even think about myself when I’m working with trainees, it’s always easier to work with trainees who come to me and ask me questions, as opposed to me having to kind of figure out, what is it that you might need? Because sometimes I just don’t know, you might already know this, or you might not. So it is helpful when when that question is just asked. So I think the same can be applied for associates. When you are kind of working with partners, if you want to be a good associate, just be a curious associate, put your hand up and ask. And then, you know, the help will be provided. And I guess link to that as well, having a growth mindset. I mean, it’s something I’m passionate about in kind of all walks of life, but I guess in the working world as well, it’s really important to have a growth mindset, because you are going to make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes, but you need to know how to overcome them and learn from them and grow with those mistakes. And I think that’s something that partners really appreciate, and at least it’s good feedback that I’ve received personally, so I can attest to it being helpful.

Robert Hanna  12:08  

Yeah look, the person never made a mistake, never existed. And you know, someone said to me, you know, go, as you grow. And I think that’s so true. There are all the things that you you say, and just with that growth mindset, and indeed, you know, your general approach to helping people. You’re also the proud founder of success with Steph, which we’re big fans of here on the legal speaking podcast, but for people who might not be familiar or want to know a little bit more, what’s the core mission and how do you see it evolving in the future?

Steph Lartey  12:36  

Yeah sure, so success with Steph is essentially just a online community that supports aspiring and young, slash early professionals in the career journey. So when I first started it, I was actually in law school. So back then, it was kind of looking at helping students study more effectively. I got a distinction in law school. So I think my first ever video was looking at, how did I actually do that? How did I tab up my books? How did I write my notes, that sort of thing. And as time has progressed, it’s kind of just evolved with my career journey. So whilst I was training, I made loads of videos and content around how to apply to different law firms, but then also how to do things like your cover letter, your CV, how to stand out, the kind of skills you need, that sort of thing. Now that I’ve been qualified for a couple of years, the content has again evolved with that growth. So now it’s more looking at how to be a successful Junior professional member, you know, because that’s what I am now. And I suppose in terms of how will it evolve as I continue to grow my career, the platform will continue to evolve in that way as well. So I’ll just continue to provide support for the area that I’m in at that particular moment in time.

Robert Hanna  13:47  

And that’s great, isn’t it? Because it’s it’s up to date, it’s relevant, it’s now, it’s helpful. So yeah, I love how you’re kind of, you know, co injunction, with your own career, you’re giving back to help others as well who are hopefully trying to follow in your footsteps or seek inspiration. So I want to stick with social media because I think it’s so powerful, and particularly for the new wave of lawyers that are sort of the junior part of their career and rising up. I think they’re really understanding the importance of this. And clearly you are as well, and you’re doing a great job across multi platforms, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tiktok, you know, I think on Tiktok as well, you’ve got 10s and 10s of 1000s of likes on your content, which is great, and I believe in one of your tiktoks, you share three important pieces of advice. One, ensuring work communication is done via your work phone. Two, socialise in a way, authentic way to you. And three, take advice based on what your goals are. So we’d love to give you the chance to maybe expand a little bit more on these three top tips, because we absolutely love them.

Steph Lartey  14:42  

Yes, of course. Okay, so maybe I’ll work backwards taking advice based off of your goals. I think there’s a lot of information out there, which is great. There are a lot of people who are willing to support others who are kind of coming up behind them, and I think that’s just the beauty of human nature. But it also means. Is that sometimes the advice can be quite overwhelming, and sometimes you just don’t know what to follow, what not to follow, where to even begin, because there’s just too many options. So I think sometimes the first point of call is to think about your goals, and I think that’s why, alongside, you know me, kind of documenting my career journey, I also document my goal journey and how I set those goals, because I think it’s really important to have a grounding foundation, so that off the back of what your goals and values are, you can then align, you know, what you’re looking forward to that specifically. So it’s just to stop you from being overwhelmed. If I’m being honest, yeah, if I think about showing up authentically when you are you are networking. Because that’s what that kind of second point was about. I myself. I’m an introvert. I’m someone who, you know, I really enjoyed my own company. I thrive in kind of smaller social settings. So if there’s a large group, I would do really well if there’s maybe two or three of us, as opposed to me having to speak in a room full of 500 people. It’s not saying that I can’t do it, but I just, you know, I prefer to do things on a smaller scale. I’m not someone who you will find going to the pub after work for drinks. It’s just not my preferred way of socialising. That doesn’t mean that I don’t socialise at all. It just means that I’ve had to kind of figure out, okay, based off of what I find comfortable, how am I going to connect with you? A really easy way that I have been able to do this is the fact that people often ask to go for coffees, to have one to ones with people. I don’t drink coffee, but I will always say, I will come with you and I’ll go and buy myself a tea like that. It’s a very easily small win for me to kind of stay authentic to myself, but still also have a way to connect with other people. And it’s also usually a funny kind of opening starter, and people will then ask, Oh, you don’t drink coffee at all. You’re a lawyer and you don’t drink coffee. So it’s a nice little opener as well. So it’s a little two for one, but that’s just one way that I like to be authentic. When I’m building relationships. I stick to what I know makes me comfortable, but I still build those relationships. And I just wanted to encourage other people to not feel like they have to feel uncomfortable or feel like they have to change themselves, just figure out how to make things work. And there is always a way for things to work. And then, going back to my first point, I do think it’s really good to have work life balance. That is the main kind of ethos behind that. Now that doesn’t mean to say that you know you can’t have friends from work who maybe follow you on social media or that sorts of things. But if we are talking about work things, and if you work in the kind of industry, as I do, where you are given a work phone, use it for that purpose, so that you can have that separation of church and state, as it were, I think if you are always switched on 24/7 Yes, of course you can do it for a period of time. We all can, but there comes a point where you will crash and burn. And for me, one of the easiest ways to kind of avoid burnout in such a high intensity industry is to make sure that I have that separation between what I’m doing for work and then what I’m doing personally, and my work phone is perfect for that. 

Robert Hanna  17:54  

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Steph Lartey  19:53  

Yeah, that’s a really good question. I think probably one of the biggest challenges I had, especially at the start, although I. I’m still navigating it now, but I’m a lot better. It was with that self confidence and imposter syndrome, and I think for me it was, I mean, it was attributed to a lot of different things, but very much so probably to do with my background. I’m a young black woman. I come from a single parent, household, low socioeconomic background. I went into the job thinking that I wouldn’t have a place, and I think that already put me on the back foot, because I was already kind of holding myself back before I’d given myself a chance to even succeed. And one of the really good pieces of advice that I got from my first supervisor actually was you deserve to be here. They would not have made you an offer if they didn’t think you deserve to be here, because it actually costs them money to have you here. She was very frank about it, with that logic as a reminder that, okay, yes, you might feel this particular way, but you need to remind yourself of all of the truths to kind of combat that. And for me, I think confidence and imposter syndrome was something that I really had to battle with probably throughout the majority of my training contract. I would say maybe halfway through my third seat is probably when I started to think, okay, yeah, I’m actually quite good at this. I mean, yeah, I still have stuff to learn, but I’m actually not bad at my job. Okay, so, yeah, that was definitely a really big challenge for me, and and I’ve come to realise through speaking about it on social media as well, that is a challenge that a lot of people face. So I do my best to kind of share as many tips as possible as to how I’ve tried to overcome that, that challenge, and I am still overcoming that challenge, although it’s a bit different today, I’d say,

Robert Hanna  21:33  

Well, I think it’s great that you’re being authentic and open about it, and I guess you know you don’t sit still because you’re also the co founder of another organisation, which I’ll let people, let you tell people about. So do you want to tell folks what I’m referring to there, where you’ve engaged, I think, over 1400 young people?

Steph Lartey  21:51  

Yes, so you’re referring to Doceo, which is a social enterprise that equips 14 to 18 year olds with the employability skills that they need to thrive. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I myself and Zoe, who’s my co founder, we do amazing work with Doceo. The main kind of focus behind it is just making sure that young students who are really, really capable have access to the opportunities that just help them succeed. So that could be things like having insight days in various workplaces in the city, we have an empowered programme which focuses on the tech and legal industries, and we get the students into the offices so that they can speak to employees. They can find out more about apprenticeship routes or graduate routes if they decide to go down the university route. And they just kind of have that that access point to be able to see that, you know, if they do want to aspire to work in the city, for example, and they don’t have anybody in their immediate network or their immediate family, you can show them that that is possible. They can come to somewhere like Doceo and see that, yes, you can do this. For both myself and Zoe, we kind of serve as as role models in that. You know, we have a number of students who will turn around and say they want to become lawyers like myself, or they want to become technology engineers like Zoe is and they never thought they could do it. But when they find out what we do for a living and the kind of places where we work, they realise that, oh, actually, maybe this is achievable. So yeah, it’s really just about empowering young people to fulfil their full potential. Yeah,

Robert Hanna  23:20  

and I think you’re doing an incredible job with Doceo, has to be said. And you’ve worked with some amazing partners as well. BT Clifford chance. Ey, I could go on. So how did you go about actually teaming up with these different companies, and what support do they particularly offer?

Steph Lartey  23:34  

Yeah, so it was very much just off of building our relationships, myself and Zoe, so when we first started, this was actually during the pandemic, and through the various kind of WhatsApp groups, Telegram groups, all those sorts of things that we were in, we were just kind of telling people, Hey, this is an idea that we have. These are the students who want to be involved in this thing. This is what they want to find out more about. Who would be happy to support us. I think our BT connection was off the back of I’m actually Alito alumni, so Alito is aspiring the leaders of tomorrow, Veronica Martin and David with a Clark amazing people do really great work to kind of empower a slightly older age range. But I was on that programme, and off the back of that, I connected with people from BT, so that’s how we kind of made that connection. A similar kind of thing with EY, I believe, with that one, we were just posting on LinkedIn, actually, and they kind of just resonated with what we were doing, white and K supports through our empowered programme, which is really, really great. There are such a great number of young people who are really interested in a legal career, so it’s amazing for them to be able to have access to companies like white and case IBM also supports as well, again on the tech side, and again, that’s through just Zoe’s connection to that world. So it’s really just about us kind of tapping into. Our personal networks, and then using that to to empower the young people. Yeah,

Robert Hanna  25:03  

and so many great lessons that I bang on about all the time, and listen to the show. You know the importance of networking, utilising social media, and all these opportunities and collaborations and partnerships and things from your personal brand that can really help, particularly when you’re trying to help others as well, which is absolutely what you’re you’re doing. And let’s talk about barriers for young people and what they might face. What are some of the most common barriers, in your opinion, young people face when trying to enter the top top firms?

Steph Lartey  25:31  

I think the biggest one, and this is just from conversations I’ve had with people, is not even applying because they just don’t think that they would have a chance. So discounting themselves before they even, you know, get into the race, and that can be for a number of reasons, that maybe they were told whilst they were at school that they weren’t good enough. Or maybe, you know, when they have tried to look for advice or support in their applications, they haven’t received it, that sort of thing. So there are a number of reasons as to why they might not want to apply to begin with, but I think that’s definitely one of the biggest barriers. And a lot of work that I do, both with Doceo, but also with success with Steph, is about providing that transparency to empower people to see that you can really be anybody. So long as you put in the work, you can succeed and you can make it I think another barrier could maybe be lack of accessibility to people who are already in the industry. So again, if you want to apply to become a lawyer, one of the things that you would want to show in your application is you have an understanding of what it is you actually be doing on a day to day basis. But if you’ve never interacted with a lawyer, or you’ve not got any lawyers in your family, or you’ve only been watching suits or How to Get Away with Murder, you’re probably not actually going to know what it is that a lawyer actually does. So it then becomes hard for you to kind of translate that in your applications. And then even if you do apply, you kind of fall short, because it kind of seems like you haven’t done your research. But it’s not that you haven’t done your research. You just never have that access to be able to do the research to begin with. So I think those are probably the two biggest barriers that I’ve personally seen. Yeah,

Robert Hanna  27:03  

no, and really valid points. And again, thanks for flagging those. Let’s talk about resilience. And you know, we’ve touched on it throughout the conversation because you shared your turn down when applying for a direct training contract at your current firm. You know, how can young professionals build confidence and resilience when actually faced with these rejections or setbacks?

Steph Lartey  27:23  

That’s a really good question, again, because I think setbacks and rejections are something that you face throughout your career. You know, even when you get the job, maybe you might want to apply for a particular team, or you might want to do something within your firm, and you can be told no, that is another form of rejection. So knowing how to deal with that is really important. And I think for me, what has been very helpful with kind of building my resilience is a having my community, and it’s a community made up of both legal people, but also non legal people, friends, family, church members, that sorts of thing, people that you can just lean on when you’re feeling sad. Sometimes you just need a bit of support. Yeah, you don’t always want to, you know, figure out the next step. Sometimes you just want to cry a little bit, and you need somebody there who can kind of be that shoulder for you to cry on. So having your community is really important. I think, understanding how to make that separation between your career and your professional life and then your personal life. Because again, I think what can happen is that when you get these rejections in your professional life, it can feel like you personally are being rejected, and that can be very difficult to handle and navigate. But if you can create that separation whereby you know someone saying your application is a no is not someone saying that you are not good enough, if you can make that distinction, which takes a long time to get to, if I’m being honest, it’s not something that happens overnight, but if you can get to that place, then it becomes a lot easier for you to implement that growth mindset that we were talking about earlier and build that resilience as well, because then you see it as a learning curve. You see it as a okay, this application wasn’t that great, but this is what I need to do to improve so that it can be better next time. As opposed to feeling like, I Steph, I’m not great, because they’ve said no to my application, that can be really difficult. Yeah, I

Robert Hanna  29:13  

love how you one removed that. And always say, you know, this, the rejection is just the redirection, isn’t it? It’s sort of redirecting in the hopefully in the next opportunity, and you know, you’ll never, never be unsuccessful if you don’t stop giving up. And I think that’s the key to this as well. And sticking with advice then, because you give a lot of this, which is fantastic, particularly on applications. So what would be your top tips for training, contract applications, obviously, sqe or even paralegal or VAC schemes, applications, any kind of top tips,

Steph Lartey  29:41  

I think in this day and age, my top tip, if I can have two, maybe, is a I would treat chatgpt The same way that we used to treat Wikipedia back in the day, in the sense that teachers would always tell you, you can’t use Wikipedia when you’re writing an essay. But what the. You among us used to do was go on Wikipedia, first have a look at the references at the bottom, and then go and verify those references and work backwards that way, so we weren’t using Wikipedia as our source. We were still checking the references. And I’m seeing a lot of people relying on AI to do everything for them, and I don’t think we should be doing that. I think it’s fine to use it to assist. It’s there as a tool, so that’s not an issue at all. But that shouldn’t be your starting point or your own B point. You should do a bit more further kind of verification after that, and then off the back of that as well, I would just say, avoid the temptation to copy and paste applications. I know it can feel so draining, especially when you’ve spent hours and hours on one firm, and then you’ve got to do it all again for another firm. But really do try to avoid that temptation, because I think the golden ticket is knowing how to differentiate or show that you have really taken the time to research a particular firm, and no two firms are the same. So if you have copied and pasted the application, it’s very difficult to kind of explain why you actually think one firm is like the dream place for you to want to train at or work up.

Robert Hanna  31:05  

Yeah, and I always say, you know, specific is terrific. So the more tailored you can be, the greater your chances. Whereas if, as you say, you’re just doing a sort of mass outreach approach, you’re probably going to get a mass rejection approach, which, again, is not not the best use of your time, so quality of applications really matter. Okay, let’s talk about key skills. Then, what are some of the underrated skills, underrated that early career professionals should focus on developing? In your opinion?

Steph Lartey  31:33  

Very good question. Again. I think relationship building is probably one of the biggest underrated skills, and I think having that understanding that you do not need to be an extrovert or a very loud person to be good at relationship building. Going back again to what I said before, I am an introverted person. I am someone who does a lot better in kind of smaller groups than I do in bigger groups. But one thing that I think has really helped me throughout my career to date is the fact that I know how to talk to and relate with pretty much anybody. I can either talk to you about suits, or I can talk to you about the documentary that we watched on whales, or I can talk to you about clothes, or we can laugh about the fact that I don’t drink coffee. There’s always something but knowing how to build relationships and actually talk to people on a social kind of level. I think it’s such an underrated skill that a lot of people don’t focus on so that that would be my biggest one. Yeah, and

Robert Hanna  32:29  

I could speak to that putting my legal recruiting hat on and various other hats that I have like that is such a power. You know, I always say rapport wins the war. You know, the more rapport you more you can converse with people more you can listen intently and really ask intelligent questions, or, you know, curious going back to your point about that curiosity point earlier, like that’s really going to help you build deep relationships. I always say contacts are good, but it’s the relationships that pay, and it’s sprinkling value across them, over time, nurturing them, developing them, and great things will happen. And let’s talk about diversity, because I know it’s something that’s important to you, and it’s something we support very heavily. Support very heavily. Here on the legally speaking podcast, has some incredible people that have been on the show that are doing wonderful things, like yourself, because you’re part of the black affinity network, and you explained not all black experiences are the same. So for me, being part of this network is not only about the networking and shared events, it’s also about meeting those from different heritages and backgrounds. So tell us more about what it means to be part of this network for you.

Steph Lartey  33:26  

Yeah, absolutely. So I’m one of the co chairs of the network, so I actually lead the network at the moment, which is an amazing opportunity to just be able to meet different people across the firm. But I think for me, being a part of the network, it’s just a really good way to a, I guess, share what is important to me and what I think makes me a better employee, but also B, learn from other people so that I can again improve my skill set. Going back to what I said before, in terms of one of your the key underrated skills being knowing how to build relationships and knowing how to nurture relationships, if I don’t know anything about you, it can be very difficult to do that, and I think by being a part of this network, it’s a really great way to just learn more about different people that maybe I otherwise wouldn’t have had that opportunity to find out things about. You know, I mean, you can obviously also kind of read books and Google and things like that, but I think there’s something about learning through talking to people that is just so so kind of pure and great. And the network allows that space for people to do that, which is really nice.

Robert Hanna  34:30  

Yeah I love that. You know, spaces, you know, allowing spaces, creating, curating conversations. You know, shared values, learning, being open minded. Love it, and you keep exceptionally busy, it has to be said, and it’s inspiring. How you keep it all together? I guess. One last piece of advice before we let you go. What do you wish you had known when starting your journey in the legal sector?

Steph Lartey  34:57  

Very good question. I. Wish I had known, or I wish I’d been told that there’s no one right way to do things. Yeah, I think you can definitely get bogged down at every stage. So if I even think back to university, I was very focused on, you know, picking the right modules. Quote unquote. Similar thing with the training contract, focused on picking the best seats, quote, unquote, but there isn’t actually a right way to do anything you have to do what’s best for you. And that could be you exploring different things to figure out what you like. It could mean your journey looks very different to somebody else’s journey, but that’s okay, because that’s what’s best for you. There is no one objective right way. And maybe, had I, had I been told that I would have, I’m thinking more about university here, but I probably would have done a couple of different modules, let’s say, but we’re here today, so it’s okay.

Robert Hanna  35:49  

Yeah, and look, it’s doing. You know, you’re doing fantastically well. And I guess, as a sort of wrap up, then, if our listeners want to know more about your career and indeed, success with staff and do and all the other things that you’re doing. Where can they go to find out more? Feel free to shout out any websites or any social media handles. We’ll also share them with this very special episode for you too.

Steph Lartey  36:08  

Yes, thank you. I definitely say follow me on social media. So success with Steph is on Instagram, Tiktok and LinkedIn. It’s success W Steph, UK, and you can also email me at hello at success, dot u, Steph uk.com, and I will happily reply. I am also on LinkedIn personally. Steph L, and you can find Doceo from any of my personal pages as well. So very easy to find.

Robert Hanna  36:34  

Love it! Well, it just leads me to say, thanks so much, Steph, it’s been an absolute blast having you on the show. So from all of us on the legally speaking podcast, sponsored by Clio, wishing you lots of continued success with your career and indeed, future pursuits. 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, dot legally speaking podcast.com, there’s a link to join our community there. Over and out!