Can we make the legal profession more human? This week, I’m joined by Claire Sanders, Founder of the Legal Space and Co-Founder of Being Human Consulting. Claire is on a mission to simplify law and bring a human touch to legal work. From her roles at Nintendo and Huel to transforming legal services to startups, Claire shares her powerful insights on creating a more compassion, people-centred profession. If you’re curious about what it means to bring humanity to the law, you won’t want to miss this episode.

So why should you be listening in? 
You can hear Rob and Claire discussing:

• The Transition from Private Practice to In-House Legal Roles
• Challenges of Being the First In-House Lawyer
  Resilience in High-Growth Companies
• Breaking Down the Stereotypes of Lawyers
• Building Relationships and Stakeholder Management

  Connect with Claire here – https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-sanders-41160846/

• •  

Transcript

They brought me in too late.

00:01

They were far too big by the time they had a lawyer.

00:03

And I know why that was because you’re trying to avoid having someone internal.

00:07

You kind of get your fingers burnt by the external lawyers who are charging a lot of money.

00:11

So you even, you kind of go to them even less.

00:13

And and so it just, it just gets a bit messy because I think it was this really sort of midlife moment of.

00:20

This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.

00:22

Is this really aligning with my values?

00:24

And I did a lot of work with the transformational coach and decided that actually it wasn’t and so moved on and established the legal space and being human, I want to make it better for startups and early stage scale ups by kind of like breaking it down and going, do you know what?

00:40

You don’t have to have this big scary lawyer.

00:42

Lawyers can actually be really helpful.

00:44

And they don’t all have to be really expensive.

00:46

They can just be there to hold your hand on the stuff they you they need to hold your.

00:50

And they can tell you you don’t need to worry about stuff when you don’t need to worry about it.

00:54

On today’s Legally Speaking podcast, I’m delighted to be joined by Claire Sanders.

00:58

Claire is the founder of The Legal Space and Co founder of Being Human.

01:02

Claire qualified as solicitor in 2007 and has experience across a wealth of private practise and in-house roles.

01:09

She was previously a solicitor at Travis Smith Associate Council for Fibre Web UK, Council at Nintendo UK and GC at Brompton Bicycle and of course Hugh.

01:18

Claire is dedicated to help making the.

01:20

Profession, more human, simplifying the legal profession and demystifying the law.

01:25

Love it.

01:26

So a very big warm welcome, Claire.

01:28

Oh, thanks very much, Bob.

01:29

It’s great to be here.

01:30

It was a bit scary when you read out, kind of like it feels a bit like this is my life.

01:35

Yeah.

01:35

In podcast modern medium form before we go through your, I mean, it’s super impressive and you’ve worked for some companies I would have loved to work for over the years.

01:44

We do have a little ice breaker question here on the legally speaking podcast, which is on the scale of one to 10.

01:50

10 being very real, what would you rate the hit TV series Suits in terms of the reality of the law, if you’ve seen it?

01:57

Yeah.

01:58

So this is confession time.

01:59

I’ve never seen Suits.

02:00

Like I’m very much an Ally Mcbeal girl.

02:02

That was my era.

02:05

Singing in the toilets and all that kind of stuff.

02:08

Yeah, I was all over that.

02:09

But I’ve never seen suits.

02:11

Well, with that, we’ll give it a zero because many of our guests haven’t and they’ve been busy being successful like you.

02:16

So.

02:16

So with that, we’ll move swiftly on to learn a little bit more about you and break down some of that introduction.

02:21

So would you mind telling our listeners a bit more about your background and career journey?

02:26

Yeah.

02:27

So I mean, I took a really traditional route into law.

02:29

So I did law degree, law school.

02:32

Trained at Eversheds in Birmingham actually, because at that point I didn’t I didn’t see myself being in the city decide I want to be a corporate lawyer.

02:40

So at that point decide I wanted to be in the city.

02:43

So it moved to Travers, had a fab like 3 1/2, mn’t aybe 4 1/2 caremember exactly years at Travers and then kind of got enticed away into in house and started off in the incledary unglamorous world of non woven fabrics, which is not Gucci as.

03:02

Some people seem to think, but yeah, more about extruded plastic.

03:06

So start off there.

03:08

But brilliant role.

03:08

Brilliant.

03:09

First in house role, did some fantastic international work.

03:12

And then they were taken over by a American company and they were like, do you want to move to, do you want to move to Barcelona?

03:20

And I was like, not really, I’ve just bought a house.

03:22

I’ve just got married.

03:23

No, so I didn’t.

03:25

And kind of more by luck than any sort of judgement, I ended up at Nintendo, which sounds really like, I mean, a lot of people.

03:32

People would give their left arm almost to go and work for Nintendo, but it just happened that it was just down the road from where I lived and Maidenhead and I applied and I was really candid and kind of said I know nothing about gaming, I’m not a gamer, but hey, I think that’s a really great sell spot.

03:46

So I ended up at Nintendo.

03:48

Phenomenal business to be a part of, obviously.

03:52

And then left there, well, I had both my both my children while I was there and I kind of had this moment where I realised that Nintendo was great, but if I wanted to progress beyond being UK legal counsel.

04:06

I’d either have to move to Frankfurt or even more radically, I’d have to move to Japan, and that wasn’t going to happen.

04:12

So I wanted to go back to being the heart of within a business, which is where Brompton came in.

04:17

So went into Brompton as their first general counsel.

04:21

We started off doing two days a week, which is neuron impossible, then did three days a week and then got to the point where my kids a bit older and I thought, you know what, I want to do more.

04:30

And I saw the role advertised at your and I was, I’m a hooligan anyway.

04:34

And so it’s my sister and I knew just how amazing their culture and brands and everything was meant to be.

04:41

And I’m like, please employ me, Please employ me.

04:44

And they did.

04:46

And so that was it.

04:47

So I was at heel.

04:48

I joined them at a kind of a pivotal time when they were really on the kind of like the growth stage.

04:55

And then, yeah, it was there about 18 months and I had a just a bit of a epiphany.

04:59

I think I had my 40th birthday.

05:02

And and I say that because I think it it was this really sort of mid life moment of this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.

05:10

Is this really aligning with my values.

05:12

And I did a lot of work with the transformational coach and decided that actually it wasn’t and so moved on and established the legal space and being human.

05:21

So yeah, yeah, and we’re definitely going to talk about that because I’m a genuine big fan of of the work you’re doing.

05:27

And obviously you’ve got a great pedigree behind you in terms of the experiences that you built both in private practises and indeedin house.

05:34

And I think the work is just so invaluable.

05:36

But I want to kind of go back just to, you know, what was the original motivation for you?

05:41

Because you trained, as you said, over in Evershed Birmingham, then you moved to Travers.

05:44

Loved your time there.

05:45

I’m a big Travers fan as well, biasedly.

05:47

And so you know, how what was that sort of motivation for wanting to move?

05:51

House was there, you know, anything from your side That thought actually, I think I’ll be better suited to this.

05:55

Just talk us through some of those motivations.

05:57

I think there were two things really.

05:59

One was so I had because I was an M and a lawyer, I spent a lot of my time talking to people on the client side who weren’t lawyers.

06:07

So, you know, at that stage in my career, I’m spending a lot of my time doing due diligence.

06:13

And I loved it.

06:13

I kind of loved talking to people who weren’t lawyers.

06:16

I mean, I love lawyers.

06:16

Obviously.

06:17

I am a lawyer covering lawyer, however you want to describe me.

06:19

But I really love people who aren’t lawyers.

06:21

I find it fascinating.

06:22

I find different.

06:24

You know, the choice of different industries, really interesting.

06:27

And so a little bit of me like was heartbroken at the end of every deal when off they went in their new, you know, new form company or whatever it looked like.

06:35

And then I’d be like right on to the next one.

06:37

And it was just a bit like, I just felt a bit sad.

06:39

So there was that aspect for sure.

06:42

I wanted to be more of a part of the business, go on the journey with them and talk to different people.

06:46

But also I just couldn’t face the unpredictability of being an MNA lawyer.

06:52

I didn’t mind the hours so much.

06:54

As long as I knew when they were coming.

06:56

But I hated cancelling all my friends.

06:58

I hated, you know, thinking that I’d got the weekend to myself and then on a Friday afternoon, a partner walks in.

07:04

I just hated that.

07:05

And I also just couldn’t see the future.

07:08

I left before I was married or I had children, but it was kind of purposeful because I couldn’t see.

07:13

I couldn’t see what that could ever look like.

07:15

So.

07:17

Yeah.

07:17

So that’s really why I jump ship.

07:20

And also the architect of your own story.

07:22

And, you know, you know, everything happens for.

07:24

Season and like you said, you know, you you’ve kind of made decisions that have ultimately worked out for you and I think you’ve been brave enough to make those decisions.

07:31

I think there’s a good lesson in there for people that might be sat in a role that might not be thinking this is 100% goingto be right from where you want to go.

07:37

So you know, go and see what else is out there.

07:39

And you know, when we reeled off in the intro, I mean, you worked some great companies and you know you progressed within them, you know, from fibre web to Nintendo to Brompton bicycle and fuel.

07:48

Could you just sort of break down a little bit for people who might be thinking about a career in house or transitioning private practise how some of those.

07:54

Roles differed between one another and skills and things you you learnt along the way.

07:58

I think that’ll be super valuable.

08:00

Yeah.

08:00

So I mean, so the first two in house roles.

08:03

So with five Web and Nintendo, the legal team was really established.

08:07

So the legal team was an essential part of the business and had been.

08:12

So five word was listed on AIM, Nintendo obviously listed on the Japanese Stock Exchange.

08:17

Huge.

08:18

There was never any.

08:20

Question about why the legal function was there or at seat at the table.

08:25

It was very much a case of they are here.

08:27

Everybody knew they had to include them and would listen.

08:32

So in those roles it was much more about you had the freedom to just get on and do your job if you like.

08:39

And, and that was, you know, that was great when I then moved to kind of fuel and Brompton bikes.

08:47

It’s a very different situation because you’re first in the door.

08:50

So people aren’t used to having a lawyer.

08:53

So and just by its nature, lawyers are an expensive resource and.

08:59

And a lot of people just have a real misconception of them.

09:03

They haven’t watched Ally Mcbeal, or maybe they have and just think of them as kind of like the naysayers and they were going to block everything they want to do.

09:10

So suddenly it shifts from you spend less of your time doing the law and more of your time as kind of connecting with people and trying to break down the barriers and get your seat at the table and justifying your position.

09:23

And so it really shifts entirely.

09:25

So I think.

09:26

I just really interesting conversation with someone at an event once and I was telling him about the struggles, you know, at these companies because because you naturally have them.

09:34

And it can be really like, you need a lot of resilience to work for a high growth companies as a lawyer.

09:39

And I was telling them about all this and he said, and I said, but the problem is I love high growth companies.

09:43

I love them.

09:44

And he was like, yeah, but do you love being a lawyer there?

09:46

Because actually it sounds like you might prefer being a lawyer in a much bigger company where you’re not constantly having to prove yourself.

09:51

And I think that’s that’s the thing.

09:52

I think it’s working for someone like Hughes and Brompton sounds phenomenal.

09:56

But he was still the lawyer.

09:57

I was still the lawyer who was trying to like bang on the door and.

10:01

Yeah, just just breakdown kind of the the stereotype that people had essentially.

10:07

Just building on that because I think it’s a really important point, isn’t it?

10:10

And people say the cliche thing’s legal, you know, the cost centre, the department of no, all of those things, you know, are there any things looking back on that that you would give to people who might be in those roles at the moment who maybe want to push through that you would say actually in hindsight or actually things that I learned that maybe you could put into practise would be helpful in terms of that stakeholder management piece?

10:30

Yeah, I think there’s, I think there’s.

10:33

Two things that I did a lot of, and.

10:38

Actually, that’s maybe so two, maybe I’ll say one thing I did a lot of and one thing I wish I’d done more of.

10:43

Maybe that’s fairer.

10:44

One thing was I spent a lot of time chatting to people and I love talking to people, but I love it.

10:51

It’s the favourite part of my entire life is talking to people.

10:54

We were just talking before this about conferences and I would go to conferences every day of the week and talk to anybody.

10:59

I love it.

11:00

But actually it’s really important because when you’re working in that kind of environment, the easiest way to break down barriers is just to meet them.

11:07

They are so I would take my laptop and I’d go and sit in a communal area and I’d just chat to people about what they did at the weekend, what they, you know, what they’re having for lunch, like anything and everything.

11:16

Because it wasn’t it was about developing this relationship with them so that they had this trust in me as an individual.

11:22

And and then they felt that when they did see me hanging around in the kitchen, they go, oh, by the way, can I just pick your brain on something and then you’re like, yes, I’ve made it because the moment they start thinking can I pick your brain on something means that they’re.

11:34

They’re beginning to start thinking about law.

11:36

I think that was my first one, and then the thing that I wish I’d done more of.

11:42

Is finding the time and being really bound read with the time for putting in place good process?

11:50

Because it’s very easy when you walk into those environments where you are the sole legal counsel to just be absolutely bombarded and with kind of reactive churn, you know, day-to-day stuff because everyone’s at your desk shouting at you to do it.

12:08

Metaphorically, I’m actually shouting at you.

12:10

And she should qualify.

12:13

But actually where you’re really going to add value is getting out of those weeds and, and getting into the strategic.

12:18

So I wish I had safeguarded more time in my calendar and been really strict with it and said, right, I’m going to put in processes really early doors, or at least as far as I can to, to free me up to do the stuff, which actually I love doing, but actually it’s what you’re paying me to do.

12:33

And I wasn’t strict enough with that.

12:34

I don’t think I had the confidence in me to kind of say, no, I’m doing this.

12:38

I know this is the right thing for the business.

12:41

And so like, it’s basically backing yourself.

12:43

I think I love that.

12:45

I kind of put that all under time.

12:46

The first point you’re saying is like, connect and communicate, give the time.

12:49

And then the second point is protected time in terms of building boundaries.

12:52

And I, I think it’s really, you know, smart how you would sort of look at it that way.

12:56

And like you say, you know, we’re going to talk now about, you know, two things.

12:59

I’m very happy that you’re doing and, and good work that you’re doing in terms of the the present.

13:03

But I, I say this pretty much on every episode now.

13:06

And the listeners probably like, please don’t say it again, Rob, but this is so passionate.

13:10

You, you know, we’re not on this B2B or B2C.

13:12

We’re in this H to H, this human to human professional world of work.

13:15

And you can just go on LinkedIn or any platform now and see how things are changing and people are trying to meet people where they’re at, to hold conversation and connect.

13:22

And clearly you were doing that and that and that’s a really good piece of advice.

13:26

So let’s get into it then.

13:28

You are the co-founder of being Human and founding the legal space.

13:31

So what inspired you to to Co found being Human and create the legal space?

13:37

So the legal space was really.

13:40

Came about because.

13:43

With, with the greatest love in the world for both Huell and Brompton, they brought me in too late.

13:48

Like they, they were far too big by the time they had a lawyer.

13:51

And I know why that was because legal wasn’t seen as a necessity.

13:58

It was seen as a very expensive thing to have.

14:00

So almost like you try and avoid it for as much as possible.

14:03

And then because you’re trying to avoid having someone internal, you kind of get your fingers burnt by the external lawyers who are charging a lot of money.

14:10

So you even, you kind of go to them even less.

14:12

And and so it just, it just gets.

14:14

Bit messy and so I was kind of almost like selfishly, I suppose I was like, I want to make it it kind of better for startups and early stage scale ups by kind of like breaking it down and going, do you know what?

14:28

You don’t have to have this big scary lawyer.

14:30

Lawyers can actually be really helpful and they don’t all have to be really expensive.

14:34

They can just be there to hold your hand on the stuff they they need to hold your hand on and they can and they can tell you you don’t need to worry about stuff when you don’t need to worry about it.

14:42

And really so that you are in a better state when it comes to growing to a stage where you need a lawyer or where you kind of want to exit, you know, you’re in a better frame of mind.

14:53

But what I really found was when I spoke to kind of these early stage startups, I just didn’t know where to go.

14:59

And when you asked them about it, they’d be like, oh, yeah, no, we’re using some big law firm.

15:02

And I’m like, why, why, why, why and so.

15:07

It was kind of all, I mean, I guess it, it flows nicely into the human stuff because it was all about just making.

15:14

Legal, more accessible.

15:16

Yeah.

15:16

And I love it because it also goes back to kind of talking to people and business owners and learning from them and, you know, some fascinating businesses and they just need their hands held.

15:28

I mean, I don’t want that to sound patronising, but, you know, I don’t do really big deals.

15:33

I don’t do really complicated contracts.

15:37

Not because I can’t, but because that isn’t what they need me for.

15:40

They need me for, you know, I’m doing a funding round and this is a bit of a mess.

15:43

Can you help me or?

15:45

You know, I’m having an argument with my, you know, ex and Co founder.

15:49

Can you just give me a bit of common sense, you know, those kinds of things.

15:52

That’s what they need.

15:53

They don’t need kind of the, the, the really detailed specific legal advice.

16:01

So that’s, that’s what I’m doing with the legal space And, and I love it.

16:06

It’s really good.

16:07

I love, I love the kind of people I work with.

16:09

So that’s, yeah, it’s brilliant.

16:10

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16:59

Now back to the show.

17:00

So let’s talk about also something I know super passionate about, Being human.

17:04

What is it?

17:05

Tell us all about it and why?

17:07

So I established being human, kind of.

17:11

Is is a long story and a short story.

17:12

I’ll start with a long and you might cut me off, but basically.

17:15

My sister and I, my sister is my co-founder and we had very different kind of professional experiences.

17:25

So I went to university, trained to be a lawyer, was in the city.

17:28

She didn’t go to university.

17:29

Did they release college?

17:30

Was a veterinary nurse.

17:32

But when she was being a veterinary nurse, she realised that she was really interested in the human impact on performance.

17:37

And in a clinical setting, it’s incredibly, it’s incredibly important.

17:41

Like if, if someone isn’t performing to their best individually, then the team may fail and.

17:45

When a patient dies.

17:46

So she went off and did some studies about that, realised it was human factors, did her masters in human factors and spent a lot of and now and then moved on to basically consulting with veterinary professionals and anyone within the veterinary industry to help them with the human aspect of their roles.

18:02

Basically in a nutshell.

18:06

And at the same time as she was kind of growing that and growing that expertise, I was going through this kind of transformational coaching and kind of thinking, what, what are my values and where do I, what do I want to be doing?

18:18

And what I was realising was thatI felt really isolated as as a growing lawyer, even as a senior lawyer, I felt that it was me alone who was having all these kind of difficulties, difficulties in managing emotions, managing kind of stress, impostor syndrome, all of these things.

18:38

I thought it was just me.

18:39

But as I was getting more senior and I was actually getting more comfortable with myself and so I was comfortable to be more vulnerable.

18:46

I was having conversations with my peers.

18:47

And they were like, what?

18:48

No, no, no, you had all your stuff together.

18:50

It was us.

18:50

I was the one who didn’t know what I was doing and had imposition.

18:53

And I was like, no, no, no, that was me.

18:54

What you realise is everyone feels the same.

18:57

And so the more I saw what Helen was teaching in the veterinary space, I was like, but we need that in the legal area.

19:04

We need all of that understanding of how we’re worried humans, the impact it has on us when we aren’t, like when we’re triggered by a certain event, when someone speaks to us rudely, when we’re kind of depleted in resilience, it all has a massive impact.

19:18

On our performance and for me, I was like, I loved the human factors teachings because it’s all backed in evidence.

19:27

And so you can tell from data what happens when when someone isn’t at their best and it really impacts the team and ultimately profitability.

19:37

So I was like, oh, I think law firms and people might listen to this because actually they might not be interested in the from the goodness of their heart, but they might be interested in the profitability It’s been especially in a world where.

19:48

If like constantly trying to do more with less and yeah, and these kinds of things.

19:52

So yeah.

19:52

So we form being human and it’s got two distinct sides really.

19:56

One is the veterinary area which Helen looks after, and then one is the legal area where we we cross pollinate a lot because Helen’s the academic excellence behind it.

20:08

But I’ve obviously got the experience.

20:09

So we do all sorts and we do training, bespoke training, we do training programmes, we do.

20:16

Programmes for leaders and for junior lawyers.

20:19

We have a community of lawyers where we share learnings, we have our own podcasts, like it’s all just really about imparting knowledge to help people understand how they as humans will react in any given situation and how they can maximise their performance in those situations.

20:36

So, and that’s, that’s it really.

20:38

And it’s such a brilliant business because we all need that, you know, particularly as the, and you know, we’re seeing the evolution of, of AI and lots of things and even robotics now, you know.

20:49

This human side and this sort of development and understanding of this being human and the things that you’re doing is just going to be increasingly more important, not only in terms of your internal relationships that you hold, but also getting more client centric and closer to your clients and fostering and nurturing those relationships to, you know, get better, get a Better Business, more referrals, grow all of that great stuff.

21:08

So I want to break it down a little bit because you were talking a little bit about human factors, but people are maybe less familiar.

21:13

You use the discipline of human factors as your as your framework, as you mentioned.

21:17

So applying sort of scientific.

21:19

Knowledge about the human body, mind and behavour, which I ilove.

21:23

So can you tell us a bit more about what these human factors are and why is it so important to apply that about the human body, mind and behaviour?

21:32

So human factors really derived from like safety critical industries.

21:38

So it, it kind of had its birth in aviation and you know, after there were a number of different air traffic accidents.

21:46

And what happened is people sat down and went, I don’t understand.

21:49

We’ve got the most intelligent, you know, we’ve got the most experienced pilots flying these planes.

21:57

We’ve got state-of-the-art machinery, they’ve got millions of, well, not when there’s hundreds of flight hours behind them.

22:02

Why are they making mistakes?

22:04

And so there was this real study into what, what exactly was it And they found out that ultimately there’s kind of two areas, if you like, of it. 1 is about how the interrelationship between people in a cockpit and how people interrelate and the impact that that has.

22:21

And also then about what is more about ergonomics, which we don’t really touch upon, which is kind of your physical.

22:27

Things so things like they found that two switches were right next to each other and did polar opposites.

22:32

So they were like, well, that’s just setting people up for failure.

22:34

Let’s move one of those switches and make it harder for people to fail.

22:37

That’s essentially it.

22:39

And so it came from aviation.

22:43

Had it tracked its way really through a lot of safety, safety critical industries like oil rigs and then it kind of is is flowing through medicine and veterinary where the impact of not performing at your best is ultimately.

22:58

Death and so it’s incredibly important and there’s a reason why aviation is has such an amazing safety.

23:06

Safety record it’s because they put so much time and attention into this.

23:10

You know, their performance is phenomenal because they really dedicate time to this They dedicate time to you know down to like flight times down to every every person in the aviation industry will have this training.

23:23

They, you know they have the black box, which we all know about, but actually.

23:28

The reason for that is so that they can analyse everything that happens in the cockpit, everything that goes wrong, everything that goes right.

23:34

It’s incredibly disciplined.

23:36

So Human Factors is really about the interplay of people within the environment that they work in.

23:43

And.

23:45

Yeah.

23:45

So I mean like it’s, it’s, I mean, we talk about making it harder to fail.

23:49

That’s essentially what it is.

23:50

It’s making it easier to succeed and harder to fail as a human.

23:54

And then how it relates really to the service industry.

23:57

Is what you’re saying is we’re trying to make people as.

24:03

Individually perform individually to their best.

24:06

So it’s about sustainable performance.

24:08

It has a brilliant side effect which is well-being and that’s awesome and really excites me.

24:14

But really I think well-being in this day and age has got a bit of a softy, softy feeling and everyone just associates it with yoga and breath work and all these things which are incredibly important.

24:24

But trying to get partners of top tier law firms to listen to that is incredibly difficult.

24:29

Whereas actually when you say no, no, this is about performance and minimising risk and that’s where.

24:33

Factors comes in because that’s where it started in aviation and that’s what it’s absolutely set up to do you know so like so to give you give you some examples for example, we talk about.

24:47

Things like resilience or civility.

24:51

So if someone shouts at you or if something happens or says something to you which triggers you, what happens is our chimp and our brain takes over.

25:02

Is the amygdala or in the centre of our brain, it’s prehistoric man takes over.

25:07

And puts you into a defence mode.

25:09

So it puts you into this fight, fight, flight, freeze and flop, I think the five FS now.

25:15

And what happens at that point is you get flooded with adrenaline and all the kind of and cortisol and you’re getting ready to literally run up a tree, hide, freeze, whatever it might because your brain does can’t.

25:25

It’s it’s not the the chimp part of your brain isn’t sophisticated to differentiate between whether the threat is a Sabre tooth sideor is a threat is a rude e-mail.

25:33

It can’t do that.

25:34

It just puts you into defence mode.

25:35

And when that happens, you become absolutely task fixated because your brain is going, I just need to survive.

25:41

So you lose 61% ofyour cognitive bandwidth.

25:45

You just become thinking about this task, which means that in that moment, until you have resolved that situation, you are performing at 61% ofyour capacity.

25:55

Well, 4149% ofboth, well, 39% aremassive rubbish of your capacity because 61 percent is totally thinking about how can I escape the situation.

26:04

And we probably all had it, you know.

26:05

You get an e-mail and it’sa bit rude and you’re kind of like, oh, and then you’re like, oh, I’m gonna leave it, I’m gonna do something else.

26:10

And then you try and do something else, but it always comes back to you.

26:13

I can’t believe you spoke to me like that.

26:15

I can’t believe that happened.

26:16

How dare they?

26:17

Do they think I’m rubbish?

26:18

Then you do something else and it comes back again and you’re like, well, what am I going to do about it?

26:22

I’ve got to see them tomorrow.

26:23

How am I going to?

26:24

And you just are completely unproductive in that time.

26:28

Now, if you multiply that by.

26:30

You know, going into a law firm 60, losing 61% of your cognitive bandwidth means that you aren’t performing at your best, which has a direct impact on risk because obviously you’re not concentrating and it also has a huge impact on your productivity because.

26:44

It takes you so much longer to do anything, which naturally then has an impact on your your time that you have to spend at work.

26:53

And ultimately the product that you’re delivering your client.

26:55

So what we come in and we’re like, let’s all accept that happens, let’s recognise when that happens.

27:00

And now let’s give you the tools to try and minimise the time that you are.

27:06

You are task fixated for how do we get you out of that feeling and we kind of share the skills to try and help people get out of that feeling as quickly as possible.

27:15

Um, it makes so much sense, doesn’t it?

27:18

Because the sooner you can get people out of that and get that productivity percentile much higher or to where it needs to be, then it’s only going to be a win.

27:25

And then you say like the, the well-being on top of that, you know, in terms of feeling better, happier in the workplace, because culture does matter.

27:32

I think it’s, it, it, it, it, it’s really important.

27:34

And you know, there should be absolutely front and centre of, of, of Leaguers now, but also in the future, because like you say, particularly in a high growth business or in a law firm where you’re working on stressful mandates or, you know.

27:45

Time deadlines, you know, things probably would get centred in hindsight.

27:48

So, you know, typically it’s always just, oh, well, I’ll just brush that to the side.

27:51

But actually, you know, if you bring this to the forefront, provide the tool, the experience and actually allow people to resolve these things, as you say, it’s only going to be a net benefit to the, to the firms and indeed pass on to the clients that they’re they’re working for.

28:05

I want to talk a bit about our jet setting because this year you and I have been on a few planes around the world to conferences.

28:10

I I’ve, I’ve recently returned from Austin, TX for, for Cleo com, which was which was great.

28:15

Been delivering training for individuals, teams, attending conferences, speaking organisations pretty much everywhere you’ve been to Nebraska through to Scotland, even Coventry got in there, you know, you know all the all the places.

28:29

But you know, what did you what do you most enjoy about attending conferences A broad specifically and sort of passing that message on about being human around the globe, I mean.

28:41

I love public speaking.

28:42

I’d forgotten how much I like public speaking.

28:43

When I decided to be a lawyer.

28:45

I had a real moment of do I want to be a solicitor or barrister?

28:47

And I went down the solicitor route because actually.

28:49

I was really buoyed by the kind of sense of team that you automatically had.

28:56

So I love going to conferences and speaking because it’s my, it is my happy place.

29:02

Which sounds a bit odd if you don’t like public speaking.

29:04

But I really enjoy it.

29:05

And I think I enjoy it most because I’m talking about something I’m so passionate about and not many people are given the space and the time to think about it.

29:13

So when you have a session, whether it’s 8 minutes at Legal Geek or 45 minutes, you know.

29:19

You’re sharing this knowledge.

29:21

There’s a lot of like, Oh yeah.

29:23

And that realisation that you’renot alone, it’s really, really powerful.

29:26

So I love that.

29:28

And then if I’m not speaking, I just love conferences because I get to speak to loads of different people.

29:32

And I find I genuinely find it fascinating, you know, what’s brought people to where they are, what they do.

29:37

And the great thing even now when you go to legal conferences is it’s really interesting because it’s not just solicitors and, you know, but actually I don’t think there’s any viruses.

29:45

It’s like the legal industry is so big now, it’s so broad.

29:48

There’s so many different kind of.

29:50

Aspects to it it makes it really interesting but you know I’ve been to defence conferences and spoken be surrounded by anybody who’s in the defence industry which is huge I mean I didn’t know that AWS was in the defence industry until I went and I was like why why do Amazon are here they deliver to the frontline totally naive and then you know in a vet conferences as well it’s the same thing there’s just really interesting people sharing really interesting ideas and you just.

30:20

Realise that we kind of get segregated sometimes into our different industries, but it’s so transferable.

30:25

Everything and learning from other people is just, yeah, fills me with joy really.

30:31

So that’s what I love.

30:35

It’s great, isn’t it?

30:35

They always say never stop learning and, you know, have have a curiosity about you, about everyone that you meet and speak to.

30:41

And you know, you, you found that and turned that into a, into a passion where you genuine joy, you know, finding out about people, connecting with people.

30:46

And obviously as an extension of that, you build your network and that’s just a good thing for you in terms of business and, and the longer term.

30:52

So yeah, I’m a big fan of that.

30:55

OK, I want before we wrap up, I want to get some sort of final words of wisdom from your side on sticking with this being human.

31:02

What advice would you give to those who own a business and want to embrace being more human and or individuals who want to start adopting a more human approach in their work?

31:18

Very good question, So.

31:24

Going back to I think what you we were talking about much earlier on, which is about people buy from people and I think that.

31:34

Authenticity, although it has, I think authenticity is becoming like a real buzzword has, you know, authenticity in its, in its meaning of being genuine and wholehearted and and and, you know, really turning up, I think will always have its place.

31:51

So I think that actually letting your own self come to the fore and having the confidence to do that is, is really important.

32:01

I get a huge number of compliments for being vulnerable.

32:05

And I’m, I’m like, I don’t even really consider myself being vulnerable.

32:08

I’m just like being myself.

32:09

And it’s taken a lot of not being myself to realise actually howgreat it is to be able to be yourself.

32:16

Which is brilliant, but.

32:20

I think, I think that’s really important.

32:22

And then the other space thing I would say is just finding time to pause.

32:25

Because we don’t have it.

32:27

We work in this ridiculously immediate culture where we can have anything almost yesterday and we just think that we’ve got to have all the answers immediately and, and we don’t.

32:38

So just pause, except you don’t have all the answers, you know, and, and that kind of goes to the vulnerability point as well.

32:44

But just take a breath and reevaluate.

32:47

I love that there’s real power in the pores.

32:49

And you know, I, I’ve had to take heed of that advice.

32:52

One minute, being human, I’ve lost my airport.

32:55

There we go, but that that this is authentic.

32:57

We we we’re absolutely enjoying the the lack of Airpod there.

33:00

But you’re back in two hours in.

33:02

I’m I was just saying from my side, you know, the whole power and the pause is, is things that I’ve had to really take heed of over times when you’re juggling and, and all of these various things also with with family life as well.

33:12

So I think it’s a really important point to to sort of finish up on this has been a master class player, as I knew it was going to be.

33:17

I’m sure you’ve opened the eyes, particularly when you talk about this from a risk and productivity perspective from a being human and actually the genuine benefits.

33:25

To all, I think it’s really gonna help people.

33:28

So if our listeners want to follow more of of you your career or indeed learn more about being human or the legal space, where can they go to find out more?

33:35

Feel free share any social media handles, any website links will also share them with this special episode too.

33:41

Yeah.

33:41

So so we have a podcast festival, which is called how to thrive, which is invites different people to talk about how they thrive from combat helicopter pilots to tarot reading, you name it, we do it.

33:52

So that’s that’s quite interesting.

33:54

And then, yeah, so my website is www.

33:56

thelegalspace.

33:58

co.

33:58

uk.

33:58

And then we have being Dash human.

34:01

co.

34:01

uk if you’re interested in joining our community thrive-legal.

34:06

co.

34:07

uk.

34:07

And then try and escape me on LinkedIn.

34:10

It’s harder than you think.

34:12

So yeah, Lincoln with me and honestly, I I love talking to people.

34:18

So if you want to chat at all, you know on just drop me Adm and and I’ll happily have a coffee.

34:26

There we go.

34:29

Exactly.

34:29

Well, we’re here for that.

34:30

We’re all about connection and the collaboration.

34:32

So I just want to say a huge thanks, Claire, really appreciate you coming on.

34:35

I really look forward to this.

34:36

I’m glad we were able to make it happen, but it’s been a real pleasure hosting you on the show.

34:39

So from all of us on the leagues being podcast sponsored by Cleo, which knew lots of continued success with your career and indeed future pursuits.

34:46

But for now, over and out, thank you for listening to this week’s episode.

34:50

If you like the content here, why not check out our world leading content and collaboration hub, that Legally speaking Club.

34:59

Over on Discord, go to our website

35:03

www.legallyspeakingpodcast.com

35:05

for the link to join our community there over and out.