LinkedIn Live

Alrighty folks. So welcome everyone to today's legally speaking podcast, LinkedIn live proudly sponsored by Clio, the world's leading provider of cloud-based legal technology solutions and more. And today we're exploring what it truly takes to lead, lose and reinvent in the world of law and business. And our guests knows that journey better than most. I'm delighted to be joined by Norman Bacal.

who is a TEDx speaker, bestselling author and former managing partner of one of Canada's most prominent law firms. He's also served on the board of Lionsgate, helped steer billion dollar entertainment deals and today works as a business consultant and mentor to the next generation of leaders. So Norman's story is super excited, very excited for today's discussion. So welcome to the show, Norm.

Norman Bacal (01:00.076) thanks, Rob. I'm really honored to be here. We're going to have a good time.

Rob Hanna (01:03.494) it's an, it's an honor to have you. And as you, as I said off air, the number one rule is to have fun. And we're going to do that by going into some really interesting, insightful questions. So we're to start with the building years, if we like the vision, culture and leadership of this conversation, because you built and led one of Canada's most prestigious law firms for over 16 years, I think. So when you actually reflect back, what do you think made the firm so successful in its prime?

Norman Bacal (01:30.333) I think it was a combination of things. First of all, when I opened our office in the Toronto market, which is still the capital center of Canada, literally it was a four person storefront. I got there in 1989. I was just turned 33 years old.

And my kids look at me now, my kids who are now adults and practicing professionals of various sorts, look at me like I had to be insane to be doing this. Every single consultant we spoke to, because it was an expansion from...

from a Montreal based office into the country's largest market. And they said, there's no chance you have of succeeding here. Forget it, you're wasting your time. You're way better off merging with at the very least an equal Toronto size entity if you're gonna do this, but this has no chance. And maybe that's part of my personality is to ignore advice like that. And we got going, but...

What we imported and what we began was what I called an experiment. And the nice thing was it was a completely green field. I could do whatever I wanted. And I had this notion in my head that if I built a place where similar to what I grew up with when I was a young lawyer in Montreal, where the prime goal was to do top level work, but more important to have fun.

that we may be doing something that no other law firm in Toronto was doing. And in some respects, a lot of people looked at me like I was crazy. Most people I spoke to said, well, you're never going to be, you'll never reach that level of success trying what you're doing. It's just, it's not feasible. And I can tell you there were times along the way where I felt like maybe they were right. There were going to be all kinds of limitations because there were all kinds of

Rob Hanna (03:26.274) Yeah.

Norman Bacal (03:30.191) setbacks along the way. But we stuck to it. We stuck to the cultural imperative is we're going to be collegial and we're here to have fun as primacy. But and I'll diverge a little bit because it tells a lot about who we were and who we were going to be before we even knew it. But I can still remember going into recruiting meetings as at that point I was about 34, 35 years old with lawyers in their 50s, like top names in the business.

And I'd be sitting across the table with them. And I said a few things to them. said, first of all, you would never have taken this meeting if you were happy where you are. That's point number one. Point number two is, I am trying to build a place where your vision of what you always thought the practice of law was going to be. You can put in place exactly the way you want to do it. I said that I will give that I will give to you.

And I would see one of two things in their eyes. I would either, either see fear and I could read it. could almost smell it in the room. Like, my God, he's putting this on my shoulders. Or sometimes it was she. or two, I could see the eyes go wide with excitement. I said, okay, that's a fish. I just need to reel them in. And sometimes it would take six months. Sometimes, sometimes it would take two years, but I was, I was patient guy, but the, the core of building was based on.

Rob Hanna (04:37.07) yeah

Norman Bacal (04:59.313) We need, we, start with a culture and what's your culture going to be. And our culture was, and the way I put it is I want everyone from the person serving coffee, to the assistants, to the most senior partners in the world. want them to be excited to get up in the morning

Rob Hanna (05:19.82) I love that. I love that because everything is energy. And if you have that excitement, you bring that passion, you bring out your best work. And I love that story as well. I almost feel like when people said, you must be crazy. That was just fuel to the fire for you. can just sense that was more motivation to go out there and prove others perhaps wrong. And you've spoken before a lot, a lot about the fine line between sort of confidence and hubris and leadership. So how can leaders strike that balance, especially firms built on a reputation and billable hours?

Norman Bacal (05:48.918) It's, I think it still comes back to your cultural imperative and some places and there, and there's some workplaces out there where the goal is, to make the most amount of money possible and to be the most expensive firm and to go for the, you know, the highest and clients who don't care what, what they're charging them for your services. And if that's your goal, what comes with that is.

Well, you better have 2,500 billable hours in a year. We're judging you based on what you're worth economically to us. That's all that matters. But if everybody buys into that, you're going to be the best at it. The problem is where you start recruiting people who want lifestyle, well, you know that's good because that's not your imperative. But if your imperative is, listen, what I want is for you to be excited to come to work every day. The other thing I want

uh, is when you're on a deal, you feel part of a team and you're, ready to, if I, if I need to jump, ask you to jump out a window on a deal, uh, you won't even think about it. And I'll, tell you how you do that afterwards. We might get to it, but what I want is a huge loyalty that we have for one another. And the other thing I want is when the headhunter, when you get the call from the headhunter and because they're willing to offer you $50,000 or a hundred thousand dollars more as a signing bonus to leave.

You won't even take the call because you're, you're a reverse snob. You look at those firms and say, I could never work there. And that, and that imperial cultural imperative has to be that we are all tied together building this thing. Nobody else has it.

Rob Hanna (07:23.096) love that.

Rob Hanna (07:32.972) Yeah. And I say it all the time, as you know, running a legal headhunting business over here in the UK for many, many years, know, busy, happy, successful people are the hardest people in the world to entice out because of all the reasons, like you said, you know, they're busy being successful, they're loving their culture, they're loving their environment. There's no reason for wanting them to pick to entertain those calls. So yeah, I really like you sort of doubling down on that. And maybe I'm leading to where you wanted to go next in terms of you've seen what motivates top legal talent at pretty much every stage. So.

Norman Bacal (07:44.189) Yeah.

Rob Hanna (08:01.932) What are the three things leaders really must understand about lawyers to manage well? I think you have a sort of framework around this.

Norman Bacal (08:09.534) Yes. Uh, so a few things and, and, and some of them I learned from an organizational psychologist by the name of Dr. Larry Richard, who's interviewed tens of thousands of lawyers and coming to his conclusions. And some of the things he discovered didn't surprise me. Well, one or two things afterwards did, but only a little. Uh, and one is, uh, lawyers by their nature are far more conservative than the general population.

They've become lawyers because they don't like taking risks. They never saw themselves as entrepreneurs. and, and I have to say, when I started, my father was a salesman. Okay. My father was an insurance salesman. he happened, he was also a CA and thought doing numbers was the worst thing in the world, but he loved selling. And I looked, I watched him and I said to myself, I could never be that. And that's why law, all right, conservative, I don't have to sell.

And I was, what I discovered later was I was completely lying to myself, but I didn't know that yet. Um, so, that, but that's what attracts, uh, certain people to the law. They're, tend to be more conservative. They're not risk takers. Most of them are very happy advising clients on you can do A or you can do B, uh, here are the risks involved. You decide. And when the lawyer looks at them and says, what would you do if you were me? Uh, most lawyers.

Rob Hanna (09:11.874) Yep.

Norman Bacal (09:35.88) quake in their boots and they find a way not to give the answer. And there are some exceptions that we can get to that afterwards. But on the whole, we tend to be a very conservative lot. We don't like making decisions. We love pointing out risks. We're risk assessors. And law school trains you to be a risk assessor. That's not always good, but that's the way we are. And what Larry says is I'm not sure whether it's because the law attracts

those kinds of people or whether it's because schooling and experience drums that into you. We're not sure. The other, the other thing is, compared to the general population, and this will might surprise a number of people in your audience. We don't like to take, apart from, don't like to take risks. We're, not resilient. We can't take criticism. So lawyers by their nature respond very badly.

Rob Hanna (10:29.293) Mm.

Norman Bacal (10:33.595) to criticism and from a leader's perspective, and this, I, some of this, had to learn the hard way, unfortunately, but you assume when you're, you know, the management theory is when you're doing a review, you try and, what I, what I call giving the criticism sandwich. So you say you did this great and you did this great. And then that, that thin piece of salami in the middle is going to be the criticism. That's what's things. and you put it in the nicest possible way, and this is what you need to work on.

And the lawyer will leave your office crushed. Not only crushed, they'll be crushed. And by the next day, they are absolutely convinced that I am wrong. I've just, just got it completely wrong. I don't really understand them. That criticism is completely invalid. And that's part of the lawyer's behavior in something in your head rejects criticism. And so some of the management legal related theory that Rob Hanna (11:14.03) Mm. Norman Bacal (11:32.306) that I read and I put it into place was that you have to roughly make it four to one. So whatever the criticism is, there have to be four items of praise before you can maybe get that criticism addressed. And then you have to put it in the, not in a, as soon as you're critical, the lawyer breaks. You have to put it into the, here's what you need to work on. Here are some suggestions.

You know, and I would do it over lunch where they apart from anything else, couldn't run away. It sort of, and it was all sort of a, because it always starts as a, you know, what can I do better? If it's always, what can I do better? It's fine. But here's what you're doing wrong. Uh-uh. It, it, it, you're destined.

Rob Hanna (12:04.769) Yeah

Rob Hanna (12:14.508) Yeah. I love that. I love that through to even just the setting, the thinking about the delivery, the environment, because all those little things as a leader really have impact, don't they, in terms of the messages you're communicating and clearly why you did so well with this really thinking about that. And you're right, know, taking criticism is pretty hard for all of us, but especially lawyers where it's a world of perfectionism or deemed to be, you know, needing to be perfect to every point of every contract of everything you negotiate and everything you do.

it's really well stated. thanks for sharing that. I want to talk now a bit about your book because the breakdown chronicles of the inside story, obviously the firm you're leading the rise and fall. What was the hardest leadership lesson from that experience? One you could only learn from through actually going through failure.

Norman Bacal (13:03.434) it's, it's interesting. I learned a number of lessons through over the years through crisis management. so it was, it's only by going through a crisis that apart from anything else, you see what you are made of. but that really tests and anybody can lead through good times. And I, I've, you know, I spent some time at, at, at mediocre firms and observing them.

and watching that anybody could lead it because they're kind of, the organization is flatlined, anybody could lead it, it's hard to ruin it. Nobody's going anywhere. But in terms of creating something really good or going from really good to what we did, which was gone in 13 months, you really, it's rarely about money.

Unless you have a bank failure and we had none of that. So let's get that off your plate. If you, if you have a financial failure, there's nothing you can do about it. But in, other circumstances, what I found in, in, terms of going back and reviewing it and I, you know, I spent two years writing, writing Bbreakdown.

And what I discovered, and maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong, was that it kind of gets to my three C's of how you build an organization. We started with culture, and I told you what our culture was. The second is communication, and that's what as leadership, and not the leader, but what kind of messaging do you have to give to people? How often do you have to message?

We could go into that in more detail later, but the most important, and this is what gets rise to the failure, is what I call consistency. And if your actions are consistent with your culture, if the things you do day to day are consistent, and I said, you know, our goal is to have fun and my job is to motivate and excite. If I'm not walking the halls and sending out positive messages.

Norman Bacal (15:18.694) every day, it's not going to work. If I'm not dropping into the office of a, a fourth year lawyer who we've just hired, who doesn't know me, doesn't even know who I am and sit down and have a chat with him or her to see what they're about, then I'm not doing my job. but the moment your act, your day-to-day actions are no longer consistent with that and

so that you talk about collegiality, you talk about everyone is equally important. But if on a day-to-day basis everyone sees you're treating the super, they perceive superstars differently than everybody else, guess what? You begin to sow the seeds of dissension. And the law firm didn't start falling apart because the people at the top left, it started falling apart because the people in the middle were feeling unloved.

Rob Hanna (15:59.118) differently than everybody else.

Rob Hanna (16:14.798) Yeah. And thank you for sharing that. you're right. Sort of you are the result of the actions, you know, the words are great, but it's those actions. And I remember my late grandfather who ran his own law firm over here in the 1950s. One of my huge inspiration, one of my followers would know about. And every morning he would make a point. This is way back when I was saying good morning to absolutely everyone. He would go in and knock on the accounts payable door. He would go and knock on the senior partner's door. He'd go and knock on the intern who was just. And every morning that was a non-negotiable for him. And I thought that was just a really good trait.

to have. And I love that you talked about, you know, again, my late grandfather said to me, laddie, anyone could be successful. It's far harder to stay successful. And, know, there's, multiple quotes around this. I do love the, the Winston Churchill one that will probably butcher, but success is not final failure is not fatal. It's the courage to continue that counts. And I think that's so true, particularly now in the age of AI and so many other things going on with them disruption and new opportunities. It's that courage to continue. And ultimately, if you're going through hell, why do you want to stop? You want to carry on and get through.

get through it. Yeah, absolutely. But you've said, you know, you've said, and maybe that leads quite nicely, you've said that endings can be beginnings in disguise in many ways. So how did you personally find purpose after the firm's collapse?

Norman Bacal (17:14.088) Keep going, man. If you’re going through hell, keep going.

Norman Bacal (17:30.482) it's, it's interesting because, I led the firm. I, I led the firm informally for 25 years, led my office for 25 years, but the entire, national and inter international operation that we built over 16 years, and there were two of us doing it. so we, there was the night, the good thing about co-leaders was that we could pick up the phone and complain to one another about everybody else. And every so often I'd call,

Rob Hanna (17:55.266) Yeah

Norman Bacal (17:58.078) Guy was his name. called Guy and I said, Guy, I have this fantastic idea. And he'd listen to it and he said, Norm, what drug are you on? That's the dumbest thing I ever heard. And he was usually right, but we'd fight out the ideas until we came up with something. I don't know if you remember what your question is, because I think I've strayed slightly.

Rob Hanna (18:17.358) No worries. was saying in terms of you know, endings potentially being beginnings. Yeah.

Norman Bacal (18:21.584) In terms of the end, in terms of the new beginnings. I can tell you, so I was out of leadership for the final year of the firm, my term had ended. And I was in the process, you can't be a leader for 16 years and then conclude you're just going to go back to be the follower. I was starting to think of what does the rest of my career look like? I had no idea that was in my late 50s and still scratching my head. And one of the senior business leaders I met said, you know, take a year, figure it out. So I stayed at my desk, in what became a growing nightmare going on around me until I, until finally with two months to go, I stepped back into the leadership position in an attempt to save it. And I failed and I use the words I failed, quite meaningfully because it's, it's the turning point in my Ted talk.

on becoming the person you can't imagine. was, right, so I have failed at this, now what? And it was my wife who said, Norm, what you need right now is just to get a job. You can't stay home and mope and you will figure it out because you always figured it out. And so that's what I did. And over those two years, I came to the conclusion, I know long, I always said I will practice law as long as I love it. And the day I stopped,

stop loving it, I quit. And that's exactly where I got to. So I quit. But to do what? And I had started writing Breakdown, which had turned from a memoir for my kids, just some notes for my kids, into a book. And it was never intended to be a book. But it was funny because I sent an early draft down to

one of my producer clients in Los Angeles who actually sent back some script notes on the first two chapters and said, keep at it. then I called a literary agent friend of mine who I'd known for many years. And he said to me, Norm, how many pages is the manuscript? And I said, well, it's 750. So I could hear him smiling at the other end of the phone saying, Norm, nobody's that interested in your life. Call me back when it's 300 pages.

Norman Bacal (20:47.144) So, ultimately I learned how to write a book, which is one of the things I said I'd never do. The other thing I said I would never do was run a law firm. I saw my predecessor in the role. I thought anybody who led a law firm, and we can get into that a bit later, but I thought anybody who ran a law firm should have their head examined. I was quite happy running a film and television.

a financing practice and doing stuff nobody, know, nobody in the country was doing and meeting all these new people. Why take on those headaches? but here I was once again, you know, and as I said, I'd never write a book and I wrote one. It was my wife who came to me and said, you know, why don't you try your hand at fiction? And, and this is while I was still working. And after being very stubborn about it,

because I didn't think I had a creative bone in my body. I picked up some Shakespeare and walked in one day a few months later and said, OK, I'm going to write Othello, the M &A lawyer. And I'm going to have fun with it. And about a year later, I sent what I thought was an acceptable. I gave a draft to my wife to read, and she figured out why it reasons not to read it. then little did I know that she actually had read it and just couldn't bear to tell me what she thought of it.

And, uh, and I sent them, I sent a copy to my nonfiction editor who got on the phone with me a few weeks later and said, norm, very credible job for, um, good story, credible job for an amateur. Uh, but if, know, if you have any hopes of seriously writing fiction, there are about 10 skills that good fiction writers have and you have exactly none of them. So, and, and I use that story when I'm out mentoring now because

What I tell people is, listen, and at university campuses and when I speak to law firms, and I speak to people and I say, listen, you're not talking to somebody who did it in the olden days, became very successful at it in an old economy and none of this applies to me. You're talking to somebody who in their late 50s is exactly where you are today, starting over to learn and what are the principles of learning new skills.

Rob Hanna (23:04.014) Mm.

Norman Bacal (23:09.426) And how do you get over your fear of failure or that you won't succeed at what it is you're trying in terms of learning new things? and how, how do you push yourself to be successful at that new thing you're taking on? said, so I'm at the exact same stage you're at. Just trying, you know, just trying to do things today that I've never done before. As long as I do that, that that's what gives me my purpose. So, and so what that.

What that became was writing fiction, writing non-fictions, are, you know, the manual, never stop and take charge, take charge, I call it the take charge series. You know, I talked to a whole bunch of professionals from all different walks of life in terms of their starting point to see what was common. And it turns out the commonality for successful people is not being afraid to fail. In fact,

embracing it and knowing out of the fit that that's your best chance of your next success.

Rob Hanna (24:16.478) Yeah, couldn't agree more. And I talk a lot about this before, and I've picked up from people, everything you ever wanted is on the other side of fear, right. And I think, you know, I talk a lot about as well, my own acronym, when it comes to failure, I use the acronym of lose, which isn't actually lose its life offering some experience. And I think if you if you take that from everything that you go through it, you build on it. And it's interesting, you mentioned reference your wife there as well. It's sometimes the people that know us best know what might be good for us in terms of suggesting those things. And we have blind spots ourselves and

Yeah. Significant people in around my life. yeah, definitely say things to things that like, yeah, maybe. And actually they're so right. When I actually take a step back and think about it. I now want to talk about a phrase that I absolutely love. that when we were messaging back and forth, I was like, yes, I need to need to have this conversation because the, the phrase around, rewirement, what does that mean to you? And how has it shaped your post firm career?

Norman Bacal (25:10.63) Well, we've started touching it all on it already. but I just, I just go back, I go back in time and this is my message to when I was a fourth year lawyer going nowhere. All right. Literally I was that introverted, geeky tax lawyer. I was the person who, if you were sitting next to it at dinner party, after about three minutes, you turn to the person on the other side of it. You didn't want to be beside me.

dinner party, I had no idea how to manage myself. I was this nice guy and my review was, Norm, you have a lot of potential, but there's something missing and we don't know what it is. And it turned out, and once again, my wife gets all the credit. She pointed out what I was lacking at that point in time was initiative. I wasn't taking charge. And

Rob Hanna (25:51.544) Yeah.

Norman Bacal (26:03.922) And it was just those two words when she said it to me that night that changed my entire life. And, and, and anyone who's read breakdown will know I'm not the hero of that story. is, she's a former accountant and now an artist. but, at, the core of rewirement is kind of taking charge and, continually trying new things.

understanding that the only thing separating you from success is not being afraid of falling down a number of times while you're learning those new skills. We, we start, and it's funny because we start as, know, professionals coming out of school don't know anything about anything. So everything they're going to be successful at are things they are going to learn pretty much from scratch. You find out law school was pretty much other than wiring your brain a bit. was a complete waste of time.

doesn't prepare you for work at all. You're going to learn it all through the school of hard knots, which is one of the reasons why I wrote Take Charge, which is sort of the manual, all the things nobody's teaching you in school that you need to succeed. And writing that book also helped me see how I needed to continue to apply that to my life. So the minute, and it's almost trite to say, but the minute you stop moving, you start falling back.

Rob Hanna (27:32.322) Yep.

Norman Bacal (27:32.882) I've applied that to my life. So my, my published, first publisher said, norm, you know, if we're going to sell books, need a social media presence. I had zero. think I had 500 connections on LinkedIn when I started and I don't even know how I got to that number because I didn't curate it all. So I took a, basically I took a two hour lesson from a social media expert who told me how to set up better than I was set up.

And then I just started going and experimenting and trying and these things didn't work. And, know, I published some articles. was very interesting. Everything I published at the beginning were articles on LinkedIn. And like I was getting 28 reads, 35 reads and all these, and I'm watching all these other people with getting 10,000, 15,000. You don't, you don't actually see it, but you see they're getting, you know, 800 likes on a post and I'm getting two.

So what was it? So I published something like a paragraph long, didn't realize there was a difference between posts and articles. I mean, this was how basic my challenge was. And suddenly my post took off and I still didn't understand why. It took me a few until I figured it out. But perhaps the greatest success I ever had on LinkedIn, I was at a conference and this ties all the stories together.

Rob Hanna (28:36.756) I posted a blog, I still didn't understand why it be a beautiful idea.

Norman Bacal (28:54.076) I was at a writer's conference, a thriller writer's conference in New York City, in Manhattan, trying to pitch the novel, my first novel that I hadn't completed yet, to a bunch of agents. It was basically speed dating. had three minutes to sell them. And I'd sit down with the first agent and I'm all excited. Like I'm starting over. I'm like, I'm, I'm, I'm 60 years old, but I like, I feel like I'm a kid again. I've got to pitch something. And I sit down and 60 seconds into my pitch.

Like literally, she said, Norm, let me get this straight. Your, and she was a big publicist in New York said, you are a white, 60 year old male, and you're writing a story about an African American hero. Cause I took Shakespeare's Othello is, is black. And she said, have you ever heard of cultural appropriation?

And, and I said to myself, like, you know, I'm in Canada. We're, really big on that. She said, I cannot sell a book written, written by somebody like you about somebody like that. And it was sort of a, but, but, but, and I got up completely crushed. I'm a failure. I'm never going to succeed. And the little, listen, it was my first pitch, but I was standing in line for my next interview and I.

I, while I was in line, I took out my phone. I did a LinkedIn post explaining how crushed I was. And as I was writing and I said, but I'm not going to give up. I've, I've got to, I've got nine more people to meet and I will, I am not giving up. And by the time I got to the front of the line, it was 20 minutes to see the next agent. I'd already had 25,000 views and by four o'clock I was like at 85,000.

So was, maybe there is something to this social media. Like maybe I actually can succeed it. was sort of the side version, but it's all about, think, not giving up when you meet the obstacles, trying new things and understanding, you will find out some things are not cut out for you. At one point they tried to shoo me into being a real estate lawyer at my firm and I just hated every minute of it.

Norman Bacal (31:16.446) I did it because I was a loyal soldier, but I decided no, I would rather leave and do that for the rest of my life. But I can't tell you how many lawyers I've met over the course of my career who are still doing the same thing today that they were doing 10 years ago. And why? Because A, they say because they're the expert at it, but the real reason is because they're afraid to try and do something new. And that's what...

Rob Hanna (31:33.25) Yeah. And thank you again for being so open and sharing that and sharing your self accountability is what I get, get from that. You're always prepared to take self accountability and, mentors said to me, if it's meant to be, it's up to me. It's really important. And I love that you talked about that sort of, you know, again, a body in motion stays in motion, right? You got to keep things going because things keep going in the right direction. And look, every master was once a disaster. We've just got to start and get better at these things, social media, whatever it is, a new skill, a new hobby, whatever. think it's just getting

comfortable with actually not being great at it right now. And over time, if you continue to learn, stay curious, ask the right questions, acquire the right information, things start taking off. And like you say, when you start seeing results, you start building confidence and things grow from there and there and there. Okay. want to, before we go into a little bit more about modern leadership and diving deeper into three C's, I want to ask about how law firms can foster cultures that encourage innovation and psychological safety rather than fear and conformity.

Norman Bacal (32:41.892) It's, it's a, the question is simple. The answer is complicated because it really depends on the organization and the organizational leadership. And we're in a transition. We're in a transition where people like me, like that older generation are still running the show and they're getting older and you know, in a lot of places they're not moving out. not getting out of the way.

Rob Hanna (33:02.702) Yeah.

Norman Bacal (33:08.784) And you have all these young people who are growing up with the AI and it's part of their life and they're, much more comfortable tech with technology. And to me, the question is from a leadership perspective, are you willing to seed control and take chances with all this? Because we don't know. Remember this, this now takes us back into the, if we were any other kind of business, we'd have a division focusing on how the AI is going to drive our future.

A few law firms will do that, but by and large, the larger conservative firms, they don't want to spend their money on it. They're, I'm going to wait until firm X figures this all out and then maybe I'll start doing it. If I see they're successful at it, let them make all the investment in it. And it's, that can be demoralizing to the younger generation is trying to like, where's, where's the, leadership imperative here? How are we going into the future?

And a lot of law firms are saying we're doing very well on what's worked. And they're partially right. Because while I believe it's changing how AI as a work companion is going to change and predictor is going to change not only how you use your workforce, but how you interact with clients. The fact that from now on, and it's already started, you can't go

visit a client without probably they're having run their problem through AI to see what it is you should be solving. It's like, you know, Dr. Google for lawyers. don't visit your doctor without having something in hand on your own, sometimes shoddy, but sometimes perfectly reasoned research. But you're now dealing with clients who are doing the same thing. And I think the future of the firms

is apart from anything else, you have to keep things exciting for the people coming up through the ranks. you know, it's the other thing that I find fascinating and doesn't matter how big your firm is, but my experience always was that I usually knew within 30 days of a hire who, whether that person was going to be a superstar or not, whether that was somebody who I needed to do everything in my possible power to make sure they never left.

Norman Bacal (35:34.882) And, and I'll, I'll give one, cause I think one example, cause I think it's pertinent to this discussion is I had a, he was a commercial lawyer. I hired him as a student because he showed up for an, he w I wasn't hiring for his position. was when we just literally, we were four, four lawyers, looking for a student. And he showed up at the interview and said, I'm, I, I know you're looking for an articling student, but, but I'm about to start law school.

And so I'm not qualified for this job, but I really liked the idea of working with a firm like this and would you hire me? You don't even need to pay me. I'll do anything you want. And at first I laughed and then I called them back a few days later, told them you're hired because I figured anybody with that attitude, I want it to be my partner one day. So he ended up being one of the senior partners in the firm and an eminent in his field. But it's the field that's critical. He came to me as a fifth year lawyer, he said, listen, my wife doesn't want me working here anymore. And I said, why? He said, because I hate what I'm doing for you. He said, I'm just working on these boring deals and, and I feel like I'm going nowhere. So I looked at him and I said, well, what do you want to do? He said, well, there's this thing called technology. This goes back a long time. He said, I think there's something to it. The internet was just getting off the ground. If you could imagine we were that far back. And he said, I think, I think there's a future for technology lawyers. I said, fine. And remember, he's not a partner. He's just a fifth year lawyer. And I said, you are now the head of the technology group at Heenan Blakey. Go build it. Which is exactly what he did. He'd be, he's now one of the leading privacy lawyers in the country at another firm.

But I say that from a perspective of when you find that talent as a leader, you then have to do everything in your power to make sure they don't leave. And that will include keeping up, trying to predict where the future is going. And not only that, those decisions shouldn't be made by people like me who still barely understand it or who use it.

Norman Bacal (37:56.786) They should be made by people who are using it every day, who are in their twenties or really thirties. Like we're adept with it. Let, you know, let them help you build it. And that way they don't see it as something, they don't see it as what, what's going to replace them. They see it as a, here's how we use it to build something way better than what we have.

Rob Hanna (38:02.498) Hmm. I love that story. And it just reminds me of my first ever basketball coach who said to me, Rob, a I E and I had no idea. And he said, Rob, this will get you through life. Attitude is everything. And if you have the right attitude and you bring that, you gave that out to the example of that attitude of that person there, it just shows that it shines through and they'll go on to be successful in whatever they want to do. And similarly, you know, I think it's the Richard Branson quote around, you know, don't hire great people, tell them what to do, hire great people, you know, go off and do.

How do you suggest leaders of today's law firms and in-house legal teams adapt those three Cs in the age of sort of AI, hybrid work and shifting client expectations?

Norman Bacal (39:21.534) It's certainly more challenging, particularly if ask what the law firm of the future was. And I know when our firm collapsed, one of the things we were looking at was starting an office where we didn't have any space, where all we had was a convenient meeting space that we spent one-tenth of the rent on than what we were paying already.

Rob Hanna (39:40.398) Mm.

Norman Bacal (39:50.142) So overhead comes down, gives you way more money to play with for other things. And these are the key questions right now is, particularly in hybrid work, how do you build the collaboration? And how do you handle the mentoring? A lot of the mentoring when I grew up was just sitting in somebody's office and watching them.

and being completely odd as to how they handle the conversation or watching, being brought into client meetings. I'll get to that in a second, but going into a client meeting and watching a difficult client deal with a partner and concluding, okay, now I just learned something, or more important, I just learned what I'm never gonna do.

Rob Hanna (40:39.725) Mm.

Norman Bacal (40:39.962) is that this is not really badly and not how I would have handled it, but you need to see it in action. And how do you see it in action when you're home on your computer, you know, just doing your work? I, I, I led, I did a seminar for, young law firm leaders in Vancouver last year, sort of 30 somethings who were, you know, at various stages of, of building their own boutiques. And I asked them,

I said, how many of you have gone to lunch with a client in the last year? And nobody raised their hand. Why? Because there didn't seem to be any, any, there was no file purpose in it. They were all used to dealing with their clients by email or text. And the whole notion of face to face was because we'd come out of COVID was completely alien to them. And I said, you know, some things won't ever change.

in terms of, in terms of client service and being in a client's face sometimes for no apparent reason is going to get you way more work than just sitting at home. it's, so, so how do you teach those? And this is a leadership issue. How do you teach those lessons, to young lawyers, the things that they, you know, that don't, wouldn't naturally come to them about the sort of the business side of law.

And remember this brings us back to where we started. lot of people have gone into law because they're afraid of, of, of client facing situations. I started that way, but I got dragged along to meetings by my mentors. And eventually like everything else, it's, you know, it was young, young stage rewired. Okay. This, this is how you do it. How do I most important, how do I play that to my personality?

And what are the acting lessons I can learn about how you can start pretending to be this other person that you're not really, but you need to be to get you through a situation. Again, that's all practice. But in terms of how it all fits together, leadership needs to be forward thinking. They need to figure out how the future fits into the far future.

Norman Bacal (43:00.158) that falls into the near future in terms of what they're going to be doing, how they're going to incorporate the AI. But more important in terms of building, there has to be a huge focus on the personal. And I think there's no avoiding it. It's the people who will succeed at law, the great, you know, what we've always called the rainmakers are the people who can sit in a room and command it. And that's a skill you can only learn

by observing people doing it in person or by starting to figure out how to do it yourself and flailing at the beginning until it starts to become second nature.

Rob Hanna (43:43.128) And again, thank you for sharing such wisdom and stories with us. I'm just fascinated to hear listening. And I want to kind of reflect on the point that you said about certain things that won't change. And it reminds when I watched a webinar online about Jeff Bezos quoting, he couldn't imagine a world with Amazon in terms of

certain things not changing. And what he said by that is in the world of AI and things of constant change, what are some of the behaviors of our existing clients that probably won't change? And he said, I couldn't imagine a world where our clients are going to want their products slower. They're going to want them more expensive. He can't imagine a world where Amazon would be, would be doubling down on that. And he said, so, you know, sometimes you need to think about as a business and organization, what are some of the habits and behaviors of your existing clients or your people that won't change or very highly unlikely to change and double down on getting them.

Absolutely nailed on and I think the organizations that understand that and can meet them where they're at and like you say that human touch particularly of AI is coming in and meeting clients whether it's for lunches whether it's through Whatever it might be. might be workshops. It might be organized whatever I think if you really understand that and double down on those behaviors, I think you'll do super super well Okay, no, we're just a couple of quick far questions before we close has been absolutely masterclass and I'll super excited for today and I've really really enjoyed the discussion thus far. What's one thing?

Norman Bacal (44:53.854) Thanks.

Rob Hanna (44:57.162) And you hope next generation of lawyers can learn from your story, both obviously the triumphs, but also some of the setbacks.

Norman Bacal (45:05.094) I think what I'd say is the most important thing I'd say is don't give up. One, two, and this is going to happen repeatedly. And I'll give you just one more aside. When I joined the Lionsgate board and I really wanted to be on that board, but I went to my first few meetings and here I was, you know, one of the world's leading film finance lawyers.

I'm running a law firm, very successful Canadian. I'm sitting in this boardroom and suddenly I feel completely out of my league. They're talking about corporate finance and things that affect stock price and all kinds of other issues where I'm just sitting there in awe and feeling rather embarrassed that I don't know the first thing about any of these things. So for the first year, I was relatively quiet on that.

I spent most of my time listening and then applied the lessons from the rest of my life until, until I earned, earned my, my, I guess my, my stripes or whatever it is on, on the board and began to be a contributor. But it's a reminder that throughout your career, you have a choice. You can avoid those situations because you're afraid you're going to embarrass yourself or you can embrace them and say, all right, this is going to be very uncomfortable for awhile.

until I get comfortable and then I will be at this whole new level that I could never have imagined. And I think that's the point in terms of growth. You have to keep pushing yourself through those moments where you just want to crawl under a rock and hide because you feel so stupid.

Rob Hanna (46:49.634) I couldn't agree more. said all the time, the comfort zone is lovely and cozy, but nothing ever grows there. And, it's, it's so true. And you gave a great example there and just the importance of two ears and one mouth as well. You know, really listening and, know, again, someone said to me very early on, Rob, if you do all the talking, you're not doing any of the learning. And sometimes you got to take a step back and just shut up and they do all what people are saying and really go away and reflect on it and learn on it. And I couldn't agree. Okay. What's one.

Norman Bacal (46:54.878) I'm out.

Rob Hanna (47:19.01) I guess what's the question you wish more leaders ask themselves before stepping into positions of power?

Norman Bacal (47:31.258) It's, it's a hard one to answer because it's still a lot of, leaders and positions of power are determined by elections, which, which I think is insane. think that's it. It's, I don't want to use the word dumb cause that's, that's offensive, but it's pretty close to that. leaders have certain care, certain personality characteristics in terms of.

Rob Hanna (47:40.846) Mm.

Norman Bacal (47:59.046) being able to put their ego second, not all leaders, because there are two kinds of leaders and some notoriously put themselves before everyone and with the results you might expect. But I think the great leaders know how to step back, put their ego second and understand that if I make you feel extraordinarily valuable, if I give you credit for something that I could easily take credit for, I can build a loyalty that

defies imagination. and, and the great leaders know it's all about building followership. It's all about building loyalty. It's about, you know, the day I walked in and told, how to chat with the receptionist in my firm. And I walked in and this was close to the end. I, and I said, I said, Joan, do you know who the most important person in the firm is? And she looks at me and smile sheepishly and says, yeah, you, said, no, no.

It's not me, it's you. I said, because you are the first point of contact for anyone walking in the door and for anyone who calls in. And if they have a great experience with you, you make my life so much easier.

Rob Hanna (49:13.868) Yeah, I love that story. And what a great, what a great way to, sort of empower, motivate, but make people feel seen, heard, and truly genuinely valued and that you care. and again, that's just why, you know, you've had such a wonderful career and doing great things now. And I guess with that, and finally, how can people follow your work, find your books, like breakdown and others, and stay connected with your latest products? Where did I need to go? Feel free to share any websites, any social media handles, we'll share them too.

Norman Bacal (49:41.958) Yeah. so most, I do most of my social media communication on LinkedIn. So it's a Norman Bacall, pretty, pretty simple. My website, where you'll find everything I've done, including the link to my Ted talk, which has been viewed by almost 700,000 people around the world, is a normanbacall.com. And the hardest part of that is spelling my last name, right. Which is just B A C A L one L. and you can also find my books on Amazon. So it's a.

two fiction, two murder mysteries, three non-fictions, two great manuals if you're learning, want to learn about career success, take charge. Two simple words as a book title. And the other thing that I tell everyone, because I'm so thankful for what my career and the contacts that I've met along the way have given to me. This is a part of my career where I really

feel it's important for me to give back. So if you have any questions or anybody ever wants to reach out for me, just DM me. Send me an email at normbacollege.com, really, except not Norman in that case, just normbacollege.com, email or DM me on LinkedIn. I answer every message I get.

Rob Hanna (50:58.082) love that. And it just comes back to when a mentor said to me when they retired, they said to me, Rob, I want to empty my head before I'm dead. And I think it's just such a great way in terms of wanting to give back and really kind of share knowledge. And I just loved it. And I've loved this whole conversation has been beautiful, truly candid. And your story just reminds us that leadership isn't necessarily about never falling. It's about actually how you rise, how you reflect, how you rebuild, how you rewire.

So I just want to say thank you to everyone who's tuned in live today and everyone who's picking up the recording afterwards. Norman's insights been absolutely brilliant when it comes to all things resilience, humility, and obviously reinvention, absolute gold. So please do go grab a copy of his books, check out his website, do follow him here on LinkedIn as well. It just leads me to say from all of us here on the Leaguer's Being podcast sponsored by Cleo, thanks so much for joining us, Norman. It's been an absolute blast, but until next time, keep leading with courage and curiosity, but for now, over and out.