#53 Building the Law Firm of the Future A Conversation with Goodwin’s Leaders

Hello everyone and welcome to Pearls on Gloves Off. I am your host, Mario Carroll, and I'm about a month into my new role as Chief Operating Officer at Goodwin. I have to say I'm really enjoying getting back into an operating role and digging in with the teams here. I have no illusions about the challenges that every firm is facing and how much is unknown for all of us and as we navigate the challenging and changing legal landscape. But I do love Risk, I do love change, and I do love a big hairy problem to solve. I was just talking to a CEO friend of mine who recently gave me some great advice. He said, no matter what the situation is or what the challenge you are facing at work is, 99% of the time the answer you know what you need to do. It might be hard, you it might be unpopular, it might be politically fraught, but the bottom line is you know what you need to do and so you just need to lean in and do it. And that really resonated with me today. I had a lot of fun. Welcoming to the podcast our two firm leaders at Goodwin, Mark Bettencourt, who serves as our Managing partner, and Anthony McCusker, who serves as firm chair. By way of bio and quick background, Mark is a partner in Goodwin's technology and Life Sciences group, concentrates in general corporate and securities law, and has extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions, public offerings, private placements of debt and equity securities, securities law, compliance, and technology transfer and licensing. As I mentioned, Mark also serves as Goodwin's Managing partner and in such capacity chairs the firm's management allocations committees and serves on our Executive committee. Anthony is a widely recognized preeminent advisor in Silicon Valley. He specializes in all areas of corporate securities and partnership laws, with a primary focus on advising technology companies and their investors. As chair of Goodwin, Anthony is responsible for Goodwin's overall strategy, cultural initiatives, client relations, and external communications. He chairs the firm's executive committee and is a member of its management Committee and Allocations committee. Now, I've mentioned to you in a previous episode why I chose to join Goodwin, but I wanted to check in with you all and give you a glimpse into our leadership team here so you could see or hear for yourself why I think this is a pretty unique firm. During this conversation, I share my early observations about the culture here. We talk a lot about the client centric approach and naturally we get into what the future holds. What does the firm of the 21st century look like? What does the changing role of the general counsel mean for us? And what do these things mean for Young associates, how are they trained? And just generally, what is the future of work? These are some of the big questions we've all been grappling with for years now. And the exciting thing is the future is now. So I hope you'll enjoy this conversation and sneak peek into the fun things that I get to work on here. And I like to say, always be recruiting because I am always out there looking for smart people smarter than me. And so if this all sounds fun to you, please do reach out with that onto the show. Mark and Anthony, nice to see you. Thanks for being here today.

Yeah, it's awesome to be here.

Yeah, nice to be seen. Thank you for having us.

All right, so I've been here at Goodwin, what, like a month now? So I was trying to think, how do we count this 30, 60, 90 day thing? Is it calendar days or is it business days? Because depending on how we count it, I may or may not have hit 30 days yet.

37 days, calendar days, Mary. The 30 day warranty has expired.

The good news is that I survived my first month, so I am still here. I can share one of my early observations with which I've shared with both of you before. And you guys know I've worked in a firm before. I know how challenging it can be to operate in this environment. Even in my past life at Google and Clock, I think I stayed pretty close in touch with like a lot of firms. And I felt like I knew what was going on inside firms. But you really can't tell unless you're inside. And so for me, you all know, there was zero chance that I was going to go back to a firm unless I felt like I was going to be set up for success. And that's a big if so big surprise that I had during the recruiting period. And that absolutely has been reconfirmed since I started was the culture here. And I say that because I really didn't expect firms to have like a strong and positive culture. But this is something really unique that I have found here at Goodwin to the point where I think I said to you, Mark, during my recruiting process, I think you're putting on a show. I think you're only giving me the partners that you want to give me just to recruit me. But honestly, I have found it is such a team spirit here, collaboration, a genuine firm first attitude. I even talked to partners who were on the verge of retirement, actually a few of them, and yet they deeply care about the future of the firm. And I just think that's so refreshing. People are Invested in the associates, how we train them, the experiences they get, how we get them, exposure to things. People are nice, people are excited about the future, really ready to embrace a different way forward. So anyways, that was like a lot of what I gathered through my recruiting process and my first month here. So all this to say, it is a very unique place. I think you all have made a really unique, fun place for me to do my role. So I kind of wanted to hear from you, like, what do you think it is that sets this firm apart? And have you heard this before?

Sure, we have heard it before. There is something special about the culture here. Right. And it's sometimes hard to describe in words and you have to sort of feel it when you're in the interview process and when you join. But I'll try to boil it down something that when I joined Goodwin about 15 years ago, when I got into the recruiting process, as you started to talk about, there was something just very noticeable around how people treated each other and how they interacted with each other. There was a genuine caring about their colleagues and what they were up to and what they did professionally and how they could work together. And that that was true 15 years ago when I joined, and it remains true today and is something that I think we have been intentional about continuing to nurture over the growth that's occurred in those 15 years. We've had a lot of growth as an organization, both in number of offices, in people, and in revenues. But we've maintained that culture. People first, people caring about the people they work with, making sure that they are finding ways to sort of support each other, to help each other thrive in their careers. And that kind of works its way throughout the whole organization. It's almost ground up, if you will. People like Mark and I and you that are helping to lead this firm feel it. And I think we all go back to something when we were recruiting, being recruited by the firm, and we see it and we say, like, that's something special. We need to maintain that and we need to. And we need to keep it. But something we actually hear over and over again.

Yeah, I certainly hear it as well. I'd like to think of the basic kind of characteristics shared by all Goodwin people, regardless of what role you play at the firm, is really about mission. Right. We have a mission driven population. And I think that mission is to serve our clients, to serve one another. And what you get is a genuine commitment and an empathy and a passion.

For what you do.

And I think when you are giving yourself over to something bigger than your own individual interests, then you're actually capable of contributing to a culture, of an institution or. Or a community, because there's something in it more than just your individual interests. And I think long before I got to Goodwin, and long before Anthony you got to Goodwin, people were really pursuing that project quite vigorously. And in that respect, we're just stewards of this project over many generations of trying to build something that's meaningful, purpose driven, and. And ultimately will survive, each and every one of us.

Yeah, I love the word intent that you guys have both used, because it really feels like an intentional when you're going out recruiting and hiring associates, partners, and parts of the operations team. I know I went through something like 40 people that I met with during this process. So it was long. And Mark, you were like, this is a feature. It's not a bug. We want to make sure that it's a good fit on both sides. And it really allowed me to get to know the firm. I felt like I could hit the ground running day one because I had already spoken to so many people. But I thought that was a nice touch to just be able to know for sure that you guys knew me and that I knew you.

There's an adage, and I probably said this to you four times in the course of the recruitment. You hire someone for what they know, and you fire them for who they are. And every recruitment is a mutuality of hiring. Right. You are hiring us much. Hiring you. And the only reason why this will be successful, and I believe it will be wildly successful, is because you know who we are and what we value. We know who you are and what you value. And it's not that what we know or what you know, it's that there's a compatibility. There's a shared mission and set of values. And I think that's important in an organization to have that level of consensus.

Totally. And the other thing that I said to you all when I started or when I was going through the process was, look, I don't want to come in and just help run a firm. I'm really interested in the future of the way legal services are delivered and the way law firms are run and what the law firm of tomorrow can look like. And every single person I met with reinforced that is what the firm is looking for in their new coo, in the way they're thinking about the future. How have you guys all thought about, like, creating this culture of innovation? That word, you know, externally, I think, is quite synonymous with Goodwin but it's another one of these things that you really can't tell till you get inside. And I have yet to meet a person here who is not interested in kind of leading into the future.

When you realize how imperfect we are, you have to be committed to improvement. And I don't mean that like kind of offhandedly or hyperbolically. I think we realize that we can be a better version of ourselves individually. We realize that we can be a better version of Goodwin collectively. And innovation is just about that. It's about improvement. I mean, sometimes you build a better mousetrap, sometimes you figure out another way to catch mice. And we're going to need to do both because the world is changing so rapidly. And so one of the things that excites Anthony and excites me is that you bring a whole different perspective on how to catch mice, so to speak. And we're just not going to incrementally improve the processes that we've had that may be 10 or 12 or 25 years old. We're going to re reimagine a law firm of the 21st century.

Yeah, if I could pick up on some of that. I agree completely with Mark on that. I think that something you said resonated with me. Right. We're synonymous with innovation. And I think that when you look at the types of companies and clients that firm works with, there's a lot of innovation in that client base. And so to provide our clients what they need and to help deliver the outcomes they expect and deserve, you need to have lawyers and professionals in our organization that are really interested in innovation and helping you to move forward and progress. Start and innovation is about two things here, probably at everywhere the mindset. And Mark started to describe that mindset. Right. Even people that may not view themselves as technical within our organization share a mindset of getting a little bit better every day, doing things a little bit better for our clients, doing things a little bit better for each other. And that mindset helps open them, all of us up to, hey, we can adopt different ways to do things. We can adopt innovation and technology software that can make us provide better results for our clients, do things more efficiently internally, and that is just completely throughout the organization and in the water here.

Something really fortunate for 100%, because there's a lot of things that I feel like I can bring to the firm, but there is no way I can drive any sort of transformation or change unless there's mindset that is critical to success. And that piece already being here is so great, because I can walk in and start thinking about what we need to do, what we need to look like, and I don't have to worry about how are we going to change the mindset here. It's so fundamentally important to being able to be successful. So then on that point, then, what do you guys think the firm of the 21st century or the firm of tomorrow looks like? What are some of the things that are going to be important?

Anthony, I think you got the crystal ball this week, so you should go first.

It's a really fun question to talk about and to think about. You know, I think that we believe that the firm of tomorrow in 10, 15, 20 years is going to be one that is intently focused on our clients. And we have done that, I think, better than most firms in terms of focusing on the industries that we want to focus on, the being immersed in those industries, which allows us to do the most important work for the clients in those industries, but also to be great business partners. And I think that's an important point, is not viewing clients as clients, but as business partners, people that are really intertwined with the mission that Mark talked about earlier, of providing the best service for these clients and helping them advance, and then also serving our internal clients, if you will. Right. Stuff that we talked about at the beginning, the culture, things that attracted you here and I think have kept all of us that are currently here, we focus on being elite performers, excellence. It's one of the core values we as a firm have. Being innovative, whether it's in a mindset and a willingness to try new things and to adopt technologies, and being fully inclusive. You know, it includes everything from diversity, equity, and inclusion, but also making sure that we're providing the best career opportunities for the folks that. That come here at any stage in their career and making sure that our people thrive. And I think those couple things will be absolutely tenants and core principles of the future law firms. And tying into what I think will be one of the biggest challenges, but also one of the biggest opportunities of professional services firms is adopting and harnessing the possibilities of generative AI and how that comes into our workflows. And it's going to change lots of things within your business, whether it's how you train people, how you develop your people, how you bill and get paid for the types of work that you do, operational things that you're doing, practices that you have internally, going to touch all of those and being thoughtful about how that progresses our clients and our people is going to be so, so important. Because we will look different. I don't know that I could crystal ball will be all that clear and exactly what it'll look like, but it will look different in terms of how we, how we engage in those things. And those are the sorts of things that I think Mark and I. And he'll add some good, good color to some of this, I think, and some additional thoughts. But how, how we think about what we need to be in 5, 10 plus years.

Anthony 1 of the things I loved about that response is it focused not on what was going to be different. Mary because we don't actually have any control over the future, nor the past for that matter. We just know what happened, but it focused on what kind of remain the same. We are fundamentally in the relationship business and relationships about a real kind of authentic relationship is doing everything you can do to make the counterparty in that relationship better, more successful. And so we have relationships with clients, we have relationships with our people. And it's all about doing everything we can do to make our clients successful. And it's about everything we can do to give folks to stick to professional opportunities so they can recognize all their personal potential. And that's not gonna change. In fact, I think that focus is more important in five or 10 years than it is today because I think people are gonna get lost in the tall grass worried about how it's expressing itself in 5 years or 10 years and they're gonna lose what it is. And so I think if we're guided by those principles that we're in a relationship business, we're here to create high impact outcomes and results for clients and high impact, high ceiling opportunities for people in what the future is about, how we're going to do it differently and better than we've done in the past. We should be excited about that. We should embrace that. I don't know what that is, but I do know that whatever it is, it's not going to be the first thing we try, but we're going to fail forward, we're going to try the next thing and the thing after that will be better as a result. And we're committed to creating better outcomes for clients, better results for clients, better opportunities for our people, going to be generative AI, the whole like leverage model that people talk about in the legal industry, that's likely to change, but we want to harness that. We want to proactively direct that change to better outcomes for clients and more distinctive, high potential opportunities for our people.

Yeah, there are no softball questions on this podcast that's why it's called Gloves Off. Right? So these are hard questions and things that we're all, as an industry, grappling with. I think it's absolutely right that it's all about the clients. On the last episode here, I had Alisa, who's the CLO of HubSpot, talk about kind of how she's thinking about her role. We talked about the changing role of the general counsel and the cielo. It's something I've talked about for years, how they, in their roles, are becoming so much more embedded in the C suite, becoming more strategic business advisors rather than just giving legal advice. Now it's really about business advice and seeing across not just your company, but kind of the industry and the macro environment, what's happening. And because of all those changes, the way that they look to outside counsel has completely changed. And what they need from outside counsel is beyond just legal advice. So as we think about how to position ourselves to the future, how do we add value to our clients? It is about being much more holistic in our view, and how can we, you know, help them be a strategic leader to their companies in addition to reacting, not reacting, hopefully being proactive about some of the changes we see. I've often said we're in this period where it feels like there is this tsunami wave coming at us that is going to disrupt our space. And the beauty of that is that we see it coming. So we have this run room of figuring out how are we going to leverage technology? How does the delivery of legal services start to change because of that? How do we price it? How do we align our incentives with our clients? What does this mean for the associates of the future? How do we train them? What are law schools going to do? How are we going to use real estate and workspace? I mean, there's all these things that are really difficult problems, which is why I get so excited about coming here. These are all the things that I've been thinking about for years, and we actually get to do them because, again, the mindset is here, and there's a willingness from leaders like you to take risks and do things. So it's been. It's going to be fun.

One of the things that I always get pretty jacked up when I talk with you, Mary, is that you don't.

Think of them as problems.

You think of them as challenges and opportunities. And that's, frankly, disruption's not a bad thing, right? Maybe painful, certainly, it's maybe chaotic. But the reality is if something's being disrupted it's because it's not functioning optimally. And so you have to think of it as a process. You're talking to a lifetime dieter. So I know what processes are about. Right. You just gotta stick with it. So I think that's important. And you're right. You mentioned the billable hour. You mentioned kind of how do you develop associates in a world where, you know, opportunities and are much more kind of elementary? Without no disrespect, I think of it as building blocks. So I definitely just think of them as elements. How do you do that in a world where those opportunities aren't going to be as plentiful or the billable hour is under assault? And these are all challenges that our industry is going to have to grapple with. And different people will sort it out differently over time. I do think we'll probably migrate to a best practice, but there's a lot to be learned between now and then.

Yeah, I just. I love that you said exactly what I was going to say, Mark, at the outset. There is. Mary, I think part of the excitement that you express there is the reason you're here.

Right.

Because I think, Mark, and I think throughout our organization view disruption and change as exciting as an opportunity. Right. That a lot of places don't feel that. I don't think. And I think it's one of the reasons we feel fortunate to have you here because just your excitement and energy around that as you were talking there was palpable and it was just awesome to see.

Yeah, this is my jam. I've been in legal Ops for over 20 years, and it's truly my passion. And I just. In my personal life, I love change. So I love change in my professional life. And for me, it's a fun thing. I can't sit still in all aspects of my life for too long. I look for things to disrupt myself getting. Okay, so as we think about it. So more hard questions coming. Get ready. As we think about getting ready for the future, of course, the elephant in the room for all law firms is that means investment. That means a lot of investment in new roles, new technologies, new ways of doing things, taking risks, trying pilots. How does that. I mean, obviously that affects profits per partner, how we're going to reinvest funds. How do you think about things short term, long term, as leaders of big.

Law, it doesn't have to necessarily have a drag on profits per partner. And sometimes I think as an industry, and sometimes I think our partners become too narrowly focused on that particular metric for any given year. Or any given period. I understand that's important. And, and I think I'm pretty conversant in how the firm makes profit. So I don't mean to marginalize that, but I think at the end of the day, if. If we wanted to only run the firm for any given fiscal year, we would not be where we are. And so I think you have to look at our recent past as a kind of a. As exhibit A, to use a phrase that many of your listeners will be familiar with, to be exhibit A, the fact that we are committed to building over time the firm of the 21st century. And I think what, you know, I say, I've said to you a number of times in the past 37 days, and Anthony and I talk about all the time, it's sometimes it's not the quantum of dollars that is actually being expended, it's how many of those dollars are you really kind of characterizing as investment versus cost? And I think we have to have an investment mentality. If we have an investment mentality, if there's an impact to the profit pool in any given fiscal year, if you have an investment mentality and you're disciplined about kind of roi, you should appreciate that you're going to get payback that on that relative near future. And if you've done that in the past, in the years that you're investing dollars, new dollars, you're getting paid back on kind of the dollars you invested two or three years ago. And so to me, investment is not something you do every once in a while when you lift your head up. It is a program that you need to be disciplined about and thoughtful about. And over time, I don't think we can be the firm we want to be in 2029 or 2039 or 2034, you know, kind of 5, 10, 15 years from now, if we aren't investing, you know, in advance, what we think is the technological wave that's going to disrupt our industry. And some of those investments, they're not going to be visible to a lot of people, even here at a good one, right? Because they're infrastructure investments, they're computing investments, they're investments in data and all the things that are going to drive the firm 10 years from now, 15 years from now. But if we don't do that today, it will be too late to do it five, ten years from now. So I think we have to have an investment mentality, and I think our partners are comfortable with it.

Picking up on that. Marcus, the only thing I was Going to add to what you were saying there is that I do think we're fortunate to be part of a partnership and help to lead this partnership that very long term focused we. You always have pockets of short term thinking in any instance of time, but over the course of what we do with our partners, they're very long term thinking and they're committed. Mark talked about the mission of serving this client base that we're fortunate enough to serve and to do the work we do with them. And we've made investments in terms of how we organize ourselves in infrastructure, et cetera, and there's going to be a lot more of that is required. I think one of the things I feel good about is that we have a partnership that when we're transparent with them and explain what we're doing and why we're doing it, we get support and buy in. It's absolutely democracy. So there'll be debate and criticism and suggestions that we'll get that all make us better. But we have a long term thinking organization and that is going to serve us very well as you look into what we want to be in, you know, 2039, 2049, like Mark talked about. Now, Mark and I both may get rolled out of here in wheelchairs at some point around that time, but the firm will be a lot better for it if we do the right things.

Yeah, the short term, long term. You and I have talked about this in the past. The whole AmLaw thing, right? The ratings, the rankings that come out every year, that becomes the challenge for. And I think it's one of the things that has held back this industry from innovating and investing because you're constantly measured by all these metrics that put you up against every other firm. And everyone's looking at how did you perform last year and what does it mean, what happened where it might just be a year that you're taking the time to invest. Really importantly for the long term, how do you guys think about those ratings?

I genuinely don't at the end of the day, to be blind in part because I'm not sure. I can only speak to the veracity and the accuracy of our submission. I can't speak to the veracity and accuracy of others. I've been in some role at the firm for a good number of years now, not the same role I'm in currently. I don't think there's a year I was satisfied with our results. I knew we could have done better. And I think that's kind of how I think about it. I mean, I understand the dynamic and it's particularly acute in recruiting, but I do think that kind of headline, look, if someone is really worried about, you know, the profitability of Goodwin because of a published profit per equity partner number, I'd like to spend an hour with them and explain to them why that doesn't probably impact them personally, because I think that number is somewhat, it's somewhat of a distraction. You know, you talk about like, how, how have we been able to sustain that? We're on this project to be the dominant firm of the 21st century. And we think to be that firm, we need to focus and refocus on these industries in which we're immersed. And when you are so immersed in the industries in which we're so immersed, you make your own opportunities, particularly with lateral hiring. And they may not come exactly when you want. There's an old sailing adage that you set your sails to the wind. You can't control the wind, but you can harness the wind. And so we've had to sit down and have conversations, to Anthony's point, with our partners about doing things that we think are highly strategic. Maybe not at the most obvious time to do them, but that was the time they needed to be done. And that's another way to approach investment. And you know what you want to be, you kind of can make your own opportunities. And while the timing may not be ideal, it's never going to be perfect. And if you have a strategic vision, you can, I think, muster up the enthusiasm to move forward. I think that's a couple times recently we've done that in part because I think people are committed to the long term vision that Anthony articulated.

Some of the big bets that Goodwin has taken as a firm in the past have really paid off. And I think that's again, just a demonstration of the willingness to take big risks and to lead. One of those is the industry approach being really deep on certain industries. And as we think about going back to the earlier part of our conversation about the client needs and how that has changed and that they really need more than just legal advice. Another just quick observation I had as I was walking around the Silicon Valley office when I first got here and just knocking on doors and getting to know some of the partners and I said, okay, what is it you actually do day to day? And many of them would say, my practice is X. But I end up spending a lot of my time with this in house teams or CEOs talking about this and that and the landscape and their Competitors and what's important for them as a growing company, so on, so forth. And I thought that's really interesting. That's actually not the traditional practice of law. You're actually adding a lot more just like business advice on how to be successful. Like, do you think that's true for like the rest of the firm or am I just seeing pockets of Silicon Valley?

I'll start.

I personally think you see it throughout the firm and I think it's interesting, right, that even the way you asked the question, I don't think many of us think of it as think of organizing ourselves in business units or an industry focused business units as an investment or this risky change. Right. I think that throughout our firm you will see people say we did this because this is best for our clients.

Right.

It allows our lawyers to be, you know, immersed in the industries, whether it's a technology lawyer in Silicon Valley, a real estate lawyer in our New York office, a disputes lawyer in London. Anything else. Right. They are immersed in the industries in which they work in and they're spending time not just on legal excellence, but also the things that keep their clients up at night, the things that are their clients are worried about five years from now. You talked about our HubSpot and we do some work with HubSpot and helping the role of the legal office within HubSpot, saying, I need my outside counsel to help me think about those biggest challenges that I may not have time in my day to think about or I just want the other perspective. Those are things that I think a lot of lawyers would say, oh, that's not legal work. Right. And we think that's among the most important value that, that we provide to our clients. And so I think that experience that you had from knocking on doors, I think you will see it throughout the firm and throughout the organization because that, that really is, I think, what one of the things that makes us very different.

Yeah, I mean, we're a law firm.

In the relationship business.

We're not a law firm in the law business. What we're trying to do is everything we're capable of doing to make our clients successful. And some of that is going to be a lot more than just advising them on the narrow legal regulation that is applicable to a particular product or a question that they're looking to answer or resolving the dispute as most narrowly construed that's right in front of them. We're in the relationship business. So you do everything you can to make your client successful when you're in the relationship. It's not just what you need to do to get the job done. And I like to think that everyone at Goodwin, not just our lawyers, but everyone at Goodwin kind of subscribes to that approach. That's our mission. Right. Our common mission. And you have your. If you're a junior associate, you may feel more attenuated from what you can actually, what can actually contribute to make a client successful. But hopefully that is your mission. And people like you, Mary, really emphasize that in everything you do and how you do everything that you do.

I want to pull on another thread just of the words you mentioned. Everyone at Goodwin is behind that mission. Yet another reason why I knew this was going to be the right firm for me to join is because that mindset of it takes more than just the practice of law side. Right. The lawyer side of the business to make change. It takes more than just what we call the go team, the global operations team. Operating in a silo and making changes and trying to shove them down lawyers throats. Like this has to be an entire rowing in one direction, working as one unit. Goodwin one is a term I've heard to do it together and to be mission focused and have our priorities all aligned and working as a team. And I really feel like, and kudos to my predecessor, Mike Kaplan, who's kind of set up this big function to be at the leadership team table, working on priorities together, coming up with strategic vision together and then driving all of that. Both sides of the house working together as one, not as two separate units.

Yeah, I don't even like the phrase both sides of the house. And I know that's kind of how we've talked about it historically as an industry and we certainly have a more evolved approach. I like the way you talked about like we're all in the same ship. Right. And so we all have to row in the same direction. And we don't think of necessarily people being on one side or the other or in the front or the back. We're all on the same ship and we're, we're trying to direct our clients the outcome that our client wants. And it's going to need more than lawyers, it's going to need more than operations professionals, it's going to need both. And they're going to need to be highly coordinated. And like when you're looking to do everything that you can do to make a client successful, you need all the talents of everyone in the organization to do that.

Yep.

We talk a lot about being collaborative and how we work together. And it's understanding whether it's lawyers working with go teams, lawyers in different practices working with each other. Everyone has a role to play. Right. Everyone has a skill and an expertise. And it really is assembling those expertises and those skills in the right way. Whether it's serving a client, building something internally to make us better, to serve clients better, to serve our people better, everyone knowing how to put those teams together. It's a team sport and if you can't put those pieces together, you won't succeed. We're fortunate because it attracts outstanding people like you. But it also seems so obvious when you talk about it. Right?

It does. When I was at Ironclad, I used to describe the feeling of just the caliber of people that I worked with and everyone had their specialty. I always said it felt like being on an elite sports team because everyone was really good at what they were doing. But we were all working together and every role and every skill set mattered. And it's still early days for me here. I haven't met most people, but I'm hoping that's how it feels. And that is the case. And I'm already starting to pick up on that mentality that that firm first, we're all, we're all in this together is, is really cool.

Mary. I often describe it as a symphony. Right. I mean, we all have our own specialty. So consider that be the instrument that you play. We want to do it at a world class level. So everyone has to be absolutely excellent. We have to strike the right note, but we have to strike it in harmony with everyone else or we're not going to make music, we're going to make noise. And clients will happily pay for music from a world class symphony. No one wants to pay for noise.

So let's talk about the lawyers of the future. What do we think that needs to look like? And are there things that you would say to a young lawyer or law student kind of thinking about joining a firm like ours?

I love that question. I think we've talked a lot about the lawyer of the future here. Right. I think that the lawyer of the future will be relationship driven, business partner focused, looking to deliver different differentiated results and outcomes for clients. As opposed to Mark was talking and I loved how he talked about it, doing kind of here's what the law says, here's the answer. Clients don't want that. They want results, they want outcomes. The lawyer of the future will look at those demands, frankly of the job and I think be excited and I think it will hopefully attract a Caliber of young students, whether they're law students, business students, other things to law school to say, hey, I am actually using this expertise of law to deliver results. And that's how it's always been. I think it's how it's always been at the best places. I think it is going to be more and more the case. As technology helps support a lot of practice of law, I think we are going to have to look and support young lawyers being developed. There's this apprenticeship model that most of us grew up with where you worked for a string of more senior lawyers than they taught you both how to be as a business developer and someone that nurtures a client relationship, but they also taught you how to do the legal work. And I think that technology is enabling a lot of some of that maybe more table stakes set of law that we do. We as an organization are going to have to look for ways to substitute for that apprenticeship so that people get the right development and nurturing that they need both on the substantive side, but also on the client development and interpersonal EQ sort of things that in many ways differentiate a good lawyer from a great lawyer or a great lawyer from a good lawyer. And I think that's exciting. And I think that some of these changes on how organizations, law firm organizations are going to operate and how we're going to develop young talent I think has the ability and I would predict it is going to change that, that dichotomy. And I think that people will be excited about the opportunity that they can get as young lawyers. And I think it's on organizations like ours and others to make sure that we adapt and adjust how we develop and train our talent.

Yeah, absolutely. I don't speak to a lot of junior associates who don't treat it like it's a cross examination or an interrogation. But I do have, my children are now getting to be the age of our junior associates. And so when I tell my children, and they also are equally disengaged when I try to engage them on the topic. But when I tell them, and I often I say it jokingly, I mean, I will tell our junior associates is like this is a really excellent opportunity. And being a lawyer at Goodwin is a tremendously rewarding profession. And it is a profession because we are serving our clients, you can only be successful and satisfied if you're passionate about what you're doing. And so one of the things I think that makes a Goodwin experience distinctive from other firms in AMLA 20 or the AMLA 25 is the fact that you can be immersed in an industry and really get to know so much more about your clients and their business objectives. And ideally you would gravitate to the area of the firm's industry focus about which you're most passionate. I think you'll be the most impactful if that's the case. I mean, I remember a dean at one of my kids colleges saying, listen, parents are raising hands. What's the best major? And he said, the best major is the one your kid loves. I always say to my students, study what you love. And I thought to myself, people come to me and say, I thought I wanted to be in this business unit, but I really like this work. What do you think I'm like? Do what you like, do what you love, you'll be much better at it. This is a demanding job. You're going to have to give yourself over to your clients and their needs at times. And it's so much easier to do that cheerfully and joyfully if you love what you're doing. And I don't think that's going to change with the future. I think in fact, it's going to be so much more intense, maybe more important in the future than it was in the past for all the reasons that Anthony talked about about. And it really is incumbent upon Goodwin and its partners to make sure that we preserve that distinct, distinctive professional opportunity for our people and we do everything we can to attract the passionate, ambitious, motivated lawyers of the future.

Yeah, I think it's interesting that Anthony used the word apprenticeship as something that, you know, that he recalls from his training. I think somewhere along the way. I'm not a lawyer, but my sense is that kind of went away with this whole pyramid structure, this churn and going through many documents in a dark room by yourself and no collaboration and learn it the hard way and you're up or you're out. And where I think we're going towards the future is back to an apprenticeship model where that mentoring, that side by side training is much more important. As Mark, you keep saying in the relationship business, so much of that is watching how to build those relationships and how do you build that trust with your clients. The other piece that I think is going to be a real competitive advantage for firms in the future in terms of attracting young talent is how tech enabled you are. And I know, Mark, early on when I started you, you said something and I wrote it down and I can't remember exactly the words you used, but you essentially said something like, we want to be the place where it is the easiest to practice law, the most tech enabled to practice law, the most facilitated, supported. I don't know what the word is, but the spirit of that message was, you know, you come here and you have everything you need to work at the top of your game and add the most value and not be bogged down by administrative functions and process and bureaucracy and ticking and tying and all the things that take up a lot of the day. And then at 5 o', clock, you're like, great, now I can actually start the thinking of my job. We want to make this the place where you can start your day and just be able to do the strategic work.

We absolutely do. Mary Day 37. How we doing?

But that's the goal. That is the goal. And I like that as a North Star.

Yeah, I mean, Mary, it's kidding aside, it is a great North Star, right? And it's like we ask a ton of our people here, right? We ask them to be excellent and elite and perform at the highest levels. And what Mark was describing there is kind of like what Mark and I, we need, we need to run this through. The marketing team is kind of the good one coming in, right? If we're requiring that of our people, we need to be able to provide them the best platform for whatever they're doing at our firm at whatever level, so that they can perform at the highest level. And that's, that's always an ongoing thing, you know, you never rest on that because things are always developing. We can do things better. People like you that are going to push us to do things even better and different than we've done in the past. We feel that, right. We ask a lot of our people. We need to be the place that enables them to be the best at their job. And that's why they're here.

We can't ask any more of our people than what we're willing to provide them, right? So when we talk about an elite performance culture, and we talk a lot about an elite performance culture, that means that we're going to provide you tools that are considered elite to enable you to be even more effective on behalf of our clients. And there's a mutuality of we want to give you this opportunity and we expect with your significant talents and your energies, you're going to create great outcomes for clients. So asking our people have high expectations of us.

Well, I want to.

Maintaining high expectations of our people.

Awesome. Awesome. I wanted to say thank you for your time. This has been a really fun conversation with the two fearless leaders of our firm. Any parting last words you want to share with our audience? I don't know how marking.

You come back for day 38 after this, Mary?

Absolutely.

Technically, it's only day 35. I don't know how Mark added two days, but I still have two days to catch up. To where. Where I need to be. So don't be.

I thought you started on August 9th. 12th.

The 12th.

There you go.

There you go.

That's a great way to leave it, Mary. You're right. That's only the third. Yeah. All right.

Thank you so much. And to everyone listening, we'll catch you next time.