Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Legal Learning Podcast. I’m your host Jolene. And with the Legal Learning Center, I help prospective law students save $300,000 on law school, to receive three money saving strategies today. Visit legallearningcenter.com/money. Today’s guest is Faye Gelb, Faye runs Her Legal Global, an online platform for women in law.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hi everybody. My name is Faye Gelb and I am the creator of Her Legal Global, which is an online community, a private online community for women in law. And basically I created this community because I felt that it was important that women have a private space where they could talk about issues that are relevant to women in the law as they go forward. And I’ve been doing that for approximately a year. I also work in a virtual law firm that my husband and I started. So that’s my main focuses at this moment.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
What type of law do you guys focus on?
Speaker 2:
Disability law.
Speaker 1:
Oh, that’s a great topic. Okay. So I know that your history is a little bit different than a lot of other people. So going back when, so you graduated from law school and you started practicing law right away, right?
Speaker 2:
Yes.
Speaker 1:
Okay. But then your journey went a little bit sideways. So what happened?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Well, it’s an interesting story and I think it’s really relevant to law students to understand what can happen in your journey and why it’s so important to be proactive, strategic, and innovative about your career, right from the very beginning. So when you enter law school, I think it’s very important to already be thinking about where you want to go. And it’s very relevant to my story because what ended up happening for me was that I graduated, I articled and I started in private practice for four months. And then I joined the ministry of attorney general and I worked there for approximately nine years in different various roles. During that time period, I made a few very big mistakes and not to do with the law, but with my career. And what I did was I didn’t actually network because I thought, oh, you know, I worked for the government.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Why do I have to network? And as a natural introvert, I didn’t think it was important or essential to do that. And it really set me up for a complete crash because what ended up happening for me was I did a special project for a couple of years under the director of the part of the branch that I was in. And it was very successful. I was the coordinator, it was something that went off very well, but what ended up happening just as I was to get a merit category, which is once you get to a certain level, that’s the only way to get a pay increase. The director retired. And that kind of left me without my advocate for all the work I had just completed. And the person that replaced them said, you know, let’s place you let’s, you know, work now to get you in a better position for when you apply again.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
And I was kind of mystified because I wasn’t quite sure how after doing a two year project, you know, changing the business systems for over 40 some offices you know, sharing best practices, doing conferences, writing manuals, wasn’t quite sure what else I could do. So that’s just an example of how you can set yourself up as you know, in a, in a position where you didn’t think you were going to, but you’re making your work advocate for you. And it never works because your work can not do that job. You have to get out there and you have to create those relationships with different people. If I had done that, I would have been in such a better position to go forward with my career. So that’s, that’s a classic example of one of the biggest ones that I did.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
I can see that because if you have a strong network, if you have people fighting for you, saying come work with us or just saying on your social media or wherever you’re the best or emailing you. You’re so great. You can show these things to your boss, so you don’t have to leave. You can say, look, I am amazing. Look, all these people agree. Let’s talk about what we can do right now to get me to that higher level.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
And I think what happens with a lot of women too, is that, you know, you’re kind of channeled into traditional ways of quote networking, which is, you know, maybe the local bar association, you know, some of the other organizations specifically for women or mixed, but the, the bottom line, what ends up happening is you don’t really think outside the box to maybe start looking at what type of law do I really want to practice? Where are the people that I want to connect with that do that? Where do I want to live? You know, what kind of size of firm do I want to be looking at? And, you know, should I be doing some informational interviews right from the get go so that I really begin to explore these topics because I always feel like, you know, you can go all the way through law school and at the end, get out there and be a newly minted lawyer and not have a clue about what you really like to do or where you would really best fit.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
And that was another big mistake that I made, which was, I really thought that I would be a great litigator. So I did all the things related to that in law school, like the moot and the mock trial competition, I was in that, I was selected for that. I also did what was called our law center, which was a, you know, working for a semester with the people that have a law student instead of a lawyer. So I did a lot of, you know, litigation related things. And then when I got into the court system, yes, I really enjoyed it in terms of like I did like doing the actual litigation part, but what I didn’t like was I didn’t like the system. And I didn’t like the fact that, you know, people come into a criminal system and it’s not a good day for them.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
You know, nobody is going to be happy at the end of the day and you’re not really changing their lives and you’re not really making them better. And the whole system itself functions in a certain way. And I really wanted it to all work in a different way. So I discovered I was a big picture person and no one had ever asked me, are you a little picture person or a big picture person? It’s not a derogatory term. It just means, do I like to focus on, you know, the bigger stuff in like big, big projects or would I rather just do like a, you know, a case by case thing and off it goes, and then I’m done. And I found out the hard way. I was actually a very big picture person and working as a prosecutor really didn’t suit me.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
I was lucky enough to go to our headquarters and work on that major project, like I said, but I probably would have chosen a completely different area of law if I had realized that about myself. So it’s really important for people going into law to ask themselves some really hard questions about who they really are and what they really like to do. You know, things like, you know, how do you do your best work? Who do you like to work with? Do you like to work alone? Do you like to work with people? How good are you at taking direction or managing people? All these are really kind of, you know, tough questions that you should be looking at as you go through your career and not just, you know, kind of doing the steps. Cause that’s what I did. I just did the steps. It made sense at the time, but at the end you look back and you think, Hmm, maybe I could have done it in a more strategic way.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah. I think that we focus so much on topics. I like real estate law or I like intellectual property or whatever it is. And we don’t even focus on, okay, what do they actually do though on a day-to-day basis? And then does that fit, like you said, with the big picture, the little picture or just litigation versus transactional and you know, again, there’s so many pieces to it that we don’t even investigate. So now I know her legal global helps with that. So how exactly do you help with that?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Well, what I did with Her Legal Global is I wanted to put together the information that we don’t get in law school that can really make a difference to a woman in law. Things like having courageous conversations about negotiating for your wage, you know, learning how to network all kinds of different topics. So what I did was I set it up for a year and I went and I interviewed experts around the world that can provide us with a skill. So all my podcasts are related to asking about a particular topic, such as networking. And I ask, what is it, why is it what gets in the way, what’s the skill that this expert can bring to us and how to do it? And then what results can we expect if we follow through? So the last one I just did was on how to have a six figure income.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
And, you know, a lot of lawyers just kind of think, okay, I go to a, you know, an office and I get the work and I don’t really have to build a book of business at this point. I just need to do the work and that’s, it’ll take care of itself, but somewhere along the lines, you know, they’re going to get the news. If you’re in private practice that you have to bring in some business. So how do we do that? And if you’re dealing with that 10 years in it’s too late in, you know, to really have set your foundation up in a way that, you know, allows you to really go forward fast. It’s not absolutely impossible, but it’s so much better if you start earlier. So that’s the kind of information that I bring. I really want people that are in law that are starting out to really think about a whole bunch of different things that they might not have been prepared to think about just because they simply weren’t made aware of it. So that’s what the topics are, are in the community that I have, we do a monthly theme. So I will talk to four different experts or three different experts, whatever on a theme, like communication and we’ll deal with it from a different angle. So we really cover the topic and then we move on.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
That sounds great. It’s so needed because first of all, we don’t even know what we don’t know. Right. So we need someone to guide us and tell us, Hey, have you thought of this thing? And then yes. Things like, yeah, how do you build a book of business? I was fortunate in a lot of ways that I never really had to do that as long as I kept my current clients happy. Cause I went in-house pretty quickly. And so I just, but I was always good at keeping all those praise emails, even if it was an instant message I would cut and paste it and put in an email to myself. And it didn’t matter how stupid the praise was. It could be the smallest thing like, oh, you’re so great. Thank you so much. It just nothing I would save it. And then at the end of the year, when it was time for my review, I would just make sure I had a hundred emails that said how great I was. I can produce them if you want to, you know, and I had a number and so I was always good at selling myself.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
How to like rain make 10 years into practice. I can’t even imagine. I know how to keep my clients happy, but yeah, bringing them in it’s there’s so many different skills that you need depending on what area you go into, how you practice and we all need a little bit of help. And then as women, especially as we have children and build that family, things changed for us a lot. We have nine months of physical changes, right? The impact, our tiredness and our physical abilities and for some of us more than others. And then beyond that, whether there’s postpartum issues or not, there’s just a huge impact to us as moms. And it’s good to have a support group for that.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
It’s good to have a support group. And it’s also really important and essential as you go through this process to be doing self care. So we had a whole month on self-care from self care experts and it related to all kinds of different things about what we can do. One of the very important things is as women we are often perfectionists and what that ends up meaning is that we don’t do that self care. And then about 10 years into our career, we often run out of steam because we’ve been trying to deliver the work at a very impossible level without the care behind it. And then we find that we’re very disillusioned burned out, we’re not seeing the returns on what we thought we would see, and it just doesn’t look like it’s going to meet what we thought it would be. And I think all of that can be avoided.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I don’t think that there isn’t a place for women in law. I absolutely believe that, you know, even when you’re getting to the point where you’re thinking, oh, maybe it’s just not working. I believe that there are many different options today. Especially like one of the months that we did was on alternative legal service providers. So there’s a lot more options today than there was when I was starting out. And those kinds of options allow you to do things like scale back on your career. But for example, you have to place yourself in a position to be able to do that as you go through. So that’s another reason to be strategic. If you’re thinking of having a family, where do you want to be? You know, during that time period, do you want to be at home with your kids? Do you want to be working?
Speaker 2 (13:57):
You know, what is it you’re thinking about? And I’ll just say from my own personal experience, it might surprise you. I don’t know about you, but what happened to me was I’m adopted. And when I had my children, I just found it was very difficult to leave them. They were my first biological relatives and it was a really important time period. And I really thought that it was an essential part of my life. So I ended up, I would have worked part-time if I’d had that option. But at that point I didn’t. So even though I was a very career oriented person and I didn’t think that would happen to me, it did. So I’m just bringing that up because I think it’s really important for people to realize, you know, even though you think it might go a certain way, there’s a possibility it might be a little different. Was that your experience?
Speaker 1 (14:50):
I agree. I really was eager to get back to work. I didn’t have a problem with that, but I think once I had two children and mine are two years apart, so there’s not a huge gap there. So it became a lot of chaos and it just was, I was just juggling a lot. And as the years went on, I mean, luckily I had a job that was flexible. I could go to all my kids, like, you know, Christmas plays or whatever the thing was. But it just got to be a lot of juggling and I really was wearing out and there was no part time for that position with my company. There definitely were some part-time options, but the pay cut was, you know, more than half. Right. So it was just like, okay, what do I do? You know, what are my options?
Speaker 1 (15:38):
And it, it is, it’s scary out there. And it’s good if you, before you ever have kids understand what your options are within your industry, outside your industry, just so that when the time comes. Yeah. If you feel immediately, this need to leave, then you know, okay, well I can take a hiatus and come back or I’m going to go part-time or whatever the thing is, leave law altogether, whatever. Yeah. So for me, it was a slower process and it was a lot more of that burnout. You were talking about where it was just like, things kept just weighing down on me and it’s rough. It’s really hard because you are the mommy.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
That’s right. And you have to be there. So I think that’s why as you start out in your journey, consider all the different types of options that could be there and then make some decisions about where you want to place. I think it’s really important for people to define success for themselves. I think that’s an essential, essential component in, I see it very it’s, it’s not there. It’s still not there for the vast majority of the people I’m coming across. They’re still seeing, you know, that you go to a certain type of law firm, you know, for a certain type of income and that’s success. And it doesn’t have to be that way. I know a woman, I went to school with Jacinta Golan. She is in, she has worked for herself for approximately 30 years and she has had a very big success doing that.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
There is no reason that women can’t start their own firms and be highly successful at them. It’s, you know, you have to step out potentially out of your comfort zone. Definitely, but women have been starting amazing firms. And I think you can look around and look at those firms, talk to those women, learn about what they’re doing, see how they started it. What were some of their impediments? What worked for them? You know, there’s no reason that you have to go blindly. You can get so much information today to help you set yourself up for success, the way that you want to define it. So success for you might be that you don’t want to be tied to your job, that, you know, 16 hours a day, that you actually want to be able to have the freedom, to do other things in your life.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Whether it’s children, looking after parents, a hobby, a different, you know, side hustle or another business, whatever you want, but just think how that makes you feel like doesn’t that feel you make you feel energized is thinking, okay, I’m in charge here. I’m choosing where I want to go with my career. Because if you do that right from the beginning, then you have a much greater chance of being, you know, happy and successful all the way through your journey. I see, you know, women and I was, I was one of them. I left law. I left law for a number of years and I see that it doesn’t have to happen. And I highly, highly encourage anybody. That’s, you know, going into this to really think about where they want to be and position themselves. It’s very much a set up because it’s set up as a profession. People basically say, oh, we have to, you know, we got to get the articling position. Then we go into, we’re an associate, then we’re on the partnership track or whatever it is or we’re, you know, within this certain organization we’re doing this. So it’s basically a, you know, a specific setup in your mind and it doesn’t have to be.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah, I think we really do get caught up in our, in the flow, I guess of it, because I know with my in-house, we did not have partners, but we had management. And at one point I was asked to be part of management and I said, look as an associate one. I like what I’m doing. So I don’t want to do that. But two, I can close my door on someone who’s annoying versus management. You know, if there’s that annoying attorney and they want your time, you have to give it.
Speaker13 (19:48):
I just said, you know what? That’s not my happy place. My happy place is I don’t like you. I’m going to close my door. So I knew what made me happy. And so I never went down that path and it’s so easy to get tripped up on. If you tell everyone else that you’re a managing attorney it sounds so good. And of course, you’re going to make more money and you know, you’ve arrived and it’s like, slow down. What’s actually important. What do you really want?
Speaker 2 (20:20):
You want to be able to, like, for me, I invested, you know, as we all do hours and years and thousands of dollars to become a lawyer and I find it heartbreaking that we end up in a situation where people actually think that, you know, it’s not going to be for them anymore. I get it that, you know, some of us, it’s definitely not going to be for us. It’s it true enough. But if it can be something that still works for you, then it’s so an incredible accomplishment to be able to keep that going. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Yeah. I think we get so stuck in that flow that we forget that it’s not that flow or you’re out it’s you can find a site ways track, you can find a different flow. One. Maybe that goes up and down a little bit. Who knows, but yeah, I think that’s where your community is so great because if we have that support, if we have other people we can turn to, if we can learn from each other, it’s just, we’re setting ourselves up again for whatever that success looks like for us. So I know you have an online community as well, right?
Speaker 2 (21:32):
That is the online community that we are completely online because one of the things that I wanted to do was combine us across different stages of career, different geographical areas, different types of law, different sizes of firms. And so usually you don’t have people associating, you know, across those geographic areas. And everybody comes to law with wisdom. You know, we all have our own uniqueness about us and everybody has wisdom. They can share whether they’re starting on the legal journey or been in it for 30 years, we can all learn from each other. And when I got back into law, I found that basically what we were having is the same issues that had been there when I started. So what I thought was something that could really help us is to be able to access the wisdom of people that had gone before, so that you could look at it.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
So what I’m saying today, the things I’m trying to provide to you now for somebody starting out is the hard earned lessons that I got, which is basically, you know, take your time to really set yourself up for success, because it makes such a difference to your happiness all the way through. You’re not at the mercy of somebody else’s choices, and you’re always proactively deciding what you’re going to do. And as soon as you say those words, you’re going to feel empowered. It’s my choice, what I do here.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I love the sound of that. Okay, great. So where can people find Her Legal Global?
Speaker 2 (23:11):
You can find Her Legal Global herlegalglobal.com.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
That’s easy.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah. It’s straightforward. Nothing complicated there, you can also connect with me on LinkedIn. It’s Faye Gelb, and it’s right under that’s my handle on LinkedIn as well. And I’m on Twitter as well with her legal global there as well. So feel free to reach out. I’m happy to connect with people.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Great. Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing what you do and how you’re doing it and just how you’re helping the women out there that really need it.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Thanks, Jolene. It’s been a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Before we get into my top takeaways, a quick word from our sponsor. Juno, if you have to take out student loans, check in with Juno. First, Juno can often offer law students one to 2% lower interest rates than the federal government and with no origination fees and oftentimes cash back as well. Visit advisor.legallearningcenter.com/Juno. For more information, my top takeaways from this chat with Faye networking is so important. Make sure you do it. Number two, define success for yourself only you can do that. And number three, get informed and strategic from day one so that you will have happiness throughout your career. All right, that’s it. For this episode, all the tips, links and so forth will be in the show notes. A full transcript will be available@legallearningcenter.com/herlegalglobal. And if you learned something today, if you enjoyed the episode, please leave a review, like, share, comment, subscribe that just helps the show become more visible and then can help those who may need it. Thank you.
