Work that Works

Let Your Values Be Your Guide

Episode Summary

In pioneering a family-friendly practice, Wood Gold LLP, Jennifer Gold and Frankie Wood have redefined legal success and demonstrated that a client-centric approach begins with balance: It’s healthy work-life balance that inspires and equips ambitious lawyers to deliver their very best work.

Episode Notes

How can you refocus your priorities so quality output is emphasized over long hours; so difference is illuminated and appreciated, rather than assimilated or ignored; so your organization attracts talented lawyers with different backgrounds and ideas, rather than driving out eager contributors who can’t conform to a rigid schedule? This episode offers key considerations to drive your own workplace reinvention.

Member-only Resources

Learning Plan for Developing Leadership and Business of Law Skills

Value-Setting Exercise (PDF)

Document your CPD Hours

Have feedback? Email us at pod@oba.org with your thoughts and comments.

Episode Transcription

Charlene Theodore:  

Hello and welcome to the Work That Works podcasts. I'm your host, Charlene Theodore. Before I begin, I want to acknowledge that I'm recording this episode from the Dish With One Spoon Territory. I'm grateful to the original owners for taking care of this land and I recognize the treaties that govern it. Knowing that our listeners span the country and are tuning in from other areas with their own treaties and unceded territories, I encourage you to continue learning more about the indigenous history in your community. It is important history and a story that continues. 

Dawn Marchand, Lawyers Financial:  

At Lawyers Financial, your satisfaction is our success. It's not that money doesn't matter. Financial, it's right there in our name but we're not-for-profit and that gives us the freedom to give you break-even pricing on insurance and investment solutions and exclusive rates on home, auto, life and disability insurance, just to name a few. At Lawyers Financial, we focus on you so you can focus on your family, your firm and your future and that sounds like success by any measure.  

Charlene Theodore:  

Can the legal workplace really cultivate inclusion, productivity and genuine personal satisfaction for those that seek the ever elusive work-life balance? I'm OBA president, Charlene Theodore, and this is the Work That Works podcast. Today, I'm joined by Jennifer Gold and Frankie Wood, the pioneering creators of their own family-friendly practice Wood Gold LLP in Brampton. Frankie and Jennifer have proven that not only is a healthy balance in law possible, it is a key element in attracting high caliber associates who are empowered and inspired to do their best work. Now, we all know that the traditional law practice model worked really quite well for some, while at the same time deterring and driving away so many others, predominantly women with childcare or other caregiving responsibilities. For those women and men, a rigid schedule and typically long hours meant unsustainable sacrifice in their personal lives and their commitments outside of work.  

Charlene Theodore:  

Now, we all know retention of women lawyers in private practice is a well documented problem. Jennifer and Frankie both began their careers in traditional large firms and they experienced the long hour high pressure and quite frankly, homogenous culture of unyielding expectations firsthand. As they started their families though, they discovered that, they could manage the workload alongside their family, community and volunteer obligations, as long as they were willing to run themselves ragged in the process. And you know what? They didn't want to. So, they struck out on their own and fashioned an alternative firm and business model where lawyers needn't conform or be a super biller or miss out on important holidays or life events. In creating a family-friendly firm where diversity and balance are valued, they have reinvented the legal workplace so that it works for associates, employees, partners, and clients and ultimately the business's bottom line.  

Charlene Theodore:  

Welcome to you both, Jennifer and Frankie. I am so eager to hear more from both of you about why you chose to blaze this trail. We're going to talk about what unforeseen obstacles and opportunities you met on the way, how your flexible workplace benefits you, your employees and your clients and what other lawyers can learn from your experience and perhaps apply to their own workplaces. Now, you were both working in what we'd call, the traditional private practice environment before leaving to start your own firm. What was it about that environment that was not working for you in those workplaces that inspired you to create your new model?  

Frankie Wood:  

There's a long list, Charlene, there's a long list. But it was just exactly what you mentioned in the introduction, the expectations of long hours, the expectations of what money was expected to be brought in at a very, very high level, the expectation that I was always available. It just didn't allow me to also be spending quality time with family and my priorities started to shift at that time and I needed to be able to do great work but also be spending more time with the family.  

Charlene Theodore:  

And was it the same for you, Jennifer?  

Jennifer Gold:  

Yeah, It was similar. I wouldn't say that there was any explicit requests to put in a lot of time but it was definitely implicit, it was definitely built into the culture, a culture that was competitive. So, by putting in more hours and more face time, you give the appearance of being dedicated and hardworking. And so, that kind of pressure when you start to have children is tough because on one hand you have competing needs, the needs of a young child. For instance, I remember having to be absent from work quite a bit when my daughter first started daycare and I think a lot of parents know, once you start putting kids into school and daycare, they start coming back home with ear infections and colds and all of that. And so, I think my absence for those was noted and it wasn't a very good feeling. On one hand you have work guilt and on the other hand you have mommy guilt, just couldn't handle that.  

Charlene Theodore:  

Yeah. It's funny that you mentioned childcare, Jennifer, because I think that is the first solution that people call upon. Whether it's daycare. I know a lot of women who have children have families move in with them and relatives or even hiring a nanny, live in, live out, childcare and access to childcare, which women don't have equally throughout this country. I think what you're highlighting is that isn't kind of the be all and end all because it's not as simple as, you're in daycare or you're in whatever childcare set up and so now I have a clear block of time. The reality of childcare it's childcare under supervision, you're kind of still always on call. Do you think that's correct?  

Jennifer Gold:  

I think that's correct. And quite often I think, as women, we have to have different options available because if your child is too sick to go to daycare, then who? Is it you? Is it your parents are providing support? A neighbor? And quite often, the burden falls on us and I don't think equality has been attained, whether in many people's relationships or in society or in the workplace. And so, because a lot of women still bear the emotional burden of figuring all of that out, I think that either you're going to see women leaving the profession or you're going to find greater demands on the profession to change.  

Charlene Theodore:  

Before we get into the environment that you created. I'd like to know Frankie, was there anything about that traditional firm environment that you came from that was working for you and that you brought into your practice?  

Frankie Wood:  

I think there some really positive things that we did bring into our practice. We both learned a lot about the law, about the substantive law, the area of law we were practicing. For me, I had never intended to practice family law, I sort of happened into it by accident. And by the time Jennifer and I set up our firm together, I'd had the benefit of a lot of mentoring from other lawyers who taught me a great deal. We also had the benefit of learning a lot about how to manage client relationships and a little bit, although not as much as we realized we needed about the actual running of a business but there was a lot about how to provide really excellent client services and what kind of client relationships we wanted to have, that certainly we learned a lot about in our formative years working for other people.  

Charlene Theodore:  

Okay. So, you guys essentially left big law to start from scratch and build, what I consider, your own piece of Work That Works for everyone, men and women from the ground up. How did you go about ensuring everyone feels engaged in the work and has a voice at the table?  

Jennifer Gold:  

Well, I think that's an ongoing challenge. I mean, we come from a culture that is very top down and trying to open that up, shake that up a little, I think it's something that we need to unlearn as leaders. I think that's sort of the culture we came from, in of the legal profession of being very hierarchical. And I think we consciously try to move away from that. We'll have weekly team meetings where it's, Frankie and I don't need to be there if we're busy, have a meeting without us, tell us what you want. Decisionmaking ultimately falls to us for the most part but I think we do our best to include everybody and everyone's voice in the decision-making. Whether that's in a group meeting or speaking individually to people, that extends not only to lawyers but also to our support staff at the firm.  

Charlene Theodore:  

And I guess, I'm wondering, what are the hallmarks of the culture that you built that is, I'm saying more women-friendly but probably more parent-friendly, as compared to the culture of the workplaces that you left. Frankie?  

Frankie Wood:  

The billable hour is a terrible, terrible beast and when you are driven by the billable hours, then the amount of time you put in matters more. We, instead, try to shift the focus to client satisfaction and is the client or your clients, are they happy with the works that you're doing? And when you change the focus to that, then the hours that you're physically present in the office, the amount of time that it's taking you to do a specific task when you're in the office or not in the office, really start to become significantly less important than the actual end product. And at the end of the day, isn't that what we're here for? We're not here for billable hours, we're not here to say, I billed 1800 or 2000 hours last year. We're here, I think, to say, I did a good thing for my client, I helped my client. When you remember that that's what we're here for, you shift the focus around to being about that. It allows people to provide that service in whatever works for them.  

Charlene Theodore:  

And so, what I'm hearing you say is that, you're shifting the focus to the deliverable and not just the actual deliverable but what it needs to get it executed from a client centered perspective and also maintaining a high quality of work. Does that mean, Jennifer, that you've done away with the billable hour at your firm?  

Jennifer Gold:  

Not completely. I mean, it's a way to measure work provided to the client. And, obviously, there is sort of some reasonable minimum targets that are really a base minimum so that we can cover our overhead, pay the staff, keep the lights on. But above and beyond that, it's up to an associate's individual circumstances and we don't track hours, we don't track who's in the office when and who's logged in when. I think the nature of law is very conducive to accommodating other competing needs in our lives and I think the pandemic, especially, has shown that in terms of people working from home more. And so, my workday isn't a typical 9-5 and I don't expect anyone else to have to maintain that either. I'll work in the morning, I'll pick up my son from school afterwards, I'll give him some food, maybe I'll log back on at five or six, work for a couple hours, put him to bed or...  

Jennifer Gold:  

I have an elderly in-law that needs extra attention right now, my father-in-law broke his hip, so my husband's making trips to the hospital to see him, so I'm taking on more childcare responsibility in the home. And so, law is a profession that can accommodate flexibility, absent specific court appearances, which are booked in advance for the most part, you can dictate when you work and when you see clients and sometimes I work on the weekends, sometimes I don't but at least that's within my control and I can adjust my work pattern to fit my life. Same applies to all our associates and even with support staff, even though we need some dedicated support staff during business hours, we've transitioned to allow them each a day to work from home. If they have special occasions or medical issues, we work around that so that we are accommodating their needs as well.  

Charlene Theodore:  

I was reading an interesting article the other day about unlimited vacation. I haven't heard of any companies in law trying it but some companies are trying it, some companies have tried and abandoned it. But the theory is that, the ideal approach is to say, take your vacation when you need your vacation. And for companies that have a top down approach and so, they'd see the CEO and management team taking vacation as needed and clearly separating that vacation time from other types of leave. You get people to take more vacation than they would have and they're not finding that people are just kind of off for an inordinate amount of time. You're starting with a situation where people just don't take enough vacation, they're not as productive at work and that's encouraging people just to take more, as opposed to abusing the system. What kind of vacation policies do you have at your workplace?  

Frankie Wood:  

We don't have a completely unlimited vacation policy, we do have some sort of minimum vacation amounts. But I would agree that often times we find ourselves in different, I'm sure you've heard you've had this too, where we're actually pushing that and saying, look, you need to take your time away. I just had a junior associate who hadn't taken a vacation in a very, very long time. She really needed to take a vacation and I actually had to tell her point blank, it's time for you to take a week off, really take it. And I really, really encourage them to turn off their email notifications while they're away, don't be logging in to the system while you're away. Really, really take that time away. I think it's so, so important. Jennifer and I have learned even for ourselves, that when we go too long without taking a vacation, our own productivity starts to fall off. You start to get stressed, anxious, you're not doing your best work, that applies to us but it applies across the board to all of our stuff and all of our lawyers.  

Frankie Wood:  

We never had anyone really abused vacation, in my experience. If they need to take time off, they should take time off.  

Charlene Theodore:  

So, from your perspective as mothers, drawing on your own experience of raising your children from starting in big law and then kind of leaving to create your own model. Why do you think that your approach to creating a family-friendly workplace works so well? What differences have you seen in your own family lives that wouldn't be able to happen if you weren't in this environment? Maybe Frankie, we'll start with you.  

Frankie Wood:  

Yeah, sure. I think a lot of it comes to being very deliberate. It's one of the things that I've sort of, my mantra, has kind of become over the last several years since Jennifer and I started this firm and that is to, define your own success. I think a lot of people go to law school and they have this idea that you're supposed to work on Bay Street or at a big firm and they have this image of what a law firm looks like and they have an image of what success looks like. But I don't think a lot of people really sit down with their adult selves and say, what do I really want in my life? When I hit 75, 80 and I look backwards, what are the markers that will help me define whether I've had a successful life or not?  

Frankie Wood:  

And I think what Jennifer and I both did was, we sat down with ourselves and also our spouses and other people really important to us in our lives. To say, what does success look like? What do I really want out of my life? And I think when you're really deliberate about that, you start to realize that you have different priorities than maybe you thought that you did. So, for me, one of my biggest joys is, I almost never miss a dinner with my children and my husband. We have dinner together almost every night for the last 13 and a half years. I have had dinner with my family and it's a time for us to catch up with each other, talk to each other. I find out what's happening with my husband at his work, I find out what's happening at school, I find out who had a fight with their friend, all of those kinds of things. And it's such a great moment for us to all connect and I love that I'm able to be there for that and that's just one of the biggest benefits to me.  

Jennifer Gold:  

I agree completely. For me, the most valuable thing is time. And I put more value on that than money because the time we have on this planet is very finite and short. And like Frankie said, when we look back, what are we going to value and appreciate and regret? We value having our cake and eating it too, I guess.  

Charlene Theodore:  

All the cake, for me, all the cake. I got to say, as I've been talking to you guys, I think it was both you Frankie and Jennifer, that said that we sat down with our spouses and the people that were important to us, when we were creating this firm and said, what are our measurements of success? What do we want this to look like? So, of course, when that's the birthplace of this workplace idea, I love to see how that translated into a family-friendly workplace for everyone.  

Charlene Theodore:  

One of the best thing we can do for women and for parents in the workspace is, be able to put tools in place to allow them to define what they want their family lives to look like and how work should revolve around that or interact with that in some ways. Again, it sounds so simple but it is really powerful and it's not something that a lot of people have. But you've mentioned a lot of points that I think are applicable to so many workplaces, even larger workplaces. So, coming from big law, do either of you think that any of the practices you put in place could be applied in different workplace environments, either big law or in-house or in corporate environments?  

Frankie Wood:  

Absolutely. I mean, so many things but let me talk about one that we have really focused on and I think that big laws may be missing out on, although I see improvements there too. But in addition to the family-friendly environment, we've also really focused on trying to attract a diversity of lawyers and so, we have lawyers from a variety of different backgrounds, with different life experiences, with different goals and aspirations for themselves. And when we're able to collect such a group of people who have different ideas, different values, they share the value of great client satisfaction but different family values, all kinds of different perspectives, that really enriches what we're able to deliver to the client because we don't all think exactly the same way. And I've noticed some larger firms are starting, I think, to recognize the merits to that but I think that same with the family-friendly environment, I think by not putting in place some of these ideas, you're excluding a whole range of excellent, excellent, talent who could really improve the product that you can provide to your clients.  

Charlene Theodore:  

Jennifer, can you perhaps name one kind of firm policy or firm practice or hallmark of your firm that's in place working well for you now, that you wish had been in your previous, more traditional law practice environment?  

Jennifer Gold:  

Well the, I guess, traditional law practice environment I came from was one that was predominantly white and male. And as a woman of color, I have to be quite frank that it's a shock, for me at least, when I was entering the legal profession to feel like such an outsider, actually. And it wasn't anything overt but you have a feeling that this is a new environment, you have to negotiate, you have to fit into, you have to conform and that you don't really quite fit in. I think that taking from that experience, at our firm, Wood Gold, we are very conscious of including. And when I talk about including, I'm talking about getting to know everybody, recognizing our shared humanity, our differences as well, not ignoring the differences but illuminating them. For instance, prior to COVID-19, we'd have a potluck a couple of times a year and encourage people to bring food from their culture or whatever they wanted to share with us, even if it was takeout, no one had time to cook and there was such a feeling of sharing and warmth from these things.  

Jennifer Gold:  

And we try to acknowledge everyone's holidays. That's really important to us. And then building an inclusive workplace, it's not just about the diversity training and the statements, the public statements, what I call the lip service. It's really about on the ground, learning how to be comfortable with difference, to be comfortable or to be embrace uncomfortable situations, to learn, to educate yourself, not only from your fellow coworkers but your own personal education, whether it's reading or selfawareness, self-reflection.  

Charlene Theodore:  

Yeah. I think that we're talking about this because it's a family-friendly work environment that you've created and I'm trying to stress family-friendly means, it's not just a great workplace for women, it's a great workplace for parents, so men as well. Thinking back on kind of what we've discussed, it seems to me that your firm would work really well for everyone, whether or not they're planning to start a family. So, someone like myself who has a ton of volunteer commitments, passion projects outside of law or other family relationships. I think what I'm hearing is that, by being a family-friendly workplace, you're more attractive to everyone. I find it hard to see how someone could not find a way to apply some of the principles and tools you've used in building such a successful practice to any legal workplace environment. What I'd like to ask you both is, were there any obstacles along the way? What were some of maybe the learning opportunities, where you tried something, it may not have worked and you had to pivot and try something else?  

Frankie Wood:  

So, we're both chuckling but I think... Here's the thing. It was interesting because I was talking to some of our associates about this this morning. But for many of us, we almost feel that law is a calling, as opposed to just a job. And we feel really passionately about what we do for our clients and helping our clients. Unfortunately, something being a calling can sometimes be the antithesis of business and a real thing that Jennifer and I have to figure out once we've decided that we were going to do this was, figuring out how to run business. We hadn't the faintest idea what we were doing. We had to learn as we went along and there were, I lost track of how many, pitfalls. I think by going back to our core values and being really deliberate about what our motivations were, we did make it through. Just figuring out how to actually run a business and the business side of things continues to be, we have to keep coming back to that and remembering that at the end of the day, we do still have to pay the rent.  

Charlene Theodore:  

Yes, yes, yes. Especially now, in this day and age. What about you, Jennifer, any obstacles or pain points that stand out in your mind?  

Jennifer Gold:  

Just like Frankie said, when you go to law school, you're not learning how to set up a business or gaining leadership skills and those are skills that we've had to acquire along the way.  

Charlene Theodore:  

But what I notice is, none of the challenges that you guys mentioned had anything to do with your core value of what this workplace was about for people in terms of your core value of wanting to provide a place where people can have a successful career and be a deeply engaged parents, as a gauge as they see fit yeah.  

 Frankie Wood:  

No. That's never been the obstacle. And like you pointed out earlier, I mean, a lot of our lawyers are parents but others of them have other, whether it's parents who need their help or other relatives who require care, whatever it is in their lives, that is really, really important to them. The model that we've created allows them to be there for whatever, other, aspects are in their lives, whether it's being a parent or child of elderly parents or whatever the case may be. We've never second guessed that, had to rejig a few little things on the edges but the core, we've never had to pivot from that central core.  

Charlene Theodore:  

Jennifer, you kind of mentioned it directly being a woman of color and a parent and that kind of intersectionality in that traditional white male work environment, wasn't the best place for you. What do you think has been the direct benefit or how does your family centric approach feed into your inclusive practices in terms of hiring practices from a diversity and inclusion perspective?  

Jennifer Gold:  

Well, I think we've taken from our own needs, even for work-life balance around our families and kids. It's sort of the same principle of respecting people's individual needs, with their work needs and work demands. And so, on one hand, we started this firm because Frankie and I both had young children at the time but Frankie and I are pretty down to earth people. And I hope that everyone we work with feels comfortable speaking with us. But Frankie and I started from a position of equality. Frankie is a white woman, I'm a Brown woman, we're not perfect by any means, I think everyone has unconscious bias and prejudices that we need to work through. But Frankie and I have a relationship where we can about those things, where we can call each other out on those things and when it starts with the leadership having that kind of relationship, attitude, I think, like I said earlier, a law can accommodate many different lifestyles and lifestyle choices and needs and competing interests. And so, we practice that across the board, regardless of the person's gender, family needs, sexuality, outside interests, religion, whatever it is.  

Charlene Theodore:  

Jennifer, you have said before that the next generation of lawyers are going to go even further in changing the culture and I think that really, you're part of that pipeline of that next generation who've come up in inclusive environments and then will create and foster and grow their own inclusive environments. What do you wish for tomorrow's leaders? Either what you wish for them or what you wish from them? Frankie, let's start with you.  

Frankie Wood:  

Well, I'm going to say what I wish for tomorrow's leaders because I'm looking at the generation that's coming up and there's so many amazing young people in law now. And I think that we're seeing increasing respect for, when I say inclusivity, it's inclusivity both with respect to sort of race, culture, gender, religion but also inclusivity in terms of family status. And again, the being the parent or having other things that matter to you in your lives. And I think that it's sort of like looking at what you can see. So now, that Jennifer and I have created this firm and we're not the only ones, there are others who are doing this, there are that many more young lawyers who can see this and can see that this model works and that we can provide excellent client services with a different model. And the more people see that and see that it is workable, the more younger lawyers, I think, are going to start to create that for themselves as they come up through the system and or demand it from sort of more institutional employers.  

Frankie Wood:  

So, it's sort of a matter of aspiring to what it is that you can see and so, I hope that we can inspire the younger lawyers who are coming after us to be able to continue expanding on this kind of a model.  

Charlene Theodore:  

The reason why we're having this conversation is, part of our audience, our partners, managing partners, CEOs that employ lawyers and they're listening because they want the template, they want the answers. And I think no matter, what I love about this discussion is, some of the real high points for me and insights for me, I could see applying to a variety of workplaces in law and quite frankly, a variety of workplaces in other industries. And so, you've inspired me, I think you're definitely inspiring others.  

Jennifer, what about you?  

Jennifer Gold:  

I'm currently president of the Women's Law Association of Ontario and how I arrived at that is from a real awareness of greater misogyny in our society, greater vocal racism and how that seemed okay for a lot of people or unimportant. And so, I started to do more work as an advocate and started to meet a lot of young people in our profession who are also speaking out and forming groups and advocating through social media and other means. And I really hope that great momentum and awareness continues because there really needs to be systemic change in our profession, in our legal institutions. I don't know if that is necessarily going to be accomplished in my lifetime, I hope it is. Or at least the next generation will carry that torch and that purpose. It's easy to forget when we get caught up in the needs of day-to-day life and our careers but I think we all have a great responsibility to keep that work going, for not only ourselves but the next generation.  

Charlene Theodore:  

So, I can't say it enough, you've both been a beacon to others with the changes you've introduced with your own practice. And I know it already has inspired others to follow suit and I hope it will continue to do so. Thanks for joining me and thanks for really contributing to this opportunity to learn how to transform our workplaces.  

Frankie Wood:  

I love any opportunity where I get to remind the world how amazing my law partner is.  

Jennifer Gold:  

And you Frankie.  

Charlene Theodore:  

Thank you again, Frankie and Jennifer, what a great conversation. So, what have we learned? As Jennifer and Frankie have emphasized, creating a healthier, more productive practice model begins with reexamining our priorities as lawyers and leaders in legal workplaces. As you take stock of your individual and organizational goals with a view to finding innovative ways to reach them, consider some of the practical and probing questions raised in today's discussion. What does success look like for you, in law  and in life? Your definition may have changed since law school. Chances are, like Jennifer and Frankie, you would like to look back years from now and see both personal and professional rewards. It's likely other lawyers and support staff, those who work for you and with you feel the same. A model that offers flexibility and balance is going to improve retention of dedicated, talented and well-rounded staff, like you and be more appealing to rising stars.  

Charlene Theodore:  

What does success look like for your legal workplace? Client satisfaction is unquestionably paramount. Could you achieve that in more easily, efficiently and consistently by for instance, abandoning a billable hour, that rewards time spent over quality of work? Perhaps illuminating rather than ignoring difference to attract lawyers with diverse backgrounds, perspectives and interests or engaging all staff in discussions about the workplace and developing solutions for clients. Is your workplace implicitly sending the message that face time and fitting into a homogenized culture is the expectation and chief measure of success? If you're relying mainly on billable hours to assess an individual's contribution, are you overlooking innovators or leaders in the making? Is it then discouraging your associates from pursuing rewarding pro bono or limited scope work that enhances access to justice and builds ties with the community?  

Charlene Theodore:  

Could you be doing more? Not only to ensure your team takes their vacation days but to make them feel comfortable and supported in completely unplugging and getting away from work when needed. Knowing they will be covered is key to making sure employees enjoy a break and return more productive and less susceptible to burnout. Is your leadership modeling best practices? Whether it's in promoting equality and inclusion, taking a lot of time off or celebrating difference, are you doing it from the top down?  

Charlene Theodore:  

These are just some of the considerations that will inform your own workplace reinvention. The law is a profession that allows for flexibility and is right for re-imagining. Just let your values be your guide. Now, this is a great discussion but I want to give you more. Let's turn talk into action, check out the Work That Works website for additional resources to go along with this discussion at oba.org/workthatworks. You can find the OBA on Twitter at OBAlawyers and you can find me on Twitter @CharleneYYZ, use the hashtag #WorkThatWorks and let's keep this conversation going.