- Speaker #0
You're listening to Spotlight Aija, a podcast that shines a light on ideas that matter. Hello and welcome to Spotlight Aija. I'm Jonathan Bench, your host. I'm an international transactions attorney based in Salt Lake City, Utah, in the U.S. I'm thrilled to be hosting Spotlight Aija this year, where we are diving deep into attorney mental health. I'm especially thrilled to introduce today's guest, Marco Imperiale, founder and managing director of Better Ipsum. Better Ipsum is a benefit corporation focused on legal design, legal innovation, and legal well-being. Marco has extensive experience in legal design, legal tech, and sustainability. He is also a mindfulness trainer and a longtime advocate of innovation and well-being in the legal profession. Marco is a Bologna University and Harvard Law School graduate. At Harvard, he worked as a visiting researcher and taught the course on legal design at the Graduate School of Design. Marco, welcome. Please tell us a little more about yourself.
- Speaker #1
Thanks for having me here, Jonathan. I mean, I'm... I'm excited this will be a Great session, lots of stuff to speak about, and well-being is an exciting topic. Tech and well-being is an even more exciting topic. Something about me, I mean, I started as a lawyer, then I became a mediator, then I became a head of innovation for one of the leading Italian law firms, then I became an entrepreneur, I started a benefit corporation, which is focused on bringing a human-centric touch, a human-centric approach to the legal world, working with institutions, legal departments, law firms, whether it's legal design, legal well-being, legal operations with a human touch, neurodiversity advocacy. We try to make the law and the legal world better. Not so easy, but at least it's a good ride.
- Speaker #0
And I felt that when we talked initially a couple of days ago, as we were getting to know each other better in anticipation of this episode, I felt this is the kind of person who I would want to be advising me on my legal journey and certainly looking forward to it. And very, very selfishly, I'm looking forward to learning possibly more than... than anyone else who will be listening. So we've got a packed discussion today. We're going to talk about technology's impact on our mental health, setting boundaries and using technology, generational differences in the use of technology, and then finally looking ahead into our legal careers. So let's kick off this discussion with you letting us know how can lawyers, especially young ones, develop a healthy relationship with technology in our 24-7 technology culture?
- Speaker #1
Wow, I wish you could have a good answer. I wish you could have a great answer. But technically, I don't have a good or a great answer. I think that the healthiest way we can develop a relationship with tech tools... as lawyers, legal professionals, trainees, even paralegals, is just limiting the damages. So you know you got to be available for your partner. You know you got to answer your emails. You know you got to be available on TV. Teams, Zoom, Slack, WhatsApp, whatever tools you're using, at least try not to be addicted to these tools outside of the law firm. Try to have half an hour before sleeping without blue lights. Try to wake up in the morning and not looking at your phone. First thing you're doing after waking up, try to use an alarm which is not your phone alarm. If you are in a power shift position or if you can have kind of... of a conversation with a partner, I would suggest also to scheduling deep work sessions, two or three hour session where you can write the act, write a contract, draft the contract, write the article. Not so easy, especially because it's very tempting to go back to emails. It's very tempting to look at your phone and see what's going on, whether it's looking at the news or, you know, checking if someone is searching for me. Because as lawyers, we have this kind of insecurity. We want people to search for us. But at the same time... the more you are into deep work, the more you realize the power of flow, the more you realize the power of focus. And while most of lawyers are very proud of being busy, I think that the next currency in the law firm scenario will be, yes, but... How much are we focused? And that's a very interesting scenario because as lawyers, we are so focused on time, you know, billing the hours, you know, hours that we are working that are not billed, but everything is related to time. And now, maybe because of AI, maybe because the world is changing, we are reflecting about the added value that we are providing to clients. And the added value is directly proportional not to the time we're spending, but to the focus we're on. we are putting on. And if research is telling us that once you lose focus, it takes 25 minutes to go back to a focused mindset, and I'm not speaking about the ADHD professionals, and there are many ADHD professionals, then it's kind of useful we have a problem. How can we be providing the best value to clients if the working scenario is set up for exactly the opposite? You know, this is the kind of topic I could speak for hours about. So if you don't stop me, I'll just go on and on and on.
- Speaker #0
You got me thinking, how long can someone stay hyper-focused? You know, in a work context, as we're in our offices, you know, external, if you can drown out all the external noise and just sit and focus. I wonder how long someone can really stay. I'm just thinking about my own practice. I feel like for me, it may be two hours. In two hours, I can really stay hyper-focused on something and really feel like I put in good effort, and then I have to break it up with something else for myself. That's just how my brain works. I don't know if you've spoken to anyone about this or thought about it much, but the idea of if we're at the office 10, 11, 12 hours a day, how much of that can we reasonably... count as really valuable time? And how much do we, what percentage of that do we need to leave for, you know, for planned interruptions, unplanned interruptions, a little bit of exercise time, taking a walk, just some mindfulness, whatever it takes to reset our brains so we can go back in for a very deep thinking session. Because I feel like all of us want to provide the best value to our clients, which means we want to be as efficient as we can with our time, which means that we're providing the best work in that time. I'm just curious what you think about that.
- Speaker #1
From a research perspective, we can have four or five peak focus hours during a day. So even the concept of selling eight hours a day of build work to the client is kind of unrealistic. I'm not mentioning 10 of 12 hours. You know, if I'm a client and someone is selling me the work of an associate for 10 hours, 12 hours, an M&A transaction scenario, I'm just saying I'm not paying more than eight. No way, because you cannot guarantee me that you are fully. Fully focused. And by the way, research is also telling us that's kind of blurred because there are night owls and early birds. But most of the times, the hours in the morning are the peak hours. In Italy, we say, you know, eat the frog, do the things that you don't like first thing in the morning, because that's where you have the peak of willpower. And going back to your question, how can we track our focus hours? So I think that we... can shift the perspective from concept of willpower to the concept of flow. Flow is a kind of state where all the basic hormones, you know, oxytocin, serotonins, endorphins, you know, the good hormones are at their peak in peak hours, but we lose the cognition of space and time. And we don't do boring stuff, but we do something that is not extremely difficult or technical. It's something in between. and it's a good way of flowing when you don't want to stop. And if you want to promote many flow sessions in many days, the trick is stopping while you are experiencing that because you gotta be willing to have more flow in the next few days. Are you losing the cognition of space and time when you are writing a contract? Are you fully engaged with what you are doing? If the answer is yes, then you are fully in. And then it's the added value for the client. And the scenario we have, you know, which is multitasking and flow is, you know, exactly the contrary of multitasking. Lots of notification, lots of alerts. The brain is in a constant alert mode. Plus, we live in a cognitive load scenario with tons of data, information, numbers, words in our brain. If this is not enough, we have a post-pandemic scenario. And... geopolitical situation that causes us a state of alert. So it's kind of alert and alert and alert and alert and alert, and we need more alert and more alert in order to feel alive. But at the same time, we have the peak of productivity doing exactly the opposite. It's very fun to see how this is evolving, because no one is speaking about that. And the lack of flow and the lack of focus is directly related to depression. to anxiety, to stress disorders, to lack of sleep, problems eating, and lots of wonderful stuff. So I guess we are close to the peak point when we will start discussing with clients, okay, you cannot find me on weekends, full stop. I need a right to disconnect. And this is something that sounds unrealistic for lawyers, mostly because lawyers are not working for companies unless they are in-house counsels, speaking about law firm lawyers. And plus, because they tend to be insecure. And so it's just, if I am not available on the weekend, if I'm not available 7 a.m. in the morning, if I'm not available, you know, midnight, then I'm losing the client.
- Speaker #0
It is. So let's say a young lawyer comes to you and says, I want to... manage my day better. I need help managing the flow. I know I'm going to be at my desk for 10, 11, 12 hours a day. How do I go in and out of this flow to make sure that I'm still using my time well because I have to account for my time without burning out too early in my day or too early in my week or too early in my career?
- Speaker #1
I mean, my scenario is kind of unique because I started a benefit corporation that is fully remote. Basically, everyone is participating to the profits as well. And the fact is that they work according to their own needs and their own rules. And so my question to them is, how can I use you in the best possible way? So I'm just reversing the narrative. You're an early bird. You're a night owl. You know, you got to work according to your moods. Because if I don't use it that way, then it's a lost value for me and my company. So it's a very... software house kind of mentality. So it's way more close to, you know, software house and freelancers than law firm when you got to do this, this and this according to this, this and this. So this is the task. I don't care about how you do it. And maybe, you know, if you do it in an innovative way, you can teach me something. So as long as it's legal and as long as, you know, you're bringing something to the table and just maybe you can develop a good and new way of working. That's great. So I welcome it. But you can say that this is kind of opposite of a very conservative and hierarchy oriented law firm mentality.
- Speaker #0
Sure. I do like the idea of starting with everyone's base personality, base interest, base, all of that together. Understanding where each attorney is coming from and not trying to fit everyone into the same box. I think people go to law school anticipating working pretty long hours. I mean, you have to work. long hours in law school as well. And, but I think that, I think it's helpful for people to understand early on, especially young attorneys, that they are, they are unique and that's great. And then, and then figuring out, like you said, what is the best way for us to help them to provide value in the way that makes the most sense for them. And then everyone, then we're not, we're not adding undue stress by trying to fit everyone into the same box.
- Speaker #1
I mean, it's easier said than done. I mean, some people are born rainmakers, some people are born executors, and somehow, some way, you want to reward both of them. If you have a natural rainmaker, you know, you gotta be a rainmaker. And if you're a natural workhorse for a law firm, you gotta be a workhorse for a law firm. Somehow, some way, I get a balance in terms of remuneration. These two ways, because no one is better. It's just a kind of, you know, personality trait. And paradoxically, this is a way more Western mentality than we think. Because from a Taoist perspective, it's exactly the opposite. So if you're a marathon runner, you got to, you know, learn how to be a sprinter. And if you're a sprinter, you got to learn how to be a marathon runner in order to balance, you know, the two sides of you. So I'm kind of torn and asking myself if this is the best possible way, because from a company perspective, taking the best out of your skills is the best possible way. But from a personality perspective, I don't know. Thinking out loud now. But at the same time, I think that... Every law school student, every paralegal, every legal trainee, every associate, even every partner got to work on himself or herself in order to understand what are my assets, what are my skills. You know, if you put me in a cubicle 12 hours a day, it's my death. Been there, done that, very formative. I don't know if I would suggest to the younger Marco do that. I don't know if I would suggest other trainees. But... I acknowledge the fact that this has been a very useful period for me. But at the same time, I was the one going to law firm and say, okay, how about starting the concept of innovation in Italy? Because I can bring some innovation mentality and the innovation is the etymology perspective. You know, it's coming from Latin and Novare looking at things from a new perspective. So how about bringing something different to the table? It can be tech related, it can be legal design, it can be legal well-being, it can be this, it can be that. But the idea is... do you want to sell yourself as an innovative law firm? You want to use me or not? And there are tons of lawyers all around the world just, you know, wanting to be used, you know, for networking activities, for establishing a young committee, speaking with law firm partners, you know, being involved in initiatives in order to move the law firms forward. So most of the way you got to engage them. And there are some lawyers, young lawyers, that love to be engaged with more tricky, harder legal work. And some lawyers, they want to be engaged in a, how can we develop our relationship with a client in a different way? And how about co-creating with them? And both of them... are absolutely fine. There's no one better. But you cannot think that this is the only way to do because there's this other way to do. Going back to what I was saying before about the methodology. So once again, work on yourself and ask yourself, what kind of path do I need? What kind of master do I need? What kind of law firm? Don't care about, you know, the labels, the revenues here. I would say also don't care about the money too much. I mean, money is useful, but at... especially in the early stages of your career, don't focus too much on money. Money is a consequence. It's not a goal. But find yourself, you know, what are my skills? What is the value that I can bring to society? What is the impact? What is the purpose? Especially because research is telling us that the three I've said, impact, purpose, gratefulness, are directly related to happiness. So how can I be a happy lawyer? First of all, work on yourself and find your purpose. Be grateful for what you have. If you're not in a good scenario, and you have toxic colleagues in toxic environments, you are responsible of your own luck, so change law firm. And then don't be afraid and go for it on, and destiny will reward you. Easier said than done, but it's highly effective.
- Speaker #0
I like that. So let's turn to technology itself. What are some effective apps or tools that you recommend for meditation, sleep, productivity, anything else?
- Speaker #1
I mean, once again, I could speak for hours about it. I can tell what I'm using, Marco. So I am using a VPN to block social media and websites. Otherwise, I'm spending time scrolling because I'm human. And so how about install a VPN on your iPhone? You can use Freedom, pretty basic, not so expensive. It's $20 a year. My favorite one is slightly more expensive. It's Opal, but you have also data. But you can also use apps for... that are tracking the website you're going to or blocking some websites. Be also careful, especially if you're using this kind of apps on law firms'laptops because you can have cybersecurity issues. So I'm speaking about just personal smartphone and personal computers, which is better than nothing. How about, you know, proposing this kind of ideas to law firms and maybe they will find it's pretty effective for them as well. Pretty unlikely, but you never know. In terms of sleep, you can use an Apple Watch or a Fitbit and just track, you know. track your sleep. The first step is not acting. The first step is acknowledging, is being aware of what you're doing. Because maybe you think that you have a great sleep and that is showing exactly the opposite. And vice versa, you think that, you know, your sleep is pretty bad and maybe you are in the 98th percentile of humanity. So you don't know. And in terms of meditation, calm is a very famous app. But maybe because of my mindfulness background, you know, I have a Taoist Qigong Tai Chi background as well. My guess is A, it's better to do meditation without smartphones and apps and find some sweet spots without tech. You know, look at this. This is not a normal agenda. This is what I call a daily tracking. So before going to sleep every day, I just, you know, kind of schedule my own day.
- Speaker #0
So you compare your plan in the morning that you write. on paper in your notebook at the end of the day with what you actually accomplished. Tell me why you do that. I like that.
- Speaker #1
Because most of the times I plan something and everything goes nuts. One of the things that I introduced because of that is what they call buffer hours. So in my outlook, every day I have two buffer hours, which are hours where you potentially maybe do nothing or catch up with old stuff and so on and so forth. So instead of being frustrated because I work two hours more and a lot of things I should have done, I couldn't do, I just plan these two hours every day and that helps me. To me, two hours is a sweet spot. Maybe with my seniority rising, I think that it could level up to three. And three hours out of seven, eight of your work is a lot because it means saying not a lot of things. After a couple of years of doing this, I also started something that is pretty difficult to do if you're a young lawyer. It's, I think, easier if you are an equity partner like you in a law firm or if you are a seasoned in-house counsel with a margin of autonomy. It's introducing a no-meeting day every week at all. So you have meetings four days a week and in four... in four days maybe five if you're working on saturdays you can do lots of stuff But the no meeting day is for research, for articles, you know, more deep work. These are busy things, but I have something more in mind.
- Speaker #0
Well, it's interesting because I have that experience. I haven't planned busy day or planned free days in my schedule. But on the rare time when I look at my calendar for the week and I have nothing, usually toward the end of the week on a Thursday or a Friday. If I see that I have nothing scheduled on a Friday and that I'm just going to be able to come in and. and have a day of focused productivity. For me, that's like taking me to the fair. I love it. And then I'm tempted to block out the time entirely on my schedule and just say, prepare for this or work on this project. For my brain, at least, it seems to provide me quite a bit of mental relief to know that I'm going to have some unstructured time, which really is already... It's already built out. I already know what I'm going to be doing, but at least it's not being beholden to other people.
- Speaker #1
I totally agree. And I believe that somehow, some way, everybody is on rhythm, is on timeline. The first thing to do is, you know, knowing yourself. If you're an early bird, take into account that and do the hardest stuff, you know, first things in the morning. Like me, I'm an early bird. So, you know, writing a contract 8 p.m. at night. Can I do that? Yes. Is it? Best way I could work? No. So the first thing is knowing yourself and the second one is being accountable. So let's get into practice. You were speaking about tools. I use Microsoft ToDo. So I was using Wunderlist before using ToDo. You know, executing tasks is kind of a loophole for lawyers because we will be frustrated. No way we can do everything we would like to do. I read tons of books and do lots of research about execution and productivity and blah, blah, blah. I know that this is not the best because probably the best would be think everything in your Outlook calendar. I have a personal blog. I speak about Zen and the law and blockchain and the sense of life. So there is a blog post about my to-do list as the Hydra of Lerna. You know, the myth from Greek mythology when Heracles was killing the Hydra, you know, cutting the head. but you cut the head and then two heads are coming out. So the only way to kill the Hydra is burning the heads. I told in this blog post what I do. So I have six levels of urgency. And so level one is the things I really, really have to do. And it cannot be more than three a day. Then there are the things it's better I do today. It's level two and it's no more than 10. Then it... It's recurring things, so things I do every day, whether it's checking my emails, going on LinkedIn, structuring my to-do, doing my daily plan, and blah, blah, blah. Then there's a level of things within a week, a month, within the end of the year. And the cherry on the pie is what I call level EP, which is level exposed. So it's the stuff that was not supposed to be in the to-do. but you do after. And looking at what you have done and what you're supposed to do, somehow some way you can track the agenda. You know, I'm a data-driven person. Whether I'm speaking to law firms about their data, whether I'm speaking about my personal development, it's always about data. This is for the tasks and I'm not speaking about habits, which is way better because habits is not what you're executing, but the things you are doing every day of your life. whether it's something you are avoiding or whether it's something you are doing. And choosing the habits and choosing the goals is totally different. I way prefer choosing the habits and consider goals as a consequence. But for our societies, we're better to choosing the goals and considering habits as a consequence. So from my perspective, you structure your behaviors and emotions come as a consequence. While for our society, you go with emotions. And you're expecting them to influence your behavior. And in terms of habits, I use an app called Habitify. But there are tons of habits app. Instead of searching for the best possible app, just try one. Just practice. Don't think about what's the best possible app, what's the best possible to-do list, what's the best possible methodologies. Just know yourself and start. And somehow, someway, you will find your own rhythm. You will find your own methodology. You will find your own way of thinking. And then maybe someone will just say, I like your approach. I could follow it too. That's a way to influence new generations as well.
- Speaker #0
Excellent. Marco, we talked earlier that this episode would probably need to be broken into two parts, and I think we've reached that point. But I want to ask you one more question, and then we will take a break. We will launch the second half of this as another episode, because it is a good inflection point where we're going to transition from general discussion to much more looking at the young lawyers and how young lawyers and lawyers who become partner can manage. each other, help each other with our expectations surrounding technology, surrounding our mental health. It's all tied together. So last question before we part for this episode, how do VPNs or tech restrictions like limiting screen time help avoid doom scrolling or the constant work interruptions? What is the nuts and bolts of how that really works?
- Speaker #1
I can have a press answer and I can have a real answer. So the press answer is you know yourself better and you know where to improve. The real answer is we're just a bunch of addicts. We're just a bunch of gamblers in the casino. We're just basically gambling addicts in Las Vegas with a slot machine. This is how our brain works, and this is what social media emails are doing to us. Every time you scroll some awesome way, you want the dopamine vibe, but this is pretty dangerous. And... influencing the way you want things. So creating some craving, it's good for your brain because our brain was not built to have that amount of dopamine. Our brain is not wired to have hot water in the shower. It's not wired to have sugar whenever you want. It's not wired to have a cab taking you to the law firm. It's not wired for all these comforts. It's not wired for Netflix, you know. 20 years ago, it's just, I want to see the movie, but the movie is not available. And now I can have all the movies of the world. I can have everything and everything and more. And now, boom. But since, you know, you started being an equity partner, have you had two days without smartphone at all? No smartphone.
- Speaker #0
Not a chance. No way.
- Speaker #1
That's the point. So you realize, yeah, I could. Let's try. And so the VPN is the tool showing you, you know, you thought it would have been easier, right? Because you're just, I need it. I need to go to YouTube now. I need it because I need to see the client. This is touching everyone, especially the oldest lawyers, not the youngest ones. So paradoxically, the GNC has a different relationship with smartphones and tech tools, has different relationships with privacy. But for us, you know, 30 plus millennials that lived in an analog world and trying to bring this analog mentality in the digital world, That's the worst possible scenario because we are telling ourselves the world needs me. The world needs me on LinkedIn. The world needs my posts. The world needs my 24-7 availability on emails. The world needs my direct answers to clients. And the world needs my answer to clients. I got you and I will get back to you in one or two days, but I got you. The world needs it. What is the client paying? Is the client paying the trust? Is the client paying the advice? Is the client paying my time? Is the client paying the availability? Most of the times it changes from time to time and from client to client. But this is something a law firm and a lawyer should really reflect on because the way you develop these kind of connections is influencing the relationship we have with clients. And... in a law firm that you have with clients is everything.
- Speaker #0
Thank you so much, Marco, for taking the time to join us today and sharing your valuable insights. I am very much looking forward to part two of our conversation, but for now I will send you off with a hearty thank you and we're looking forward to next time.
- Speaker #1
Thanks to you, Jonathan. Thanks to Aisha. It's been a great conversation. Hope everyone else tuning in would benefit from our chat.
- Speaker #0
You have listened to Spotlight IJA, a podcast produced by IJA for young lawyers across the globe. All episodes will be available on various podcast streaming platforms and on the IJA website. The next episodes will be available soon. Until then, take care and see you next time on Spotlight IJA.
