S05E05 - Building Resilience: Managing Stress in the Legal Profession | SpotlightAIJA

Description

In this episode of Spotlight AIJA, host Jonathan Bench speaks with Agata Perepechko, a business psychologist specialising in resilience and mental health in high-pressure professions. They discuss the impact of stress in the legal profession, the concept of secondary trauma, and the importance of building resilience at both an individual and team level. Agata shares insights on workplace culture, leadership, and strategies to prevent burnout, offering valuable advice for legal professionals navigating demanding careers.

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Transcription

Speaker #0
Hello and welcome to Spotlight IJA, a series by IJA, where we explore the issues shaping the future of the legal profession. I'm Jonathan Bench, your host, based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Today I'm welcoming Agata Perepechko, who is a business psychologist and a coach. Her experience is a combination of clinical psychology and business psychology. Agata uses her unique combination of skills and knowledge to support her clients as... part of her work for Resilient Workforce Limited. Agata, you have an amazing background and I hear that you like people as well. So why don't you give us an introduction to you in your own words about why you do what you do?
Speaker #1
Thank you, Jonathan, and thank you for pronouncing my surname really well. It's not the easiest.
Speaker #0
Well, we worked on it. This is important to me.
Speaker #1
It is, it is. It's really great. Thank you. So yes, I'm a business psychologist, but my first step into psychology was clinical psychology. And the reason why I study Clinical Psychology is because I do like people, but also because I wanted to help. I wanted to help people who are disadvantaged, who are patients with mental health conditions. So when I was working in clinical psychology related roles, what we have noticed is that there were many people who were suffering from the stress or from anxiety, from depression, many of them who were really dedicated to patients. But what was missing is we were not looking at positive correlation with a positive working environment and how we can help to protect their mental health. And this is when I started working with resilience because it's a positive concept. This is almost like an armor, I would say, against stress. But we can talk about it a little bit more.
Speaker #0
Yeah, it's great. I mean, this concept of caring for the caregivers, that makes very good sense to me in my brain. That's how I would think about that is people who are constantly caring for others. always on the front lines. How do we make sure that we're caring adequately for them? And this maps over, of course, very well into the services industry too, because as service providers and the legal profession and others that are providing services, our job is to take those burdens away from people, right? Whether it's on my side, it's a business and legal burden. It may even be a good burden. It's just something that good that's going to happen in their lives, but it is a cause of significant stress. And often clients have never been through that kind of situation before. And so, you know, we take that we want to take as much of that away from the client as possible, as much of the burden, as much of the heavy, heavy lifting the thinking so they can continue to focus on the aspects of their business that they want to. At least that's that's my personal perspective of where it fits in my head.
Speaker #1
Absolutely. And I think when that's a really great link, what you already have done, Jonathan. So thank you for doing that for me.
Speaker #0
Team here.
Speaker #1
Absolutely. When I work with legal professionals, this is exactly how I see it. You guys are giving so much to the clients. You are there to support them, obviously, with legal advice, but also there are, I suppose, many occasions when you are not only supporting with legal advice, but actually you are witnessing and potentially taking on a lot of the emotional stress that the clients are going through. And you can correct me if I'm wrong, Jonathan, but... From my experience, on many occasions when I see lawyers who are stressed or don't understand why they are burned out or why they are depressed or anxious, it's because it's what we call in psychology secondary trauma. This is when we are feeling emotions or when we are feeling the burden of someone else because we were exposed to those feelings. And this is very confusing to our brain because our brain believes that this is our emotion. when actually we took someone else's emotion and it's very difficult for individuals then to unpack it and to understand where is it coming from? Why do I feel so angry? Why do I feel so depressed? Nothing really bad happened to me. I work with people who are depressed or who are going through traumatic experiences, but I don't. So why am I feeling the same way as someone else is feeling?
Speaker #0
I got to think there's two sides to this, this idea of helping someone, you know, working with people who are dealing with trauma and taking it on. I would think that for some of us, it's probably good once in a while, take that burden on. For us, if we don't have those kinds of stressors in our lives, maybe it's a good thing to some degree for us to experience those secondhand. For me anyway, I like a little bit of chaos in my life. I like a little bit of ups and downs because then it gives me the contrast to kind of figure out where I am in the middle of it. I don't know. Am I making things up or does this resonate with anything that you've studied in the past?
Speaker #1
I worked. for many years with humanitarian workers and healthcare workers before I entered clients from legal profession. And what is happening that healthcare workers and humanitarian workers, they are ready to experience those things because it's being talked about. And it obviously depends on the personality and what makes us tick in a way. And from what you are saying, Jonathan, is, you know, you enjoy the chaos, which is... what I actually enjoy as well. So I totally, totally understand. But not everyone is like that. And even if we do enjoy chaos, it doesn't necessarily guarantee that we are going to be able to deal with high levels of consistent stress. Because what's happening to our body is when we are under constant stress, we are in a constant alert state. And that's normal. That's evolution. You think about... A million years ago, when we didn't really have stressors, modern stressors, and the only stressor was the tiger that was coming up for a snack, walking towards us, our body needed to react really quickly. So our nervous system was reacting really quickly, and you might have heard about fight-flight-freeze response. And that's a natural response. Our body is producing adrenaline, the blood is going to big muscles, so to your legs, to your arms. and you've got a narrow vision because you need to focus only on the tiger, you need to really make quick decisions whether you're going to fight it or run away. I'm not sure if freezing would be the best option in that situation. But the problem is that our body did not adapt as we move towards the present times, and our modern tigers are constantly in our vision. That means that our body is in a constant alert state, and that's not healthy, because our body has not been designed in a way that it can cope with the high levels of alert state on a continuous basis. That's physiological as well, because if you think about it, if our blood is being pumped really fast to the big muscles, it needs to go through our heart. And if it needs to go through our heart, that means that our heart is pumping the blood on the really, really high volume of blood, which means that we are at the risk of heart attack. I know I'm saying things that are quite hard.
Speaker #0
It's hard, but it's also so interesting to hear you say it this way, because I've learned, you know, probably from school age about fight or flight. But I've never heard it explained in that way where you said where the blood is being pumped to all of the big muscles in your body simultaneously. Now, I'm an athlete. I think you're an athlete as well. And so the idea that when you're working, even if you're doing a hard cardio workout, your body is often focused on one part of your body. You know, if you're a distance runner, blood's going to be mostly going to your legs, I assume. This is my non-medical legal brain working here. But the idea that all of this blood, you know, the adrenaline blood, everything's being pumped all at once in maximum force throughout your whole body is such an interesting reframing of this fight or flight for me.
Speaker #1
When you are training, it's only for a period of time. I assume that you've got recovery time after your high intense cardio.
Speaker #0
Yeah, I sit at my desk for 14 hours a day. That's how I recover.
Speaker #1
But if you think about the stress, body does not get a break. And that's a challenge because we don't see it in the same way as post-workout recovery or sitting at the desk and not running on the treadmill or outside. We don't really pay attention to it because it's now unfortunately becoming a part of our life. And what I have noticed when I see really, really stressed patients or clients or people who are close to the burnout stage, which is not a nice thing to be experiencing. What I've noticed is that people who are at the burnout stage or just about to get to that stage, they are actually not realising what's happening to them. They are in this, I will use the word chaos, but it's a negative thing in that context. They are in this chaotic environment that they jump from one task to another, from one client to another, without taking a break. They are in this chaotic environment that they jump from one task to another, add more and more pressure to their list or to their bucket and they are unable to hold it. And what's happening is pressure is like a bucket of water. You add drop and drop and drop. And if you have too many drops, it's going to spill. And once it's spilled, this is when I see them, when there is nothing else to be done.
Speaker #0
Then you're constantly spilling. Once your bucket's full and you're still adding water, it's constantly, constantly leaking.
Speaker #1
So that's the concept of resilience. I know that we were supposed to be talking about resilience, but I think it's at the beginning, it's really important to understand how stress and pressure is affecting us.
Speaker #0
No, I love that. Absolutely.
Speaker #1
The concept of resilience, it's not that you're not going to be affected by stress. I mean, that would not be human. But it is about how to make sure that you empty this bucket slowly, that it doesn't overflow. And there are a few things that we need to remember, that there are ways to empty the bucket. that are very helpful. So it could be, you know, it could be exercise, it could be going for a walk, it could be some people like yoga, you know, just your kind of usual things that are coming to your mind. But there are other things that are unhelpful, like alcohol, drug abuse, procrastination. Those things are unhelpful way of loading the water from the bucket. And when we think about resilience, this is about our ability to cope with adversity and learn from it. So every time we go through a challenge or stressful situation, we think about how can we cope with that? What kind of skills, what kind of tools do we need? And then we use them and the next time they are available to us without us having to think about it. But what it does need. It needs time to think about those things. And that's what I see in the legal world that is not something that is available to many of my clients.
Speaker #0
Good. So I want to come back to this point because I first want to ask you what I'm most interested in, which is how does this work across cultures? You're from Poland. You lived in the UK, right? Now you are working in the Middle East. And so I want to hear from you some cross-cultural perspectives on whether this maps completely across cultures and languages and countries or whether... there are nuances that you've discovered now that you've worked in multiple countries?
Speaker #1
So I think we might need to start thinking about what is important to you. So starting from values, I don't have the answer to say it's different from Poland, from UK, from the Middle East. So what I have noticed when I'm working with clients is that individually, what is important is that we live with our values or we're in line with our values. I will use me as an example. because I don't know you, Jonathan, so I'm going to be using customers.
Speaker #0
Don't worry, I overshare all the time. I'll tell you all you want to know, but you start.
Speaker #1
Perfect. So what is really important for me, it sounds quite cliche, but that's why I started studying psychology, is to create a better world, whether it is for my family, for my clients, for the organization, for the community, you know, ideally for the whole world, but, you know, you need to be realistic as well. And realistic expectations is another thing that builds resilience. But what I want to say is that if I will be working in an organization or in a team, that they will do things that are opposite to my value. So they will focus only on profit, for example, and not thinking about a better world for their clients. I will not be able to work in this organization and I will be so stressed. And even if there is a high workload that everyone else can take on, I wouldn't be able to do it because it's not in line with my value. However, if I was working in a hospital and it is really highly stressful working environment, but I know that I create a better world for my patients, for nurses, for doctors, I will be able to put more hours and more work into that. I will be able to tolerate high levels of stress because it's in line with my value. So that's the first thing that we need to remember. For me, when I'm working with the clients from different cultures, it almost doesn't matter about the culture itself from the psychological point of view. What matters for me is what is important for you as an individual. Of course, there is a cultural context that you need to understand. So this is about experiences, this is about exposures and beliefs. But even within the cultures, there are so many different people. So you need to always, as a psychologist, but also as a leader. You need to always understand who are you working with? What is important for them?
Speaker #0
That's great. So would you say that people are people first before, you know, the most basic way to understand is everyone can be understood as an individual within some kind of framework for how you, whatever framework you've been taught or however you perceive the world. It's helpful to start with the person first because there's a person in Poland who has the same outlook on life as I do and the same values as I do. And so it's most important to drill down to that individual level first before you go anywhere else.
Speaker #1
Yes. And there is a danger as well when we think about the cultures, when we are working with individuals, whether you are a psychologist or whether you are a lawyer, whether you are a manager or a partner in the law firm, there is a risk that we are going to assume that someone is believing or behaving in a certain way because they are from a certain country or certain culture or certain religion. And that's unfortunately a lot of the time when I see that people are in organizations, people are highly stressed and not productive is because of the bias that exists. And we all have biases. Don't get me wrong. We all biased in one way or the other. But the problem is that when we start assuming and whatever we assume, we start believing that it is to be true. That's the danger when we start adding the pressure and when we start discriminating, when we start. working against the resilience levels.
Speaker #0
So Agata, we talked a little bit about the individual. Let's turn to the group. What's the difference between developing individual resilience and group resilience?
Speaker #1
That's a really good question. And I'm actually doing my doctorate research on that. So good timing.
Speaker #0
So do we have to wait for six years until you're done before we get the results?
Speaker #1
Yes, probably. But what we have found out is that... when we've got resilient individuals, they are individual factors and organisational factors that are affecting the levels of resilience. However, when we are thinking about the team's resilience, it does not necessarily mean that when you have a group of resilient individuals that the team is going to be resilient. And right now I'm talking in organisational context. So when we've got a team, I assume that we want the team to be successful. Because when we've got a successful team, we've got the high revenue, we've got happy clients, we've got a hopefully happy team, definitely happy partners and leaders. And that's great because teams that are resilient are more likely to be hardworking, motivated, engaged. They are more likely to be productive and they are more likely to dedicate more time to their work. But what really makes a team resilient is, first of all, collaboration and communication. If there is no collaboration and communication within the team, even if individuals are resilient, but they are working in silos, then it doesn't make a team resilient. When you've got a team of resilient individuals and the leader is not putting the team together, is not empowering them, is not bringing them together as a team, that's when team resilience is at risk. So effective leadership is really crucial. But what is the most important, two most important things when you are building teams resilience is, first of all, is trust, that you trust each other. And unfortunately, when I talk to my clients from the legal profession, I hear a lot of the time is that I don't trust my lawyers around me. I don't trust my partner. I don't trust someone who's sitting next to me because they are after my job. Obviously, I only see a portion of the community of legal or legal workforce. But those who are coming to me who are highly stressed or who are facing burnout, this is what they are telling me, that the trust is not there.
Speaker #0
Can I interrupt you for a second?
Speaker #1
Yeah, sure.
Speaker #0
Because I'm thinking about a conversation I had with a friend not too long ago, not a lawyer. And this is a very common saying in the US. I don't know if it is worldwide, but the saying is that money changes people. And so when money is on the line, either for good or for bad, if you're up for a big promotion or... I've heard of lawyers who have also taken credit for, you know, kind of messed with hours. And so they've written down associate hours so they can boost their own hours and increase their income. Is the root of this dysfunction money related always? Or is it come back to the idea that people just, you know, for communication or for individual values, there's just been a disconnect in the team between what matters to the various members of the team. I don't think money is an awful motivator. I think that everybody needs money. We all have to have it to some extent. But what's your perspective on that? Is this money rooted or is it a multifaceted kind of breakdown?
Speaker #1
I don't think it's money rooted, full stop. I think a lot of the time it's about power. And everyone might have slightly different motivators. And we all know, yes, as you said. We all need money to survive. Some people like money more than the others, but usually it's not only the money that is driving this. When we think about your example, when we think about the promotion, someone took someone else's hours and put it into business case to get promoted. What do we think is going to happen to those associates and those who know that's what happened?
Speaker #0
That's the kind of thing that doesn't hide very long in an organization.
Speaker #1
Exactly.
Speaker #0
Even if it's done. in a room at midnight on some day right before the hours are put in for the year.
Speaker #1
Exactly. This is the role of leadership. So one, because it's not hidden for a very long time, and the leader founds out, or partner, whoever is looking into the promotion, what do they do about it? That's the question. I think this is really important part of the conversation in terms of the team's resilience and the organizational resilience is what do leaders do? Do they say, hey, actually, now I see what's happened. We are not going to go ahead with this promotion. Or do they say, hey, that's only once. You know what? You've been working so hard. I'll give you this promotion. So leaders from the top are actually creating the culture a lot of the time by enabling this kind of behavior.
Speaker #0
So interesting, because I haven't focused much on the messaging. I have a good friend who's in industrial HR, and now he's moved to tech. And so we talk a lot about building teams. And I, at least initially, when he was... trying to explain to me what he does. Not that I didn't value what he did, but I just didn't understand. I said, why do we need, why do we need someone who's driving culture within an organization? And I think that the answer that you've taught me now is if we don't, if we don't drive culture, if we don't establish culture on purpose, then all of, all of the pieces, all of the far flung things that we do in the, in the stress times of our days, and sometimes in the good times of our days, that is the culture. And that is the messaging for not developing the culture initially. And we're not sticking to that. and purposely trying to keep ourselves in line with it because we all need to be nudged from time to time, then the culture develops in a very wild way. Kind of like my fruit tree in my front yard that I'm not very good at pruning and just keeps growing and growing in all these random places rather than where I want it to grow, which is keep it short and down low so I can get my pears off of my tree when they're ready to be picked.
Speaker #1
And that's exactly, you use a really important word here, Jonathan, purposefully. If you are putting intention behind creating the culture and you know what kind of culture you would like to create, you're more likely to stick to it. So the first thing is to make sure that you understand what kind of culture you want to have. Because if you want to have the Wolf of Wall Street type of culture, then it's on you. But if you want to have a culture that people feel psychologically safe, and they are able to be themselves and be their best selves, and you as a leader, you will enable them to be their best self, then you will get the beautiful purse. Then you will get the outcomes that you desire and more. Because when people feel that they are valued, when people feel that they are listened to, that they are adding value, that they are respected, when people feel that they are understood, it's more likely that they are going to be putting those extra hours without being affected in a negative way. When we think about statistics, they're quite shocking, actually. And there is a, I looked at the report that came out last year from Bloomberg, and actually more than 50% of... Those who are interviewed in legal industry suffer from some kind of mental health related illness, whether it's depression, anxiety, burnout or post-traumatic stress disorder. And that's shocking because that's a massive, massive chunk of your population. So when you think about it, 50% of your people are not well. 50% of your people are not operating on the high level or on the normal level. And when I look a little bit deeper into it. Just below 50%, 48% of the population is thinking about leaving. So that's half, almost half of your workforce is thinking about leaving.
Speaker #0
50%. Yeah, that's huge.
Speaker #1
So if you are working in an organization that's got 20 people, 10 of them are looking for another job because of stress, because of the culture that is unacceptable.
Speaker #0
And of course, the translation for me is... is the cost in workforce development, not just development, but in replenishing 50% of your workforce every year or every two years. That would be a significant turnover. Even 25% would be a significant turnover that you'd have to deal with. And that is a serious organizational cost if you're dealing with that level of turnover.
Speaker #1
Absolutely. And when I speak to clients who feel that psychology is a little bit fluffy, you know, it's just something nice to have and it's not necessary. I talk about numbers. How much is it going to cost you to replace your worker? And also we need to think about who is out there. What kind of talent do we have? Do we have the talent that is going to be tolerating this kind of stressful working environment? The answer is no, because the new generation is coming and they have different expectations. And that's also always a debate. Do the new generation, do they need to just adapt to the old ways? Or are the old ways in need of... revisiting. So that's the question that I always get asked.
Speaker #0
Well, the right answer is the next generation is much lazier than we are, right? That's always the default. They just don't know how to work hard enough every time.
Speaker #1
This is exactly what the answer is that I'm getting from the clients. But then my question to them is, okay, but who do you have that is going to be working hard? You've got your generation that is working with you now. They are not happy. 50% are thinking about changing jobs. And then you've got new generation. and their expectation is that you are going to respect their health and their well-being because they are more aware of what is important in life for them. I'm not saying that health and well-being is not important for our generation, but what I'm saying is that the younger generation is a little bit more in tune into the all healthy living and looking after their well-being. Because the question is, and again it depends very much on individuals, the question is do you live to work or work to live?
Speaker #0
I like that. Figuring out why you come in the first place. You know, in your instance, it's making the world a better place. I suppose in mine, it's making the world a better place by helping my clients do what they want to do, which is some of them are doing really amazing things in the world. And of course, I have other motivations outside work, you know, family. For me, family, religion. There are a lot of things that I do that fill, I guess, that empty my stress bucket in different ways. Because I can say, you know what, I was able to spend this time. I took the time. I didn't work until 11 p.m. tonight. I took my half an hour and got my five-year-old in bed and read a story with her because she's always begging me to read a story with her. And usually I say I don't have time, which is sad for me as a father to admit, but we're all works in progress, right?
Speaker #1
And that's really important as well, too. What kind of choices do we make? If we are even half happy with our choices, it's more likely that we are going to be more resilient, that we are going to be able to manage those stressors in an effective way, because we intentionally switch off. Even for that half an hour when you're reading a story, hopefully you're not thinking about work too much, because you might be, you know, taking your little one through the journey, through, I don't know, the woods or in the palace.
Speaker #0
Great stories. My wife doesn't like the stories I tell my daughter because she says they're too violent or too crazy. I need to calm them down before bedtime, not get them hyped up. But I think they're great stories. And I'm definitely not thinking about clients.
Speaker #1
Exactly. So even little things like this, even half an hour during the day to take off your mind off work helps. Because this is exactly like after the hardcore training, you need a little bit of recovery time. intentional, I would say is the best.
Speaker #0
So this gets me to a question I always come back to, and you're the perfect one to ask it of when we're looking at a balance of our day and maybe even like the totality of our careers, how do we measure whether we're, we're prepped to, to succeed? Like are we, are we too stressed? I guess maybe, maybe another way to ask this is how much stress is the right amount of stress to have? And maybe the answer you've already taught us is as long as you have your pressure valves, different things that, that matter to you. to empty your stress bucket along the way. Maybe that's what matters more. Instead, it's not a percentage of your day or your career that you say, I was absolutely stressed and busy during this time. It's I made sure each day or each week or each month or each year that I had a few things that helped me empty my stress bucket so that I could continue in this admittedly very stressful career. I assume that most people believe their careers are quite stressful. Because that's what you taught me. See, we can end the episode right now. We are done.
Speaker #1
Absolutely. I don't have to answer because you've answered it, Jonathan, really well. The only thing that I would add is that when we think about stress or pressure, because those ones, for me, they are two different things. Pressure is a positive thing. Pressure is what gets us going. Pressure is what gets me get out of my bed every day. And as we know, I'm a very last minute person. So I need a lot of pressure to actually start doing something. But someone else might need just a little pressure to get out from bed and to start working on a project. So again, it's individual. I can't tell you 80% of your day should be pressure, 20% stress, and then the next day you are relaxing. Everyone has got different ways of working with stress management. But the key is to make sure that you do get the recovery time, that you are able to switch off. It doesn't have to be hours. It could be every two hours, five minutes. Or it could be once a day, half an hour. Everyone is different. The key is self-awareness for the individual resilience. What works for me? What doesn't work for me? From the organizational point of view, as a leader, you need to understand your people. What works for them? And when we think about what builds a resilient workforce is making sure that people are valued, that people know how they work, is being recognized, how they are contributing towards the overall goal of the organization, overall vision. Some people want to develop and want to grow while others are happy in their roles. Again, don't assume that everyone wants to get a promotion. So it's really understanding your team and make sure that you create a culture of trust, collaboration, clear communication, and then you are on the pathway to successfully create a team's resilience. Obviously, there are other things, but those ones are quite basic ones that I would say to every person or every leader out there.
Speaker #0
Excellent. So I have a funny story from my first law firm. We had a room that was, I think we ended up calling it the Zen Den, because it was supposed to be a place where you could go and kind of just be away from other people and relax. But it happened to be next to the men's room. That was the only available room. And so even if you went in there and... and trying to sit and just relax for a minute, you'd have a toilet flushing on the other wall from you with certain regularity. So it was not, it didn't end up being the Zen place that we coveted. So funny, funny instance from my own life. I'm curious now across, you brought this into the law firm context, which has been absolutely great. Is the legal industry different from other industries? Do we think that we're different, our pressure is different or do we think that we're different? does this all map across quite nicely to really any industry, any organization, any industry.
Speaker #1
I know what you would like to hear, that you are different.
Speaker #0
We're special. I know we're special and we work harder than anyone else. The next generation is lazy. We already said that. That's the basic truth we're building from.
Speaker #1
The truth is that each industry is special, but each industry has got different types of pressure. And when you think about the legal profession, there is a... certain type of people, I would say, who are going to the legal profession. I wouldn't know any lawyer or legal professional who would go to the legal profession thinking that he or she is going to work nine to five, four days a week, and that's it. You need to know that there is a special type of personality who's going into those type of professions. The same for doctors, not everyone is going to study medicine. And when you think about the legal profession, Because it is expected to work long hours, because it is expected, I'm not saying everyone, but very often it is expected that you are going to do whatever the client wants you to do or work to the deadlines of the client. There is an expectation that's older, no, older, no, because that means that I'm old, but the current generation is used to it and it's tolerating because that's how we were brought up. The new generation is not going to tolerate it. So something needs to change. Because the new generation is going to bring loads of creativity, loads of different ways of solving the problems. We need to remember that AI is on the horizon. Actually, not even on the horizon. It's there.
Speaker #0
Me too. I woke up and I was old all of a sudden. And I didn't even know it. Someone else had to tell me that.
Speaker #1
Exactly. So there is a different way that the legal profession is going to be utilised, I think. And I can't tell you how, because we are not there yet. But with tools and technology that we've got available, we will need to focus on different qualities of the lawyers. And I think the challenge that the many legal firms will face is that the expectations or current expectations of the workload of the type of person who's entering the legal profession needs to change. because the new lawyers will be amazing, I have no doubt, but they will have different ways of working. And if we are not adaptable, and if we don't start changing the working cultures now, we are going to lose the best talent. The best talent is going to go to another firm that is going to provide whatever it is that is needed for the younger generation.
Speaker #0
Agata, I think we could talk much longer, and certainly I could do... an episode or two about how I see AI changing the legal profession. I've been working on this for well over a year. I have a lot of friends in the space. And I think you're right. I think that in terms of quality of life, like for instance, right now, I'm in the two weeks into an eight-week course on some AI automation software that a friend of mine built. And it is, I can tell for me personally, it's going to be life-changing because I'm learning how to automate the things in my life that I can't build for. or that don't factor into a client bill necessarily. And there are a lot of ramifications for that. I can see the runway out ahead. I'm very excited about it. It means a lot of extra work right now for me to learn the technology and learn the processes for myself. And I think each individual is going to have to go through that. But I think there are definitely some efficiencies that we'll be able to capture in our personal lives and our professional lives, which will go nicely into our professional life. It's all going to be affected in the best ways if we can figure out the right way for ourselves. Howdy. how to use the technology to work for the things that are important to us. And I think ultimately we're going to have a little more free time than we do now, which I'm very excited about because I don't have a lot of free time right now.
Speaker #1
And that's great news. And I think this is really important that we think about how our culture, working culture, is going to need to adapt. And we are putting a, it's a little bit of an advert here, we are putting a program with Asia, we are putting program Agents of Change.
Speaker #0
that is going to do just that with with lawyers and with legal profession so watch this space that's wonderful akita this has been so much fun uh you're a kindred spirit for sure we both thrive in the chaos we both want to make the world a better place it's been very fun to have
Speaker #1
this time with you i hope that i can make it to the middle east and and say hello in person please do and thank you so much i'm very passionate about this subject so thanks for bringing it to the attention of legal profession
Speaker #0
Absolutely. That's it for today's episode, but stay tuned. The next episodes will be available soon. Until then, take care and see you next time on Spotlight Asia.

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Transcription

Speaker #0
Hello and welcome to Spotlight IJA, a series by IJA, where we explore the issues shaping the future of the legal profession. I'm Jonathan Bench, your host, based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Today I'm welcoming Agata Perepechko, who is a business psychologist and a coach. Her experience is a combination of clinical psychology and business psychology. Agata uses her unique combination of skills and knowledge to support her clients as... part of her work for Resilient Workforce Limited. Agata, you have an amazing background and I hear that you like people as well. So why don't you give us an introduction to you in your own words about why you do what you do?
Speaker #1
Thank you, Jonathan, and thank you for pronouncing my surname really well. It's not the easiest.
Speaker #0
Well, we worked on it. This is important to me.
Speaker #1
It is, it is. It's really great. Thank you. So yes, I'm a business psychologist, but my first step into psychology was clinical psychology. And the reason why I study Clinical Psychology is because I do like people, but also because I wanted to help. I wanted to help people who are disadvantaged, who are patients with mental health conditions. So when I was working in clinical psychology related roles, what we have noticed is that there were many people who were suffering from the stress or from anxiety, from depression, many of them who were really dedicated to patients. But what was missing is we were not looking at positive correlation with a positive working environment and how we can help to protect their mental health. And this is when I started working with resilience because it's a positive concept. This is almost like an armor, I would say, against stress. But we can talk about it a little bit more.
Speaker #0
Yeah, it's great. I mean, this concept of caring for the caregivers, that makes very good sense to me in my brain. That's how I would think about that is people who are constantly caring for others. always on the front lines. How do we make sure that we're caring adequately for them? And this maps over, of course, very well into the services industry too, because as service providers and the legal profession and others that are providing services, our job is to take those burdens away from people, right? Whether it's on my side, it's a business and legal burden. It may even be a good burden. It's just something that good that's going to happen in their lives, but it is a cause of significant stress. And often clients have never been through that kind of situation before. And so, you know, we take that we want to take as much of that away from the client as possible, as much of the burden, as much of the heavy, heavy lifting the thinking so they can continue to focus on the aspects of their business that they want to. At least that's that's my personal perspective of where it fits in my head.
Speaker #1
Absolutely. And I think when that's a really great link, what you already have done, Jonathan. So thank you for doing that for me.
Speaker #0
Team here.
Speaker #1
Absolutely. When I work with legal professionals, this is exactly how I see it. You guys are giving so much to the clients. You are there to support them, obviously, with legal advice, but also there are, I suppose, many occasions when you are not only supporting with legal advice, but actually you are witnessing and potentially taking on a lot of the emotional stress that the clients are going through. And you can correct me if I'm wrong, Jonathan, but... From my experience, on many occasions when I see lawyers who are stressed or don't understand why they are burned out or why they are depressed or anxious, it's because it's what we call in psychology secondary trauma. This is when we are feeling emotions or when we are feeling the burden of someone else because we were exposed to those feelings. And this is very confusing to our brain because our brain believes that this is our emotion. when actually we took someone else's emotion and it's very difficult for individuals then to unpack it and to understand where is it coming from? Why do I feel so angry? Why do I feel so depressed? Nothing really bad happened to me. I work with people who are depressed or who are going through traumatic experiences, but I don't. So why am I feeling the same way as someone else is feeling?
Speaker #0
I got to think there's two sides to this, this idea of helping someone, you know, working with people who are dealing with trauma and taking it on. I would think that for some of us, it's probably good once in a while, take that burden on. For us, if we don't have those kinds of stressors in our lives, maybe it's a good thing to some degree for us to experience those secondhand. For me anyway, I like a little bit of chaos in my life. I like a little bit of ups and downs because then it gives me the contrast to kind of figure out where I am in the middle of it. I don't know. Am I making things up or does this resonate with anything that you've studied in the past?
Speaker #1
I worked. for many years with humanitarian workers and healthcare workers before I entered clients from legal profession. And what is happening that healthcare workers and humanitarian workers, they are ready to experience those things because it's being talked about. And it obviously depends on the personality and what makes us tick in a way. And from what you are saying, Jonathan, is, you know, you enjoy the chaos, which is... what I actually enjoy as well. So I totally, totally understand. But not everyone is like that. And even if we do enjoy chaos, it doesn't necessarily guarantee that we are going to be able to deal with high levels of consistent stress. Because what's happening to our body is when we are under constant stress, we are in a constant alert state. And that's normal. That's evolution. You think about... A million years ago, when we didn't really have stressors, modern stressors, and the only stressor was the tiger that was coming up for a snack, walking towards us, our body needed to react really quickly. So our nervous system was reacting really quickly, and you might have heard about fight-flight-freeze response. And that's a natural response. Our body is producing adrenaline, the blood is going to big muscles, so to your legs, to your arms. and you've got a narrow vision because you need to focus only on the tiger, you need to really make quick decisions whether you're going to fight it or run away. I'm not sure if freezing would be the best option in that situation. But the problem is that our body did not adapt as we move towards the present times, and our modern tigers are constantly in our vision. That means that our body is in a constant alert state, and that's not healthy, because our body has not been designed in a way that it can cope with the high levels of alert state on a continuous basis. That's physiological as well, because if you think about it, if our blood is being pumped really fast to the big muscles, it needs to go through our heart. And if it needs to go through our heart, that means that our heart is pumping the blood on the really, really high volume of blood, which means that we are at the risk of heart attack. I know I'm saying things that are quite hard.
Speaker #0
It's hard, but it's also so interesting to hear you say it this way, because I've learned, you know, probably from school age about fight or flight. But I've never heard it explained in that way where you said where the blood is being pumped to all of the big muscles in your body simultaneously. Now, I'm an athlete. I think you're an athlete as well. And so the idea that when you're working, even if you're doing a hard cardio workout, your body is often focused on one part of your body. You know, if you're a distance runner, blood's going to be mostly going to your legs, I assume. This is my non-medical legal brain working here. But the idea that all of this blood, you know, the adrenaline blood, everything's being pumped all at once in maximum force throughout your whole body is such an interesting reframing of this fight or flight for me.
Speaker #1
When you are training, it's only for a period of time. I assume that you've got recovery time after your high intense cardio.
Speaker #0
Yeah, I sit at my desk for 14 hours a day. That's how I recover.
Speaker #1
But if you think about the stress, body does not get a break. And that's a challenge because we don't see it in the same way as post-workout recovery or sitting at the desk and not running on the treadmill or outside. We don't really pay attention to it because it's now unfortunately becoming a part of our life. And what I have noticed when I see really, really stressed patients or clients or people who are close to the burnout stage, which is not a nice thing to be experiencing. What I've noticed is that people who are at the burnout stage or just about to get to that stage, they are actually not realising what's happening to them. They are in this, I will use the word chaos, but it's a negative thing in that context. They are in this chaotic environment that they jump from one task to another, from one client to another, without taking a break. They are in this chaotic environment that they jump from one task to another, add more and more pressure to their list or to their bucket and they are unable to hold it. And what's happening is pressure is like a bucket of water. You add drop and drop and drop. And if you have too many drops, it's going to spill. And once it's spilled, this is when I see them, when there is nothing else to be done.
Speaker #0
Then you're constantly spilling. Once your bucket's full and you're still adding water, it's constantly, constantly leaking.
Speaker #1
So that's the concept of resilience. I know that we were supposed to be talking about resilience, but I think it's at the beginning, it's really important to understand how stress and pressure is affecting us.
Speaker #0
No, I love that. Absolutely.
Speaker #1
The concept of resilience, it's not that you're not going to be affected by stress. I mean, that would not be human. But it is about how to make sure that you empty this bucket slowly, that it doesn't overflow. And there are a few things that we need to remember, that there are ways to empty the bucket. that are very helpful. So it could be, you know, it could be exercise, it could be going for a walk, it could be some people like yoga, you know, just your kind of usual things that are coming to your mind. But there are other things that are unhelpful, like alcohol, drug abuse, procrastination. Those things are unhelpful way of loading the water from the bucket. And when we think about resilience, this is about our ability to cope with adversity and learn from it. So every time we go through a challenge or stressful situation, we think about how can we cope with that? What kind of skills, what kind of tools do we need? And then we use them and the next time they are available to us without us having to think about it. But what it does need. It needs time to think about those things. And that's what I see in the legal world that is not something that is available to many of my clients.
Speaker #0
Good. So I want to come back to this point because I first want to ask you what I'm most interested in, which is how does this work across cultures? You're from Poland. You lived in the UK, right? Now you are working in the Middle East. And so I want to hear from you some cross-cultural perspectives on whether this maps completely across cultures and languages and countries or whether... there are nuances that you've discovered now that you've worked in multiple countries?
Speaker #1
So I think we might need to start thinking about what is important to you. So starting from values, I don't have the answer to say it's different from Poland, from UK, from the Middle East. So what I have noticed when I'm working with clients is that individually, what is important is that we live with our values or we're in line with our values. I will use me as an example. because I don't know you, Jonathan, so I'm going to be using customers.
Speaker #0
Don't worry, I overshare all the time. I'll tell you all you want to know, but you start.
Speaker #1
Perfect. So what is really important for me, it sounds quite cliche, but that's why I started studying psychology, is to create a better world, whether it is for my family, for my clients, for the organization, for the community, you know, ideally for the whole world, but, you know, you need to be realistic as well. And realistic expectations is another thing that builds resilience. But what I want to say is that if I will be working in an organization or in a team, that they will do things that are opposite to my value. So they will focus only on profit, for example, and not thinking about a better world for their clients. I will not be able to work in this organization and I will be so stressed. And even if there is a high workload that everyone else can take on, I wouldn't be able to do it because it's not in line with my value. However, if I was working in a hospital and it is really highly stressful working environment, but I know that I create a better world for my patients, for nurses, for doctors, I will be able to put more hours and more work into that. I will be able to tolerate high levels of stress because it's in line with my value. So that's the first thing that we need to remember. For me, when I'm working with the clients from different cultures, it almost doesn't matter about the culture itself from the psychological point of view. What matters for me is what is important for you as an individual. Of course, there is a cultural context that you need to understand. So this is about experiences, this is about exposures and beliefs. But even within the cultures, there are so many different people. So you need to always, as a psychologist, but also as a leader. You need to always understand who are you working with? What is important for them?
Speaker #0
That's great. So would you say that people are people first before, you know, the most basic way to understand is everyone can be understood as an individual within some kind of framework for how you, whatever framework you've been taught or however you perceive the world. It's helpful to start with the person first because there's a person in Poland who has the same outlook on life as I do and the same values as I do. And so it's most important to drill down to that individual level first before you go anywhere else.
Speaker #1
Yes. And there is a danger as well when we think about the cultures, when we are working with individuals, whether you are a psychologist or whether you are a lawyer, whether you are a manager or a partner in the law firm, there is a risk that we are going to assume that someone is believing or behaving in a certain way because they are from a certain country or certain culture or certain religion. And that's unfortunately a lot of the time when I see that people are in organizations, people are highly stressed and not productive is because of the bias that exists. And we all have biases. Don't get me wrong. We all biased in one way or the other. But the problem is that when we start assuming and whatever we assume, we start believing that it is to be true. That's the danger when we start adding the pressure and when we start discriminating, when we start. working against the resilience levels.
Speaker #0
So Agata, we talked a little bit about the individual. Let's turn to the group. What's the difference between developing individual resilience and group resilience?
Speaker #1
That's a really good question. And I'm actually doing my doctorate research on that. So good timing.
Speaker #0
So do we have to wait for six years until you're done before we get the results?
Speaker #1
Yes, probably. But what we have found out is that... when we've got resilient individuals, they are individual factors and organisational factors that are affecting the levels of resilience. However, when we are thinking about the team's resilience, it does not necessarily mean that when you have a group of resilient individuals that the team is going to be resilient. And right now I'm talking in organisational context. So when we've got a team, I assume that we want the team to be successful. Because when we've got a successful team, we've got the high revenue, we've got happy clients, we've got a hopefully happy team, definitely happy partners and leaders. And that's great because teams that are resilient are more likely to be hardworking, motivated, engaged. They are more likely to be productive and they are more likely to dedicate more time to their work. But what really makes a team resilient is, first of all, collaboration and communication. If there is no collaboration and communication within the team, even if individuals are resilient, but they are working in silos, then it doesn't make a team resilient. When you've got a team of resilient individuals and the leader is not putting the team together, is not empowering them, is not bringing them together as a team, that's when team resilience is at risk. So effective leadership is really crucial. But what is the most important, two most important things when you are building teams resilience is, first of all, is trust, that you trust each other. And unfortunately, when I talk to my clients from the legal profession, I hear a lot of the time is that I don't trust my lawyers around me. I don't trust my partner. I don't trust someone who's sitting next to me because they are after my job. Obviously, I only see a portion of the community of legal or legal workforce. But those who are coming to me who are highly stressed or who are facing burnout, this is what they are telling me, that the trust is not there.
Speaker #0
Can I interrupt you for a second?
Speaker #1
Yeah, sure.
Speaker #0
Because I'm thinking about a conversation I had with a friend not too long ago, not a lawyer. And this is a very common saying in the US. I don't know if it is worldwide, but the saying is that money changes people. And so when money is on the line, either for good or for bad, if you're up for a big promotion or... I've heard of lawyers who have also taken credit for, you know, kind of messed with hours. And so they've written down associate hours so they can boost their own hours and increase their income. Is the root of this dysfunction money related always? Or is it come back to the idea that people just, you know, for communication or for individual values, there's just been a disconnect in the team between what matters to the various members of the team. I don't think money is an awful motivator. I think that everybody needs money. We all have to have it to some extent. But what's your perspective on that? Is this money rooted or is it a multifaceted kind of breakdown?
Speaker #1
I don't think it's money rooted, full stop. I think a lot of the time it's about power. And everyone might have slightly different motivators. And we all know, yes, as you said. We all need money to survive. Some people like money more than the others, but usually it's not only the money that is driving this. When we think about your example, when we think about the promotion, someone took someone else's hours and put it into business case to get promoted. What do we think is going to happen to those associates and those who know that's what happened?
Speaker #0
That's the kind of thing that doesn't hide very long in an organization.
Speaker #1
Exactly.
Speaker #0
Even if it's done. in a room at midnight on some day right before the hours are put in for the year.
Speaker #1
Exactly. This is the role of leadership. So one, because it's not hidden for a very long time, and the leader founds out, or partner, whoever is looking into the promotion, what do they do about it? That's the question. I think this is really important part of the conversation in terms of the team's resilience and the organizational resilience is what do leaders do? Do they say, hey, actually, now I see what's happened. We are not going to go ahead with this promotion. Or do they say, hey, that's only once. You know what? You've been working so hard. I'll give you this promotion. So leaders from the top are actually creating the culture a lot of the time by enabling this kind of behavior.
Speaker #0
So interesting, because I haven't focused much on the messaging. I have a good friend who's in industrial HR, and now he's moved to tech. And so we talk a lot about building teams. And I, at least initially, when he was... trying to explain to me what he does. Not that I didn't value what he did, but I just didn't understand. I said, why do we need, why do we need someone who's driving culture within an organization? And I think that the answer that you've taught me now is if we don't, if we don't drive culture, if we don't establish culture on purpose, then all of, all of the pieces, all of the far flung things that we do in the, in the stress times of our days, and sometimes in the good times of our days, that is the culture. And that is the messaging for not developing the culture initially. And we're not sticking to that. and purposely trying to keep ourselves in line with it because we all need to be nudged from time to time, then the culture develops in a very wild way. Kind of like my fruit tree in my front yard that I'm not very good at pruning and just keeps growing and growing in all these random places rather than where I want it to grow, which is keep it short and down low so I can get my pears off of my tree when they're ready to be picked.
Speaker #1
And that's exactly, you use a really important word here, Jonathan, purposefully. If you are putting intention behind creating the culture and you know what kind of culture you would like to create, you're more likely to stick to it. So the first thing is to make sure that you understand what kind of culture you want to have. Because if you want to have the Wolf of Wall Street type of culture, then it's on you. But if you want to have a culture that people feel psychologically safe, and they are able to be themselves and be their best selves, and you as a leader, you will enable them to be their best self, then you will get the beautiful purse. Then you will get the outcomes that you desire and more. Because when people feel that they are valued, when people feel that they are listened to, that they are adding value, that they are respected, when people feel that they are understood, it's more likely that they are going to be putting those extra hours without being affected in a negative way. When we think about statistics, they're quite shocking, actually. And there is a, I looked at the report that came out last year from Bloomberg, and actually more than 50% of... Those who are interviewed in legal industry suffer from some kind of mental health related illness, whether it's depression, anxiety, burnout or post-traumatic stress disorder. And that's shocking because that's a massive, massive chunk of your population. So when you think about it, 50% of your people are not well. 50% of your people are not operating on the high level or on the normal level. And when I look a little bit deeper into it. Just below 50%, 48% of the population is thinking about leaving. So that's half, almost half of your workforce is thinking about leaving.
Speaker #0
50%. Yeah, that's huge.
Speaker #1
So if you are working in an organization that's got 20 people, 10 of them are looking for another job because of stress, because of the culture that is unacceptable.
Speaker #0
And of course, the translation for me is... is the cost in workforce development, not just development, but in replenishing 50% of your workforce every year or every two years. That would be a significant turnover. Even 25% would be a significant turnover that you'd have to deal with. And that is a serious organizational cost if you're dealing with that level of turnover.
Speaker #1
Absolutely. And when I speak to clients who feel that psychology is a little bit fluffy, you know, it's just something nice to have and it's not necessary. I talk about numbers. How much is it going to cost you to replace your worker? And also we need to think about who is out there. What kind of talent do we have? Do we have the talent that is going to be tolerating this kind of stressful working environment? The answer is no, because the new generation is coming and they have different expectations. And that's also always a debate. Do the new generation, do they need to just adapt to the old ways? Or are the old ways in need of... revisiting. So that's the question that I always get asked.
Speaker #0
Well, the right answer is the next generation is much lazier than we are, right? That's always the default. They just don't know how to work hard enough every time.
Speaker #1
This is exactly what the answer is that I'm getting from the clients. But then my question to them is, okay, but who do you have that is going to be working hard? You've got your generation that is working with you now. They are not happy. 50% are thinking about changing jobs. And then you've got new generation. and their expectation is that you are going to respect their health and their well-being because they are more aware of what is important in life for them. I'm not saying that health and well-being is not important for our generation, but what I'm saying is that the younger generation is a little bit more in tune into the all healthy living and looking after their well-being. Because the question is, and again it depends very much on individuals, the question is do you live to work or work to live?
Speaker #0
I like that. Figuring out why you come in the first place. You know, in your instance, it's making the world a better place. I suppose in mine, it's making the world a better place by helping my clients do what they want to do, which is some of them are doing really amazing things in the world. And of course, I have other motivations outside work, you know, family. For me, family, religion. There are a lot of things that I do that fill, I guess, that empty my stress bucket in different ways. Because I can say, you know what, I was able to spend this time. I took the time. I didn't work until 11 p.m. tonight. I took my half an hour and got my five-year-old in bed and read a story with her because she's always begging me to read a story with her. And usually I say I don't have time, which is sad for me as a father to admit, but we're all works in progress, right?
Speaker #1
And that's really important as well, too. What kind of choices do we make? If we are even half happy with our choices, it's more likely that we are going to be more resilient, that we are going to be able to manage those stressors in an effective way, because we intentionally switch off. Even for that half an hour when you're reading a story, hopefully you're not thinking about work too much, because you might be, you know, taking your little one through the journey, through, I don't know, the woods or in the palace.
Speaker #0
Great stories. My wife doesn't like the stories I tell my daughter because she says they're too violent or too crazy. I need to calm them down before bedtime, not get them hyped up. But I think they're great stories. And I'm definitely not thinking about clients.
Speaker #1
Exactly. So even little things like this, even half an hour during the day to take off your mind off work helps. Because this is exactly like after the hardcore training, you need a little bit of recovery time. intentional, I would say is the best.
Speaker #0
So this gets me to a question I always come back to, and you're the perfect one to ask it of when we're looking at a balance of our day and maybe even like the totality of our careers, how do we measure whether we're, we're prepped to, to succeed? Like are we, are we too stressed? I guess maybe, maybe another way to ask this is how much stress is the right amount of stress to have? And maybe the answer you've already taught us is as long as you have your pressure valves, different things that, that matter to you. to empty your stress bucket along the way. Maybe that's what matters more. Instead, it's not a percentage of your day or your career that you say, I was absolutely stressed and busy during this time. It's I made sure each day or each week or each month or each year that I had a few things that helped me empty my stress bucket so that I could continue in this admittedly very stressful career. I assume that most people believe their careers are quite stressful. Because that's what you taught me. See, we can end the episode right now. We are done.
Speaker #1
Absolutely. I don't have to answer because you've answered it, Jonathan, really well. The only thing that I would add is that when we think about stress or pressure, because those ones, for me, they are two different things. Pressure is a positive thing. Pressure is what gets us going. Pressure is what gets me get out of my bed every day. And as we know, I'm a very last minute person. So I need a lot of pressure to actually start doing something. But someone else might need just a little pressure to get out from bed and to start working on a project. So again, it's individual. I can't tell you 80% of your day should be pressure, 20% stress, and then the next day you are relaxing. Everyone has got different ways of working with stress management. But the key is to make sure that you do get the recovery time, that you are able to switch off. It doesn't have to be hours. It could be every two hours, five minutes. Or it could be once a day, half an hour. Everyone is different. The key is self-awareness for the individual resilience. What works for me? What doesn't work for me? From the organizational point of view, as a leader, you need to understand your people. What works for them? And when we think about what builds a resilient workforce is making sure that people are valued, that people know how they work, is being recognized, how they are contributing towards the overall goal of the organization, overall vision. Some people want to develop and want to grow while others are happy in their roles. Again, don't assume that everyone wants to get a promotion. So it's really understanding your team and make sure that you create a culture of trust, collaboration, clear communication, and then you are on the pathway to successfully create a team's resilience. Obviously, there are other things, but those ones are quite basic ones that I would say to every person or every leader out there.
Speaker #0
Excellent. So I have a funny story from my first law firm. We had a room that was, I think we ended up calling it the Zen Den, because it was supposed to be a place where you could go and kind of just be away from other people and relax. But it happened to be next to the men's room. That was the only available room. And so even if you went in there and... and trying to sit and just relax for a minute, you'd have a toilet flushing on the other wall from you with certain regularity. So it was not, it didn't end up being the Zen place that we coveted. So funny, funny instance from my own life. I'm curious now across, you brought this into the law firm context, which has been absolutely great. Is the legal industry different from other industries? Do we think that we're different, our pressure is different or do we think that we're different? does this all map across quite nicely to really any industry, any organization, any industry.
Speaker #1
I know what you would like to hear, that you are different.
Speaker #0
We're special. I know we're special and we work harder than anyone else. The next generation is lazy. We already said that. That's the basic truth we're building from.
Speaker #1
The truth is that each industry is special, but each industry has got different types of pressure. And when you think about the legal profession, there is a... certain type of people, I would say, who are going to the legal profession. I wouldn't know any lawyer or legal professional who would go to the legal profession thinking that he or she is going to work nine to five, four days a week, and that's it. You need to know that there is a special type of personality who's going into those type of professions. The same for doctors, not everyone is going to study medicine. And when you think about the legal profession, Because it is expected to work long hours, because it is expected, I'm not saying everyone, but very often it is expected that you are going to do whatever the client wants you to do or work to the deadlines of the client. There is an expectation that's older, no, older, no, because that means that I'm old, but the current generation is used to it and it's tolerating because that's how we were brought up. The new generation is not going to tolerate it. So something needs to change. Because the new generation is going to bring loads of creativity, loads of different ways of solving the problems. We need to remember that AI is on the horizon. Actually, not even on the horizon. It's there.
Speaker #0
Me too. I woke up and I was old all of a sudden. And I didn't even know it. Someone else had to tell me that.
Speaker #1
Exactly. So there is a different way that the legal profession is going to be utilised, I think. And I can't tell you how, because we are not there yet. But with tools and technology that we've got available, we will need to focus on different qualities of the lawyers. And I think the challenge that the many legal firms will face is that the expectations or current expectations of the workload of the type of person who's entering the legal profession needs to change. because the new lawyers will be amazing, I have no doubt, but they will have different ways of working. And if we are not adaptable, and if we don't start changing the working cultures now, we are going to lose the best talent. The best talent is going to go to another firm that is going to provide whatever it is that is needed for the younger generation.
Speaker #0
Agata, I think we could talk much longer, and certainly I could do... an episode or two about how I see AI changing the legal profession. I've been working on this for well over a year. I have a lot of friends in the space. And I think you're right. I think that in terms of quality of life, like for instance, right now, I'm in the two weeks into an eight-week course on some AI automation software that a friend of mine built. And it is, I can tell for me personally, it's going to be life-changing because I'm learning how to automate the things in my life that I can't build for. or that don't factor into a client bill necessarily. And there are a lot of ramifications for that. I can see the runway out ahead. I'm very excited about it. It means a lot of extra work right now for me to learn the technology and learn the processes for myself. And I think each individual is going to have to go through that. But I think there are definitely some efficiencies that we'll be able to capture in our personal lives and our professional lives, which will go nicely into our professional life. It's all going to be affected in the best ways if we can figure out the right way for ourselves. Howdy. how to use the technology to work for the things that are important to us. And I think ultimately we're going to have a little more free time than we do now, which I'm very excited about because I don't have a lot of free time right now.
Speaker #1
And that's great news. And I think this is really important that we think about how our culture, working culture, is going to need to adapt. And we are putting a, it's a little bit of an advert here, we are putting a program with Asia, we are putting program Agents of Change.
Speaker #0
that is going to do just that with with lawyers and with legal profession so watch this space that's wonderful akita this has been so much fun uh you're a kindred spirit for sure we both thrive in the chaos we both want to make the world a better place it's been very fun to have
Speaker #1
this time with you i hope that i can make it to the middle east and and say hello in person please do and thank you so much i'm very passionate about this subject so thanks for bringing it to the attention of legal profession
Speaker #0
Absolutely. That's it for today's episode, but stay tuned. The next episodes will be available soon. Until then, take care and see you next time on Spotlight Asia.

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