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TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS
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[00:00] SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Candidus Podcast.
[00:06] SPEAKER_00: So, Ramesh, welcome to Candidus Podcast.
[00:09] SPEAKER_00: And as I normally do, you know, we're here in Toronto and it's going to be 20 degrees tomorrow,
[00:15] SPEAKER_00: but you were telling me it's going to be snowing right next week.
[00:19] SPEAKER_00: So it's spring, so what's new.
[00:21] SPEAKER_00: But, you know, tell us a little bit about yourself, you know, what you do,
[00:26] SPEAKER_00: why you're here on our entrepreneurial podcast.
[00:32] SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much, Philipp.
[00:34] SPEAKER_01: And again, thanks for the pleasure of being on, I'm honored.
[00:38] SPEAKER_01: So, as my name is Ramesh, I'm a commercial lawyer at B&L League Council,
[00:43] SPEAKER_01: which is a small law firm in Tobacco and the West Toronto.
[00:47] SPEAKER_01: And I'm here because I think that we as lawyers can do so much more when it comes to our entrepreneurs
[00:54] SPEAKER_01: and to our small businesses.
[00:57] SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that I want to talk about is how do small businesses and entrepreneurs use lawyers effectively
[01:06] SPEAKER_01: as they build really successful and adaptable businesses for this digital era?
[01:12] SPEAKER_00: Yeah. Well, we'll come to that.
[01:15] SPEAKER_00: But the first thing is, you know, you know, I think lawyers are somewhat entrepreneurial in essentially
[01:23] SPEAKER_00: generally moving to partnerships even if they're even if they're in, you know, the big 10 kind of thing.
[01:32] SPEAKER_00: But, you know, you've broken away from the establishment, if you like.
[01:38] SPEAKER_00: You know, why do that?
[01:40] SPEAKER_00: Why not use your skills in that establishment?
[01:46] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a good question.
[01:47] SPEAKER_01: So, I think part of that question actually lies in my roots as being an immigrant.
[01:54] SPEAKER_01: I think immigrants are at their core entrepreneurial.
[02:00] SPEAKER_01: We are moving into different environments and adapting to those new environments are the best that we can.
[02:06] SPEAKER_00: Being an immigrant.
[02:07] SPEAKER_00: So, I can be an immigrant.
[02:08] SPEAKER_01: The same thing.
[02:09] Speaker UNKNOWN:
[02:10] SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
[02:11] SPEAKER_01: And I think so.
[02:13] SPEAKER_01: So, I think that's part of part of that.
[02:15] SPEAKER_01: So, like I started practicing law almost a day a year ago.
[02:22] SPEAKER_01: And I mean, when I initially clicked, look, I didn't even want to be a lawyer initially.
[02:26] SPEAKER_01: That's a story enough itself.
[02:27] SPEAKER_01: But when I started this journey, I really wanted to have sort of all the trappings of what being a lawyer is all about.
[02:36] SPEAKER_01: And so, I was always taught about the importance of the billable hour.
[02:42] SPEAKER_01: How you get clients that working all that type of stuff, right?
[02:48] SPEAKER_01: And I started my journey off as a litigator.
[02:51] SPEAKER_01: So, people would pay me to go argue in court.
[02:55] SPEAKER_01: Which sounds interesting, but it actually isn't.
[02:59] SPEAKER_01: But over time, I started being sort of like the problem solver that clients came to rely on.
[03:08] SPEAKER_01: And they started valuing not my skills that going into court, but resolving problems.
[03:16] SPEAKER_01: And over and so, that's what I started developing my skills that become like sort of like a quote, quote, master negotiator.
[03:24] SPEAKER_01: To the extent now that I would think that I'm, I think I'm actually a better business person than I'm a lawyer.
[03:33] SPEAKER_01: And so, a couple years ago, what ended up happening is I had some personal issues that really led me on this journey to rethink what it means to be a lawyer in an age where we're doing everything digitally.
[03:50] SPEAKER_01: This was obviously pre pandemic, right?
[03:54] SPEAKER_01: So, this was a time when you still had to go into the office to talk to a lawyer.
[04:02] SPEAKER_01: And what I, what I, I took a couple of weeks to remap and to reimagine, really explore what are the role of a lawyer in a modern business.
[04:15] SPEAKER_01: And that's really what kickstart of the Jones is start what I call being a legal counsel.
[04:19] SPEAKER_01: I'm a law firm that really focuses on being the sort of like the modern strategic advisor to entrepreneurs and business owners.
[04:29] SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you know, it'd be a lot of people from FinTech, you know, insurance banking, whatever you want to call it.
[04:37] SPEAKER_00: I interview a bit of a couple of people from legal who have been trying to do things a little differently.
[04:45] SPEAKER_00: And it seems, but it seems to me that those super, I mean, you know, everything sort of legal, a super establishment, accounting, a super establishment, banking, finances, super establishment.
[05:00] SPEAKER_00: But with the arrival of FinTech and with the arrival of digital and radically different, you know, execution technologies in terms of getting the work done, communicating with people and things like that.
[05:16] SPEAKER_00: You know, what do you see as the future of the legal business because it is a business, the legal business.
[05:27] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, honestly, it's hard to say. I mean, at least in a list of Ontario, the powers that be and the chief justice has done a really good job and, and sorry, the 20th general have both done incredible work in modernizing aspects of a profession.
[05:49] SPEAKER_01: Up until a year ago, we were still filing documents and court and paper and now through the amazing work with both the chief justice and the 20th general, we now got more of a paper system, which is great.
[06:00] SPEAKER_01: I know along the need to go downtown to argue motions.
[06:05] SPEAKER_01: I think there's a lot of incentives for lawyers not to change.
[06:10] SPEAKER_01: I think that's a reality, right? And I would say that let me, let me give you more of a tech oriented answer. Change only happens once there's a problem to be solved.
[06:22] SPEAKER_01: And for a lot of the larger law firms, you have powers of the powers that be the partners or the administrators that still benefit from an old way of doing things.
[06:35] SPEAKER_01: I think this is just my observations. I don't, I've talked to people at these firms and to a certain degree, this is corroborated.
[06:42] SPEAKER_01: But just from an external perspective, the bill, I was still dominate you have obviously alternative legal service providers and all 20 fees, but they really like this bill, and partnerships, I generate revenues all designed around this business model.
[06:56] SPEAKER_01: And until that business model changes, there's no real incentive for the practice of law to change.
[07:05] SPEAKER_01: And what makes things more challenging is that our, our governing body, the law study of Ontario, here on the area at least, they tend to have taken a bit of a standoffish approach to the transform, the transformation of the legal profession.
[07:25] SPEAKER_01: For reasons that are not altogether clear to me, we spend more time arguing about some of the regulatory trappings of governance, rather than thinking about and reimagining what does the modern law look like?
[07:41] SPEAKER_01: And will we be practicing law five years from now the way we're practicing law today, which obviously I don't think is true.
[07:48] SPEAKER_00: So, you know, what I mean, so you're trying to do it differently.
[07:53] SPEAKER_00: I mean, what's the vision for your business today and you know, five years from now?
[08:01] SPEAKER_01: That's a great question, I think the, so what I don't, it made me, this may seem that I don't want to, I don't want to give anybody the impression that I'm the only one to do the thing.
[08:12] SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's lots of other lawyers, what trying to do this, do this type of thing, right? We're all trying to push the boundaries and we're all having conversations about how to make that happen.
[08:22] SPEAKER_01: But where I see the future of the profession is understanding the role that we as lawyers play in the life of our clients, and I specifically talking about business lawyers, this may not, this analogy does not work as well for a criminal law of family law.
[08:41] SPEAKER_01: But when it comes to our clients that are businesses that are looking for commercial legal advice, they really have four ways of how to use their lawyer.
[08:51] SPEAKER_01: One is what I would call the paramedic of the triage approach, right?
[08:57] SPEAKER_01: We're only going to talk to a lawyer when there's an emergency in all other cases, there's a cost and they're expensive, I don't want to talk to them.
[09:04] SPEAKER_01: And then you have the second approach, which is where the business owner says, I needed to talk to a lawyer, let's go talk to a lawyer.
[09:11] SPEAKER_01: That's what I would call the managerial approach.
[09:14] SPEAKER_01: These approaches are very much reactive, I identify an issue, I must talk to a lawyer.
[09:21] SPEAKER_01: Where the future of the practice of legal practice is going in my view is the exploration of what I call the proactive approach of law, either lawyers as being tools to avoid risk, so to identify the address risk of the role of a life card.
[09:41] SPEAKER_01: Are alternatively the role of a lawyer as being a strategic advisor, we're going to help the business grow and make more money.
[09:48] SPEAKER_01: And that's why I think where this is going in terms of legal professional.
[09:57] SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm currently from wrong film, I mean, when you think about a lawyer, lawyer's supposed to do three things, only one of three things.
[10:05] SPEAKER_01: You're either solving problems, you're minimizing risk or you're imagining process.
[10:10] SPEAKER_01: Good lawyers will do all three, you really shouldn't be a lawyer if you can't do any of them.
[10:17] SPEAKER_00: It's interesting, you've made me recollect, which is quite a long ways back when I was fairly new to this country, an entrepreneur, and I had an accountant, his brother, happened to be a lawyer as well.
[10:33] SPEAKER_00: And the thing that he said to me that I've kind of kept in the background is, you know, do everything before you come to your lawyer or you can't it.
[10:46] SPEAKER_00: This is a business, this is a business.
[10:48] SPEAKER_00: Before you come to your lawyer and account it only use us to complete it.
[10:57] SPEAKER_00: It means, is that a first, is that a, I mean, it's a bit off track, but what you're saying is that, you know, that maybe the future is more of an advisory role.
[11:09] SPEAKER_00: And in a sense, this, this gentleman was being an advisor and saying, you know, don't come and ask me the things that you know, don't build your bill up.
[11:21] SPEAKER_00: You see what you mean?
[11:23] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, that's a long time ago.
[11:26] SPEAKER_00: I mean, are we looking at kind of today's version of that or is it because there's more detail available that you move to an advisor, you know, the online to everybody nowadays?
[11:41] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I think the democratization of the internet has really given clients the belief that they can simply have Google as sort of the legal advisor.
[11:59] SPEAKER_01: The corollary of that is obviously that lawyers are not insured to give business advice. I just want to be very careful here.
[12:06] SPEAKER_01: All that being said, I think that there are lots of ways that clients can minimize the legal fees if they have the right questions.
[12:19] SPEAKER_01: Right. So in your instance, Philip, if you had, let's say a friend say, come talk to me and I'll give you a checklist of X Y and Z and use this to go talk to your lawyer.
[12:31] SPEAKER_01: In some cases, that is beneficial.
[12:33] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[12:34] SPEAKER_01: The challenge with law, obviously, is that it keeps changing.
[12:37] SPEAKER_01: So by way of example, you had an Ontario Court of Appeal decision last year called Swagerman Wax Bill.
[12:45] SPEAKER_01: And that changed the way that employment agreements are interpreted or construed.
[12:51] SPEAKER_01: And that has really significant implications if your business has lots of employees.
[12:56] SPEAKER_00: What's the greatest challenge now that you're facing in your sort of new legal kind of movement, if you like?
[13:11] SPEAKER_00: The challenge.
[13:12] SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think I think that by and large, we as lawyers are doesn't doesn't edicational component where clients see lawyers is one of the same.
[13:29] SPEAKER_01: John, don't Jane, don't and myself are all the same person. And what I would encourage clients think about people think about is the value of developing a relationship with the lawyer.
[13:41] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[13:42] SPEAKER_01: And sometimes that has a negative effect. So if they've got a really bad experience with the lawyer and they see all lawyers the same, they'll see me the same as the bad lawyer and the other lawyer.
[13:51] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[13:53] SPEAKER_01: But more importantly, I think the challenge is that again, as a legal profession, as a governing bodies, we haven't we still hold to the idea that a lawyer is a lawyer.
[14:09] SPEAKER_01: And we don't really encourage or diversify the risk of creating more new innovative business models.
[14:20] SPEAKER_01: And because each individual lawyer is shouldering all of that risk, transforming your practice and creating new relationships becomes in some cases too risky.
[14:32] SPEAKER_01: Right. So for example, I'm right now putting together like a subscription based legal service model. Right.
[14:41] SPEAKER_01: So for for X amount you have access to X, Y and Z, right for templates and advice or whatnot, right.
[14:48] SPEAKER_01: But I've just got to be cautious in how I do it because I'm worried about taking on too much of risk.
[14:55] SPEAKER_01: And as a small law firm, we don't want to take that on.
[14:59] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, as a business, if you get the lawyer by the way, you may not this for a couple of years.
[15:08] SPEAKER_00: You know, what's what's, you know, you've probably hit some unexpected challenges.
[15:16] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[15:16] SPEAKER_00: You know, how do you typically handle those challenges? Is there a process you?
[15:24] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I'm not necessarily used as a process you've evolved to.
[15:31] SPEAKER_00: We have it at the beginning.
[15:35] SPEAKER_01: It's honestly been a journey. I mean, starting up your law firm is inherently entrepreneurial and part of being entrepreneurial is being able to make mistakes and learn from them adapt. Right.
[15:46] SPEAKER_01: And I think pricing is definitely a challenge. And like most businesses will be familiar with this.
[15:53] SPEAKER_01: Like, how do you price your services in a way that allows you to pay all of your suppliers and your employees and still has some healthy profit margin?
[16:05] SPEAKER_01: That's been a challenge that I still face today. Like, how do I, how do I price an agreement? Right.
[16:12] SPEAKER_01: Do I price the agreement on a flat fee basis on a project basis or some other way of pricing it?
[16:19] SPEAKER_01: For me, that's been a challenge. I think that what I typically try and do when it comes to pricing at least is trying to figure out how much of value and providing to the client. Right.
[16:33] SPEAKER_01: I do, there's this idea out there that are there are some clients out there that want to go to the cheapest lawyer out there and I'm not that guy.
[16:41] SPEAKER_01: If you want cheap, I will happily send clients to places where I know they have lawyers that do work for the minimum dollar value.
[16:50] SPEAKER_01: I much rather focus on having a really good process that clients can identify, saying, look, so kind of a stage process, right, phase one phase two phase three and pricing according to those stages.
[17:04] SPEAKER_01: That gives a lot more transparency to the client about what's been delivered and when fees are due and they end up becoming more happy with the process.
[17:14] SPEAKER_00: So, you know, what advice would you give an entrepreneur?
[17:22] SPEAKER_00: Just because you really just two years out looking to start a business now.
[17:30] SPEAKER_00: You've learned in the last 24 months that maybe you didn't know before.
[17:34] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a good question.
[17:37] SPEAKER_01: I'm whenever I talk to a client that's looking to start a business before they talk to contracts and corporate, before we talk about any of that.
[17:47] SPEAKER_01: I always ask them to answer like a couple of questions.
[17:51] SPEAKER_01: One, what is the problem you're trying to solve?
[17:55] SPEAKER_01: Who are you solving the problem for?
[17:59] SPEAKER_01: What makes your solution valuable?
[18:03] SPEAKER_01: And why should the potential customer or the customer choose your solution over others?
[18:11] SPEAKER_01: And by asking these four questions, these four questions are formed the core of what we call the value proposition of a business or a company for product.
[18:20] SPEAKER_01: If you're not solving a problem, you really shouldn't be going into business.
[18:24] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[18:26] SPEAKER_01: And once you ask those questions, those questions can form the core of how you start pricing.
[18:33] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[18:36] SPEAKER_01: So, I think that's my piece of the answer to all questions.
[18:41] SPEAKER_00: On the other issue, what's the best, you know, we've all been mentored and stuff like that, whether it's been parents, but it's been friends, whether it's been people, university or school or whatever.
[18:52] SPEAKER_00: What's the best piece of advice that you've ever received?
[18:57] SPEAKER_00: And I like to qualify it that you keep on using.
[19:02] SPEAKER_00: You know, we get lots of advice, but there's one or two things that we use that crop up weekly kind of thing.
[19:12] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[19:12] SPEAKER_01: So I'll give a book, a good recommendation.
[19:18] SPEAKER_01: I've never split the difference by Chris Voss.
[19:20] SPEAKER_01: Great, but lots of good advice there.
[19:23] SPEAKER_01: But the one advice I keep using was actually given to me by a client when it comes to negotiations.
[19:28] SPEAKER_00: Right.
[19:31] SPEAKER_01: And he's never getting more social about the negotiation.
[19:34] SPEAKER_01: And be willing to walk away from the table.
[19:38] SPEAKER_01: And that has been something that I've carried through all my negotiations.
[19:45] SPEAKER_01: I had this really crazy file last week, where that was a simple mantra.
[19:51] SPEAKER_01: I kept saying we had don't get emotional.
[19:55] SPEAKER_01: And it's funny how that works because by not getting emotional, no matter how much of stress the other side is going through.
[20:03] SPEAKER_01: Or your clients going through you are even killed.
[20:08] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[20:09] SPEAKER_01: So that advice that that helps you when it comes to buying the selling property, negotiating contracts.
[20:16] SPEAKER_01: It's been super helpful.
[20:18] SPEAKER_01: I've been all I've been able to say like, look, I've got somebody else.
[20:21] SPEAKER_01: I'm okay with this negotiation feeling.
[20:25] SPEAKER_01: And that's been good.
[20:27] SPEAKER_01: That's that's been advised that's been well served.
[20:30] SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's move on to deep stuff and move to some rapid fire questions.
[20:35] SPEAKER_00: Sure.
[20:36] SPEAKER_00: Not that they're not deep.
[20:37] SPEAKER_00: You know, what book are you currently reading and what books or listening to whatever would you recommend book?
[20:51] SPEAKER_01: What's dimensions?
[20:52] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I mentioned Chris Fawse.
[20:53] SPEAKER_01: I think that's fantastic.
[20:54] SPEAKER_01: That's a fantastic book.
[20:56] SPEAKER_01: I love it.
[20:57] SPEAKER_01: I love principles were laid.
[20:59] SPEAKER_01: Radalio.
[21:00] SPEAKER_01: That was a book recommendation by another lawyer colleague that I found out.
[21:05] SPEAKER_01: It should be fantastic.
[21:07] SPEAKER_01: And again, it's right there on my bookshelf.
[21:08] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[21:09] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[21:10] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, honestly, like that's been a, I'm still reading it still trying to soak it through.
[21:16] SPEAKER_01: And try to figure out how to use that integrative principles into my business.
[21:20] SPEAKER_01: I think that's really for me principles, something that I'm going to try to integrate into my business over the long term.
[21:25] SPEAKER_00: Are you a morning or a night person?
[21:28] SPEAKER_01: Oh, morning.
[21:30] SPEAKER_01: I'm four, three morning person because they've got two young kids.
[21:33] SPEAKER_01: So I don't have the offer to be used to be a night person.
[21:40] SPEAKER_01: To be told truth be told, I've got to be honest, I was never really a night person.
[21:44] SPEAKER_01: I've always loved early mornings.
[21:48] SPEAKER_01: And having kids just going to be better excuse.
[21:52] SPEAKER_00: So if you weren't doing the legal stuff that you're doing now, what would you be doing instead?
[21:59] SPEAKER_01: Entrepreneurship.
[22:00] SPEAKER_01: Entrepreneurship.
[22:00] SPEAKER_01: Like I said, I think I can't think of anything else.
[22:04] SPEAKER_01: Like honestly, like the, I mean, this goes back to what it said earlier, like I didn't want initially want to be a lawyer.
[22:11] SPEAKER_01: Right.
[22:13] SPEAKER_01: And I was actually fairly left wing at that point.
[22:15] SPEAKER_01: I mean, still progressive, but not the same, seems the same way.
[22:18] SPEAKER_01: But now I love, I love thinking about business models.
[22:23] SPEAKER_01: Like I can break, I can design business model business systems in my head.
[22:27] SPEAKER_01: And I'm a, I really enjoy that.
[22:31] SPEAKER_01: It's fun.
[22:32] Speaker UNKNOWN: It's fun.
[22:32] SPEAKER_01: For me to fun exercise.
[22:33] SPEAKER_00: So you have to be honest.
[22:35] SPEAKER_00: You have to pick one word.
[22:36] SPEAKER_00: To describe you.
[22:38] SPEAKER_00: What would it be?
[22:40] SPEAKER_00: And why?
[22:45] SPEAKER_01: Authentic.
[22:46] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't have a.
[22:48] Speaker UNKNOWN: I think it's a.
[22:50] SPEAKER_01: The one word to describe me today, definitely authentic.
[22:55] SPEAKER_01: I think there was a time in my life where.
[22:59] SPEAKER_01: I think it struggled to please other people.
[23:03] SPEAKER_01: Good one.
[23:04] Speaker UNKNOWN:
[23:06] SPEAKER_01: Now I'm pretty straightforward.
[23:07] SPEAKER_01: Everybody that I meet.
[23:09] SPEAKER_01: And I don't like it.
[23:10] SPEAKER_01: This goes back to principles, right?
[23:11] SPEAKER_01: Like his whole thing is being, being authentically yourself.
[23:16] SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I'm, I have no filter right now when it comes to people that don't like this.
[23:21] SPEAKER_01: Like, so it's okay.
[23:22] SPEAKER_00: Well, what's keeping you up at night?
[23:25] SPEAKER_00: Far from kids.
[23:27] SPEAKER_01: Kids is definitely one of those questions we have a newborn.
[23:33] SPEAKER_01: Honestly, goodness, climate change.
[23:35] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think climate change is one of the things that does keep me up at night.
[23:38] SPEAKER_01: And I'm going back to a conversation earlier.
[23:41] SPEAKER_01: I think we as a profession are really not prepared for climate change.
[23:49] SPEAKER_01: And for the impact that climate change may have on our practices, our society,
[23:55] SPEAKER_01: and our relationships with other people.
[23:57] SPEAKER_01: Again, coming, coming from an immigrant.
[24:00] SPEAKER_01: When I see climate, when I see the impact of climate change has outside of Canada,
[24:03] SPEAKER_01: I think there's going to be drastic.
[24:05] SPEAKER_01: So climate change.
[24:08] SPEAKER_00: I don't know if climate change is really in the Guardian,
[24:12] SPEAKER_00: that actually, you know, the human race is going to stop producing by 20,
[24:23] SPEAKER_00: but two years before, 2048, really because of all the crap in the system
[24:29] SPEAKER_00: that's residing in our bodies and reducing fertility.
[24:34] SPEAKER_00: So which comes first, no children or no world, it's kind of interesting.
[24:42] SPEAKER_00: Maybe getting really human race.
[24:46] SPEAKER_01: But John Oliver did a bit about how, by 23rd year, at 2035,
[24:52] SPEAKER_01: there's going to be more plastic in the ocean than fish.
[24:56] SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, that's right.
[24:57] SPEAKER_00: I saw that.
[24:59] SPEAKER_00: You know what?
[25:00] SPEAKER_00: I wish, thank you.
[25:01] SPEAKER_00: It's been a really good interview.
[25:04] SPEAKER_00: And some real interesting things.
[25:08] SPEAKER_00: I think we have to watch, as I said, the legal profession and see how things will change.
[25:19] SPEAKER_01: It will.
[25:20] SPEAKER_01: I mean, it will.
[25:21] SPEAKER_01: It just takes, sometimes it takes a little bit of a kick up, you know,
[25:25] SPEAKER_01: what to get them done.
[25:26] SPEAKER_01: So sometimes.
[25:27] SPEAKER_00: So, so, you know, thanks for coming on Canada's podcast.
[25:30] SPEAKER_00: Really appreciate it.
[25:31] SPEAKER_00: And, you know, thanks everyone for listening, viewing, whatever.
[25:36] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[25:36] SPEAKER_01: That was mine.
[25:37] SPEAKER_01: Cheers.
