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EP 06: How Natalie Salunke Reinvented the Legal Career Path
0 Playsin 12 minutes
In this episode of Beacon Voices, Natalie Salunke shares her journey from law firm challenges to becoming a fractional General Counsel. She talks about shifting from academic law to business-focused legal work, the rise of legal ops, and why modern lawyers must think beyond traditional roles.
The conversation also explores the impact of AI, the importance of data-driven legal teams, and why “selling the human” matters in today’s legal landscape. Natalie closes with practical advice on resilience, mindset, and building a flexible, future-ready legal career.
Read a detailed summary: www.spotdraft.com/podcast/episode-06
Topics
Introduction 00:00
Early career choices: why Natalie chose law and diverse academic interests: 01:09
Legal education systems (UK vs US) and evolving access to the profession (SQE): 03:55
Law students today: post-COVID learning gaps and practical vs academic law: 07:36
Changing legal career paths: beyond law firms to tech, ops, and alternative roles: 10:24
Law firm experience, toxic culture, career pivot to in-house, rapid growth, and early leadership journey: 13:18
Early legal ops, leadership transition, and building a structured, service-driven legal function: 18:55
Data-driven legal teams: aligning legal with business metrics and operations: 23:10
Journey to fractional GC: burnout, misalignment, and redefining career control: 25:28
Fractional GC model: portfolio work, pricing philosophy, and “selling the human”: 32:02
Technology and AI in legal: evolution, adoption, and impact on legal work: 41:23
Advice to law students and future outlook: mindset, resilience, and career vision: 47:49
Connect with us:
Natalie Salunke - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nataliesalunke/?originalSubdomain=uk
Akshay Verma - https://www.linkedin.com/in/akshay-verma-esq/
SpotDraft - https://www.linkedin.com/company/spotdraft
SpotDraft is a leading contract lifecycle management platform that solves your end-to-end contract management issues. Visit https://www.spotdraft.com to learn more.
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Transcript
Introduction and Importance of Managing Expectations
00:00:00
Speaker
I think it's really important. So there's managing expectations, but also reminding everybody that you're human. And I think part of the service that I sell, which I think is different to some other fractional general counsel is I sell myself as a human.
00:00:21
Speaker
Hi, everyone. This is Akshay Verma, the COO at Spot Draft. I am the host of our new podcast, Beacon Voices. Really excited to have a great conversation today with Natalie Solonke, who is a fractional general counsel across the UK market. Natalie, how are you?
00:00:39
Speaker
I'm great, thank you. are you doing? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. The weather has lightened up for us. It was a little bit gray and dreary the last couple of days, so I'm excited to get some sunshine going. I think winter for us in California was very short-lived.
00:00:53
Speaker
That was a cool you. Yeah. Yes. That's why you're wearing a yellow. wore my bright, bright yellow springtime Cal sweatshirt today for our podcast. Thank you so that much. yeah Enough about me. Let's let's talk a little bit about you.
Natalie's Journey into Law
00:01:09
Speaker
i obviously have had a chance to kind of look over your career path and so forth.
00:01:14
Speaker
um And one of the things I love starting this conversation off with is, is what took you into the law in the first place? Like, what was it either about the young Natalie, or at some point in your adolescent years, did anything take hold?
00:01:27
Speaker
Why the law for you was such a good idea? I think in all honesty, i didn't know what I wanted to do when I was about 15. And was actually a friend of mine who was thinking of doing law at uni. And I thought, well, you know what?
00:01:40
Speaker
If you do law at uni, you can do any A-levels you want. And I had some really sort of interesting or diverse interests when I was at school. So I could do the sciences, I could do languages, I could do history, I could do all of it. So I wanted to do...
00:01:55
Speaker
I wanted to take the opportunity to do more in languages. So I did A-levels in French, Spanish, and but I also did chemistry, maths and history. So a real sort of mixed bag. And I knew that if I could do those A-levels and then find something to study that...
00:02:11
Speaker
would allow me to not be pigeonholed so early on. I think that'd be great. think also it's probably quite naive. um I've always always been drawn to the idea of justice and I think the idea of a legal career came from a bit of a naive view that helping people, allowing people to have a voice, all that sorts of I know. And look where I am now. I'm this evil corporate lawyer. No, I like to think that as I've gained power in my career, I've found a way of bringing it back to trying to support a more positive ecosystem than perhaps the bad actors in this world. And I definitely feel I've ah been more empowered to do that since becoming a fractional GC. Yeah.
00:02:54
Speaker
Yeah. there's There's something about your story that really resonates for me. For me, it's it's a little bit hokey. It's a little bit Hollywood, actually. One of my favorite movies growing up, and I knew I wanted to be a lawyer quite early on as well. I knew I wanted to go become an environmental lawyer. well Look at me now. I'm literally in the corporate world doing nothing to save the planet except recycling and composting at my own house.
Influences and Career Aspirations
00:03:15
Speaker
well But i one of my favorite movies, courtroom dramas, was A Few Good Men with Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson. still today to date.
00:03:24
Speaker
And it was 35 years ago that movie came out. Still one of the best courtroom dramas I've ever seen. And that really drew me to the things that you just talk about.
00:03:35
Speaker
Justice. And I think there's an inherent... Forget about the law. I think we all have this inherent sense of right, wrong, justice, morality, values, and so forth that really drives so much of what we do. But for me, it was it was ah that movie really had a lot to do with why I did it. So... that That concept that you just talked about, that absolutely resonates for me.
Comparing Legal Education: UK vs US
00:03:55
Speaker
I should also, for our American listeners, detail out that the schooling mechanism in the UK is quite a bit different than it is here in the United States because very early on in your primary education in the UK, you start deciding what path you may take, which leads you to the tests that you want to take, and then that takes you to university.
00:04:15
Speaker
Our university path is very different. In order for me to become a lawyer, I had to do my undergraduate de degree. yeah which was, well, it was five years for me. It should have been four, but I took my time. It was five years for me. And then I went to three years of law school and then I became a qualified lawyer. But it's a little bit different. The timeline is is much more compressed and much more, I think, sophisticated and actually adept because there's an actual apprenticeship model associated with it as well, right?
00:04:41
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And I think it does. i mean, there there are both routes, right? You can do a different undergrad and then convert later on. um And I think with the SQ, which is the new way of qualifying in the yeah UK, which is similar to the US model of a ah super exam, ah that that way people can qualify now and having done any degree, as long as they cover the basic exam.
00:05:03
Speaker
content that is required, that's so the minimum level that's accepted by the SRA to qualify as a lawyer in the UK. So okay so yeah, I think there is there are there are more routes now than there have been before, which I think is good for accessibility to the profession. Because I think, i don't know how it is in the States, but I feel like perhaps in the States it's still a little bit an elitist profession. You've got to have a a large wad of sponsorship and money to be able to get a legal career. I think what they've been trying to do more of in the UK Lower that bar to some degree in that one of the biggest issues was trying to get work experience. And you talked about the model of doing an apprenticeship effectively. yeah
00:05:42
Speaker
What you were getting in the UK was a lot of people being paralegals for a very long time. And the companies or the law firms that were beholding them not to be able to count that experience as part of
Improving Accessibility in UK Legal Profession
00:05:54
Speaker
their qualification work. to become fully-fledged lawyers.
00:05:57
Speaker
Now with the SQE, the onus is more on the individual to make sure that as long as the work can fit certain criteria, it should be able to be counted. So there's a less of a barrier, but equally it's still a difficult ah topic. It's a difficult...
00:06:15
Speaker
um discipline to understand if you come from a different background. So there's still a lot of training in the language of law that you can't just reload books and sort of self-teach. So actually, people still need to do the pre preparatory exam, preparatory courses to be able to adequately pass the exam. So there's still a long way to go. But I think the idea behind it yet again comes from a good place. It's just it's still the minorities that are being more adversely affected than those that come from more traditional backgrounds.
00:06:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I think for for us here, i think there's two levels to it. There's the access to the profession and then there's the access to justice, both of which are rooted so deeply in racial structure and so forth in the country.
Non-traditional Career Paths in Law
00:07:04
Speaker
Both have different kind of implications.
00:07:07
Speaker
I had no lawyers in my family whatsoever. My sister-in-law went to law school. I came from a family of engineers and doctors. Shocker. course you did. They did. My dad was a doctor. My mom was a nurse. yeah So yeah our expectations were...
00:07:22
Speaker
It was very foreign to my parents. um and But, you know, I've always been a little of an oddball and an odd duck and a black sheep. So it it made sense that I would go forge my own path. And and it's been, I've had a lot of fun doing the non-lawyering things. But yeah, so we we were just talking about the law school experience. You're a lecturer.
00:07:40
Speaker
What are you seeing, if anything, that's different with law students now back relative to back when you were in law school? I think the ones that I teach are feeling a bit less connected to the system. Mm-hmm.
00:07:51
Speaker
So since COVID, because a lot of things have gone online, students are making less of an effort to go to these campus-style environments.
00:08:02
Speaker
Perhaps they're realising that it's quite expensive and are trying to save money by staying at home or attending classes online. i think that sense of community and learning from each other has diminished a bit.
00:08:14
Speaker
But the students that I teach, all at the University of Law, they're all training as they're all training as lawyers, so they're already trainee solicitors. So...
00:08:24
Speaker
or they're and about to enter the law firms and companies to start their training. So they've finished their degrees and they're already in the world of work.
00:08:37
Speaker
I think one of the things they talk about struggling still is with that change from what is black letter law to the practical application of law. So that's always going to be a struggle because it is such a different discipline to write an essay about law than actually to just get on with it and do it right. And I even think, you know, I tried to do my company secretarial exams you know, decades ago when I was actually, unfortunately, in the middle of an M&A transaction. So I never really finished it.
00:09:06
Speaker
And even i so I struggled because when you give Cosec advice, you give corporate advice, it's very practical, or at least I like to think what I do is very practical.
00:09:16
Speaker
And yet the way that they wanted you to recount or recall the answers was just so inflexible and so formulaic and just artificial that ultimately you'd never actually give that advice in that way, normally anyway. So I think that was, um, that that, that I found quite an issue, but I think, you know, ultimately It's quite fun getting to teach the younger generations who are training to become qualified lawyers because I guess it keeps me in touch with, as you alluded to, what has changed and what perhaps hasn't changed.
00:09:54
Speaker
yeah And I think that's something that you don't always appreciate the further on you get in your career and you get more distanced from that feeling of being new and not really knowing what it is that you're about and what it is that you're trying to do.
00:10:07
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that's a really interesting call out with everything going on in the world today, both in the legal profession and outside of it. And we won't get into the news headlines just yet of this conversation. But um one of the one of the interesting things.
00:10:23
Speaker
that I've seen. 20 years ago when I graduated, there was really only one path for a law student. You go to a law firm, you get your training, and then you develop your career from that perspective. is that Has that been the experience in the UK as well? Is that changing now, obviously, with the legal profession becoming such a broad array of things to be able to do with technology and operations and the word legal engineer as a role that's that's popping up with all these technology companies? How is that experience unfolding in the UK?
Emerging Roles in Legal Profession
00:10:54
Speaker
I mean, would if if if the the States is leading the way, we're definitely following suit. and I think because our access to the profession is probably easier, i think we're getting a lot more young and diverse talent entering the legal ecosystem not necessarily wanting to yeah become solicitors or qualified lawyers, which I think is really refreshing, right? Because before, at least in the UK, you had solicitors and you had barristers.
00:11:21
Speaker
And now you've got in-house lawyers, you've got legal technologists, as you said, you've got legal operationalists as well. I think it's just really nice to see. And I still do encourage people to try and get qualified if they can, because I do think that that still opens the right doors. And if that's sort of bastion of of where you need to get to, right? It's like, so that's the pinnacle.
00:11:44
Speaker
Aim for it if you can get it. If you can't, then you can still have a very fruitful career. But... I was the same when I said, ah you know, what law firm should you apply to if you're going to try and qualify? Well, you apply to the top ones because you want the job market to be as open as possible, right? yeah ah We don't want any more barriers than already exist.
00:12:03
Speaker
So I think it's been good to see that as an opportunity. i think... ah Legal apprenticeships haven't perhaps been as popular as they could be and that's as's a particular type of gateway into law that starts from school.
00:12:17
Speaker
It's about a seven year piece that kind of gets you to the same stage as you would be had you gone to your A-levels in university. I'd like to see a little bit more of that. The government's tried to introduce an apprenticeship levy that's been around for quite a while now. It's not that well taken up by a lot of companies, perhaps because they don't really understand it and don't know what it entails. But yeah there is definitely a way of getting people sponsored through a lot of this training, through governmental grants and through apprenticeships that I think if we leveraged more, I think the profession could be even more diverse and buoyant. But it's all positive. it's all positive
00:12:53
Speaker
And I'm happy to be part of that voice that says, I don't have a particular, don't have anything against people that go through things in an untraditional route. In fact, I'm probably more interested in what they have to do because usually they've had to overcome some adversity. They probably have an interesting angle to bring to things than the traditional route. Yeah. Yeah, I actually want to dig into that for your own experience in a bit.
Career Challenges and Transitions
00:13:18
Speaker
But was was the law firm root for you long term ever under consideration as you were qualifying?
00:13:25
Speaker
Definitely. And I went to Taylor Wessing and I thought that was going to be the start of a very fruitful career where I'd make partnership maybe in seven years or whatever after qualification like everybody wanted to then.
00:13:37
Speaker
um Unfortunately for me, that wasn't the case. In all honesty, I didn't have the best experience there. And You people at the firm know that. Even now when I work with the firm, and there was a particular individual who made my life hell, in all honesty.
00:13:50
Speaker
And, you know, a lot of us have had that experience. It doesn't make it right, though. I think I was going back to this sort of idea of justice. I was very naive coming into a firm like that, thinking that this is this great law firm in the UK.
00:14:03
Speaker
We've gone through this mega process to be picked from you know all these thousands of applicants, and this is going to be the land of milk and honey, or at least it's going to be a place that really cares about my learning and development. And I think and meeting somebody, he was so the antithesis of that. yeah And he used to have his rages and all sorts of things. but I ended up going to HR my evening, just going, I think this guy's got a problem with me.
00:14:28
Speaker
He's got these rages. He keeps breaking things. Maybe he should be doing this, you know. um and you know, ultimately, i think after that, I kind of also realised that I was probably not going to be the best thing for my career there. In any event, irrespective of whether that had an impact in whether I was going to stay on or not. I wanted to be a corporate lawyer. The job market was terrible. And there just weren't any corporate jobs other than a job with that individual who we were never going to work together again anyway. So I had to look at alternatives. And so I remember at the time looking at the job market, it was terrible. This 2009. The markets had just crashed.
00:15:04
Speaker
And though a lot of firms were doing job swaps and there weren't any jobs really on the open market other than two jobs, one at Redlaw and then I think there was some other job that was kind of doing the rounds. And I managed to find a couple of opportunities and one of them was a three-month contract at TravelX in their in-house legal team. and I always joke with the head of legal that ah who was there at the time about how I just was talking at her for like an hour, basically desperate for this job. And she always says, you know, I saw you and you were just this big mouth and, you know, this energy. And I just thought, you know what, let's get her in.
00:15:42
Speaker
And that was that. And, yeah Eventually, a three-month contract turned into six, turned into 12. I remember so saying, come on, you probably make me permanent now. and and That's what they did. and i think going from being in a firm where I just didn't feel work that I fitted in,
00:15:56
Speaker
to finding a home where I could use my entrepreneurial spirit and actually use that in a way that wasn't going to threaten anybody, wasn't going to sort of disturb the peace.
00:16:06
Speaker
was actually encouraged because we were very small legal team. And ultimately, my boss wanted us to look as good as we could as a team in front of the business and serve the business as well as we could. So even though I didn't really know a lot about commercial law, when I interviewed, I was trying to sort of draw on experiences that I've had as tenuous links to bring as to why I should be there. But then when I was there, then there was still that fear that I didn't really know what I was doing.
00:16:32
Speaker
And so when I did get contracts and pieces of work, I used practical law at the time. I looked at the know-how notes. I then looked at the source material. I basically self-taught and...
00:16:43
Speaker
um I used to work an extra couple of da hours each day as well. Whenever we had gone home, I'd still kind of continue swatting up, as it were. And basically, for a year and a half, I was doing that. I probably was the equivalent of a three-year qualified lawyer by the end of that time because I'd just done all this intense training and work that without using that methodology and just relying on those around you, a lot of people who are in in-house teams perhaps wouldn't really...
00:17:09
Speaker
look at the law in that way and and and question the why. And I think I've always probably been quite a curious person. I think that's a quality that I really respect in others, especially my own team members. But just trying to understand the world, as long as people don't get too defensive about it, it actually shows that you care.
00:17:28
Speaker
And so I think me going out and asking questions, me trying to come up with solutions, actually ended up making me quite resourceful, quite popular. um And so, you know, eventually certain things happened while I was there, where my boss went on maternity leave, came back.
00:17:42
Speaker
There were going to be some sort of team changes where effectively I wasn't going to be demoted, but I wasn't going to be given as much access to the world that I once had before. ah particularly while we had this interim in while she was on maternity leave, where i was able to step up.
00:17:56
Speaker
um I started looking for other opportunities, and that's where actually um i came across a head of legal role that I eventually managed to get at the PQE levels two and a half years, taking over from a former Ashurst seven-year PQE lawyer. and I proved that it was possible and, you know, i didn't do any worse job.
00:18:18
Speaker
Some would even argue I maybe did a better job in the end. So that's why I'm not keen on the labels and stereotypes of viewing that, know, leadership behaviours, I think, come from any walk of life. And I always think it's quite interesting when you you work in teams. heard somebody saying the other day,
00:18:36
Speaker
you know, you can't really expect a 24 year old to act like a leader. And it's like, well, at 24, some people have a mortgage. They have kids. yeah They're already leading in their own right. Isn't that a little bit patronizing to go that they can't review a document or provide advice in an adult fashion? and It always amazes me.
00:18:54
Speaker
Yeah. Look, it's obviously, it can be a big leap to leave the law firm world. Law is practiced so differently in the inside the walls of a law firm than it is on the in-house. What would would you say was your biggest learning curve when you took that three-month contract?
Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
00:19:11
Speaker
I think it was getting over my own imposter syndrome. It wasn't actually the job. and Companies are very nice. i mean, when you've worked a law firm and i've yeah I've described the experience I was going through, I'm actually having people who have been kind to me.
00:19:24
Speaker
yeah um was really nice, right? um So I think the environment was very entrepreneurial. It felt relatively safe. And I think that was...
00:19:36
Speaker
adjusting to that and realising that you are allowed to bring your own thoughts to the table, you are allowed to come up with ideas. And I think in the beauty of somewhere like TravelX, and even people say that now,
00:19:49
Speaker
one of its unique cultural points is the fact that it has that entrepreneurial piece. There's a lot of just hands-on, you know, we're not going to get hierarchical about it. like something needs doing.
00:20:00
Speaker
If you're going to take ownership of it and you've got the skills, get on with it, right? and And you will be supported. But it was, the other part was just moving from what I thought was corporate lawyer is corporate law.
00:20:12
Speaker
to actually going, well, this is commercial law, this is different, or this is intellectual property, this is technology. It's like, no, it's all common sense and understanding a framework of legal theory that you apply to a particular situation. So it was probably just getting more comfortable with the fact that there is a particular methodology to advising on certain aspects of law.
00:20:33
Speaker
And actually, you know, having been a corporate lawyer, that coordination skill that, sort of, there's much more relationship management in EQ, I think, that goes into corporate law deals than perhaps that's a letter law, right? It's all about how you're persuading people, how you're keeping momentum. There's a lot of those project management operational skills that go into it. And so... You know i remember one of the tasks that I was given was to deal with the documents in our safe.
00:21:00
Speaker
And so there was this like dungeon at the bottom of this building that was freezing with this like massive sort of safe sitting there. And, you know, people have been throwing contracts in it for years. And I remember I was kind of scanning everything in. i was naming it with a naming convention. I was getting data points out of it.
00:21:15
Speaker
I was even putting post-it notes back on the documents so it was easy to identify what it was, right, when you picked it up. Because back then we did see value in having hard copy documents. Now we're more than happy to go, you know what? We're just happy with the electronic versions. It's all good. um And I think that's what made what would have been quite administrative tasks actually be quite intelligent in what we now call legal ops. I was doing legal ops in the noughties when it wasn't really a thing, right?
00:21:41
Speaker
yeah But that's what then allowed me when I went into my first kind of legal role to create structure around myself. And I think one of the things moving from... being a legal counsel in-house instead running a legal function, was actually just behaving like a function.
00:21:55
Speaker
I say this to everybody that sort of works in small teams. You're not an advisor anymore. You're a service provider. And nobody, yes, they're coming to as a human, but nobody cares how you come up with the answer. Whether you use technology, whether you read a book, whether you go to an external lawyer, you are the front of that function.
00:22:14
Speaker
And so if you want to scale, you can't have everything in your head. You've got to have transparency. Other departments in businesses are measuring their success through metrics.
00:22:24
Speaker
Why aren't you doing the same? So I think even though I was quite young, junior, whatever you want to call it, when I came in, it was Probably a similar mentality to before, which was how do I fit in?
00:22:36
Speaker
And I tried to fit in at TravelX by being a good service provider. Here it was, well, everybody else in the management team is bringing data, yeah is talking about their successes. Law teams never used to talk about that back in the day. yeah it was just like, well, you come to us, here's some advice. Something's gone wrong. go three or that could you know etc It's like nobody wants to hear the Deems Day. They want to kind of feel like yeah you know you're speaking their language. So i think just thinking about service delivery rather than deigning advice was very much at the forefront of my practice.
Data and Business Alignment in Legal Operations
00:23:09
Speaker
Yeah. You use the word data. ah We never took any classes or any kind of conceptual ideas that were taught to us in law school around data. At what point in this in-house world did you really start realizing this is the language I either need to learn to speak or I already speak it. I need to speak it louder. I need to make sure that this particular or organization hears this language from the legal team. Like, was there a particular meeting, any specific instance, a project or anything like that? Or you just kind of like, hey, The business is talking like this. We should mirror that.
00:23:43
Speaker
Well, I think already talked about the capturing data points in contracts, which a lot of people, even my boss, when she said do this, didn't even ask me to do that. I just said, I don't want to look at these documents ever again. Let's make sure we've got what we need out of them because I'm not going into that cold dungeon again.
00:23:58
Speaker
um But I think working in technology companies, I think that's probably it, right? You know, Travelex, first and foremost, was a foreign currency company. company But at the time it was changing what it was doing.
00:24:09
Speaker
You know, it wasn't just about branches with physical notes. It was its web offering as well. And it was that's that's what kind of got me into the technology part.
00:24:20
Speaker
I was doing a lot of the marketing advice for the website. I was signing off on the way that they were talking about the products, the terms and conditions, previsive policy, all those sorts of things. And that got me thinking about the data piece. So then when I went to the SaaS company that I became head of Legalog, of I'd already thought about technology slightly differently. And so that move from that to a pure technology player was much easier.
00:24:42
Speaker
But if you are in technology, you're being measured constantly. You're grinding a platform. You've got your uptime. You've got your resolution. All these concepts are already built into what we're doing. So yet again, it's like, how do you become one with your own business rather than sitting on the periphery? And I think at the time, comments about in-house lawyers, it wasn't as big a profession as it's become now. It was still seen as a little bit of the place where lawyers that can't quite hack it in private practice. Yeah.
00:25:10
Speaker
Right. But actually, if you're trying to behave at one with the business that you're supporting, you're going behave like the business you're supporting. Right. So I think for me, it was just more, it was that trying to fit in, but equally that's business. That's how business works. And you're in legal business when you're in house. Right.
00:25:28
Speaker
Yeah. So you're going along in your in-house career and at some point you transitioned into what you do now, which is the fractional general counsel.
Transition to Fractional General Counsel Role
00:25:36
Speaker
Talk to us a little bit about how that evolution took hold in your mind. What were some of the drivers? And and then we'll talk a little bit about about the work that you do now.
00:25:46
Speaker
So I guess greatness isn't always spawned from great things. Yeah. I think the reason I found myself where I am now and nearly made this transition about six years ago is probably finding myself stuck in an organisation hasn't quite been working for me. So actually the first time was when I was actually and made redundant from a role.
00:26:10
Speaker
um I think it was you know ultimately a sham redundancy for being honest about how it felt at the time. But I think I kind of got to a point where I was like, Why am I supporting businesses that don't have my best interests at heart, don't always have their customers' best interests at heart?
00:26:27
Speaker
And, you know, maybe I can just do better working in a way that feels a bit more empowering. And I felt stuck. And that that was kind of what was happening and sort of six years ago.
00:26:39
Speaker
i then went into a role because COVID was among us. I just thought, you know what? I don't quite have the runway that I want to try and make a business. And I think at the time, the alternative legal services providers out there effectively want you to come in as a fee earner. If you want to be sort of a part level, you have to always have a book of business. Yep. And if you've been in a job as an employee, you're not going to have a book of business. yep So I thought, you know, this is a bit of a jump.
00:27:02
Speaker
So then I went back doing what I was doing. And then, ah you know, a similar sort of thing happened again, where I was finding myself in a business where things just weren't quite working out.
00:27:14
Speaker
And yet again, I didn't feel culturally it was working out. And I just needed to take a step back from my career and go, what am I doing? Why do I keep chasing these shiny things that ultimately don't resonate with actually my own value system and who I am?
00:27:30
Speaker
That discord is not working for me. It's probably not working for those businesses either. I just need to do something that is going to empower me more, but also restore my faith. And actually, I started looking at this model again, but at the time I was so, going to say burnt out because I think I was.
00:27:47
Speaker
I'm just disillusioned with what I was doing that I just thought I hate being a lawyer. I hate the way I'm treated. i hate what I'm asked to do sometimes. and It just doesn't feel right. So what I'd like to do instead is try and sell this proposition a fractional general counsel to others because I think there's such good value in businesses that can't afford full-time lawyers finding somebody like me who can come in ah they get that specialist advice they get all that experience but they don't have to pay because i think if i rewind back to my career when i was in my 20s and my first home legal role i got my um i got made 65 grand to do that job yeah
00:28:24
Speaker
just nothing like they got a bargain for what I put up with and what I did for them really good experience for me and actually i could do the job but like flat fast forward now and you know I've got like a wealth of sort of you know 15 years more experience and there is value in that there is value in that calmness there is probably certain things that I may have challenged more back then had I been a senior as I am now in terms of my experience but you know I think there are pros and cons to both. So I was really up for selling this proposition.
00:28:54
Speaker
And luckily, there was an agency called Seven Legal that said, you know what, think it'd be great to have you on board. know, maybe you can sort of help try and penetrate the market with we're doing and do some fractional GC work as well.
00:29:06
Speaker
Now, interestingly, when I kind of came back on the scene or the market post that other role, had loads of different connections going off. Would like to help us out with this? And actually some of that fractional work organically came.
00:29:18
Speaker
i had seven legal who actually gave me my first fractional GC role. And then I think I just started to lean into that. And actually what I realized was probably about six months in, I was actually falling back in love with law again. at and realized that actually do like what I do.
00:29:34
Speaker
I don't need to sell it. I'm happy to just sell myself. And that's what I started doing. started marketing myself more. And I think I've got this phrase of the Mary Poppins of law, which sounds as old as grand be else. But I think it really reflects what I'm about, which is I love to come into organizations and help them out.
00:29:52
Speaker
whether it could be an interim period, it could be trying to get them to to take, you know, a lack of legal team, a dysfunctional legal team, like could get it to that next level. And ultimately, they get to a point where it's just going to be too expensive to have me in that ecosystem full time or, you know, in the future, then handing it over to somebody and being part of that process to go, look, here you go, this is what we can do.
00:30:17
Speaker
I haven't actually had that many gigs that have involved that yet. Interestingly, so maybe these organizations are seeing value in having somebody that they trust that can be there, irrespective of the perceived cost and being able to get it perhaps cheaper by having somebody younger. I think what I really like to do, and I'm actually doing this with one of the roles at the moment, is mentoring um and growing a ah more junior lawyer into feeling confident enough to run the function themselves like I did back in the day.
00:30:50
Speaker
And I think being able to do that and then sort of being the coach in the background, the legal coach, yeah rather than somebody who's paid to be the GC. You don't need to call me the GC. Just let me be the coach behind the scenes and let the other person front it and experience what it feels like to to have that accolade.
00:31:06
Speaker
um I really um enjoy the idea of doing that. Yeah.
Rise and Benefits of Fractional Roles
00:31:12
Speaker
The gig economy really started to take hold with some of the ride sharing companies that came on board, I don't know, 10, 12 years ago, whenever that was.
00:31:22
Speaker
It's really branched out into a variety of different areas and professions, including, as I have now learned, legal operations. It's a part that's that's a part of the economy here in the United States now and growing actually. for exactly the same kinds of drivers that you just mentioned, which are that companies are realizing, you know, I don't necessarily need to, nor am I capable of making a full-time hire in this role, but it's an absolute necessity for me to take a look at some of the work streams and this function, apply it to my business so that I can start moving forward. And so this fractional capacity really starts taking hold for them as a solution.
00:32:02
Speaker
and then you know To me whether you're a lawyer or business professional in in another vertical, you transition very quickly from the initial nature of that relationship, from it being somewhat transactional to a true trusted advisor. And then that's probably the outcome of the surprise that you're seeing, which is they're not necessarily looking to move on. And they're going to keep you on board because especially for lawyers, that trusted advisor role is something that I think we've all sought.
00:32:29
Speaker
in ourselves as human beings, it's been a big part of why maybe we came to the law in the first place. You talked about justice and helping. um I realized after I left the practice of law that what I really enjoyed was solving problems for people and I didn't need to be a lawyer in order to do that. And operations and consulting really gave me the avenue when I didn't have to deal with all the legal crap that I really didn't enjoy that much anyway.
00:32:55
Speaker
And so for me, it was it was an avenue to a brand new career. um So I think it's fantastic. I think we're seeing it take hold a lot more. um What is your current portfolio like? How many clients are you managing at the same time? How do you keep all of that straight? And is that something that you have had a learning curve on as well?
00:33:16
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know if i should disclose the number because I think people might judge me, even my clients might. But, you know, um it it's it's it's quite a few. And I think there's a difference between the regular clients that I have, of which I have three that need, you know, weekly.
00:33:32
Speaker
They have standing meetings, they have standing expectations. um And, you know, my most recent one's an interim ah maternity cover. which is 24 hours over the course of a week. So, and and expected to be in an office for some of that too.
00:33:46
Speaker
So I think, you know, i've got a very healthy portfolio now for the next year, which is super exciting. ah You know, at very different rates as well. I think, that's also the beauty of it I found that for gigs that I just want to get the experience in or I really want to help somebody out you know I do tend to sort of do a mates rates or take the hit a little bit yeah um then my usual rate that is sort of my running rate that I give to to sort of new clients that are kind of coming on the books I think now the beauty is you know i will always make capacity for interesting work and also to help people out because I think going back to
00:34:22
Speaker
what we took spoke about at the start, it is about helping people. And I think I'm just one of those people that is really bad at saying no. If I really believe somebody could benefit from me being part of their world, I will move heaven and earth to try and be there for them. And that's whether that's friends or whether that's in work, right?
00:34:39
Speaker
So, you know, i've even had a friend message me today going, oh, I've got ah um a colleague that needs some help with this. And, you know, I've literally just started a new role today officially. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, cool. Just, na I'll find the way. And either that means weekends or evenings sometimes.
00:34:55
Speaker
If it's interesting, ah you never know where it could lead. And I think that, that yes mentality I've found, I've really been able to, um, embrace as being a fractional general counsel. I think it's interesting. I've chatted to a few people that do consultancy work who are self-employed. And there is that fear that you're never going to have enough work. yeah And there's also that scarcity versus abundance behavior. If you're having that scarcity mentality, you're not going to get the work.
00:35:22
Speaker
If you've got the abundance mentality, then you're going to get too much. There isn't a sweet spot there never will be. So I think you've got to adopt the abundant. I'm going to figure it out.
00:35:33
Speaker
It'll work out. If it doesn't, ah you know, we'll we'll work out a way of making sure that things part in the right way. I haven't quite touched what got there yet. But I think being very honest about what you're capable of, what you're not capable of, yes i think is really important. So there's managing expectations, but also reminding everybody that you're human. And I think part of the service that I sell, which I think is different to some other fractional general counsel, is I sell myself as a human.
00:36:01
Speaker
Some people still go in and sell themselves as a service. And I've had people go, what do you do about the hourly rate? well i was like, well, I've charged by the hour where I can because you're buying me as a human for that hour. Yeah.
00:36:15
Speaker
Well, but, you know, shouldn't you be sort of fixed feeing certain work? was like, no, because then you commoditize me and you forget you the focus moves on the output. It doesn't it doesn't sit on the input.
00:36:26
Speaker
And I want people to focus on the input and remember, this is me. This is why you chose me. If I speak up in this meeting or I say something, you kind of chose this, right? yeah Because if you're focusing on, did you do X4?
00:36:39
Speaker
you're You're losing all of that. But I think that's where the fractional GC route can be so rewarding for people doing it, but as well as the businesses, because despite being on the periphery, or however people want to see it, despite being external to a business,
00:36:53
Speaker
you can be as embedded in the business as you emotionally and mentally feel like you can, and equally as much emotionally and mentally and systematically the businesses want you to as well. And I think that can be really empowering. There is that ability to dial that either way, depending on what you want to give.
00:37:12
Speaker
And so me being very human, which is all very much part of my brand, I think lends itself to those human connections. And you were talking about some of the things about is it then just strictly legal?
00:37:24
Speaker
Because I think people view consultants as legal. I think, well, at a certain seniority, it's life experience, it's everything. like Some of the best conversations I've had recently have definitely leaned into my leadership skills, human skills, people management skills, how you avoid conflict, then actually, well, what does the law say? Because if I just gave you what the law said, or if I just did the lawyer view on something, that wouldn't work. But actually, if you use my diplomacy, My coaching, you know, I think I've hopefully, and we'll see with some of the situations I'm referring to, made those situations better for the organisation. And that's what I really enjoy is, i think one more point to make about it is,
00:38:06
Speaker
When you're an employee, I feel like there's still this sense of a company thinks it owns you and you owe it something. When you're a consultant, in some ways you are treated as a service provider because somebody's gone, we've got a budget.
00:38:20
Speaker
How much can this budget get from this person? So when you're doing work, people pay a bit more attention to it because ultimately they're going, well, where's my money going? What's it being spent on? yeah And actually I'm not getting value for money. yeah So if that person's telling me something, that's part of the value money equation.
00:38:38
Speaker
Otherwise I'm not getting value for money. Okay, we were just talking about um how you think about um ah pitching yourself to your clients, your customers. And I was really caught by you advocating for the human aspect of things and you as the human, as in you are selling yourself as a human to them. Now we're in a day and age where law firms and legal services providers are really focusing on outcomes because that is the the demand from the market.
00:39:07
Speaker
I don't want you to think about how much time you're putting into this. I want to know what I'm getting out of it. Is it 10 contracts or this deal or this piece of litigation? Tell me how much that is going to cost and don't focus on how many hours you have to put in. I want to know what the outcomes are.
00:39:23
Speaker
But your approach is very different. um You're a solo practitioner and a fractional GC. Talk a little bit about why that's so important. I think it incentivizes the wrong behavior. And I think that's why I really strongly tell my clients that I can give you, and and we know law firms do this as well, right?
00:39:42
Speaker
You say, give me a fixed fee. yeah They're going to put some contingency in there. Absolutely. And I don't want to do that. I say to them, I need to come up with a number that's fair. Right. But equally, I'd much rather you understand how long these matters take, because if we're going to have a relationship that's ongoing, you need to understand that one contract isn't going to be exactly the same each time. And certain nuances take a little bit of more time to to tease through. or to think about or to come up with a solution for. So it's almost trying to teach my clients and learn with my clients on particular issues so they understand them better. So it's actually about transparency yeah and engendering the right behaviours because what I don't want to do, i don't want to cut corners to make sure that something costs somebody a certain amount.
00:40:31
Speaker
Equally, I don't want to take a massive hit on something when I don't think that's fair on me. so That's what I've been doing. And I understand the law firm mentality more. The difference is I'm one person. Yes. The law firm is a model that leverages certain cost bases and certain revenue streams. And so the law firm model...
00:40:53
Speaker
I think can support what we're asking for it as clients. And I'm a client as a GC. When you're buying a person, you're buying a human, yeah you're buying them. and I think if we look at consultants in that way, and I think we have historically, fractional GC is a consultant in that way, but it is also a legal professional that brings a wealth of experience that you want to be able to leverage and you don't want to put them in a position where their integrity is ultimately compromised. Yeah.
Technology's Impact on Legal Practices
00:41:23
Speaker
let's ah Let's talk a little bit about the role of technology, particularly in in your fractional world now. we're We're in the age of AI, where everyone is supposed to be doing more with less, and everyone's supposed to be using AI and agents and so forth. um Talk to us a little about that the evolution that technology has played in your role as a lawyer and how you are thinking about AI now moving forward.
00:41:48
Speaker
So I think I always remember... Starting early in the law and people saying, oh, you shouldn't Google that. That's really bad. You're going to find something that you shouldn't find.
00:42:01
Speaker
um You can't trust it. And, you know, what do people do? They started to use Google all the time. And, yes, we have specialist legal platforms. We have practical law, LexisNexis.
00:42:11
Speaker
But, you know, before it was all books. And it was like, oh, you know what? You need to go to the book. You need to read it. need to read Chitty on Contracts. Don't read a secondary source. You're never going to learn. You're never going to become a good lawyer.
00:42:22
Speaker
I think ultimately what we've realized over the years, the information accessibility is no longer a an issue. It's there. Now it is how you have the right skills to understand what is in front of you and interpret it.
00:42:40
Speaker
make sure it's good quality, interrogate it in the right way to get the right response. So, you think thinking about the fact that we even used email rather than letters, I'm sure somebody had a problem with that. yeah We then had, you know, books and libraries and then we had electronics resources.
00:42:57
Speaker
You know, now we're looking at AI and we're, finding ways to just make our lives easier. And ultimately, a lot of the tasks that being commoditized are things that aren't necessarily the deep thinking, right? They aren't the things that need earth a low EQ. They're the things that actually statistically are based on probability and, you know, stats out there and volume of information. And it's like, here you go. And you probably get there anyway by doing that yourself. But Why don't we, in the interest of trying to be good, cost-effective advisors for our businesses, leverage what's out there to be able to use our deep thinking, our own experiences to add that value, right? So I've always been an early adopter of technology.
00:43:40
Speaker
It's fun. It's interesting, right? and then when we look at AI and the fact that there are some, know, we're now seeing really good use of generative AI out there that it's just changed worlds, right?
00:43:52
Speaker
I've always found quite interesting that, know, people had issues with using AI for their work. But then when it came to their personal lives, they've had Siri on their phones for five years and they didn't even question it, right? And so it's like, what is that risk profile that you're applying to your work versus your life or even vice versa? yeah Where does that actually come from?
00:44:14
Speaker
And do you understand that source of mistrust? And is it actually because you haven't taken the time to truly understand something? And when you break something down, you know, we, for example, take templates from practical law all the time. We're not going, oh, I bet that lawyer, I bet they're dodgy. i wonder if they got it wrong.
00:44:29
Speaker
We're trusting that somebody has got some integrity in that. Now, AI isn't always going to produce that level of integrity. You definitely the legal tools out there, know, you provide a legal tool,
00:44:42
Speaker
It's getting put together in a way by people that actually care about these sort of things that mean that actually that level of trust is there. And yeah, you could take your chat GPT vanilla piece and, you know, use that as much as you can.
00:44:56
Speaker
But also you could take, if you're willing to invest more in something that's taken that and actually put that layer of trust into it and said, you know what, I'm going to make sure this is more fit for your purpose. And that little bit of investment might be worth it. So yeah.
00:45:09
Speaker
I think there's a wealth of tool technology out there that if people aren't considering utilizing those tools at this stage in where we are in the world, yeah they are going to get left behind because this is part of the armory and the toolkit of a lawyer in the modern world today.
00:45:28
Speaker
Absolutely. They're not using quills. They're using AR tools now. ah my My younger son loves the fountain pen and the quills he just because he loves the artistic kind of output that it gives him. So maybe we'll get back to that someday. Well, Dave, records have come back, right?
00:45:47
Speaker
A really interesting point, which is, and again, I'll just reference the way that my kids are thinking about this because they're 11 and 13 years old. And, you know, every now and then I'll come across a nice article or scary, which is basically like, why are we sending our kids to school to memorize a bunch of stuff now?
00:46:06
Speaker
And I think this applies to lawyers as well. When AI can give them that information at the snap of a finger, The key piece how do they leverage it? How do they engage in that deep, critical thinking? how How do they manipulate that information for any task or project or problem that's in front of them to then go and solve it? And how why are we not teaching those skills enough? um Arguably... Even before that, it's...
00:46:31
Speaker
how do you interrogate and trust what's in front of you? So we're looking at AI being used, right? And catfishing and all these different things, deep fake. yeah The real skill is going to be, how do you know what is in front of you is correct, true, a trustworthy source. yeah And then once you know that, yeah what do you do with that information? Very, very point. Would you say, just very simple question, would you say that leveraging Gen AI in your practice has made your life easier as a lawyer?
00:47:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's been completely transformational. And a joke, um last year I did a role where I was dealing with a lot of claims and sort of angry letters. And I hate, I've always, anything like a claim form hi and hitting my desk, I've ran like the plague and always given it to a team member if they can deal with it instead of me.
00:47:23
Speaker
But in this role, I have to pick it up. And I think if it wasn't for being able to run things through, an AI program to sort it through and go, well, what do we get here? How do we put our points across to then have a good baseline?
00:47:37
Speaker
That actually made it quite fun rather than an arduous task. And so that really helped me enjoy part of my practice that I would have hated before. That's fantastic. um All right. I have three questions left, which I ask all of our guests.
00:47:52
Speaker
So it's a little bit of a reflective exercise for you. um i thought, I just think it's really cool to see how different people think about these questions. And then we kind of put them out there to see how people have answered them. So this first one, i want you to think about your time during law school.
00:48:08
Speaker
Okay. And with the benefit of hindsight now as a practicing lawyer, um what advice would you give your law school self? it will be okay in the end. Just get through it. Which I think is probably what I also tell myself at the time.
00:48:26
Speaker
remember never being so tired in my life and trying to you know cram writing essays probably the night before when I probably should have spent a little bit more time on them. but But I think just trusting that I think sometimes something that doesn't always click straight away at some point will click.
00:48:43
Speaker
I felt like learning law was almost learning a new language. I did French law as well. And not only was that in a different language, it also felt like it is a completely different legal system and comes from very different beginnings, right? So definitely just trusting in the methodology and the process.
00:49:00
Speaker
And I think that is something that has made me probably quite resilient throughout my career is that there is usually an end to something. It doesn't always feel it at the time, but the human ability has a way of just getting through. Yeah.
00:49:16
Speaker
Would the second question, would that advice change at all if you were talking to a law student in law school today? Probably not. But I think also... adopting, and we talked about the laws of abundance. I think having a um a positive mental attitude in the world, whether it's in careers, personal life, there's so much for it. And I do believe in this law of abundance.
00:49:39
Speaker
And I think it's very easy as a lawyer to think It's impossible to get a training contract. I'm up against so many people. And to see the negatives. I think lawyers generally are trained to see the risk and the adversity in situations. really So I think I'd definitely say don't forget to think about the positives as well.
00:50:00
Speaker
Yes, being sort of hyper-focused on risks and the negatives can make you very good at what you do. What it doesn't help with is that resilience piece and actually that positivity that you need to be able to do what we do day by day and actually then have a sustainable career in something. Yeah.
00:50:20
Speaker
You spoke a little bit earlier, which gets me to my third question around kind of falling back in love with being a lawyer through your fractional work. So this last question, and I had originally set this question up to be 10 years forward looking. And somebody said, that may be too long for us to think about. So I'll leave it up to you, whether it's 10 years or five years. But in that timeframe, what do you hope your path is between now and then? What do you hope to be doing?
00:50:47
Speaker
I think it's probably doing more of the same. I'd love to get some of these companies to an exit or inflection point where naturally it feels like I'm no longer needed. I'd like the Mary Poppins of law narrative to actually show, well, look, i've I've done it and I have left in my um umbrella.
00:51:07
Speaker
So I think that that would be quite interesting. I think also I'd love to do a bit more paid coaching. Because one of the things I've realized definitely since leaving the traditional employed general counsel role environment and moving to this fractional piece,
00:51:22
Speaker
I talk a lot about it. i really want and I encourage people to come and speak to me about it. I'm not keeping the secret sauce for myself. I'm a very open book about it. yeah I'm talking about what I do, what I don't do, and saying, this might not work for you, but I do think there's a really empowering career opportunity for a lot of lawyers that can take this path. And whether that's attaching to an agency that does all the marketing, does all the billing, takes account of that, and they do a little bit more of the more structured general counsel advisory services, or you go on the complete other route, which is the very entrepreneurial.
00:52:01
Speaker
See yourself as a brand, enjoy you know what that looks like, enjoy what what doors that could open. I really enjoyed being there for people who, you know, I've spoken to people who on paper, and maybe they are actually in reality, much more successful general counsel than me that have wanted my counsel on what to do, which is the biggest compliment. Absolutely. So I think perhaps doing more of that and maybe making that part of my own suite of services, which is, you know, yes, I sit on boards currently. i don't get paid for that work.
00:52:32
Speaker
But I do, I would like that to transition at some point into paid NED roles because the more I'm exercising this muscle, and I haven't always been on boards that are particularly easy, I still am on some positions which are quite tricky.
00:52:46
Speaker
I'm actually reflecting on seeing the value that I do bring, whereas perhaps I hadn't always appreciated that because I was finding myself in these rooms feeling a little bit more like an underdog. Perhaps now, as I'm gaining more confidence my career and my growth, I'm able to say, look, legitimately, yes, it may not think it ticks the boxes that you thought you were getting sometimes, but actually, just bringing emotional intelligence to the room, bringing a different voice to the room, can actually be really...
00:53:16
Speaker
purposeful and really valuable for an organization. They don't always realize they need it. They don't always recognize it when they have it. But I've definitely seen the value in it in you know tricky situations. So I think leveraging that more and that becoming more of my identity would be great.
00:53:32
Speaker
Yeah. What a perfect note to end on. ah My guest today has been fractional general counsel, Natalie Salunke, who has reminded us about the human side of lawyering, how to fall back in love with your lawyering, and how to think about growing your career as a human and a lawyer. Thank you so much for sharing your insights with us today, Natalie.
00:53:53
Speaker
Thank you as well. It's been a pleasure.