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Ep 104: Jack of All Trades, Master of Risk: How Joon Park Navigates Modern Legal Work
2 Playsin 3 hours
In this episode of The Abstract, host Tyler Finn is joined by Joon Park, Chief Legal Officer at Extend Enterprises, Inc., for a candid conversation about building a legal career defined by integrity, adaptability, and curiosity.
From navigating the collapse of Refco early in his career to leading legal at high-growth fintech companies, Joon shares how high-pressure moments shaped his risk mindset and leadership style. He unpacks why startups need legal guidance from day one, how to embed compliance without slowing down, and why modern legal counsel must be both partner and protector. Along the way, Joon reflects on finding purpose, embracing uncertainty, and staying curious through every chapter.
Read detailed summary: https://www.spotdraft.com/podcast/episode-104
Topics
Introduction - 00:00
Early career influences: philosophy, parenting, and curiosity - 01:54
Holistic thinking and law as systems navigation – 05:00
Transitioning from Big Law to in-house for financial security – 07:01
Refco collapse: a crash course in legal ethics and resilience – 10:35
Risk mindset: documenting decisions and staying aligned – 14:05
Generalist vs. specialist: finding fit during the Citigroup bailout – 17:02
Moving to startups: autonomy, prioritisation, and risk ownership – 21:59
Legal as an enabler, not a blocker, in startup environments – 24:35
Building scalable compliance without killing speed – 26:17
Legal’s role in shaping company culture and accountability – 28:21
Following curiosity to stay motivated and engaged – 30:19
Rapid-fire Questions – 32:21
Connect with us:
Joon Park - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joon-park-147a9a92/
Tyler Finn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerhfinn
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
Balancing Compliance Awareness
00:00:00
Speaker
Start early, start, put it in place. And then what you're playing with is the balance between, you could drown them in compliance policies all day long. They can read them, and train them all day long, right? And they're all going to leave the company because they're going to hate it. So what's the balance between making sure they're aware of the things you want them to know as they think about product design or as they think about marketing or as they think about just working at the company, what are the compliance things you want them to pay attention to, but teach it to them or train to them in a way that's not, that's edible as opposed to just, you they're going to run away from it.
Introduction to June Park
00:00:39
Speaker
How do early experiences with culture, identity, and philosophy shape the type of lawyer and leader you become?
00:00:51
Speaker
What happens when you build your career through boom times, bankruptcies, and everything in between? Today on The Abstract, I am joined by June Park, Chief Legal Officer at Xtend, a company reshaping how businesses issue and manage virtual cards.
00:01:11
Speaker
Before Xtend, June has had an interesting career across Skadden, Refco, Citi, American Express, experiencing the full range of legal challenges coming from bankruptcies to fintech innovation.
Cultural Influences and Philosophy
00:01:27
Speaker
We're going to dive into his journey today across geographies and cultures, studying Chinese philosophy. I'm excited for for that part of the conversation, weathering financial collapses, and learning how to adapt your approach to the law and lawyering depending on the environment that you're in.
00:01:47
Speaker
So with that, Jun, welcome to this episode of The Abstract. yeah Thank you for having me. um Okay, so when we were prepping for this, you know, you grew up in North Dakota, spent time in Atlanta, eventually you find your way to the the East Coast.
00:02:05
Speaker
You know, these are pretty different cultural environments. I'm kind of interested in how that moving around or or being in these different places shaped you early on in your life.
00:02:18
Speaker
Yeah, I would say growing up in the Midwest, you develop very sturdy values that inform you the rest of your life. But being in the Midwest is also the very homogenous in terms of racial diversity. So going to Atlanta was certainly eye-opening experience and very different.
00:02:37
Speaker
But ultimately, i ended up on the East Coast because what I wanted most, and probably has to do with growing up in North Dakota, I wanted to be in an urban environment. So I ended up on the East Coast and i stayed there ever since. see um You spent time in Hawaii as well.
00:02:54
Speaker
ah And you were at the East West Center there. ah alluded to this in the intro, pursuing a master's in Chinese philosophy. What was it that drew you to that that field?
00:03:06
Speaker
Well, I always tell people I went to Hawaii to saw us from having been in North Dakota for 17 years. I don't know if North Dakotans appreciate that or not. But I went to Hawaii was when I was an undergrad that I started getting interested in Asian philosophy.
00:03:21
Speaker
And in particular, it was the Tao Te Ching. It was Taoism that really drew me. It just resonated. And from that interest, I decided to pursue it after I graduated by by getting a master's degree at the East West Center, which at that time was a think tank located halfway between the East and the West.
00:03:38
Speaker
was this it was the It was a wonderful experience where I got to explore my heart's content what that was meant to me because that was my main focus. Can you remind us, I mean, i I, of course, learned this, I think, in like sixth grade history or seventh grade history, but can you remind us Taoism, then there's like Taoism and like what what the basic differences are? Because then um i'm curious, I'm going to ask you some questions about maybe how studying Chinese philosophy has shaped your your approach to life and and your career. Yeah.
00:04:11
Speaker
So it depends on who you to talk to about where Taoism fits in into the Chinese canon. ah There's certainly Confucianism, which some might say is much more formal, has very specific rights that you follow.
00:04:26
Speaker
It's as opposed to Taoism, which people might associate, the words they associate with is like harmony and balance. A lot of Chinese philosophies tend to focus around this idea of harmony, this idea of balance, this idea of being holistic.
00:04:43
Speaker
And it's something like here in the West when we talk now about The way you take care of your body really informs your mental state. There's a definite connection. As we explore those connections, it's something that the Chinese have been talking about for thousands of years because it's reflected in such ancient texts such as the Tao Te Ching.
00:05:00
Speaker
um How do you feel like studying Chinese philosophy has influenced your approach to maybe decision-making or the way that you lead or the way that you lawyer?
Career Decisions and Financial Influences
00:05:13
Speaker
Curious if if you still feel like, you know, this wasn't just a sort of like interest that you had once upon a time, right? But something that actually influences you today. Yeah, I've always been interested in how things are interconnected. so So I always thought that things...
00:05:29
Speaker
always have a reference or relationship to other things and so figuring out those relationships that makes things interesting. And so rather than going down a rabbit hole into details. I always like to step back to see, well, I'm taking a look at x and take a look at Y, but how do those interconnect or do they interconnect at all?
00:05:48
Speaker
And so it's a little bit like sometimes like a logical problem. Sometimes it's just endless pondering that leads nowhere. But from a legal standpoint, you need actual solutions to the problems that you're looking at.
00:06:03
Speaker
And so if you can look at it holistically or if you can step back and try to see the big picture, um but that's how I approach the advice that I give and that's how I approach learning. You actually considered maybe continuing on and and getting PhD, but ultimately you decided to go to law school.
00:06:21
Speaker
How did you howd you make that decision or how did you decide, hey, I'm not going to go and do the professorial thing. I'm going go and be it more of a practitioner. I wish I could give you a more interesting answer other than it was financial.
00:06:35
Speaker
yeah At that point in time, getting a PhD in Chinese philosophy versus getting a law degree, your your future from a job perspective was certainly two different paths.
00:06:46
Speaker
So anyone who knows me always knows I talk about the big crossroads of my life and that was it. Whether I stayed in Hawaii to pursue PhD or come back to the East Coast to pursue a law degree, how different my life would have been had I chose the former.
00:07:01
Speaker
um you started your legal career at Skadden. ah What was that transition like for you moving to to New York? ah did you Did you really enjoy it right off the bat or was it was it kind of hard to you know have moved from Hawaii, then go to school and now be in this very urban environment at day ah prestigious, but but a law firm that makes you work pretty hard?
00:07:27
Speaker
So when I first got back, when I first got to New York, my my wife was my girlfriend back then would always yell at me because I walk so slow. I come to you from Hawaii, things slow down, your pace slows down, how you you know your time seems to slow down.
00:07:43
Speaker
And apparently when I walked, I walked very slowly. It was a matter of months before she was telling me to slow down. but that was walking too fast. And so I picked up the rhythm of being in a big city, of being in New York.
00:07:57
Speaker
um Being in a law firm like SCADM, which is you know long hours, is fast paced, is pretty intense. It can be pretty intense. It's a good training ground to figure out whether or not you have what it takes to succeed in the legal world.
00:08:14
Speaker
I think it's ah it's a great place to get your feet wet, to interact with partners and learn from them. um about how you want to negotiate not just legal legal topics, which is what law school teaches you. It's very specific about the lawyering and how you should think like a lawyer, but there are very few practical classes that teach you how you should actually practice the law.
00:08:40
Speaker
So going to a big law firm like Skadden, where there's so many resources, so many lawyers, it's a great place to feature to what to figure out the practice of law as opposed to the theoretical ah the theoretical legal theories that have really come in handy for me since I graduated law school.
00:08:57
Speaker
Uh, you know, you mentioned the sort of financial considerations around choosing a career in the law as opposed to a career as more of an academic. Um, I think, you know, some folks don't, but i don't love talking about this, but I feel like you're, you're more comfortable doing so, you know, which is that the sort of debt that you incur to go to law school or something like that is a real reality for a lot of people. And, um,
00:09:20
Speaker
I'm curious if if that helped shape or was a a motivating factor in sort of like early career decisions for you. It was. Getting money back then was pretty easy.
00:09:33
Speaker
You just go in, you sign a few papers, and they throw all this money at you. And so I said yes, and I signed the papers. What do I sign? it paid my tuition. It paid my room and board. It got me through law school.
00:09:44
Speaker
um What I didn't realize until I got out of law school was that I had to pay it back. Pretty large chunks of it. Here's the assignments they're coming to. um It was about halfway through law school that I realized that I was taking on a lot of debt.
00:09:58
Speaker
And the idea is that I would go into public interest law or do something like even a clerkship became less of a reality when I started thinking about how I would service that debt and make those payments.
00:10:10
Speaker
And so the natural progression that you go to law school, if you do well, can't. Take a look at going to New York and spending your summers there working at a big law. I took the very traditional path because that was the path that would put me on a financial footing i where I could manage and live with the fact that I had this crippling debt.
00:10:34
Speaker
Yeah. You must have done okay with it because like a lot of folks, ah you know you you went in-house after a few years at the firm.
Experiences at Refco and Citi
00:10:44
Speaker
um You joined a company called Refco as one of their AGCs.
00:10:50
Speaker
ah And let's let's explore sort of your tenure there for for a little bit because it's not a company I think that a lot of people remember, but it's actually now...
00:11:01
Speaker
um ah case study for for some folks around sort of like diligence failures. The company um was public and and ended up ended up going bust.
00:11:11
Speaker
um Maybe let's start with sort of like how you how you joined Refco and also how you sort of experienced the collapse of the business from from the inside. Yeah, I decided around when I became a mid-level associate, you start to think about whether or not you want to pursue that partner path or whether you want to pursue a different path.
00:11:33
Speaker
And I decided I wanted to pursue a different path. So I started looking at in-house opportunities. was a securities lawyer at the time. So the reason I ended up at Resco is because they were preparing to go public and they needed securities lawyer. That was back when Sarbanes-Oxley was brand new and people didn't fully know the extent of it and what it meant and the impact it would have on their public reporting.
00:11:54
Speaker
So they brought me on board. it was a very short-lived tenure because I was there only about a year and a half before we did go public. It was a successful ah itto Only to find out about five weeks after the IPO, right before their first earnings call, their first public earnings call.
00:12:10
Speaker
the controller at RefGo started pulling on this thread and the more he pulled on it, the more he realized there was something deeply flawed with the accounting that was going on there. And that had unraveled. You can Google it. You can look it up The story will come out.
00:12:24
Speaker
ah That caused the stock to tank and the company go in bankruptcy. I still think it's probably one of the record holders for the shortest amount of time listed on the stock.
00:12:37
Speaker
Yeah. Was that a scary experience for you? I mean, what what what was it what was it like? I mean mean, on the one hand, you know, you're the company's lawyer and, you know, you didn't know about this, obviously, right? I mean, it's accounting failures. um But on the other hand, you've just left the law firm and this is your sort of first in-house role. And you thought it was going to be a very sort of like high-flying experience, right? And now you're having to basically help the company manage a bankruptcy.
00:13:05
Speaker
Looking back on that time, It was formative in the sense of you never know how you're going to act or how you're going to behave unless you're under extreme stress. And that certainly was the situation where you're under extreme stress.
00:13:20
Speaker
And it was eye opening to see how some people reacted. The people who might act a particular way didn't act that way. And the people who you've never expected to stand up and and and show their you know show them all moral fiber stood up and showed their moral fiber.
00:13:37
Speaker
So definitely eye opening. i would say that in terms of the experience is something I never want to do again or never have to. I hope I never have to go through anything like that again.
00:13:49
Speaker
But coming out of it, looking back on it, since it's so far in the past, it definitely made me the lawyer who I am today. it definitely informed how i how i how I approach the law and how approach thinking about who I want to be and and how I want to relate to others.
00:14:06
Speaker
Let's, yeah, let's talk about that a little more. I mean, i can imagine, you know, you observe maybe, you know, high, high ethical behavior on the the the the part of some, but ethical failures on the part of others, right? um There's probably practical sort of things that you take away from an experience like this that shape the way that you work or, you know, what you take notes on or don't take notes on, or i don't know, curious to hear about sort of both sides of that, like how it how it shaped you.
00:14:37
Speaker
Yeah. So on the practical side, my note keeping is very sparse. I don't put things in writing. I don't i don't document as you know nearly as much as I used to. And probably the most important thing I don't do anymore is I never mix personal and work on my laptop, on my email, because it all comes out when it goes into litigation.
00:14:56
Speaker
Right. In terms of how I practice, I learned back then never to BS, never to lie, they always have the high standards of um you're going to tell the truth no matter whether it's something that you think they want to hear or not.
00:15:15
Speaker
That's how you're going to lawyer because it's just the way that I decided if I'm ever at a company in a similar circumstance where something seems fishy or something seems off, I'll be the first to raise my hand in design.
00:15:26
Speaker
It's not an atmosphere i want to be in, not that's the way I want to live my life or practice law. And so I've definitely kept that credo um throughout my years of practice.
00:15:37
Speaker
Right. Do you feel like that has ever been, you don't have to talk about specific situations if you don't, but you feel like has that ever been challenging, right? I mean, because sometimes you might have to be standing up to, you know, your CEO or one of your peers in the C-suite, CFO or head of sales or even a board member or, right? I mean, those are not...
00:15:57
Speaker
Those are not easy conversations to have, I guess. And you're putting your career at some, and some but you might be putting your career at risk by not having the conversation, but you're also putting your career in ah in a sort of peril by by having it and confronting the problem too.
00:16:13
Speaker
I will say, thankfully, I've never been under in a situation quite like Refco, where the stakes were so dramatic and and black and white in terms of what was right and what was wrong.
00:16:26
Speaker
I feel that I certainly been vocal when I seen things that I think should be addressed, not necessarily things that are fraud or things that are bad, sure things that are lacking or things that could ease a little spoozing up and being vocal about that without, without, without,
00:16:43
Speaker
Ultimately, as lawyers, what we do is we manage risk. We help the business manage risk. And so when you see risk, you need to call it out. and You need to figure out how you find a solution if that risk is at an unacceptable level. And so I don't think I've ever been shy to speak loudly when I think that risk is at an unacceptable level.
00:17:03
Speaker
You didn't quite escape crises after Refco. and You went to Citi and you know I think a lot of folks remember Citi was one of the banks that um received a government bailout during the financial crisis. um Tell us a little bit about how that period might have compared to to your experience at Refco and what lawyering at Citi during you know the Great Recession was like.
00:17:32
Speaker
My very specific criteria after RefCo, and this is my thought process. My thought process was, you know what the problem with small companies and small legal departments is? Companies can fail.
00:17:43
Speaker
So therefore, I'm going to go someplace where they can't fail. And that's a big financial institution like Citigroup. And then I was there when it, when it, when it did effectively fail, but for the bailout financial crisis team, um, that was a stressful time as well for different reasons than refco.
00:18:00
Speaker
But at the same time, it's certainly uh, being in that kind of uncertainty, not knowing whether everything's good of like the world's going to end. Is that what it felt like at at points in time during that financial crisis?
00:18:14
Speaker
Um, ah very the The difference, you know it it did survive. It's still there, unlike Refco. I think in terms of working at big financial institutions, this is the same view I had towards being at a big law firm, is that as a lawyer, you get very specialized.
00:18:34
Speaker
There's so many of you, whether it's a law firm or whether it's a big institution, there's so many of you, you're necessarily going to go into a particular niche. And then the longer you stay, the more you get into this little hole where after certain years, you're an expert in it, but you're an an expert in a very narrow scope of something.
00:18:54
Speaker
Yes. So what I wanted at Refco and what I found really refreshing at Refco was being a generalist. Anything under the sun that comes up. We had the um FBI show up one day because someone had some listed stuff on their computer that they wanted to grab the computer. we had to yeah So everything under sun comes...
00:19:11
Speaker
That you have deal with as a lawyer, at as a generalist, rather than going into the minutia of a specific statute because you're the expert in that particular area of law.
00:19:22
Speaker
And that's the part I liked. um i always like to say I'm a jack of all trades, master of none. hmm. And that's what interests me. That's what keeps me going is the constant stream of having something new to learn, learning, and then having breadth of learning across all disciplines, that all subject matters, whatever.
00:19:43
Speaker
it's It doesn't matter the subject. It's more interesting to me that I see a problem that needs a solution. And hustling out what that solution is is what keeps me interested in the law.
00:19:56
Speaker
Were you able to find enough of that those sorts of generalist problems to work on? you're you know You were at Refco, then Citi...
00:20:06
Speaker
than another big financial institution. you know We all have their credit cards in our in our wallets, American Express. you know Were you able to find enough to keep you sort of creatively engaged at those big financial institutions? Or one of the takeaways like maybe I really need to be or I'm better suited to being at at places that are a bit smaller and earlier stage?
00:20:30
Speaker
I think so. I would answer that in... another dimension, which is not just the breadth of the subject matter that you're covering, but also whether or not you have a pure legal head on versus if you're almost on the business side as an advocate of a business and not just a legal department. So a legal department at a big institution is necessarily going to be the The guardrail, that's going to be the of that ah stop stopping point that says you can't go further until it's vetted in a particular way.
00:21:01
Speaker
And because the financial institution that's really big has the reputation to protect, has a lot of regulators in the building, has a brand reputation to protect, you're naturally going to be very conservative. And so when you're a lawyer, though, they also don't expect you to give advice necessarily outside your legal remit.
00:21:20
Speaker
Mm-hmm. and and But yeah as a at a startup, that's not the mentality that you can have. You have to be outside your legal remit. You have to go beyond that to find the solutions that's going to keep the startup going because you can't be conservative.
00:21:36
Speaker
If you're conservative, you run out cash before you have a successful business. yeah have to You have to keep running.
Transition to Xtend and Startup Culture
00:21:41
Speaker
yeah And so that's that's the part that I would say is the most I guess I'll use the word refreshing.
00:21:47
Speaker
It's the most refreshing because you're always on your toes. You're always moving forward. There's a sense of propulsion there you ah at dealing with this the unknown that comes at you every day.
00:21:59
Speaker
Was that really the primary thing that led you to extend? What was it that that brought you into the business um and into your current role? Well, to be honest, ah startup was the furthest thing from my mind.
00:22:13
Speaker
been so many years at big financial institutions that are stable that don't fail. If yeah think that, you know, Refco was a pretty big company. It managed billions of dollars in assets at the time. And I'm thinking that's too small.
00:22:25
Speaker
you know What do you think my mine my my my viewpoint was about startups? They statistically will fail. Yep. So when I started thinking about whether or not I would join the startup, my initial thought was way hell would I ever join a startup because statistically, what are they going to do? They're going to fail.
00:22:44
Speaker
ah But then the more I thought about it, the more it was intriguing To be in and in that kind of environment that moves so fast, that's so propulsive. that's um That's an environment that I thought, this is something that I'd love to try out and give it a shot.
00:23:00
Speaker
And here I still am in that in that world and and enjoying every minute of it. Do you feel like there are you know sort of the skills or or instincts?
00:23:11
Speaker
You talk about being the guardrails in a big financial institution that you had to sort of like unlearn or relearn in the early days at Xtend, being in a much sort of faster paced and also environment where, as you say, if revenue is not coming in the door, the business is not going to be around in six months, 18 months, whatever it is.
00:23:36
Speaker
Yeah, I would say one of the things you have to unlearn is that conservatism that naturally is there, that you've learned to say, oh these are risks. But when you join a startup, you now look at risks in a much different way.
00:23:52
Speaker
You say these are risks, but they're not necessarily important to a company that if they tried to solve for all these risks, risk number 78, 79, and 80, they would not nearly have enough time in the day, nor they have the resources in order to tackle that kind of risk.
00:24:07
Speaker
So it's risks that you're just not going to address and not worry about as a startup. Yeah. And so taking away that mentality, like relearning how to prioritize properly to say, these are the risks I used to think about.
00:24:20
Speaker
And certainly they're important to a big financial institution. But now I have a whole set of risks. I need to prioritize very aggressively which ones I'm going to pay attention to. And that calculus is completely different. So there's a little bit of ah a learning curve there in terms of shifting your priorities.
00:24:35
Speaker
Do you feel like you um view yourself differently also just in terms of maybe the ownership you have over – you're a member of the executive team now.
00:24:48
Speaker
Do you think of yourself differently as not just the person who's meant to be at the table giving the legal advice but someone who needs to sort of like work – with your peers in the C-suite to get to the right answer, even if like what we're really deciding is a business outcome as opposed to something strictly legal?
00:25:07
Speaker
Absolutely. I think there's always a calculation that's going to say, what's the right business outcome? What's it's the specific technical legal outcome?
00:25:20
Speaker
answer to a particular question and how are we going to approach it? And there's a lot of flexibility, ah as there always is. And what you want is the flexibility to think through you be responsible about how you address risk in a way that still allows the business to move forward at the speed that it needs to move forward.
00:25:41
Speaker
And so when you're in the room with other leadership, you you are holding hands trying to find those creative solutions to help the business move forward. you don't want to be there so You don't want to be the gate. You don't want to be the blocker. You don't want to be the naysayer. You want to say, maybe you can't do that, but how about this?
00:25:59
Speaker
You want to always, that's the solutions that say, this is how are you're going to move forward. Not necessarily in the way that you outlined it originally, but there is a way forward and here here's what it is.
00:26:10
Speaker
And sometimes that takes creativity. Sometimes that takes a lot of thinking, um but you get there in the end. Are there things that you've learned as Xtend has grown about how legal can also support businesses that are in the process of scaling or or in the process of
Legal's Role in Business and Culture
00:26:29
Speaker
of growing? Like, you know, lessons for other folks who might be in a similar place where they're joining a business that's at one point in time, but expects to experience quite a bit of growth over the course of two, three years.
00:26:42
Speaker
So one of the things we did, since we're in the financial technology space, we're a FinTech, So there's a lot of regulation that might not directly apply to us, but certainly apply to the partners that we partner with who are heavily regulated.
00:26:54
Speaker
Sure. And so from the very beginning, knew we wanted to create a compliant atmosphere and a robust infrastructure around compliance, especially around data security, obviously.
00:27:08
Speaker
um And that was from day one. So when I look at other startups and I see some of the um non-attention, I'll call it, that they take to having any kind of instruction in place whatsoever.
00:27:21
Speaker
That to me would be like, oh, that's something that if you approach differently, you need to start from day one because you need to have everybody in your company on board with understanding why you have these programs in place, why addressing this risk is so important and why it becomes really important when you start to scale.
00:27:37
Speaker
You have 10 customers, maybe it's not that big a deal. Once you have 10,000 customers, At that scale, you need these compliance mechanisms in place. It's absolutely necessary. Start early, start, put it in place.
00:27:52
Speaker
And then what you're playing with is the balance between, you could drown them in compliance policies all day long. They could read them, and train them all day long, right? And they're all going to leave the company because they're going to hate it. So what's the balance between making sure they're aware Of the things you want them to know as they think about product design or as they think about marketing or as they think about just working at the company, what are the compliance things you want them to pay attention to, but teach it to them or train it to them in a way that's edible as opposed to just, you know, they're going to run away from it.
00:28:22
Speaker
Yeah, I think one of the things that that sparks for me also is that think legal isn't very is a very important function or is a very important team in terms of shaping the culture of a business or or a company. And that that sometimes can get a little bit overlooked, whether it's culture around compliance, it's the way that people treat each other in the business, right? I mean, I think actually really a lot of times, even going back to our sort of earlier conversation around you know wanting folks to make ethical decisions even in times of high pressure or high stress. right um
00:28:57
Speaker
Legal can shape that sort of thing through policy, but legal can also shape that through you know yeah your actions and the way that you interact with your peers and the way that you talk. um Yeah, i don't know if you have any observations on on that.
00:29:13
Speaker
Yeah, I would say the number one thing, and whether it's the legal department instilling it or other people at the company, the the most important thing to me is accountability.
00:29:24
Speaker
It's the ability to raise your hand when you screw it up or you've made a mistake to say, I screwed up, I made a mistake and come forward and own it. ah As well as transparency. So you're not going to hide things. You're going to be open about what you did or what you didn't do.
00:29:38
Speaker
And so I think the understanding I have with the leadership at Xpend is I'll be the first to raise my hand if I think I screwed up. I'll be the first to come and be open and transparent about something that maybe I should have addressed that I forgot to address or something that that we should have done that you know maybe I didn't give the best advice the first time around. So we're going to come around and do it again.
00:29:57
Speaker
yeah That kind of but accountability and transparency is something that people observe. So whether you're saying it in words or whether you're just carrying yourself in that particular way, I think people will see that. People will understand that and understand and that it seeps into the culture of the company when you have that kind of um um ethical standard that you practice.
Career Satisfaction and Influences
00:30:20
Speaker
If you look back on your career, June, you know you've had these sorts of like crossroads moments, I guess. Do I pursue more of an academic path or or go and and go to law school and be more of a practitioner? um you know Big law versus and and partnership versus going in-house.
00:30:40
Speaker
Large institution versus startup. um Anything that you would share with with our audience ah around the sorts of frameworks for making these decisions or or how you've made choices um during moments of transition in your your career?
00:30:57
Speaker
I've certainly seen a lot of people who I fear... if your number one desire is ambition to be somewhere high up in a power position, partner at a big law firm, right? that's That's one thing, if that's your ambition.
00:31:14
Speaker
Or if you want to be financially secure and have that job that... unlikely they'll have downsizing that might lead you out of a job. It's a little bit more stable. you know It's not like a startup that's going to fail. That might be your priority.
00:31:28
Speaker
I think for me, the number one thing you have to ask yourself or any lawyer has to ask himself is, is this something when you wake up in the morning, you're looking forward to, or is this something that you're actually dreading? Is this something that you're actually interested in, but there's still that curiosity?
00:31:42
Speaker
That brings you to the table to say, you know, I'm going to find these solutions. And by finding these solutions, I actually get some kind of joys, maybe that's not the right word, but it's yeah it is is satisfaction. That you get some kind of satisfaction out of what you do.
00:31:58
Speaker
um And if that's not there, then I think you'd probably want to reassess at some point. what it is that would bring you back that curiosity or back that joy or back, you know, bring back that spring in your step that says, this is the job that I actually enjoy going to, as opposed to dragging your feet and saying, it's another day, another day at the grindstone.
00:32:21
Speaker
Uh, I've got some questions that I like to ask all of my guests, uh, and I want to ask them to, to you too. um Talking about that sort of joy or meaning, right? I mean, I think i think people want meaningful careers.
00:32:35
Speaker
What's your favorite part of your day-to-day? oh at Xtend by far, it's the other people. It's the people that I'm surrounded with. They are um they're they're they're good at what they do.
00:32:49
Speaker
They are creative. They're insightful. They're intelligent. It's a great bunch of people to work with. And that's... be it's I've never been surrounded in this kind of atmosphere before.
00:33:01
Speaker
Yeah. Where you are collectively working towards something and everyone is pulling their weight in the way that they should. And so that's that's that's a great environment to be in. That's really cool. um Okay, the flip side, but I think this is kind of a funny question.
00:33:16
Speaker
It's if you have a professional pet peeve. A professional pet tease. You know, my pet tease, and this goes for like, if you play a lot of board games.
00:33:28
Speaker
Okay. There's always a person that's called the ah rules ah rules lawyer. The one that has to be very technical. Yeah. And sometimes like, you know I don't want to call it the DMV, but I'll call the DMV. When you go to the DMV and you see that person who like, you forgot to dot an I and they send you back because the application is incomplete. It's that kind of rules lowering.
00:33:49
Speaker
and There's a certain level of, it can be a little sloppy. Because the spirit, you're there in spirit or you're there most of the way. So everyone to understand that you're basically done.
00:34:00
Speaker
But then those rules that come in and they say, no, you still have two I's to dot. That's my thing. People think that that's important. That's a good one. I have not heard that one before.
Personal Recommendations and Reflections
00:34:12
Speaker
I like that. I might have to steal that myself. and Is there a book that you would recommend to to our audience?
00:34:21
Speaker
but I mentioned the title before, Tao Te Ching. It's a short book, 81 chapters. that's very it's It's almost like poetry. And like poetry, you can read a lot into it in terms of coming up with your own interpretation as to what you think it means.
00:34:36
Speaker
It's been around for thousands of years, and there's no agreement as to what exactly it's trying to say. But there's certainly a lot of passages that if you are in that space where concepts of harmony, concepts of yin and yang, concepts of balance appeal to you.
00:34:53
Speaker
This is something that as you read it might resonate. And I think it's worth picking up because it won't take you very long to read it. It's a very short book. Very cool. um And then I'll i'll plug it.
00:35:05
Speaker
ah when we were When we were talking before we got on and started doing the the podcast, you mentioned that your wife just won a Pulitzer Prize for a book that she wrote.
00:35:16
Speaker
Can you tell us about that? Because going to go order it. I think it sounds pretty cool. yeah so So my wife is Ilian Wu. ah She won the Pulitzer in the 2024 Pulitzer for biography for a book called Master Slave, Husband, Wife.
00:35:32
Speaker
And it's about this enslaved couple that start off in Macon, Georgia and make their way north. But rather than following anything like the Underground Railroad, they actually go in plain daylight because she is so fair, ah there her complexion is so fair that she disguises herself as a disabled master and her husband pretends to be her slave.
00:35:57
Speaker
And together they travel on by train, by first class coaches, staying at the top hotels and escape to freedom that way. And it became a sensation once they ah reached the North.
00:36:09
Speaker
because of the though the way in which they escaped. And so that's the story that she's telling in this particular, it's everything is true. The amazing thing about this book is it's creative nonfiction. It reads like a novel, but everything you read in it is factual.
00:36:23
Speaker
It sounds like it should be made into a movie. It would take a pretty fantastic movie, I think. That's very cool. um Okay. Last question for you, June, my traditional closing question for my guests.
00:36:39
Speaker
It's, you know, if you could look back on on your career and look back maybe at your young days as a lawyer, just out of law school or at Skadden, what is one thing that you know now that you wish that you'd known back then?
00:36:55
Speaker
I wish I had known about startups sooner. And I say that flippantly because of all the places where I practice law, in terms of just how I am, very curious about being as broad as possible, as being comfortable not knowing the answer, and but but wanting to find the solutions.
00:37:15
Speaker
If there's any place where that is something that you do every day, it's at a business that's just getting its feet wet. Yeah. um So if I knew how much I would have enjoyed being at a startup way back then, i think I would have jumped a lot sooner rather than thinking that there's no way in hell I'm going to join the startup because they statistically fail.
00:37:35
Speaker
It's never too late. ah Never too late to learn something about yourself too, I guess. Right. ah That's great.
00:37:43
Speaker
Well, June, this has been a lot of fun. Thanks so much for joining me for this episode of The Abstract. Great. It's been a pleasure to be here. And to all of our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in and we hope to see you time.