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Prof. Heidi Brown, The Introverted, Fear-Untangling, Flourishing Lawyer! ( Pt. 1)
216 Plays1 year ago
Folks, this one has everything.... imposter syndrome, finding your super-power as an introvert in a field that often feels made for extroverts, brave life transitions, and the momentous impact of an all-too-rare moment of shared vulnerability in (gulp!) BigLaw.
Join host Chris Osborn for a delightful, engaging, and compelling conversation with 4 time ABA-published author Prof. Heidi Brown of Brooklyn Law School.
In Part 1, Heidi shares about her incredible journey: from feeling out-of place in law school, finding her sweet spot and hitting her stride in a sophisticated construction law practice, and changing it all up as she learned more about who she was and what she needed to truly thrive and flourish as a lawyer and a human being. Whoever and wherever you are, we know you'll find relatble moments galore!
Transcript
Introduction to Thriving Lawyers Podcast
00:00:06
Speaker
Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Thriving Lawyers Podcast. My name is Chris Osborne. I am one of the co-hosts of this podcast. My partner, Michael Kahn, is not with us today, but I have
00:00:20
Speaker
the pleasure of interviewing and introducing hopefully some of you to a fantastic person who I've gotten connected with just over the last few months. Our guest today is Professor Heidi Brown from the Brooklyn School of Law, right in the middle of NYC. So Heidi, welcome and thank you so much for being here today. Thank you. I'm really excited to talk to you.
00:00:42
Speaker
Yes, so Heidi and I actually didn't know it, or we didn't know each other, but we were in law school at the same time, overlapped maybe by a year or something, but we ran in different circles and never really knew each other. And so I first ran across her work in a few different places. She, as we'll talk about in a little bit, has published several books through the ABA, The Introverted Lawyer, and what's the exact title of the one about fear, overcoming fear in lawyering?
00:01:11
Speaker
untangling fear and lawyering. I like the word untangle. I like that too, yes. And we'll talk about that. And then her most recent book, which we're certainly going to spend some time talking about, is The Flourishing Lawyer, which I'm in the middle of reading now and just decided, wow, I've got to get Heidi on here. I think it's a fascinating book. I love that this book exists.
00:01:32
Speaker
and has the content and just the vibe that it has really. And so, excited to have you here, Heidi. Thank you so much for taking time. As we're recording this, the new semester is about to start up for law students everywhere in January 2022. So, a lot on your plate.
00:01:48
Speaker
Yes, but I'm excited to talk to you about things that affect our law students and the future generation of our profession, so this will be good. Absolutely, absolutely.
Heidi's Unplanned Path to Law School
00:01:57
Speaker
So I wanted to get folks to hear a little bit, and I'm curious again to remind me, so tell me about sort of how did you first decide that you were interested in law, wanted to go to law school, how did you end up choosing where to go to law school? What was that like for you at the time? Because people come at it different ways. Some people stumble into it, some people are like,
00:02:15
Speaker
I came out, you know, wearing loafers and with a briefcase of the womb, you know, but that that last depiction definitely was not me. So I told my students, you know, I joke with my students. I didn't have any really grand philosophical reason for going to law school. In fact, I used to tell my parents I wanted to be the first female orthopedic surgeon to the Washington football team because I was a big Washington football team fan and I wanted to be a doctor.
00:02:41
Speaker
but when I was growing up we had big St. Bernard dogs and I used to go to the vet with my dad with our giant St. Bernard dog and every time the vet took blood from the dog I promptly passed out so I thought well I don't think I'm going to be able to be a medical doctor if I can't handle that.
00:03:00
Speaker
It's good that you got that experience, though, to let you know. Yes, yes. I mean, I loved college. I went to the University of Virginia for undergrad, and I completely loved college. I was a really good student in college. I studied lots of different languages. I was what's called an Eccles Scholar, so you can kind of put together your curriculum. You didn't have to... Really? Yes. What year did you finish, actually?
00:03:19
Speaker
I graduated from UVA undergrad in 91. So I was there when there was still the Watson dorm and Watson dorm. Yes, we didn't talk about this. We made it out, but you might have known my buddy from high school, Kenny Heath. I don't know if you would run across him. He was an Echols scholar, the class after you. I actually was admitted to be one and and almost went, but my heart was kind of in Chapel Hill already, but I love that. It's so cool.
00:03:45
Speaker
It's a great program because it really gives you a lot of flexibility to study a bunch of different things. And I did. I loved college. I took French and Italian. I took a semester of Russian. I took psychology classes. I took anthropology classes. And it's funny, I didn't end up taking any medical classes because I had shifted my focus.
00:04:06
Speaker
So I applied to law school right out of college and I graduated from college young. I was 21 and I got accepted to the University of Virginia School of Law. So I thought, oh, wow, you know, college is going to be just like undergrad, which I love.
Challenges in Law School
00:04:20
Speaker
I mean, in fact, I was even some of my same professors were teaching at the law school and wrote my recommendations. Really? Yeah, I started law school thinking it would be just like undergrad, which was not the case at all.
00:04:34
Speaker
Yeah, I know. What would you describe as the main difference? Obviously, the Eccles lets you have the freedom store design your curriculum, if I remember correctly. You can take whatever you want. So one is you've got this, you are taking these classes. But what else would you say were the differences and things? That part didn't bother me. It was really the classroom dynamic that was like night and day. I mean, in undergrad, my professors, it was very calm. I felt calm in class. Now, in my big lecture classes in undergrad, I was never the student that raised my hand a lot.
00:05:02
Speaker
But I, you know, I did all my homework. I loved writing my papers. It's interesting because I spoke a lot in my language classes. I wasn't afraid or scared to speak out loud and volunteer a lot in a foreign language. I didn't worry about looking at language. I mean, that was kind of the point of so I was very good language student, speaking Italian, French, Russian, not a whole semester on the alphabet. So I didn't get very far. Yeah.
00:05:27
Speaker
But when I got to law school, you're in these big lecture classes with 80 students, and I felt like everyone understood this new language or had this secret code to this new language of law, and I had no idea what was going on. I have a very robust blushing response, which when I get nervous, I blush. I turn beet red, which I write about in the books.
00:05:51
Speaker
My professors that first week or two of law school were cold calling people. Just, you know, no notice. That had never happened to me in undergrad. And I was completely substantively prepared for my law school classes. I'd done all the reading. I'd joke with my students. I had highlighter ink all over my hands from stand up all night, you know, highlighting my textbooks, my casebooks.
00:06:13
Speaker
Did you have multiple colors? Did you have multiple colors in highlighter like school and facts and all that sort of thing? Yeah, absolutely. The holding of the cases, totally. But I was petrified of being called on my classes and I did get cold called and it did not go well. So law school was a rude awakening for me in terms of fear and
00:06:34
Speaker
Anxiety and and really just not feeling like I belong to be totally honest with you in that first year And I don't know if you feel comfortable, but I have a curiosity question since I went to the same school Were there any professors that were tougher or less tough or do you want to name names? I don't know
00:06:51
Speaker
I mean, I don't, I don't name names, but they were very, they were all tough. I mean, they accept my legal writing professor. I have professor Jan Levine, who's a huge mentor of mine. He's wonderful. He's not there. He's at Duquesne now, but I loved my legal writing class.
00:07:07
Speaker
I think because I loved the research and writing and the writing enabled me to sit and pause and think about subjects in class. I felt like it was a competition to see who could act like they knew everything already. And I felt like I was reading pages of
00:07:27
Speaker
material and I didn't even understand these Latin phrases. I did not know what was going on. Especially, and I write about this, my criminal law class and my constitutional law classes, those were two different semesters. I felt like it was all this abstract theory.
00:07:44
Speaker
Yes, yes. And professors were brilliant, but my brain is very practical and and I like classes that that were like rules and checklists of rules like civil procedure and evidence and right even tax. You know, there's a code. There's rules. Sure, sure. We got somewhere working off of at least to start with. Yeah.
00:08:04
Speaker
But my brain did not function in those really abstract theoretical classes. And so I didn't do well my first year of law school in those particular classes at all, which scared
Career Beginnings at a Litigation Firm
00:08:15
Speaker
me. I thought I wanted to paint. I was going to say, what did that feel like? Yeah, what were you doing with that? Because you've been successful. If you were in Echols at UVA, undergrad, got into UVA law, you were successful because you're coming from out of state, too. So what was that like to not be? I knew I was smart.
00:08:31
Speaker
and a hard-working student, but law school just was not clicking for me. And I tell this story and I've written about it a few times that for some reason, my school at the time released our small section grade first without the rest of our grades at the same time. Now at my current school, we release everything at the same time, which I think is a better approach, a more humane approach because you have context.
00:08:54
Speaker
But because, I mean, practically speaking, your smaller sections, your professors can grade faster. So anyway, my law school, our law school released our criminal law grade first. And I got the worst grade in that class I'd ever gotten in my life. I got a C plus. Oh gosh. My roommate, and to this day, I don't know why we spoke about this aloud, but she got an A plus.
00:09:17
Speaker
Oh, ouch. Yeah. For three weeks until my other grades came, I cried. I was so stressed. I was so worried that I was going to fail out of law school and I had loans and I was never going to get a job and catastrophizing that many of us do.
00:09:37
Speaker
Well, and especially at our law school, they really drilled us on. It's a B mean. Don't worry. Everybody's pretty much going to get some variety of B. And so you're like, I didn't even make that. I didn't. It's your, that's shame city. It was total shame city for three weeks. I went home. I mean, I was home for winter break when that grade came in.
00:09:58
Speaker
I basically just hid under a blanket on my couch and then, and worried about whether I was even going to go back and be allowed to go back. But okay, so then the rest of the grades came in. I did fine. I was basically the B student.
00:10:11
Speaker
And then I pulled myself together and went back for second semester, and then guess what? The same thing happened. I got a request in constitutional law. Oh gosh. But you know what I discovered that year, well that semester, again, the research and writing, we got to do our first brief in legal writing. Yeah. I hated the oral argument experience for the same exact reason. I felt like,
00:10:39
Speaker
No one had really taught us how to do it, but everyone was supposed to be really excited to do it. Mine went terribly. I basically blacked out. The judge told me I had developed this like hair twirling tick nervous tick.
00:10:56
Speaker
First year was a disaster for me. Yes. Here's where the story gets better. Because I'm scrappy and I'm a hard worker, I ended up sending out 100 resumes because I needed a summer job that paid. Okay.
00:11:10
Speaker
And this is back in the day when we used to, do you ever go to Kinko's, the copy center? Oh, heck yes. Yes. So I went to Kinko's and I printed a hundred copies of my resume on paper. And I sent out a hundred resumes with a hundred stamps.
00:11:27
Speaker
And I got an awesome summer associate position with a boutique litigation firm in Northern Virginia. Nice. That paid amazingly well and was a brilliant training ground for 1Ls and 2Ls and graduates.
Personal and Professional Transitions
00:11:44
Speaker
And I was so excited. So my first year didn't hold me back from getting a great job, which then set me up for the next phase.
00:11:54
Speaker
Well, and that was especially tough, too, because this is we're talking about the early 90s, right? I got there in 92. So you've been there in 91. And there weren't a lot of 1L opportunities then. 1L summer programs were not super strong. It was pretty rare. And it was usually a pretty large firm as well, it would have to be. But yeah, I'm flashing back. I'm remembering my like,
00:12:18
Speaker
whatever Mac, I had like a little Macintosh, one of those square box computers and a printer, I didn't think I had a printer, I would use a printer lab still. And so if you needed something to look actually professional, it was, you know, Kinko's was the place to go, especially if you wanted to mass produce it and have it on decent paper. So, so different from the age of PDFs and all that.
00:12:39
Speaker
Definitely. Did it turn out to be a good experience? Did it match up with what you expected? Okay. Yes. The firm just happened to specialize in construction law, and I didn't know what that even meant. But that summer exposed me to the reality that it doesn't matter what kind of law you practice as long as you're excited about the actual tasks.
00:12:59
Speaker
So the clients were owners and contractors and subcontractors on these big projects like football stadiums and baseball stadiums and hospitals and power plants. So I had to learn things like how to read a blueprint and how to read engineering documents. So it wasn't just the law, but they gave us really intense high-pressure writing assignments. And that I could do.
00:13:25
Speaker
You know, I always thought that was fun. I did construction law for a good while when I was a litigator, and I did enjoy getting to learn about like the science of construction, like touring a site and going, well, here's why we build the footings this way and why you go here before there and all. And I did find that interesting, for sure. And so, but you had some good writing aspects of it, and you were kind of able to see, hey, that's sort of the place where I really shined.
00:13:50
Speaker
Yes. And the firm, it was a medium-sized firm, so it had about 50 lawyers at the time, and they were very hands-on in terms of training. And I felt like even that summer as a 1L, I got really great mentoring from the partners about my writing. So then they invited me. I went back to school and did fine. I still didn't love it, but I went back to school, and then I spent my second summer at the same firm, and they ended up giving me an offer when I graduated.
00:14:18
Speaker
I took the Virginia Bar Exam and ended up working there for six years, which was a really great experience from a professional development standpoint.
00:14:29
Speaker
And you said earlier you had grown up in Washington, but I don't know if I clarified. Is that Washington State or Washington DC? Oh no, Washington DC, sorry. DC, okay. I actually grew up in Virginia, so I was in state for undergraduate school. Okay, no worries. Still a tough road to navigate. So did you end up going there, and were you good with going back to kind of where you'd grown up, that area and all?
00:14:51
Speaker
I was at the time I was I just being totally vulnerable and honest on the on the podcast I was in a relationship from the time I was 18 to college boyfriend when I was 18 we dated two and a half years of college and all three years of my law school experience and then we got married.
00:15:11
Speaker
My father is a minister, so he did our wedding. You were a young student, as it was. That is a lot to carry. I think I've got three daughters, age 20, 22, and 24. Knowing where they are, I'm like, that's a lot. It was a lot. I look back on it. I can't believe how young I was in law school.
00:15:37
Speaker
in that type of serious relationship. Because when we got married, I was 24. We actually got married in April of my last year at UVA. I graduated, studied for the bar, started my new job as this fancy law firm associate that September. And then kind of fast forward. I worked for six years at that law firm and was married during that time. But it's my late 20s.
00:16:04
Speaker
My job was so intense and I did like a lot of my job, but I dealt with a lot of kind of volatile personalities in my job too. And it took a big toll on me and my marriage fell apart. So at 29 turning 30, I ended up
00:16:23
Speaker
Moving to New York because I was going through this really traumatic Relationship split which was just terrible at the time. Well, yeah You had it for a third of you'd had it for a third of your life by that 12 years. Yeah Yeah with this person that I loved and cry loved him very much and He was such a huge part of my life, but it was my sort of my doing that that we were splitting up so it was a lot of
00:16:53
Speaker
shame and guilt and stress and anxiety and I felt like a failure. And I was leaving, so I left everything. I left my house and all that, but also my job that I was a good associate. I worked really hard. Getting close to partner, I would think. Yes. We had, I think back then we had like a seven year track and I was a six year associate.
00:17:16
Speaker
Oh, my gosh. It was rough. It was not my finest.
9/11 and a Life-Changing Decision
00:17:20
Speaker
It was my worst year of my life, I will say, by far. I would imagine. Did you pick the city first, or the job first, or how did you end up going to New York as the place to sort of start over? The city for sure. I mean, I had lived in Virginia my whole life, lived in the suburbs, and I had been working on a case with a New York client, and I needed to get out of Virginia to have just a complete break from
00:17:43
Speaker
But it was scary because I didn't know anything about New York and I was literally leaving everything that I knew. My husband I'd known for 12 years of my life, my parents who weren't super happy with me at the time, my job that I loved, I loved the partners that raised me really as a young lawyer. My friends thought I had lost my mind, which I kind of had.
00:18:09
Speaker
Everything operates differently in New York as well. Getting a place to live, one of my children lives there now and another one's probably going to end up there. Getting a place to live there does not work the same as anywhere else I've lived. It's a madhouse. I joke and I write in my books about how New York kicks you around like a hacky sack. It kicks you around for about a year. If you can handle it, you can handle anything.
00:18:38
Speaker
Yes, that's that's what my wife and I have said about our oldest child who lives there. She's a boss because like, I mean, I remember going up to visitor and she's like, we're going to get on this subway. Oh, we got to get on the express. And she like runs across the platform at the right time. And she knows exactly. I mean, I'm like, these are skills. This is fantastic. You're getting a life education here.
00:18:59
Speaker
Because we've all made the mistake of getting on the wrong subway and ending up in Brooklyn or the Bronx. And then you don't panic, you just turn around and you get on the right subway going in the right direction. I remember when I first used to stand on a street corner and be so confused about what was north and south.
00:19:18
Speaker
And cab drivers would be honking at me. And I'd be like, I burst out in tears because I had no idea what I was doing. But once you get through all that, you realize nothing is a disaster. No, you can navigate. I would say. Yeah. Yeah. You can navigate any city if you can navigate New York. That's my experience, at least. In the US, at least. Let's keep it with that. So what did you do? What was the job there? And what was, did you know anybody? And what was that adjustment, not just the city, but to a different way of practice, I would imagine, too?
00:19:48
Speaker
Yeah, I really, I really didn't know very many people up here at all. But I did my usual thing. I sent out, well, first, I had spoken with the partners at my first firm to see if they wanted to open a New York office. And I kind of laughed and said, you're a six year associate. And no, we're not opening an office for you. They were very gracious and wonderful. But they're like, Okay, you need to move on. I like to ask though. I like the gutsiness of that ask. That is scrappy. I'm impressed. Because I
00:20:17
Speaker
I needed a job. I had no money. I needed to find a place to live. I needed everything. So I did what I usually do. I sent out 100 resumes again. Wow. And I think at this point, I was emailing. So I didn't have to go to Kinko's and print my resumes. Sure, sure. But I did send out 100. And I, the girl with two C pluses on her transcript, I got a job in big law. Wow. I was so surprised and pleased. And it just happened to be a firm
00:20:47
Speaker
that was in the World Trade Center because this was in 2000. And so I got my job at, it was on the 39th floor of Tower 2. Oh my goodness. And I started the job in October, I think October of 2000.
00:21:03
Speaker
Wow. Okay. There might be an element coming up here that we can see coming. Yes. Build us up to that though. What was it like at that new firm and reinventing? Did you watch the show reinventing Anna at all? I haven't, but my friend has watched it. Yes. I want to write a story about this called Reinventing Heidi because that's basically what you do. I reinvented myself I think six times. I think I'm on the verge of doing it again. That's good.
00:21:31
Speaker
Okay, so Yes, so I started the job at the firm. It was not a construction firm. I was doing a lot of banking Law a lot of research still a lot of writing which was great Emotionally, I was not doing very well I you know, I was still going through the trauma of the divorce process, which is terrible and obvious and I was adjusting to New York this was still in the first year of my adjustment to York so I was
00:21:57
Speaker
worried I'd made a mistake because everything was just so hard and I didn't feel like I was very good at anything. Oh yeah, you had to be battling that thought a lot, I would imagine. Yes. So, and I also, I had come from a firm which I, I shared, you know, I loved working at my first firm, but I did work with some really intense, volatile personalities at times. Sure.
00:22:18
Speaker
At the new firm, I also had one of the partners would scream and yell a lot. He was really smart and intense, but he also had a bad temper. I would listen to this and I would flinch. I found myself flinching a lot. I was so stressed. I remember looking out the windows of my World Trade Center office at the Statue of Liberty. I could barely see it, but I could see it.
00:22:42
Speaker
I could see sailboats floating around the statue. I remember looking back and thinking, I just wish I was on one of those because I was so stressed and anxious and sad and under this blanket of shame and all the things. I wasn't doing very well. This was not what you needed. This was not a nurturing, hey, let's take care of you. You're going through some stuff. Don't worry. We got you. This was like, well, good for you.
00:23:12
Speaker
Yes. You got to swim. I mean, in their defense, they didn't really know what I was going through because I didn't tell a lot of people, but it was a big law. It was intense and high expectations and all of that. Can we pause for just a second? I just want to underscore that because I think that's powerful. You were going through a lot of stuff. Of course, you're not broadcasting. Hey, my life has just turned upside down and all, and I feel all this.
00:23:40
Speaker
But isn't that an important moment for anybody who's listening, who's an employer, who brings on a new person, whether it's a lateral or a new person? You don't ever know exactly where somebody is when they come in. You know what they have presented and how you've seen them in some context, but they could have a boatload of stuff going on. It would seem like it would behoove us to be mindful of that, to be aware
00:24:04
Speaker
just start barking at people and jump, run, do this. You don't know what they're enduring, especially starting out. Is that fair? That is fair. I love that you said that because I finally had a moment like that with that intense partner I was describing. I worked at the firm for about 10 months, so leading into the summer-ish or mid-summer
00:24:28
Speaker
of that year and I was still just not functioning very well and the partner got really angry at me over something. There were always little things like I stapled a document the wrong way. Nothing shows the truth. You weren't parallel to the top. You were angled or something.
00:24:47
Speaker
But he got really upset over something. And I remember I blushed because that's what happens to me. And he said something like, you need to make this job your number one priority. And I said, for the first time in my life, I actually said, it's not. I am my number one priority. And at first, he didn't know how to take that. And then I just started. I may have actually started to cry, but I said, look, I'm going through this really awful divorce situation.
00:25:17
Speaker
I'm having a hard time with it. I'm really sad. I'm grieving it. I feel trauma. For his credit, he sat down and I think what you described earlier, he realized I've never known what this young woman is going to need to ask her. And he did. And he talked to me about the fact that he'd gone through divorce and it's really terrible and embarrassing.
00:25:44
Speaker
awful. And so we had a really good conversation and that helped me realize that I could take a short lead, what I thought was going to be a short leave of absence from the firm to really just grieve and then heal from what I had been going through.
Stranded in Gander: A Story of Kindness
00:26:01
Speaker
make space for you to be a person and to actually let all that stuff actually have a place to land I mean when you put in that how do you I'm thinking of like if you took a stress factor score during that time frame like there's not a box you're not taking really as far as the things that are
00:26:19
Speaker
absolute nightmares for stress, for depression, for anxiety, all this stuff, uprooting, major relationship, new job. I mean, I don't know what else you can pile on except for devastating illness. And you may have had somebody in your family with that too. I don't know. But what a powerful moment that he did listen.
00:26:38
Speaker
At some point, eventually, you know, it didn't start that, but gosh, if people listening get that idea to know how transformational that was because it sounds like it at least changed the dynamic pretty substantially.
00:26:51
Speaker
It absolutely did and I needed, I didn't know that it was okay to ask for time to take care of myself. And an even more poignant reality that came out of that was, so that was around July-ish of 2001.
00:27:10
Speaker
And so I was taking my time to get myself together and work on myself. And I started seeing a therapist at the time doing a lot of reading. Oh, doing a ton of writing too. I was reflecting on everything that I'd been through. Like journaling to process some of this kind of stuff. Yeah. Lots of journaling, lots of memoir-ish kind of writing, which I had never done before.
00:27:35
Speaker
And I made some friends in Manhattan, some girlfriends that summer, and they invited me to go on a trip. And so I said yes. But because their trip was already booked, and I booked mine kind of last minute, I booked this flight on frequent flyer miles. And so we had different itineraries. Right. And you had less choice in when you were going. You had to kind of take what the flyer miles would get you. Yeah.
00:27:57
Speaker
Well, I'll never forget this, if you don't mind me telling this part of the story. September 9th of 2001, I remember sitting on the balcony of a hotel in Greece and there was this ferocious wind happening.
00:28:14
Speaker
And I remember I had blankets wrapped around me and I was alone. It was just me because my friends had left. And I was sitting on this balcony and this wind was hitting my face. And I'm looking out over this dark Aegean sea. It was beautiful, but kind of a little ominous, but beautiful. And I remember feeling like, okay, everything is going to be okay. You're going to be okay.
00:28:33
Speaker
Wow, you're gonna figure out life and you're gonna forgive yourself for For everything and you're going to move on and you're gonna be a great lawyer, etcetera, etcetera the next night September 10th of 2001 I spent the night in the Athens Airport because I was
00:28:52
Speaker
I was 31 at the time, and I was still kind of naive to traveling, so I forgot to make a hotel reservation. So I slept on a bench in the Athens airport. I board a flight to Frankfurt.
00:29:08
Speaker
to fly home to America and my flight got diverted to Gander, Newfoundland in Canada because 9-11 happened during my flight. Yes, yes. So I was not in that building that day, thankfully, because I took a leave of absence because that partner facilitated that for me
00:29:33
Speaker
And while my experience in Gander was also pretty life-changing, I realized how lucky I was that I needed to take care of my mental health. I wasn't in the building. And thankfully, my law firm, we didn't lose anybody that terrible, thankfully. But what a life-learning lesson for me that I wasn't there and I was on a different plane.
00:29:59
Speaker
the gander experience was just mind blowing as well and i want to ask you about that in a minute but heidi that has got to be one of my favorite stories and i'm not just be asking that's what my favorite stories i've ever heard because literally a moment of vulnerability on your part where you showed up and and and had the courage to say hey i'm not
00:30:19
Speaker
I'm not okay and I'm not performing at my best and something's got to change. That takes courage, especially at that age, still relatively new to the profession, totally new in a job. That took absolute guts from somewhere within you to say, no, I'm not okay and I'm not going to pretend. And you open yourself up and then, lo and behold, there's an empathy connection point.
00:30:45
Speaker
And the guy's like, well, hey, we got resources, we got options for that. And he even says, I've been through a divorce too. Oh crap, I know what that's like. Gosh, what a great plug for, you don't even know what consequences there might be that are so good beyond just, hey, the human connection in and of itself is pretty darn amazing. The fact that you got on a different path, but literally,
00:31:12
Speaker
it probably saved your life. If you look in the sort of chain of connections, because who knows what else would happen. You might've been, if you were still trying to slide out, you might've been working, you know, even if nobody else was in the building or whatever, who knows? Right. I think about that all the time, that it just, all those different connections and moments led me to where I am now able to write about those moments. And, but if, if he hadn't listened to me and really taken that time to
00:31:39
Speaker
understand what I was going through and also share what he was going through because I had judged him. For the nine, ten months I worked with him, I completely judged him in a certain way and didn't even realize who he was under that way either.
00:31:55
Speaker
Well, that's one of the things I've loved about. So my background, you know, just a little bit about and I don't go on to about too much here on this podcast, but I've been doing continuing legal education presentations for about for 16 years now, actually, I think we just celebrated. And one of the things that we love, we try to get conversations going in the room.
00:32:12
Speaker
And part of what we want to catalyze, we can't make it happen, but we certainly want to create the context for it is for people to have that kind of conversation like, oh, wait a minute, you're more than what I thought. I thought you're just my opposing counsel or you're just this person at this firm or in this role.
00:32:28
Speaker
But when people get to know each other on a more human level, it is so fun to watch what happens to their dynamic, what happens to how they work professionally. And in law, you don't always get that. There's sort of this professional distance depending on where you work in different environments. And I love moments like that because they are such game changers. I mean, for you, it probably is a game changer for him as well. He's like, I was
00:32:51
Speaker
kind to this young associate today and boy I'm glad I was. I wonder when I'm missing those opportunities. It's huge. So I'm going to ask you one more question. This is going to be like the greatest cliffhanger to episode two because we're going to need episode two because there's still more places to go with where your career went. But speak for a minute. So were you basically part of the crew of people that the musical Come From Away is about? The people who ended up on that island?
00:33:18
Speaker
Yes. So my plane was one of 39 planes. I believe that's the correct number. 39 planes and 6,000 passengers grounded in Gander, Newfoundland. And the beautiful Broadway show Come From Away is about that experience because the Canadians, we weren't, the airlines, we weren't allowed to take our luggage off the plane. Okay.
00:33:38
Speaker
And so the Canadians, I slept on the floor of a middle school. The Canadians brought us toothbrushes and clothes. Oh my gosh. I still have some of the clothes that they gave us. T-shirts. Oh my gosh. And they fed us. I was there for five days and everything in that show is completely accurate. Wow. Even to the point I had to fly back to Germany to get back in the US because the airspace was closed. Right, right, right.
00:34:05
Speaker
five days of Canadians just opening their hearts and orgasms and pantries and restaurants for us. It was incredible. That is unbelievable. And Heidi, I've known sort of that story. I've had so many people recommend that musical. My family and I love Broadway musicals. I have a daughter who's in theater school or a child who's in theater school. And
00:34:25
Speaker
I've heard that's one that's been on my radar to see, but I don't think I knew until you just said that. I didn't realize there were 39 planes, 6,000 people. I thought, oh, three or four flights that got diverted. Okay.
Conclusion and Teaser for Next Episode
00:34:35
Speaker
That's a whole like event, basically. It's incredible. And they mobilized so quickly.
00:34:42
Speaker
The planes were kept, all the passengers were kept on the plane for about 10 hours, I believe, before we were allowed off the plane. And then they brought school buses to take us to the schools and churches and they put the pilots and the crew up in the hotels, but there weren't enough hotels because there were so many passengers. So it was really schools and churches and people's homes. Oh my gosh.
00:35:04
Speaker
Incredible. I've got to see the music now, the musical now that is escalated on my to do list because I kind of just didn't know it was that substantial. And now that I know somebody who was there, I'm like, Oh, my friend, experience that, you know, I'm super excited about that.
00:35:19
Speaker
So I want to pause this there because I think this is about the length of our first episode. And when we come back for episode two, folks, you won't want to miss it because the beautiful thing about Heidi's experience is she's gone on to tell these stories and to be a really proactive voice for folks who experience law school differently, folks who experience transition to practice differently,
00:35:42
Speaker
We're going to get to her books and her teaching and where she is now, so you're going to want to join us for episode two. For now, we'll see you then.
00:36:08
Speaker
The Thriving Lawyers Podcast is brought to you by Real-Time Creative Learning Experiences, a national provider of continuing legal education and professional development programs that leave participants engaged, encouraged, and equipped to pursue meaningful and sustainable change in their practices, their lives, and the organizations they work in. And by Osborne Conflict Resolution, your experience guides through the uncharted terrain of business and family law disputes based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time on The Thriving Lawyers Podcast.