Beyond the A

Blake Gansborg, a Partner at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP's Denver, Colorado office, shares his personal experiences with anxiety throughout his career and what has worked for him in overcoming anxiety. He also reflects on what the legal profession can do to de-stigmatize the topic of mental health.

Sheri Wang, Co-Founder of Beyond the A and a Securities Regulatory Lawyer at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP in Toronto, talks about normalizing the topic of anxiety in the legal profession, the relative hurdles individuals may face in law school and beyond, and what has helped her to overcome anxiety.

Clinton is currently at a 3L student at the Peter A. Allard School of Law and completed his 2L summer at Alexander Holburn Beaudin + Lang LLP, a Vancouver-based full-service law firm. In this episode, we talk about navigating through anxiety during law school and his advice on how to excel during law firm interviews.

Dave is the founder and managing partner of Mosaic Executive Search, as well as a partner with Smith Legal Search, a legal recruitment company. He has unique expertise and interest in executive search mandates relating to legal and professional services, non-profits, crown corporations, post-secondary institutions and impact-driven businesses. In this episode, we talk about the stigma of anxiety in the legal profession, how he overcame anxiety in his own career, and how he carved out his own path after articling at a big law firm, and finding fulfillment within one's career. We hope you like this episode!

Colena is a partner at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP and also serves as the co-chair of the firm's student committee. In this episode, we talk about anxiety, student recruitment and everything else in between. This was, by far, one of our favourite episodes. Take a listen! Colena’s practice focuses on advising Canadian and foreign-based clients on the taxation of mergers and acquisitions, corporate reorganizations and employee and executive compensation matters, with an emphasis on the resource, emerging companies and technology sectors. Her tax practice also includes the settlement of tax disputes with the Canada Revenue Agency. Learn more here: https://www.osler.com/en/team/colena-der.

This past Saturday, we sat down with Joshua Mamdani, Dentons Canada LLP and co-founder of Beyond the A. In this podcast episode, he shares his wisdom on how to thrive as a Summer Law Student, Articling Student and beyond. Josh was recently hired back to the firm he articled with during the midst of COVID. He breaks it down to three important principles: (1) relationship building (2) having a mindset of being ready to learn and (3) maintaining a habit of doing the things that make you happy.

We are thrilled to have Vivian Li on our podcast. She spoke at an in-person Beyond the A event that we hosted over at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and have invited her to join here on the podcast to share her learnings with all of us. Vivian is a family lawyer with MacDonald & Partners LLP and serves on the board of the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers Ontario.

It was such a pleasure to chat with Rajeev Majumdar, current president of the Washington State Bar Association and the first state bar president of South Asian descent in all of the United States. We went deep in this conversation on his initial pitfalls starting out as a lawyer and his journey through anxiety and depression and how he was to pick himself back up. This one is a gem for the ages.

Dr. Benjamin received his B.A. at the University of Oregon Honors College and his M.A., J.D., and Ph.D., at the University of Arizona. While working with families engaged in high-conflict litigation and lawyers suffering from various mental health and drug abuse problems, Dr. Benjamin was named "Professional of the Year" by the Washington State Bar Association's Family Law Section. He was also elected to serve as President of the Washington State Psychological Association and later his colleagues there created an award named after him for "outstanding and tireless contributions.” He is currently a Clinical Professor of Psychology and Affiliate Professor of Law at the University of Washington. Dr. Benjamin supervises the Law School's Peer Support Program that fields peer counselors to law students.

Edward Ngo is a wills and estates lawyer at KMK Law and a director with the Global Lawyers of Canada. In the era of social media - where we are able to watch others develop and grow in their personal and professional lives - the constant comparison subjects us to a sense of restlessness and anxiety. In Edward’s view, anxiety started with the LSAT. When you realize that you are not the only smart person in the room. For perhaps the first time, you will experience the feeling that you should be doing more - the need to go above and beyond. This is normal. And this is called anxiety. During his law school years in the UK, Edward developed 3 approaches to managing his anxiety: (1) Create timelines. And keep in mind that everyone moves at their own pace. (2) Be methodical. Use a pen and paper. Because the act of writing it down physically makes it easier to visualize your goal and stick to your vision. (3) Keep it simple. When you have a lot of things happening all at once, describing things in everyday language will help keep you from losing sight of the task at hand, and will help you correlate those tasks to your life. Lastly, if Edward could go back and record a message to himself before he started law school, he would say: “You’re on your way and if you follow your instincts, you will get to where you want to be.”

We were honoured to have Professor Thomas Telfer chat with us about his experiences and teachings on the topic of anxiety and mindfulness. As a member of The Faculty of Law at Western University, his research and teaching interests include bankruptcy law, contract law, and mindfulness. He is a frequent speaker on mental health issues and mindfulness and began offering a non-credit mindfulness course for first-year law students in 2017.

Anxiety is a double-edged sword. It affects one’s performance, and may even become detrimental to finding a fulfilling career in law. The lack of dialogue on the topic at a firm can further exacerbate the experience felt by each individual and ultimately lead to departure. In the uphill battle of our high performing profession, Samson Chan offers his perspective as a leader of the Asian Canadian legal community in British Columbia, and as a star associate at McMillan LLP. In a profession where stress and anxiety seem inevitable, Samson weighs in on how to manage stress and failure while staying successful. Optimistic by nature, Samson maintained his cool even after not landing directly at a firm through OCIs. His past experience as a pre-med student who chose an alternative career in law helped prepare him for handling pushback. He is a representation of the saying “there’s no one path to success.” Samson’s wisdom is poignant and relatable. His past experiences with failing honed his perseverance and helped him keep the focus on what he wants out of his career. As an Asian-Canadian lawyer, Samson acknowledges that culturally there is a perfectionist tendency that is self-imposed and/or stemming from expecting relatives and parents. The added pressure as a visible minority in the law firm reflects on the need to shift entrenched perspectives and “norms”. Samson advocates for breaking out of the stereotypical and recognizing that one can pursue multiple passions - like working in business and law concurrently. He practices what he says by working as a strategic advisor for a startup while balancing his busy associate practice. For students and young associates dealing with anxiety, Samson offered three practical tips on how to stay balanced: (1) Have friends in different industries besides law (2) Be involved in groups or organizations that bring diverse perspectives (3) Find someone who will vouch for you. One last take away from Samson? If he was back to the day before he started law school, he would tell his younger self not to take things too personally. When it comes to hiring, firms are ultimately a business, and there’s a variety of reasons they might not choose you at that moment, you can create value with what you bring regardless of where you are. -- For details on our upcoming Beyond the A workshop on interviews on Sat, September 14, visit: https://beyondthea.co/events/2019/9/14/interview-oci-workshop-vancouver

Raminder is a Litigation associate at Harper Grey with a focus on insurance defence. Prior to law school, Raminder obtained a MBA from Bond University and a B.A. in Sociology from the University of British Columbia. Raminder is a Director of the South Asian Bar Association of BC. Why did you get involved with Beyond the A? Having suffered from anxiety for a long time has led me to believe that I can help others by speaking to them about how they aren't alone. People are afraid to speak and in turn they lose their opportunities to connect with like minded individuals who face their own struggles

Welcome to the Beyond the A Podcast. Are you a student or lawyer who has experienced anxiety? Are you looking for a forum to share discuss and share this experience with other legal professionals? You’ve come to the right place. Beyond the A is an organization with the mission to destigmatize anxiety and open up the conversation around something that is so prominent in the legal profession. To achieve this goal Beyond the A will provide discussion, tools and resources to students and lawyers to excel in their careers and beyond while working through anxiety. This podcast will include a series of interviews with legal professionals discussing their own journey with anxiety, how it has impacted their life and careers and the tactical tips that they did to overcome their anxiety. We hope this podcast provides our audience and legal professionals with a valuable resource in achieving our goal to destigmatize anxiety throughout their profession. If you’d like more information, please visit us on Instagram @beyondthea.co, our website http://beyondthea.co or contact us at info@beyondthea.co. We hope you enjoy.