Podcast appearances and mentions of alex su

Entrada de Diego López por la izquierda, pone el centro, Horkas despeja hacia su compañero Alex Suárez que acaba marcando en propia puerta.

Do you ever feel like you're speaking another language when you're talking to your sales team? Why can't they see the risks? How did they get this far into the deal without involving Legal? In this episode, Alex Su helps us understand the sales team and how to talk the talk and improve our company's results. Alex left a career in litigation to join the sales team of a legal tech start-up and has since been in sales for more than 14 years. A rare breed who understands what drives sales people and what makes lawyers tick, Alex helps us understand how to serve this important part of the business. Bonus: Alex answers an Office Hours question for a law firm partner trying to build their book of business.

This episode is an edited live recording of the FACL BC event moderated by Mark Leung, FACL BC In-House Committee Chair, on November 27, 2023. In this episode, Alex Su delves into the impact of his Asian-American background on his career path in law and shares his unique journey from being a lawyer in private practice, to a salesperson in legal tech, and now as an internet celebrity. Alex shares the influence of his multicultural upbringing on his life-long journey in the legal industry, and reflects on those transitional moments when he allowed himself to pivot to different legal roles. Alex also answers questions from our audience on topics ranging from navigating discussions of EDI in a private practice environment to the future impact of legal technology on the business and practice of law.  Please note that since the recording of this episode, Alex Su has transitioned into the role of Chief Revenue Officer of Latitude Legal. Editors: Baron Hsueh and Jenny Huang

“Making sure that you do what little you can to make sure you hold onto the parts of you that are not just being a father, I think that's going to be super important.” -Alex Su Hello friends! Thanks so much for joining us on this episode of 2 Dads 1 Car (the very first recorded outside of Vancouver!). Our special guest today is Alex Su, a thought leader in the community, familiar face for those who are on the legal side of TikTok, and dedicated father to a young daughter and son. In our conversation, Alex and I delve into the challenges we've faced when trying to balance parenthood with our careers. As he recounts his vibrant career in the legal industry, Alex shares valuable insights and stories about the different ways in which life as a father has diverted and inspired his work in unexpected and exciting ways. To conclude this episode, Alex and I extend our discussion of networking as a community-building tool towards fatherhood, and contemplate some unique ideas on what it would be like to build a community of dads to share each others' experiences and insights into parenting. Thank you for tuning into 2 Dads 1 Car! Please visit our website at 2dads1car.com for the latest updates, and feel free to leave a comment on Spotify to keep the discussion going! I hope you enjoy this episode! Credits: Podcast Guest: Alex Su Podcast Host: Steven Ngo Podcast Producer: Baron Hsueh

Zach sits down with legal influencer Alex Su for an engaging discussion about his unique career journey and insights into the legal industry's future.   Alex's move from legal tech companies to a leadership role at Latitude Legal Exploring how creating engaging content can amplify one's influence and impact in the legal sector The significance of gradual, sustained efforts in achieving long-term professional success How technological advancements are reshaping the legal profession and the imperative for lawyers to upskill How artificial intelligence and automation are influencing legal practices and what it means for future legal staffing The benefits and challenges of flexible staffing models in today's legal landscape   Learn More: Alex - https://latitudelegal.com/about/leadership/alex-su/ Zach - https://www.legallydisrupted.com/   Follow Along: Alex - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-su?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_mweb&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile, https://x.com/heyitsalexsu?s=21&t=Qsv7XtspImwlZU9tcVEi_g Zach - linkedin.com/in/zachabramowitz

Legal professionals are not immune to the pull of platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and YouTube Shorts. Some are even using short-form videos to inform clients about their law practice; build their business or brand; or shed light on the culture of BigLaw, crafting short-form video content giving an insider look at the profession. Among them is Alex Su, a former lawyer and head of community development at Ironclad, a contract management software company.

Legal professionals are not immune to the pull of platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and YouTube Shorts. Some are even using short-form videos to inform clients about their law practice; build their business or brand; or shed light on the culture of BigLaw, crafting short-form video content giving an insider look at the profession. Among them is Alex Su, a former lawyer and head of community development at Ironclad, a contract management software company.

Legal professionals are not immune to the pull of platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and YouTube Shorts. Some are even using short-form videos to inform clients about their law practice; build their business or brand; or shed light on the culture of BigLaw, crafting short-form video content giving an insider look at the profession. Among them is Alex Su, a former lawyer and head of community development at Ironclad, a contract management software company.

「You are what you eat!」#AV悄悄話 身為不專業吃貨的我，也是深深的相信每一口入口的美味都會轉換成腦中的開心泡泡～

  Are you in a career that is a bad fit with your skills?  But you're not sure how to transition to something that is a better fit?  In this episode with Alex Su, we discuss: - How he used out of the box strategies to get into a top 14 law school with a GPA lower than 2.9. - How he decided to leave the practice of law to start over in tech sales. - How he went against conventional wisdom and leveraged LinkedIn and TikTok to build his reputation and land his current role.    - How to build your dream career even when it doesn't exist yet. - What you can do to find motivation to keep going when things get tough. Connect with Alex at https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-su/ or https://www.alexofftherecord.com/.  Follow Samorn on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/samornselim/. Get a copy of Samorn's book, “Belonging: Self Love Lessons From A Workaholic Depressed Insomniac Lawyer” at https://tinyurl.com/swpc578c. Get weekly career tips by signing up for our advice column at www.careerunicorns.com. 

On this episode, Cai GoGwilt, Co-Founder and Chief Architect at Ironclad, and Alex Su, Head of Community Development at Ironclad, join Mary to talk about generative AI and its effect on the legal industry. ChatGPT can change how people work in many different industries, and legal is no exception. Cai sees this as a valuable tool for legal professionals, but he says there are a lot of shortcomings with the platform as it is today. One problem people are finding is that ChatGPT can generate very authoritative but completely wrong answers to questions fed into it. He explains the difference between that and Ironclad AI, which is mostly context. Ironclad AI has years of real-world business intelligence to draw from to answer questions and perform tasks that are accurate based on that information. The group sees new AI tools as being a timesaver for legal professionals, especially those who work in corporate law. Cai sees corporate attorneys as having a leg up on using AI, in part because they know how to translate legalese into plain language. All three participants agree that this technology is here to stay, and it's okay to stay on the sidelines for a while, but it is coming at us faster than we think. Cal GoGwilt - https://www.linkedin.com/in/cai-gogwilt-77b18a22/ Alex Su - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-su/ Ironclad - https://www.linkedin.com/company/ironclad-inc-/ If you enjoyed today's show, please leave a 5-star review. You can find more information, as well as the resources mentioned in this episode, at ironcladapp.com. #LegalOps #LegalCareer

Alex Su, Head of Community Development at Ironclad, joins Alex Kelly on the podcast this week for a conversation about his unconventional career journey, which led him from law school to sales to his current role—and helped him hone his creativity and skills as a social media guru. Alex also discussed his thoughts on A.I.'s future place in the legal field, and underscored the philosophical differences between how law firms and corporate legal teams approach technology and innovation.

In the first podcast in Latitude's Legal Influencers series, Candice Reed speaks with Alex Su, head of community development at Ironclad, a contract lifecycle management platform. Best known for his TikTok videos satirizing the legal profession, Alex is the author of “The Unauthorized Guide To Getting Into Law School With Bad Grades” and the popular newsletter, “Off The Record”. Candice and Alex discuss Alex's fascinating career journey and the legal trends he's identified using his own experience and by staying close to the people on the front lines of the legal industry.Alex's journey from global law firm attorney to legal influencer with viral TikTok videos and a newsletter with over 5,000 subscribers.How career setbacks and embracing authenticity can lead to new paths to success for legal professionals.To be a successful lawyer today requires a diverse set of skills, including building relationships with mentors and sponsors and developing a book of business earlier than traditionally expected.How AI and a new generation of lawyers will impact how legal work gets done for both legal departments and law firms.A podcast by Latitude Legal - Flexible Legal Talent.

Alex Su is back on the pod! Jay, Tom and Alex cover lots of ground in this episode, including a social media content creation deep dive, how to get started with business development, and Alex shares his thought process on creating great memes...and much more.

About MattMatt is the head of community at Lawtrades, a legal tech startup that connects busy in-house legal departments with flexible on-demand legal talent. Prior to this role, Matt was the director of legal and risk management at a private equity group down in Miami, Florida. Links Referenced: Lawtrades: https://www.lawtrades.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsmattslaw/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@itsmattslaw Twitter: https://twitter.com/ItsMattsLaw LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/flattorney/ duckbillgroup.com: https://duckbillgroup.com TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: If you asked me to rank which cloud provider has the best developer experience, I'd be hard-pressed to choose a platform that isn't Google Cloud. Their developer experience is unparalleled and, in the early stages of building something great, that translates directly into velocity. Try it yourself with the Google for Startups Cloud Program over at cloud.google.com/startup. It'll give you up to $100k a year for each of the first two years in Google Cloud credits for companies that range from bootstrapped all the way on up to Series A. Go build something, and then tell me about it. My thanks to Google Cloud for sponsoring this ridiculous podcast.Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Logicworks. Getting to the cloud is challenging enough for many places, especially maintaining security, resiliency, cost control, agility, etc, etc, etc. Things break, configurations drift, technology advances, and organizations, frankly, need to evolve. How can you get to the cloud faster and ensure you have the right team in place to maintain success over time? Day 2 matters. Work with a partner who gets it - Logicworks combines the cloud expertise and platform automation to customize solutions to meet your unique requirements. Get started by chatting with a cloud specialist today at snark.cloud/logicworks. That's snark.cloud/logicworksCorey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. Something that I've learned in my career as a borderline full-time shitposter is that as the audience grows, people tend to lose sight of the fact that no, no, the reason that I have a career is because I'm actually good at one or two specific things, and that empowers the rest of the shitposting, gives me a basis from which to stand. Today's guest is Matt Margolis, Head of Community at Lawtrades. And I would say he is also a superior shitposter, but instead of working in the cloud space, he works in the legal field. Matt, thank you for joining me.Matt: That was the nicest intro I've ever received in my entire career.Corey: Well, yes, usually because people realize it's you and slam the door in your face, I assume, just based upon some of your TikToks. My God. Which is—I should point out—where I first encountered you.Matt: You found me on TikTok?Corey: I believe so. It sends me down these really weird rabbit holes, and at first, I was highly suspicious of the entire experience. Like, it's showing ADHD videos all the time, and as far as advertisements go, and it's, “Oh, my God, they're doing this really weird tracking,” and like, no, no, they just realize I'm on TikTok. It's that dopamine hit that works out super well. For a while, it drifted me into lesbian TikTok—which is great—because apparently, I follow a lot of creators who are not men, but I also don't go for the whole thirst trap things. Like, who does that? That's right. Must be lesbians. Which, great, I'm in good company. And it really doesn't know what to make of me. But you show up on my feed with fairly consistent frequency. Good work.Matt: That is fac—I appreciate that. I don't know if that's a compliment, though. But I [laugh]—no, I appreciate it. You know, for me, I get… not to plug a friend but I get—Alex Su's TikToks are probably like, one in two and then the other person is—maybe I'm also on lesbian TikTok as well. I think maybe we have earned the similar vote here.Corey: In fact, there's cohorts that they slot people into and I feel like we're right there together. Though Ales Su, who has been on the show as well, talk about source of frustration. I mentioned in passing that I was going to be chatting with him to my wife, who's an attorney. And she lit up. Like, “Oh, my God, you know him? My girlfriends and I talk about him all the time.”And I was sitting there going, well, there better damn well be a subculture out there that talks about me and those glowing terms because he's funny, yes, but he's not that funny. My God. And don't tell him that. It'll go to his head.Matt: I say the same thing. I got a good one for you. I was once in the sales call, and I remember speaking with—I was like, “You know, I'm like, pretty decent on Twitter. I'm pretty decent on LinkedIn”—which I don't think anyone brags about that, but I do—“And I'm okay on, like, Instagram and TikTok.” And he goes, “That's cool. That's really cool. So, are you kind of like Alex? Like, Alex Su?” And I go? “Uh, yeah,” he goes, “Yeah, because he's really funny. He's probably the best lawyer out there that, you know, shitposts and post funny things on the internet.” And I just sat there—and I love Alex; he's a good friend—I just sat there, and I'm like, “All right. All right. This is a conversation about Alex. This isn't a conversation about Matt.” And I took him to stride. I called Alex immediately after. I'm like, “Hey, you want to hear something funny.” And he got a kick out of it. He certainly got a kick out of it.Corey: It's always odd to me, just watching my own reputation come back to me filtered through other people's perceptions whenever I wind up encountering people in the wild, and they say, oh, you're Corey Quinn at—which is usually my clue to look at them very carefully with my full attention because if their next words are, “I work at Amazon,” that's my cue to duck before I get punched in the face. Whereas in other cases, they're like, “Oh, yeah, you're hilarious on the Twitters.” Or, “I saw you give a conference talk years ago,” or whatever it is. But no one ever says the stuff that's actually intellectually rigorous. No one ever says, “Yeah, I read some of your work on AWS contract negotiation,” or, “In-depth bill analysis as mapped to architecture.” Yeah, yeah. That is not the stuff that sticks in people's head. It's, “No, no, the funny guy with his mouth wide open on the internet.” It's, “Yep, that's me. The human flytrap.”Matt: Yeah, I feel that. I've been described, I think, is a party clown. That comes up from time to time. And to your point, Corey, like, I get that all the time where someone will say, “Matt I really enjoyed that meme you posted, the TikTok, the funny humor.” And then every so often, I'll post, gosh, like, an article about something we're doing, maybe a white paper on commercial contracting, or some sort of topic that really fits into my wheelhouse, and people were like, “That's… I guess that's cool. I just thought you were a party clown.” And you know, I make the balloon animals but… not all the time.Corey: That's the weirdest part to me of all of this is just this weird experience where we become the party clowns and that is what people view us as, but peeling away the humor and the jokes and the things we do for engagement, as we're like, we're sitting here each trying to figure out the best way to light ourselves on fire and survive the experience because the views would be enormous, you do have a legal background. You are an attorney yourself—still are, if I understand the process properly. Personally have an eighth-grade education, so basically, what I know of bars is a little bit of a different context.Matt: I also know those bars. I'm definitely a fan of those bars as well. I am still an attorney. I was in private practice, I worked in the government. I then went in-house in private equity down in Miami, Florida. And now, though I am shitposter, you are right, I am still a licensed attorney in the state of Florida. Could not take a bar exam anywhere else because I probably would light myself on fire. But yeah, I am. I am still an attorney.Corey: It's wild to me just to see how much of this world winds up continuing to, I guess, just evolve in strange and different ways. Because you take a look at the legal profession, it's—what is it, the world's second oldest profession? Because they say that the oldest profession was prostitution and then immediately someone, of course, had a problem with this, so they needed to have someone to defend them and hence, lawyers; the second oldest profession. And it seems like it's a field steeped in traditionalism, and with the bar, yes, a bit of gatekeeping. And now it's trying to deal with a highly dynamic, extraordinarily irreverent society.And it feels like an awful lot of, shall we say, more buttoned-down attorney types tend to not be reacting to any of that super well. I mean, most of my interaction with lawyers in a professional context when it comes to content takes a lot more of the form of a cease and desist than it does conversations like this. Thanks for not sending one of those, by the way, so far. It's appreciated.Matt: [laugh]. No worries, no worries. The day is not over yet. First off, Corey, I'm going to do a thing that attorneys love doing is I'm going to steal what you just said and I'm going to use it later because that was stellar.Corey: They're going to license it, remember?Matt: License it.Corey: That's how this works.Matt: Copy and paste it. I'm going to re—its precedent now. I agree with you wholeheartedly. I see it online, I see it on Link—LinkedIn is probably the best example of it; I sometimes see it on Twitter—older attorneys, attorneys that are part of that old guard, see what we're doing, what we're saying, the jokes we're making—because behind every joke is a real issue a real thing, right? The reason why we laugh, at least for some of these jokes, is we commiserate over it. We're like, “That's funny because it hurts.”And a lot of these old-guard attorneys hate it. Do not want to talk about it. They've been living good for years. They've been living under this regime for years and they don't want to deal with it. And attorneys like myself who are making these jokes, who are shitposting, who are bringing light to these kinds of things are really, I would say dis—I hate to call myself a disrupter, but are disrupting the traditional buttoned-up attorney lifestyle and world.Corey: It's wild to me, just to see how much of this winds up echoing my own experiences in dealing with, shall we say, some of the more I don't use legacy, which is a condescending engineering term for ‘it makes money,' but some of the older enterprise companies that had the temerity to found themselves before five years ago in somewhere that wasn't San Francisco and build things on computers that weren't rented by the gigabyte-month from various folks in Seattle. It's odd talking to some of those folks, and I've heard from a number of people, incidentally, that they considered working with my company, but decided not to because I seem a little too lighthearted and that's not how they tend to approach things. One of the nice things about being a boutique consultant is that you get to build things like this to let the clients that are not likely to be a good fit self-select out of working with you.Matt: It's identical to law.Corey: Yeah. “Aren't you worried you're losing business?” Like, “Oh, don't worry. It's not business I would want.”Matt: I'm okay with it. I'll survive. Yeah, like, the clients that are great clients, you're right, will be attracted to it. The clients that you never wanted to approach, they probably were never going to approach you anyways, are not [laugh] going to approach you. So, I agree wholeheartedly. I was always told lawyers are not funny. I've been told that jobs, conferences, events—Corey: Who are you hanging out with doctors?Matt: [laugh]. Dentists. The funniest of doctors. And I've been told that just lawyers aren't funny, right? So, lawyers shouldn't be funny; that's not how they should present themselves.You're never going to attract clients. You're ever going to engage in business development. And then I did. And then I did because people are attracted by funny. People like the personality. Just like you Corey, people enjoy you, enjoy your company, enjoy what you have to do because they enjoy being around you and they want to continue via, you know, like, business relationship.Corey: That's part of the weird thing from where I sit, where it's this—no matter what you do or where you sit, people remain people. And one of the big eye-openers for me that happened, fortunately early in my career, was discovering that a number of execs at name brand, publicly traded companies—not all of them, but a good number; the ones you'd want to spend time with—are in fact, human beings. I know, it sounds wild to admit that, but it's true. And they laugh, they tell stories themselves, they enjoy ridiculous levels of nonsense that tends to come out every second time I opened my mouth. But there's so much that I think people lose sight of. “Oh, they're executives. They only do boring and their love language is PowerPoint.” Mmm, not really. Not all of them.Matt: It's true. Their love language sometimes is Excel. So, I agree [laugh].Corey: That's my business partner.Matt: I'm not good at Excel, I'll tell you that. But I hear that as well. I hear that in my own business. So, I'm currently at a place called Lawtrades, and for the listeners out there, if you don't know who Lawtrades is, this is the—I'm not a salesperson, but this is my sales spiel.Corey: It's a dating site for lawyers, as best I can tell.Matt: [laugh]. It is. Well, I guess close. I mean, we are a marketplace. If you're a company and you need an attorney on a fractional basis, right—five hours, ten hours, 15 hours, 20 hours, 40 hours—I don't care, you connect.And what we're doing is we're empowering these freelance attorneys and legal professionals to kind of live their life, right, away from the old guard, having to work at these big firms to work at big clients. So, that's what we do. And when I'm in these conversations with general counsels, deputy general counsels, heads of legal at these companies, they don't want to talk like you're describing, this boring, nonsense conversation. We commiserate, we talk about the practice, we talk about stories, war stories, funny things about the practice that we enjoy. It's not a conversation about business; it's a conversation about being a human being in the legal space. It's always a good time, and it always results in a long-lasting relationship that I personally appreciate more than—probably more than they do. But [laugh].Corey: It really comes down to finding the watering holes where your humor works. I mean, I made the interesting choice one year to go and attend a conference for CFOs and the big selling point of this conference was that it counts as continuing professional education, which as you're well aware, in regulated professions, you need to attend a certain number of those every so often, or you lose your registration slash license slash whatever it is. My jokes did not work there. Let's put it that way.Matt: [laugh]. That's unfortunate because I'm having trouble keeping a straight face as we do this podcast.Corey: It was definitely odd. I'm like, “Oh, so what do you do?” Like, “Oh, I'm an accountant.” “Well, that's good. I mean, assume you don't bring your work home with you and vice versa. I mean, it's never a good idea to hook up where you VLOOKUP.”And instead of laughing—because I thought as Excel jokes go, that one's not half bad—instead, they just stared at me and then walked away. All right. Sorry, buddy, I didn't mean to accidentally tell a joke in your presence.Matt: [laugh]. You're setting up all of my content for Twitter. I like that one, too. That was really good.Corey: No, no, it comes down to just being a human being. And one of the nice things about doing what I've done—I'm curious to get your take on this, is that for the first time in my career doing what I do now, I feel like I get to bring my whole self to work. That is not what it means that a lot of ways it's commonly used. It doesn't mean I get to be problematic and make people feel bad as individuals. That's just being an asshole; that's not bringing your whole self to work.But it also means I feel like I don't have to hide, I can bring my personality with me, front and center. And people are always amazed by how much like my Twitter personality I am in real life. And yeah because I can't do a bit for this long. I don't have that kind of attention span for one. But the other side of that, too, is does exaggerate certain elements and it's always my highs, never my lows.I'm curious to know how you wind up viewing how you present online with who you are as a person.Matt: That is a really good question. Similar. Very similar. I do some sort of exaggeration. The character I like to play is ‘Bad Associate.' It's, like, one of my favorite characters to play where it's like, if I was the worst version of myself, in practice, what would I look like?And those jokes to me always make me laugh because I always—you know, you have a lot of anxiety when you practice. That's just an aspect of the law. So, for me, I get to make jokes about things that I thought I was going to do or sound like or be like, so it honestly makes me feel a little better. But for the humor itself and how I present online, especially on Twitter, my boss, one of my co-founders, put it perfectly. And we had met for a conference, and—first time in person—and he goes, “You're no different than Twitter, are you?” I go, “Nope.” And he goes, “That's great.”And he really appreciated that. And you're right. I felt like I presented my whole personality, my whole self, where in the legal profession, in private practice, it was not the case. Definitely not the case.Corey: Yeah, and sometimes I talk in sentences that are more than 280 characters, which is, you know, a bad habit.Matt: Sometimes. I have a habit from private practice that I can't get rid of, and I ask very aggressive depo questions like I'm deposing somebody. If you're listening in, can you write me on Twitter and tell me if you're a litigator and you do the same thing? Because, like, I will talk to folks, and they're like, “This isn't an interview or like a deposition.” I'm like, “Why? Why isn't it?” And it [laugh] gets really awkward really quickly. But I'm trying to break that habit.Corey: I married a litigator. That pattern tracks, let's be clear. Not that she doesn't so much, but her litigator friends, if litigators could be said to have friends, yeah, absolutely.Matt: My wife is a former litigator. Transactional attorney.Corey: Yes. Much the same. She's grown out of the habit, thankfully.Matt: Oh, yeah. But when we were in the thick of litigation, we were actually at competing law firms. It was very much so, you come home, and it's hard to take—right, it's hard to not take your work home, so there was definitely occasions where we would talk to each other and I thought the judge had to weigh in, right, because there were some objections thrown, some of the questions were leading, a little bit of compound questions. So, all right, that's my lawyer joke of the day. I'm sorry, Corey. I won't continue on the schtick.Corey: It works, though. It's badgering the witness, witnessing the badger, et cetera. Like, all kinds of ridiculous nonsense and getting it wrong, just to be, I guess, intentionally obtuse, works out well. Something you said a minute ago does tie into what you do professionally, where you mentioned that your wife was a litigator and now is a transactional attorney. One thing they never tell you when you start a business is how many lawyers you're going to be working with.And that's assuming everything goes well. I mean, we haven't been involved in litigation, so that's a whole subset of lawyer we haven't had to deal with yet. But we've worked with approximately six—if memory serves—so far, not because we're doing anything egregious, just because—rather because so many different aspects of the business require different areas of specialty. We also, to my understanding—and I'm sure my business partner will correct me slash slit my throat if I'm wrong—I've not had to deal with criminal attorneys in any interesting ways. Sorry, criminal defense attorneys, criminal attorneys is a separate setup for a separate story.But once I understood that, realizing, oh, yeah, Lawtrades. You can find specialist attorneys to augment your existing staff. That is basically how I view that. Is that directionally accurate?Matt: Yeah. So like, common issue I run into, right is, like, a general counsel, is a corporate attorney, right? That's their background. And they're very aware that they're not an employment attorney. They're not a privacy attorney. Maybe they're not an IP attorney or a patent attorney.And because they realize that, because they're not like that old school attorney that thinks they can do everything and solve everyone's problems, they come to Lawtrades and they say, “Look, I don't need an employment attorney for 40 hours a week. I just need ten hours. That's all I need, right? That's the amount of work that I have.” Or, “I don't have the budget for an attorney for 40 hours, but I need somebody. I need somebody here because that's not my specialty.”And that happens all the time where all of a sudden, a solo general counsel becomes a five or six-attorney legal department, right, because you're right, attorneys add up very quickly. We're like rabbits. So, that's where Lawtrades comes in to help out these folks, and help out freelance attorneys, right, that also are like, “Hey, listen, I know employment law. I can help.”Corey: Do you find that the vast slash entire constituency of your customers pretend to be attorneys themselves, or is this one of those areas where, “I'm a business owner. I don't know how these law things work. I had a firm handshake and now they're not paying as agreed. What do I do?” Do you wind up providing, effectively, introduction services—since I do view you as, you know, match.com for dating with slightly fewer STDs—do you wind up then effectively acting as an—[unintelligible 00:18:47] go to talk to find a lawyer in general? Or does it presuppose that I know which end of a brief is up?Matt: There's so many parts of what you just said I want to take as well. I also liked that you didn't just say no STDs. That was very lawyerly of you. It's always, like, likely, right?Corey: Oh, yes. So, the answer to any particular level of seniority and every aspect of being an attorney is, “It depends.”Matt: That's right. That's right. It triggers me for you to say it. Ugh. So, our client base, generally speaking, our companies ranging from, like, an A round company that has a solo GC all the way up to a publicly traded company that has super robust legal department that maybe needs a bunch of paralegals, bunch of legal operations professionals, contract managers, attorneys for very niche topics, niche issues, that they're just, that is not what they want to do.So, generally speaking, that's who we service. We used to be in the SMB space. There was a very public story—my founders are really cool because they built in public and we almost went broke, actually in that space. Which, Corey, I'm happy to share that article with you. I think you'll get a kick out of it.Corey: I would absolutely look forward to seeing that article. In fact, if you send me the link, we will definitely make it a point to throw it into the [show notes 00:19:58].Matt: Awesome. Happy to do it. Happy to do it. But it's cool. The clients, I tell you what, when I was in private practice when I was in-house, I would always deal with an adverse attorney. That was always what I was dealing with.No one was ever—or a business person internally that maybe wasn't thrilled to be on the phone. I tell you what, now, when I get to talk to some of these folks, they're happy to talk to me; it's a good conversation. It really has changed my mentality from being a very adverse litigator attorney to—I mean it kind of lends itself to a shitposter, to a mean guy, to a party clown. It's a lot of fun.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Uptycs, because they believe that many of you are looking to bolster your security posture with CNAPP and XDR solutions. They offer both cloud and endpoint security in a single UI and data model. Listeners can get Uptycs for up to 1,000 assets through the end of 2023 (that is next year) for $1. But this offer is only available for a limited time on UptycsSecretMenu.com. That's U-P-T-Y-C-S Secret Menu dot com.Corey: One area that I think is going to be a point of commonality between us is in what the in-and-out of our day jobs look like. Because looking at it from a very naive perspective, why on earth does what is effectively an attorney referral service—yes, which may or may not run afoul of how you describe yourselves; I know, lawyers are very particular about wording—Matt: Staffing [laugh].Corey: Exactly. Legal staffing. There we are. It doesn't seem to lend itself to having a, “Head of Community,” quote-unquote, which really translates into, “I shitpost on the internet.” The same story could be said to apply to someone who fixes AWS bills because in my part of the industry, obviously, there is a significant problem with people who have large surprise bills from their cloud provider, but they generally don't talk about them in public as soon as they become an even slightly serious company.You don't find someone at a Fortune 500 complaining on Twitter about how big their AWS bill is because that does horrifying things to their stock price as well as them personally, once the SEC gets involved. So, for me, it was always I'm going to be loud and noisy and have fun in the space so that people hear about me, and then when they have this problem, in the come. Is that your approach to this, or is it more or less the retconning story that I just told, and it really had its origins in, “I'm just going to shitpost. I feel like good things will happen.”Matt: Funnily enough, it's both. That's how it started. So, when I was in private practice, I was posting like crazy on—I'm going to say LinkedIn for the third time—and again, I hope somebody sends a nasty message to me about how bad LinkedIn is, which I don't think it's that bad. I think it's okay—so I was shitposting on LinkedIn before probably many folks were shitposting on LinkedIn, again like Alex, and I was doing it just because I was tired of attorneys being what we described, this old guard, buttoned up, just obnoxiously perfect version of themselves. And it eventually led itself into this career. The whole journey was wild, how I got here. Best way to describe it was a crazy trip.Corey: It really is. You also have a very different audience in some ways. I mean, for example, when you work in the legal field, to my understanding from the—or being near to it, but not within it, where you go to school is absolutely one of those things that people still bring up as a credential decades later; it's the first thing people scroll to on LinkedIn. And in tech, we have nothing like that at all. I mean, just ask anyone of the random engineers who talk about where they used to work in their Twitter bio: ex-Google, ex-Uber, et cetera.Not quite as bad as the VC space where it's, “Oh, early investor in,” like, they list their companies, which of course to my mind, just translates directly into, the most interesting thing about you is that once upon a time, you wrote a check. Which yeah, and with some VCs that definitely tracks.Matt: That's right. That's a hundred percent right. It's still like that. I actually saw a Twitter post, not necessarily about education, but about big law, about working in big law where folks were saying, “Hey, I've heard a rumor that you cannot go in-house at a company unless you worked in big law.” And I immediately—I have such a chip on my shoulder because I am not a big law attorney—I immediately jumped to it to say, “Listen, I talk to in-house attorneys all the time. I'm a former in-house attorney. You don't have to work with big law. You don't have to go to a T-14 law school.” I didn't. I went to Florida State University in Tallahassee.But I hear that to this day. And you're right, it drives me nuts because that is a hallmark of the legal industry, bragging about credentials, bragging about where I came from. Because it also goes back to that old guard of, “Oh, I came from Harvard, and I did this, and I did that,” because we love to show how great and special we are not by our actual merits, but where we came from.Corey: When someone introduces themselves to me at a party—which has happened to me before—and in their introduction, they mention where they went to law school, I make it a point to ask them about it and screw it up as many times in the rest of the evening as I can work in to. It's like they went to Harvard. Like so, “Tell me about your time at Yale.” “Oh, sorry. I must have forgotten about that.” Or, “What was the worst part about living in DC when you went to law school?” “Oh, I'm sorry. I missed that. You went to Harvard. How silly of me.”Matt: There's a law school at Dartmouth [laugh]?Corey: I know. I'm as surprised as anyone to discover these things. Yeah. I mean, again, on the one hand, it does make people feel a little off and that's not really what I like doing. But on the other, ideally, it's a little bit of a judgment nudge as far as this may not sound the way that you think it sounds when you introduce yourself to people that way.Matt: All the time. I hear that all the time. Every so often, I'll have someone—and I think a lot of the industry, maybe just the industry where I'm in, it's not brought up anymore. I usually will ask, right? “Hey, where do you come from?” Just as a conversation starter, “What firm did you practice at? Did you practice in big law? Small law?”Someone once called it insignificant law to me, which hurts because I'm part of insignificant law. I get those and it's just to start a conversation, but when it's presented to me initially, “Hey, yeah, I was at Harvard,” unprompted. Or, “I went to Yale,” or went to whatever in the T-14, you're right, it's very off-putting. At least it's off-putting to me. Maybe if someone wants to tell me otherwise, online if you went to Harvard, and someone said, “Hey, I went to Harvard,” and that's how they started the conversation, and you enjoy it, then… so be it. But I'll tell you, it's a bit off-putting to me, Corey.Corey: It definitely seems it. I guess, on some level, I think it's probably rooted in some form of insecurity. Hmm, it's easy to think, “Oh, they're just completely full of themselves,” but that stuff doesn't spring fully formed from nowhere, like the forehead of some God. That stuff gets built into people. Like, the constant pressure of you are not good enough.Or if you've managed to go to one of those schools and graduate from it, great. The constant, like, “Not everyone can go here. You should feel honored.” It becomes, like, a cornerstone of their personality. For better or worse. Like, it made me more interesting adult if it made my 20s challenging. I don't have any big-name companies on my resume. Well, I do now because I make fun of one, but that's a separate problem entirely. It just isn't something I ever got to leverage, so I didn't.Matt: I feel that completely. I come from—again, someone once told me I worked in insignificant law. And if I ever write a book, that's what I'm going to call it is Insignificant Law. But I worked the small law firms, regional law firms, and these in Tallahassee and I worked in South Florida and nothing that anyone would probably recognize in conversation, right? So, it never became something I bring up.I just say, “I'm an attorney. I do these things,” if you ask me what I do. So, I think honestly, my personality, and probably the shitposting sprung out of that as well, where I just had a different thing to talk about. I didn't talk about the prestige. I talked about the practice, I talked about what I didn't like about the practice, I didn't talk about being on Wall Street doing these crazy deals, I talked about getting my ass kicked in Ponce, Florida, up in the panhandle. For me, I've got a chip on my shoulder, but a different kind of chip.Corey: It's amazing to me how many—well, let's calls this what we are: shitposters—I talk to where their brand and the way that they talk about their space is, I don't want to say rooted in trauma, but definitely built from a place of having some very specific chips on their shoulder. I mean, when I was running DevOps teams and as an engineer myself, I wound up continually tripping over the AWS bill of, “Ha, ha. Now, you get to pay your tax for not reading this voluminous documentation, and the fine print, and with all of the appendices, and the bibliography, and tracked down those references. Doesn't it suck to be you? Da da.” And finally, it was all right, I snapped. Okay. You want to play? Let's play.Matt: That's exactly right. There's, like, a meme going around. I think it actually saw from the accounting meme account, TB4—which is stellar—and it was like, “Ha, I'm laughing because it hurts.” And it's true. That's why we all laugh at the jokes, right?I'll make jokes about origination credit, which is always an issue in the legal industry. I make jokes about the toxic work environment, the partner saying, “Please fix,” at three o'clock in the morning. And we make fun of it because everyone's had to deal with it. Everyone's had to deal with it. And I will say that making fun of it brings light to it and hopefully changes the industry because we all can see how ridiculous it is. But at least at the very beginning, we all look at it and we say, “That's funny because it hurts.”Corey: There's an esprit de corps of shared suffering that I think emerges from folks who are in the trenches, and I think that the rise of—I mean some places called the micro-influencers, but that makes me want to just spit a rat when I hear it; I hate the term—but the rise of these niche personalities are because there are a bunch of in-jokes that you don't have to be very far in to appreciate and enjoy, but if you aren't in the space at all, they just make zero sense. Like when I go to family reunions and start ranting about EC2 instance pricing, I don't get to talk to too many people anymore because oh my God, I've become the drunk uncle I always wanted to be. Goal achieved.Matt: [laugh].Corey: You have to find the right audience.Matt: That's right. There is a term, I think coin—I think it was coined by Taylor Lorenz at Washington Post and it's called a nimcel, which is, like, a niche micro-influencer. It's the worst term I've ever heard in my entire life. The nimcel [laugh]. Sorry, Taylor, it's terrible.But so I don't want to call myself a nimcel. I guess I have a group of people that enjoy the content, but you are so right that the group of people, once you get it, you get it. And if you don't get it, you may think some parts of it—like, you can kind of piece things together, but it's not as funny. But there's plenty of litigation jokes I'll make—like, where I'm talking to the judge. It's always these hypothetical scenarios—and you can maybe find it funny.But if you're a litigator who's gotten their ass kicked by a judge in a state court that just does not like you, you are not a local, they don't like the way you're presenting yourself, they don't like your argument, and they just dig you into the ground, you laugh. You laugh because you're, like, I've been there. I've had—or on the flip, you're the attorney that watched your opposing counsel go through it, you're like, “I remember that.” And you're right, it really you get such a great reaction from these folks, such great feedback, and they love it. They absolutely love it. But you're right, if you're outside, you're like, “Eh, it's kind of funny, but I don't really get all of it.”Corey: My mother approaches it this way whenever she talks to me like I have no idea what you're talking about, but you seem to really know what you're talking about, so I'm proud of you. It's like, “No, Mom, that is, like, the worst combination of everything.” It's like, “Well, are you any good at this thing?” “No. But I'm a white man, so I'm going to assume yes and the world will agree with me until proven otherwise.” So yeah, maybe nuclear physics ain't for you in that scenario.But yeah, the idea of finding your people, finding your audience, before the rise of the internet, none of this stuff would have worked just because you live in a town; how many attorneys are really going to be within the sound of your voice, hearing these stories? Not to mention the fact that everyone knows everyone's business in some of those places, and oh, you can't really subtweet the one person because they're also in the room. The world changes.Matt: The world changes. I've never had this happen. So, when I really started to get aggressive on, like, Twitter, I had already left private practice; I was in-house at that point. And I've always envisioned, I've always, I always want to, like, go back to private practice for one case: to go into a courtroom in, like, Miami, Florida, and sit there and commiserate and tell the stories of people again like I used to do—just like what you're saying—and see what everyone says. Say, “Hey, I saw you on Twitter. Hey, I saw this story on Twitter.”But in the same breath, like, you can't talk like you talk online in person, to some degree, right? Like, I can't make fun of opposing counsel because the judge is right there and opposing counsel was right there, and I'm honestly, knowing my luck, I'm about to get my ass kicked by opposing counsel. So, I probably should watch myself in that courtroom.Corey: But I'm going to revise the shit out of this history when it comes time to do my tweet after the fact. “And then everybody clapped.”Matt: [laugh]. I found five dollars outside the courtroom.Corey: Exactly. I really want to thank you for spending so much time chatting with me. If people want to learn more and follow your amazing shitpost antics on the internet, where's the best place for them to do it?Matt: Corey it's been an absolute pleasure. Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn. For everything but LinkedIn: @ItsMattsLaw. LinkedIn, just find me by my name: Matt Margolis.Corey: And we will put links to all of it in the [show notes 00:33:04]. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time. It's appreciated.Matt: I have not laughed as hard in a very, very long time. Corey, thank you so much.Corey: Matt Margolis, Head of Community at Lawtrades. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with an angry, insulting comment that you've drafted the first time realized, oh wait, you're not literate, and then hired someone off of Lawtrades to help you write in an articulate fashion.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

With nearly 100 thousand TikTok followers and over 5 million likes, Alex Su is one of several young professionals leading the charge for change in legal through social media. The Head of Community Development at Ironclad and Columnist for Above The Law also caused a stir when his article, Profitable Misery, went viral this summer. In this episode, Alex shares his thoughts on technology, the hourly rate, and the “shit” work often attached to it. Join us as we discuss: The Profitable Misery article and the billable hour disconnect (4:23) Younger generations forcing change in billing practices (14:53) Shedding the self-imposed lawyer identity (26:29) Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast: Alex Su Ironclad Above The Law Profitable Misery Legaltechbro (Alex's TikTok) Hear more stories by following Innovative Legal Leadership on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast platform. Listening on a desktop & can't see the links? Just search for Innovative Legal Leadership in your favorite podcast player.

With nearly 100 thousand TikTok followers and over 5 million likes, Alex Su is one of several young professionals leading the charge for change in legal through social media. The Head of Community Development at Ironclad and columnist for Above The Law also caused a stir when his article, Profitable Misery, went viral this summer. In this episode, Alex shares his thoughts on technology, the hourly rate, and the “sh*twork" often attached to it. Join us as we discuss: The Profitable Misery article and the billable hour disconnect (4:23) Younger generations forcing change in billing practices (14:53) Shedding the self-imposed lawyer identity (26:29)  Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast: Alex Su  Ironclad  Above The Law  Profitable Misery Legaltechbro (Alex's TikTok)  Hear more stories by following Innovative Legal Leadership on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast platform. Listening on a desktop & can't see the links? Just search for Innovative Legal Leadership in your favorite podcast player.

On episode 10, we speak Alex Su, the Head of Community Development at Ironclad. Many of you know Alex for his Linkedin posts and his TikTok videos under the handle, “@legaltechbro”. On this episode of Pivots & Personalities, Alex talks about his journey from BigLaw lawyer to legaltech, how and why he started producing content, what type of content resonates with his audience and what that suggests about BigLaw generally, “the Harvard Kid” and more. Follow and connect with us at our LinkedIn and Instagram More on HLEP at clinics.law.harvard.edu/hlep

Today's shorter episode is a follow up to my longer conversation with Alex Su, Head of Community at Ironclad. In that conversation, we talk about his TikTok channel @legaltechbro and how he developed a personal brand strategy that compliments Ironclad's community-focused GTM strategy. So if you haven't heard that yet, go check it out now. In today's episode, we dive into TikTok more specifically and why you shouldn't overlook this huge new channel.Mentioned in this episode:Sign up for OpenView's weekly newsletterAlex Su, @legaltechbroIroncladTikTokLinkedInTwitterSubscribe to Blake Bartlett on YouTube.Podcast produced by OpenView.View our blog for more context/inspiration.OpenView on LinkedinOpenView on TwitterOpenView on InstagramOpenView on Facebook

Alex is big on TikTok under the handle @legaltechbro. He has quickly become one of the biggest influencers in the entire legaltech industry. How? 15 second video skits poking fun at the legal profession. It's a counterintuitive strategy on its face, but it's working in a big way. Alex lays out his journey and his playbook.Conversation Highlights: [00:10 - 01:36] Introduction to Alex Su [01:40 - 03:11] Alex Su's personal brand and strategy for his channel @legaltechbro [03:11 - 05:50] Going from a lawyer, to sales, to a content creator with a ton of influence [05:51 - 07:12] The video that blew up [07:12 - 09:41] Speak to the things you care about and that they care about [09:43 - 11:26] Resonating authentically vs thought leadership [11:33 - 13:49] Relating to friction, and layering in what a company does by focusing on the problem [13:50 - 15:37] How does @legaltechbro fit into Alex's daily role at Ironclad [15:37 - 18:02] How does making a TikTok turn into community dinners and connectivity in the buyer's journey? [18:03 - 20:04] Connecting in a genuine human way on social [21:03 - 24:50] What's the business value, budget, and the ROI? Answering the skeptic's questions. [24:50 - 27:18] Considering content's effect on inbound marketing [27:19 - 29:35] Exploring ideas, realizing when nobody is doing the idea it may be brilliant [29:37 - 32:27] Where to begin? Select the right platform for your audience.Mentioned in this episode:Sign up for OpenView's weekly newsletterAlex Su, @legaltechbroIroncladTikTokLinkedInTwitterSubscribe to Blake Bartlett on YouTube.Podcast produced by OpenView.View our blog for more context/inspiration.OpenView on LinkedinOpenView on TwitterOpenView on InstagramOpenView on Facebook

In this solo episode, I do a deep dive into how to bounce back from a setback. At some point in our no-straight-path journeys, we all face setbacks and I believe that by sharing our stories and the lessons learned we can help others struggle less and soften the blows. Given the fact that many big companies have recently announced staff reductions and lots of people are facing job losses, in this episode, I use job loss to contextualize the issue, but it is relevant to other setbacks. Having failed the bar exam to become a lawyer, I have firsthand experience of how to overcome a setback, and today I am going to break down some practical tips on how you too can get through a challenge like this. From normalizing the setback and honoring the pain to ultimately believing in yourself again, I'll give you helpful steps to get through this tough time. If there's one thing I know it's that your setback story can become your comeback story and I'm here to help you do it. So if you're in a tough spot in your career right now, this is the podcast for you! Links Mentioned in Today's Episode: The Pivot with Ashley Menzies Babatunde (Part 1)  The Pivot with Ashley Menzies Babatunde (Part 2)  Law, Tech & Content Creation with Alex Su  “The real strength of weak ties" Fiverr  Upwork  Picking the Destination, but not the Journey with Dawn Dickson  Ashley Menzies Babatunde Ashley Menzies Babatunde on Instagram No Straight Path Podcast

This week, on No Straight Path, we are joined by the Head of Community Development at Ironclad, Alex Su (otherwise known as the LegalTechBro on TikTok), who has been taking the legal content creation world by storm! As a former attorney who now works at the cutting edge of legal technologies, Alex uses humor to make some pretty serious points about what it's like to practice law and highlights some of the biggest issues facing the legal profession, from mental health to overwork, burnout, and more. Alex's journey is not without its unexpected twists and turns and, in today's episode, we dig into a number of No Straight Path topics, including major setbacks, highlights, and lessons learned. You'll discover what drew Alex to the legal profession in the first place, how he realized that he was on the wrong path, and how he uses the lighthearted medium of social media to engage with a typically earnest legal audience. One thing that stands out about this interview is the key role that personal storytelling has played in Alex's success and how you can rethink your definition of success by focusing on doing what you find meaningful. For some valuable (and hilarious) insights from an exceptional leader at the intersection of law, technology, and new media, make sure not to miss today's conversation with Alex Su! Links Mentioned in Today's Episode: No Straight Path Podcast Alex Su Alex Su on LinkedIn Alex Su on Twitter Alex Su on TikTok Alex Su on Instagram IronClad Ashley Menzies Babatunde Ashley Menzies Babatunde on Instagram

About AlexAlex Su is a lawyer who's currently the Head of Community Development at Ironclad, the #1 contract lifecycle management technology company that's backed by Accel, Sequoia, Y Combinator, and other leading investors. Prior to joining Ironclad, Alex sold cloud software to legal departments and law firms on behalf of early stage startups. Alex maintains an active presence on social media, with over 180,000 followers across Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok. Links Referenced: Ironclad: https://ironcladapp.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-su/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/heyitsalexsu Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heyitsalexsu/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@legaltechbro TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by Honeycomb. When production is running slow, it's hard to know where problems originate. Is it your application code, users, or the underlying systems? I've got five bucks on DNS, personally. Why scroll through endless dashboards while dealing with alert floods, going from tool to tool to tool that you employ, guessing at which puzzle pieces matter? Context switching and tool sprawl are slowly killing both your team and your business. You should care more about one of those than the other; which one is up to you. Drop the separate pillars and enter a world of getting one unified understanding of the one thing driving your business: production. With Honeycomb, you guess less and know more. Try it for free at honeycomb.io/screaminginthecloud. Observability: it's more than just hipster monitoring.Corey: I come bearing ill tidings. Developers are responsible for more than ever these days. Not just the code that they write, but also the containers and the cloud infrastructure that their apps run on. Because serverless means it's still somebody's problem. And a big part of that responsibility is app security from code to cloud. And that's where our friend Snyk comes in. Snyk is a frictionless security platform that meets developers where they are - Finding and fixing vulnerabilities right from the CLI, IDEs, Repos, and Pipelines. Snyk integrates seamlessly with AWS offerings like code pipeline, EKS, ECR, and more! As well as things you're actually likely to be using. Deploy on AWS, secure with Snyk. Learn more at Snyk.co/scream That's S-N-Y-K.co/screamCorey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. I've been off the beaten path from the traditional people building things in cloud by the sweat of their brow and the snark on their Twitters. I'm joined today by Alex Su, who's the Head of Community Development at Ironclad, and also relatively well-renowned on the TikToks, as the kids say. Alex, thank you for joining me.Alex: Thank you so much for having me on the show.Corey: It's always been an interesting experience because I joined TikTok about six months or so ago, due to an escalatingly poor series of life choices that continue to fail me, and I have never felt older in my life. But your videos consistently tend to show up there. You are @legaltechbro, which sounds like wow, I hate all of those things, and yet your content is on fire.How long have you been doing the public dance thing, for lack of a better term? I don't even know what they call it. I know how to talk about Twitter. I know how to talk about LinkedIn—sad. LinkedIn is sad—but TikTok is still something I'm trying to wrap my ancient brain around.Alex: Yeah, I felt out of place when I first made my first TikTok. And by the way, I'm known for making funny skits. I have actually never danced. I've always wanted to, but I don't think I have that… that talent. I started posting TikToks in, I will call it—let's call it the fall of 2020. So, after the pandemic.Before that, I had been posting consistently on LinkedIn for, gosh, ever since 2016, when I got into legal tech. And during the pandemic, I tried a bunch of different things including making funny skits. I'd seen something somewhere online if somebody's making fun of the doctor life. And so, I thought, hey, I could do that for legal too. And so, I made one with iMovie. You know, I recorded it on Zoom.And then people started telling me, “Hey, you should get on this thing called TikTok.” And so, I resisted it for a while because I was like, “This is not for me.” But at some point, I said, “I'll try this out. The editing seems pretty easy.” So, I made a couple of videos poking fun at the life of a law firm lawyer or a lawyer working for a corporate legal department.And on my fourth video, I went massively viral. Like, unexpected went viral, like, millions of—I think two million or so views. And I found myself with a following. So, I thought, “Hey, I guess this is what I'm doing now.” And so, it's been, I don't know, a year-and-a-half since then, and I've been continuously posting these skits.Corey: It's like they say the worst thing can happen when you go into a casino and play for the first time is you win.Alex: [laugh].Corey: You get that dopamine hit, and suddenly, well now, guess what you're doing for the rest of your life? There you go. It sounds like it worked out for you in a lot of fun ways. Your skits about big law of life definitely track. My wife used to work in that space, and we didn't meet till she was leaving that job because who has time to date in those environments?But I distinctly remember one of our early dates, we went out to meet a bunch of her soon-to-be-former coworkers at something like eight or nine o'clock in Los Angeles on a Friday night. And at the end of it, we went back to one of our places, and they went back to work. Because that is the lifestyle, apparently, of being in big law. I don't have the baseline prerequisites to get into law school, to let alone get the JD and then go to work in big law, and looking at that lifestyle, it's, “Yeah, you know, I don't think that's for me.” Of course, I say that, and then three days later, I was doing a middle of the night wake up because the pager went off.Like, “Oh, are you a doctor?” And the pager is like, “Holy shit. This SSL certificate expires in 30 days.” It's, yeah. Again, life has been fun, but it's always been one of those things that was sort of, I guess, held in awe. And you're putting a very human face on it.Alex: Yeah. You know, I never expected to be in big law either, Corey. Like, I was never good at school, but as I got older, I found a way to talk my way into, like, a good school. I hustled my way into a job at a firm that I never imagined I could get a job at. But once I got in, that's when I was like, “Okay, I don't feel like I fit in.”And so, I struggled but I still you know grinded it out. I stayed at the job for a couple of years. And I left because I was like, “This is not right for me.” But I never imagined that all of those experiences in big law ended up being the source material for my content, like, eight years after I'd left. So, I'm very thankful that I had that experience even if it wasn't a good fit for me. [laugh].Corey: And on some level, it feels like, “Where do you get your material from?” It's, “Oh, the terrible things that happened to me. Why do you ask?”Alex: That's basically it. And people ask me, they say, you know, “You haven't worked in that environment for eight years. It's probably different now, right?” Well, no. You know, the legal industry is not like the tech industry. Like, things move very slowly there.The jokes that made people laugh back then, you know, 10 years ago, even 20 years ago, people still laugh at today because it's the same way things have always worked. So, again, I'm very thankful that that's been the case. And, you know, I feel like, the reason why my content is popular is because a lot of people can resonate with it. Things that a lot of people don't really talk about publicly, about the lifestyle, the culture, how things work in a large firm, but I make jokes about it, so people feel comfortable laughing about it, or commenting and sharing.Corey: I want to get into that a little bit because when you start seeing someone pop up again and again and again on TikTok, you're one of those, “Okay, I should stalk this person and figure out what the hell their story is.” And I didn't have to look very far in your case because you're very transparent about it. You're the head of community development at a company called Ironclad, and that one threw me for a little bit of a loop. So, let's start with the easy question, I suppose. What is Ironclad?Alex: We're a digital contracting technology that helps accelerate business contracts. Companies deal with contracts of all types; a lot of times it gets bogged down in legal review. We just help with that process to make that process move faster. And I never expected I'd be in this space. You know, I always thought I was going to be a trial lawyer.But I left that world, you know, maybe six years ago to go into the legal technology space, and I quickly saw that contracts was kind of a growing challenge, contracting, whether it's for sales or for procurement. So, I found myself as a salesperson in legal tech selling, first e-discovery software, and then contracting software. And then I found my way to Ironclad as part of the community team, really to talk about how we can help, but also speaking up about the challenges of the legal profession, of working at a law firm or at a legal department. So, I feel like it's all been the culmination of all my experiences, both in law and technology.Corey: In the world in which I've worked, half of my consulting work has been helping our clients negotiate their large-scale AWS contracts and the other half is architectural nonsense of, “Hey, if you make these small changes, that cuts your bill in half. Maybe consider doing them.” But something that I've learned that is almost an industry-wide and universal truism, is that you want to keep the salespeople and the lawyers relatively separate just due to the absolute polar opposites of incentives. Salespeople are incentivized to sell anything that holds still long enough or they can outrun, whereas lawyers are incentivized to protect the company from risk. No, is the easy answer and everything else is risk that has to be managed. You are one of those very rare folks who has operated successfully and well by blending the two. How the hell did that happen?Alex: I'm not sure to this day how it happened. But I think part of the reason why I left law in the first place was because I don't think I fit in. I think there's a lot of good about having a law degree and being part of the legal profession, but I just wanted to be around people, I wanted to work with people, I didn't want to always worry about things. And so, that led me to technology sales, which took me to the other extreme. And so, you know, I carried a sales quota for five years and that was such an interesting experience to see where—to both sell technology, but also to see where legal fit into that process.And so, I think by having the legal training, but also having been part of a sales team, that's given me appreciation for what both teams do. And I think they're often at tension with one another, but they're both there to serve the greater goals of the company, whether it's to generate revenue or protect against risk.Corey: I think that there's also a certain affinity that you may have—I'm just spitballing wildly—one of the things that sales folks and attorneys tend to have in common is that in the public imagination, as those roles are not, shall we call it, universally beloved. There tend to be a fair number of well, jokes, in which case, both sides of that tend to be on the receiving end. I mean, at some level, all you have to do is become an IRS auditor and you've got the holy trifecta working for you.Alex: [laugh]. I don't know why I gravitated to these professions, but I do think that it's partly because both of these roles hold a significant amount of power. And if you look at just contracting in general, a salesperson at a company, they're really the driver of the sales process. Like, if there's no sale to be made, there's no contract. On the flip side, the law person, the lawyer, knows everything about what's inside of the contract.They understand the legal terms, the jargon, and so they hold an immense amount of power over advising people on what's going to happen. And so, I think sometimes, salespeople and legal people take it too far and either spend too much time reviewing a contract and lording it over the business folks, or maybe the salesperson is too blase about getting a deal done and maybe bypasses legal and doesn't go through the right processes. By the way, Corey, these are jokes that I make in my TikToks all the time and they always go viral because it's so relatable to people. But yeah, that's probably why people always make jokes about lawyers and salespeople. There's probably some element of ridiculing people with a significant amount of power within a company to determine these transactions.Corey: Do you find that you have a better affinity for the folks doing contract work on the seller side or the buyer side? Something they don't tell you when you run companies is, yeah, you're going to spend a lot of time working on contracts, not just when selling things, but also when buying things and going back and forth. Aspects of what you're talking about so far in this conversation have resonated, I guess, with both sides of that for me. What do you have the affinity for?Alex: I think on the sales side, just because of my experience, you know, I think when you go through a transaction and you're trying to convince someone to doing something, and this is probably why I wanted to go to law school in the first place. Like I watched those movies, right? I watched A Few Good Men and I thought I'd be standing up in court convincing a jury of something. Little did I know that that sort of interest [crosstalk 00:10:55]—Corey: Like, Perry Mason breakthrough moment.Alex: That moment where—the gotcha moment, right? I found that in sales. And so, it was really a thrill to be able to, like, talk to someone, listen to them, and then kind of convince them that, based on what challenges they're facing, for them to buy some technology. I love that. And I think that was again, tied to why I went to law school in the first place.I didn't even know sales was a possible profession because I grew up in an immigrant community that was like, you just go to school, and that'll lead to your career. But there's a lot of different careers that are super interesting that don't require formal schooling, or at least the seven years of schooling you need for law. So, I always identify with the sales side. And maybe that's just how I am, but obviously, the folks who deal with the buy side, it's a pretty important job, too.Corey: There's a lot of surprise when I start talking to folks in the engineering world. First, they're in for a rough awakening at times when they learn exactly how much qualified enterprise salespeople can make. But also because being a lawyer without, you know, the appropriate credentials to tie into that, you're going to have a bad time. There are regulatory requirements imposed on lawyers, whereas to be a salesperson, forget the law degree, forget the bachelor's, forget the high school diploma, all you really need to be able to do from an academic credential standpoint is show up.The rest of it is, can you actually sell? Can you have the conversations that convince people to see the outcome that benefits everyone? And I don't know what that it's possible, or advised necessarily, to be able to find a way to teach that in some formalized way. It almost feels like folks either have that spark or they don't. Do you think it's one of those things that can be taught? Do you think it's something that people have to have a pre-existing affinity for?Alex: It's both, right, because part of it is some people will just—they don't have the personality to really sell. It's also like their interest; they don't want to do that. But what I found that's interesting is that what I thought would make a good salesperson didn't end up being true when I looked at the most effective sellers. Like, in my head, I thought, “Oh, this is somebody who's very boisterous, very extroverted,” but I found that in my experience in B2B SaaS that the most effective sellers are very, very much active listeners. They're not the people showing up and talking at you. They are asking you about your day-to-day asking about processes, understanding the context of your situation, before making a small suggestion about what you might want to do.I was very impressed the first time I saw one of these enterprise sellers who was just so good at that. Like, I saw him, and he looked nothing like what I imagined an effective sales guy to look like. And he was really kind and he just, kind of, just talked to me, like, I was a human being, and listened to my answers. So, I do think that there is some element of nature, your talent when it comes to that, but it can also be trained because I think a lot of folks who have sales talent, they don't realize that they could be good at it. They think that they've got to be this extroverted, happy hour, partying, storyteller, where —Corey: The Type A personality that interrupts people as they're having the conversation.Alex: Yeah, yeah.Corey: Yeah.Alex: So anyways, I think that's why it's a mix of both.Corey: The conversations that I've learned the most from when I'm talking to prospects and clients have been when I asked the quote-unquote, dumb question that I already know the answer to, and then I shut up and I listen. And wow, I did not expect that answer. And when you dig a little further, you realize there's nuance that—at least in my case—that I've completely missed to the entire problem space. I think that is really one of the key differentiators to my mind, that separate people who are good at this role from folks who just misunderstand what the role is based upon mass media, or in other cases—same problem with lawyers—the worst examples, in some cases, of the profession. The pushy used car salesperson or the lawyer they see advertising on the back of a bus for personal injury cases. The world is far more nuanced than that.Alex: Absolutely. And I think you hit the nail on the head when you said, you know, you ask those questions and let them talk. Because that's an entire process within the sales process. It's called discovery, and you're really asking questions to understand the person's situation. More broadly, though, I think pitching at people doesn't seem to work as well as understanding the situation.And you know, I've kind of done that with my content, my TikToks because, you know, if you look at LinkedIn, a lot of people in our space, they're always prescribing solutions, giving advice, posting content about teaching people things. I don't do that. As a marketer, what I do is I talk about the problems and create discussions. So, I'll create a funny video—Corey: I think you're teaching a whole generation that maybe law school isn't what they want to be doing, after all there is that.Alex: There is that. There is that. It's a mix of things. But one of the things I think I focus on is talking about the challenges of working with a sales team if you're an in-house lawyer. And I don't prescribe technology, I don't prescribe Ironclad, I don't say this is what you need to do, but by having people talk about it, they realize, right—and I think this is why the videos are popular—as opposed to me coming out and saying, “I think you need technology because of XYZ.” I think, like, facilitating the conversation of the problem space, that leads people to naturally say, “Hey, I might need something. What do you guys do, by the way?”Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friend EnterpriseDB. EnterpriseDB has been powering enterprise applications with PostgreSQL for 15 years. And now EnterpriseDB has you covered wherever you deploy PostgreSQL on-premises, private cloud, and they just announced a fully-managed service on AWS and Azure called BigAnimal, all one word. Don't leave managing your database to your cloud vendor because they're too busy launching another half-dozen managed databases to focus on any one of them that they didn't build themselves. Instead, work with the experts over at EnterpriseDB. They can save you time and money, they can even help you migrate legacy applications—including Oracle—to the cloud. To learn more, try BigAnimal for free. Go to biganimal.com/snark, and tell them Corey sent you.Corey: It sounds ridiculous for me to say that, “Oh, here's my entire business strategy: step one, I shitpost on the internet about cloud computing; step two, magic happens here; and step three people reach out to talk about their AWS bills.” But it's also true. Is that the pattern that you go through: step one, shitpost on TikTok; step two, magic happens here; and step three people reach out asking to learn more about what your company does? Or is there more nuance to do it?Alex: I'm still figuring out this whole thing myself, but I will say shitposting is incredibly effective. Because I'm active on Twitter. Twitter is where I start my shitposts. TikTok, I also shitpost, but in video format, I think the number one thing to do is figure out what resonates with people, whether it's the whole contracting thing or if it's frustrations about law school. Once you create something that's compelling, the conversation gets going and you start learning about what people are thinking.And I think that what I'm trying to figure out is how that can lead to a deeper conversation that can lead to a business transaction or lead to a sale. I haven't figured it out, right, but I didn't know that when I started creating content that spoke to people when I was a quota-carrying salesperson, people reached out to me for demo requests, for sales conversations. There is something that is happening in this quote-unquote, “Dark funnel,” that I'm sure you're very familiar with. There's something that's happening that I'm trying to understand, and I'm starting to see.Corey: This is probably a good thing to the zero in on a bit because to most people's understanding of the sales process, it would seem that you going out and making something of a sensation out of yourself on the internet, well what are you doing that for? That's not sales work? How is that sales? That's just basically getting distracted and going to do something fun. Shouldn't you be picking up the phone and cold calling people or mass-emailing folks who don't want to hear from you because you trick them into having a badge scanned somewhere? I don't necessarily think that is accurate. How do you see the interplay of what you do and sales?Alex: When you're selling something like makeup or clothing, it's a pretty transactional process. You create a video; people will buy, right? That's B2C. In B2B, it's a much more complex processes. There's so many touchpoints. The start of a sales conversation and when they actually buy may take six months, 12 months, years. And so, there's got to be a lot of touch points in between.I remember when I was starting out in my content journey, I had this veteran enterprise sales leader, like, your classic, like, CRO. He said to me, “Hey, Alex, your content's very funny, but shouldn't you be making cold calls and emails? Like, why are you spending your time doing this?” And I said, “Hey, listen, do you notice that I'm actually sourcing more outbound sales calls than any other sales rep? Like, have you noticed that?”And he's like, “Actually, yeah, I did notice that. You know, how are you doing it?” And I was like, “Do you not see that these two are tied? These are not people I just started calling. They are people who have seen my content over time. And this is how it works.”And so, I think that the B2B world is starting to wise up to this. I think, for example, Ironclad is leading the way on creating a community team to create those conversations, but plenty of B2B companies are doing the same thing. And so, I think by inserting themselves in a conversation—a two-way conversation—during that process, that's become incredibly effective, far more so than, like, cold-calling a lawyer or a developer who doesn't want to be bothered by some pushy salesperson.Corey: Busy, expensive professionals generally don't want to spend all their time doing that. The cold outreach emails that drive me nuts are, “Hey, can we talk for half an hour?” Yeah, I don't tend to think in terms of billable hours because that's not how I do anything that I do, but there is an internal rate that I used to benchmark and it's what you want me just reach into my pocket and give you how much money for a random opportunity to pitch me on something that you haven't even qualified whether I need or not? It's like, asking people for time is worse, in some ways, than asking for money because they can always make more money, but no one can make more time.Alex: Right, right. That's absolutely right.Corey: It's the lack of awareness of understanding the needs and motivations of your target market. One thing that I found that really aided me back when I was working for other folks was trying to find a company or a management structure that understood and appreciated this. Easy example, when I was setting out as an independent consultant after a few months I'd been doing this and people started to hear about me. But you know, it turns out that there are challenges to running a business that are not recommended for most people. And I debated, do I take a job somewhere else?So, I interviewed at a few places, and I was talking to one company that's active in the cloud costing space at the time and they wanted me to come aboard. But discussions broke down because they thought I was, quote, “More interested in thought leadership than I was and actually fixing the bills themselves.” And looking at this now, four years later or so, yeah, they were right. And amazing how that whole thing played out, but that the lack of vision around, there's an opportunity here, if we can chase it, at least in the places I was at, was relatively hard to come by. Did you luck out in finding a role that works for you in this way or did you basically have to forge it for yourself from the sweat of your brow and the strength of your TikTok account?Alex: It was uphill at first, but eventually, I got lucky. And you know, part of it was engineered luck. And I'll explain what I mean. When I first started out doing this, I didn't expect this to lead to any jobs. I just thought it would support my sales career.Over time, as the content got more popular, I never wanted to do anything else because I was like, I don't want to be a marketer. I'm not a—I don't know anything about demand gen. All I know is how to make funny videos that get people talking. The interesting that happened was that these videos created this awareness, this energy in our space, in the legal space. And it wasn't long before Ironclad found me.And you know, Ironclad has always been big on community, has always done things like—like, our CEO, our founder, he said that he used to host these dinners, never talking about Ironclad, but just kind of talking about law school and law with potential clients. And it would lead to business. Like, it's almost the same concept of, like, not pushing sales on people. And so, Ironclad has always had that in its DNA. And one of our investors, our board members, Jessica Lee from Sequoia, she is a huge believer in community.I mean, she was the CEO of another company that leveraged community, and so there's this community element all throughout the DNA of Ironclad. Now, had I not put myself out there with this content, I may not have been discovered by Ironclad. But they saw me, they found me, and they said, “We don't think about these things like many other companies. We really want to invest in this function.” And so, it's almost like when you put yourself out there, yes, sometimes some people will say, “What are you doing? Like, this makes no sense. Like, stop doing that.” But there's going to be some true believers who come out and seek you out and find you.And that's been my experience here, like, at Ironclad. Like, people were like, “When you go there, are they going to censor you? Is your content going to be less edgy?” No. Like, they pulled me aside multiple times and said, “Keep being yourself. This is what we want.” And I think that is so special and unique. And part of it is very much lucky, but it's also when you put yourself out there kind of in a big way, like-minded people will seek you out as well.Corey: I take the position that part of marketing, part of the core of marketing, is you've got to have an opinion. But as soon as you have an opinion, people are going to disagree with you. They're going to, effectively, forget the human on the other side of it and start taking you for a drag on social media and whatnot. So, the default reaction a lot of people have is oh, I shouldn't venture opinions forward.No. People are always going to dislike you for something and you may as well have it be for who you are and what you want to be doing rather than who you're pretending to be. That's always been my approach. For me, the failure mode was not someone on Twitter is going to get mad about what I wrote. No one's going to read it. That's the failure mode. And the way to avoid that is make it interesting.Alex: That is a hundred percent relatable to me because I think when I was younger, I was scared. I did worry that I would get in trouble for what I posted. But I realized these people I was worried about, they weren't going to help me anyways. These are not people who are going to seek me out and help me but then say, “Oh, I saw your content, so now I can't help you.” They were not going to help me anyways.But by being authentic to myself and putting things out there, I attracted my own tribe of people who have helped me, right? A lot of my early results from content came not because I reached my target customers; it was because somebody resonated with what I put out there and they carried my message and said, “Hey, you should talk to Alex.” Something special happens when you kind of put yourself out there and say an opinion or share a perspective that not everyone agrees with because that tribe you build ends up helping you a lot. And meanwhile, these other people that might not like it, they probably weren't going to help you either.Corey: I maintain that one of the most valuable commodities in the universe is attention. And so, often there's so much information overload that's competing for our attention every minute of every day that trying to blend in with the rest of it feels like the exact wrong approach. I'm not a large company here. I don't have a full marketing department to wind up doing ad buys, and complicated campaigns, and train a team of attacking interns to wind up tackling people to scan their badges at conferences. I've got to work with what I've got.So, the goal I've always had is trigger the Rolodex moment where someone hears about a problem in the AWS billing space—ideally—and, “Oh, my God, you need to talk to Corey about that.” And it worked, for better or worse. And a lot of it was getting lucky, let's be very clear here, and people doing me favors that they had no reason to do and I'll never be able to repay. But being able to be in that space really is what made the difference. Now, the downside, of course, when you start doing that is, how do you go back to what happened before?If you decide okay, well, it's been a fun run for you and Ironclad. And yeah, TikTok. Turns out that is, in fact, for kids; time to go somewhere else. Like, I don't know that you would fit into your old type of job.Alex: Yeah. No, I wouldn't. But very early on, I realized, I said, “If I'm going to find meaningful work, it's okay to be wrong.” And when I went to big law, I realized this is not right for me. That's okay. I'm just not going to get another big law job.And so, when people ask me, “Hey, now that you've put yourself out there, you probably can't get a job at a big firm anymore.” And that's okay to me because I wasn't going to go back anyways. But what I have found, Corey, is that there's this other universe of people, whether it's a entrepreneur, smaller businesses, technology companies, they would be interested in working with me. And so, by being myself, I may have blocked out a certain level of opportunities or a safety net, but now I'm kind of in this other world where I feel very confident that I won't have trouble finding a job. So, I feel very lucky to have that, but that's why I also don't worry about the possibility of not going back.Corey: Yeah, I've never had to think about the idea of, well, what if I go have to get a job again? Because at that point, it means well, it's time to let every one at the company who is depending on the go, and that's the bigger obstacle because, let's be honest, I'm a white guy in tech, and I look like it. My failure mode is basically a board seat and a book deal because of inherent bias in the system.Alex: [laugh]. Oh, my god.Corey: That's the outcome that, for me personally, I will be just fine. It's the other people took a chance on me. I'm terrified of letting them down. So far, knock on wood, I haven't said anything too offensive in public is going to wind up there. That's also not generally my style.But it is the… it is something that has weighed on me that has kept me from I guess, thinking about what would my next job be? I'm convinced this is the last job I'll ever have, if for no other reason that I've made myself utterly unemployable.Alex: [laugh]. Well, I think many of us aspire to find that perfect intersection of what you love doing and what pays the bills. Sounds like you've found it, I really do feel like I found it, too. I never imagined I'd be doing what I do now. Which is also sometimes hard to describe.I'm not making TikToks for a living; I'm just on the community team, doing events—I'm getting to work with people. I'm basically doing the things that I wanted to do that led me to quit that job many years ago, that big law job many years ago. So, I feel very blessed and for anybody who's, like, looking for that type of path, I do think that at some point, you do need to kind of shed the safety nets because if you always hang on to the safety nets, whether it's a big tech job or a big law job, there's going to be elements of that that don't fit in with your personality, and you're never going to be able to find that if you kind of stay there. But if you venture out—and, you know, I admire you for what you've done; it sounds like you're very successful at what you do and get to do what you love every day—I think great things can happen.Corey: Yeah, I get to insult Amazon for a living. It's what I love. It's what I would do if I weren't being paid. So, here we are. Yeah—Alex: [laugh].Corey: I have no sense of self-preservation. It's kind of awesome.Alex: I love it.Corey: But you're right. It's… there's something to be said for finding the thing that winds up resonating with you and what you want to be doing.Alex: It really does. And you know, I think when I first made the move to technology, to sales, there was no career path. I thought I would—maybe I thought I might be a VP of Sales. But the thing is, when you put yourself out there, the opportunities that show up might not be the ones that you had always seen from the beginning. Like if you ask a lawyer, like, “What can I do if I don't practice law?” They're going to give you these generic answers. “Work here. Work there. Work for that company. I've seen a lot of people do this.”But once you put yourself out there in the wilderness, these opportunities arise. And I've been very lucky. I mean, I never imagined I'd be a TikTokker. And by the way, I also make memes on Twitter. Couldn't imagine I'd be doing that either. I learned, like, Mematic, these tools. Like, you know, like, I'm immersed in this internet culture now.Corey: It is bizarre to me and I never saw it coming either. For better or worse, though, here we are, stuck at it.Alex: [laugh].Corey: I really want to thank you for taking so much time to speak with me today. If people want to learn more about what you're up to and follow along for the laughs, if nothing else, where's the best place for them to find you?Alex: The best way to find me is on LinkedIn; just look up Alex Su. But I'm around and on lots of social media platforms. You can find me on Twitter, on Instagram, and on TikTok, although I might be a little bit embarrassed of what I put on TikTok. I put some crazy gnarly stuff out there. But yeah, LinkedIn is probably the best place to find me.Corey: And we will put links to all of it in the show notes, and let people wind up making their own decisions. Thanks so much for your time, Alex. I really appreciate it.Alex: Corey, thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun.Corey: Alex Su, Head of Community Development at Ironclad. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with an angry insipid comment talking about how unprofessional everything we talked about is that you will not be able to post for the next six months because it'll be hung up in legal review.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

Alex Su is one of the funniest creators on LinkedIn (LinkedIn said so!).  Oh yeah, he is also Head of Community Development at Ironclad, a columnist for Above the Law, a former federal law clerk, and a former associate at Sullivan & Cromwell (fancy!). Alex joins me to chat about his recent social media series (The Harvard Kid), the problems with BigLaw, legal tech, and more.You can follow Alex and his hilarious hijinks on Twitter and Instagram (@heyitsalexsu), and on TikTok (@legaltechbro). Listen.  Subscribe.  Share. 

In this episode, Mary is joined by Alex Su, Head of Community Development at Ironclad. Alex is somewhat of a celebrity in the legal operations field; his TikTok account @legaltechbro has nearly 75,000 followers.   Alex talks about his success on social media, where he gets his ideas, and how he deals with trolls. He goes into detail about the advantages of TikTok versus LinkedIn and explains how the communities on each platform are different.   As a former lawyer, Alex's career hasn't gone the way he thought it would. He recounts his decision to go from law to legal operations in 2016. Then it was still a new field and he explains how his colleagues questioned his decision. He tells Mary about how he knew it would be a stable career because of talking to people, following trends, and not being afraid of failure.   If you enjoyed today's show, please leave a 5-star review. You can find more information, as well as the resources mentioned in this episode, at ironcladapp.com.

Alex and John are back to talk New York Knicks! And this time, they're joined by Alex Su, Head of Community Development at Ironclad, Inc., and well-known TikToker (@legaltechbro). The guys discuss Alex's Knicks fandom, his legal career, use of social media, and much more!  Alex's Knicks fandom: 5:40 Linsanity memory lane: 13:40 Alex's legal career: 18:40 Alex's use of social media: 37:20 Alex's picks for NBA Finals: 45:41 Make sure to follow our hosts, guest, and producer, Raisi Mobele - who made the beats - on Twitter (hit the hyperlinks): Alex Su: @heyitsalexsu John Meleka: @Jmeleka Alex Trataros: @Traticaster101 Raisi Mobele: @RealDealRaisi_K  Make sure to subscribe to our pages (hit the hyperlinks): Subscribe to the YouTube Channel: Knicks, Jets, Etc. Follow the Facebook Page: Knicks, Jets, Etc. Follow the Twitter Page: @KnicksJetsEtc Follow the Instagram Page: @KnicksJetsEtc See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“If you want to do something extraordinary you will have to inevitably do something uncomfortable and scary.” In other words, go off the beaten path. That's the advice of Alex Su, a lawyer turned-social media influencer, author of the Off The Record newsletter, and Head of Community Development at Ironclad. On this episode of the inSecurities podcast, Alex offers advice to professionals who are considering their next career move.   Follow Alex on TikTok (@legaltechbro) and Twitter (@heyitsalexsu), or subscribe to his Substack newsletter, Off The Record. 

Alex Su opens the episode by sharing more about his background and why he got recruited to join the Ironclad team. He shares why he started becoming more active across social media platforms and learning more about social selling. He shared his expectations for his content at the beginning and how they've evolved over time, as he's built a thriving community across four social media platforms. He's been successful by learning directly from his audience to inform his content topics. Alex explains how he develops new content and that he creates different content for the different platforms he's active on. Next, he what metrics he watches to ensure that his content is continuously resonating with his target audience. A small segway from metrics, he shares his insights and predictions on the balance between creators and viewers on social media platforms. He's always been posting on social media, since posting on a personal blog when he was 18 years old. While it's certainly easy for people to be worried about posting on social media and experiencing feelings of self-doubt, he believes many people don't focus on the potential positive outcomes of doing so too. He shares 2 creators in the legal space that inspire him and the Ironclad approach to how they build community through different members of their team. Lastly, he shares the 3 community trends in B2B SaaS that he's watching for in 2022 and beyond.

Hey 2Legit Crew! On today's episode of 2Legit, we have an extraordinary episode today with the one and only Alex Su! If you have been following Alex on his many platforms, you know that he is a leader in the legal tech industry who now works at the cutting edge of legal technology. Currently, he is the Head of Community Development at Ironclad, a contracts technology company backed by Accel, Sequoia, and other leading investors. You may also be familiar with his platform @legaltechbro on Tik Tok, where he makes hilarious videos poking fun at the legal industry. As a former lawyer, he worked as an associate in big law at a small firm and he even had a solo practice before leaving law altogether. Alex pivoted to hone in on his natural talents in content creation and showcasing his comedic side. Please tune in for all the GEMS he drops for how to make your own rules in the legal realm. Please give us a 5-star rating & subscribe for more! xoxo stay safe and #2legit Onna & Cage #2Legit #2Legitpodcast #AlexSu #makeyourownrules #legaltechbro #TikTokLawyer #finalstretch #hustle #pivot

In this episode of Lessons I Learned in Law Scott Brown speaks to Karen Shafrir-Vladeck. Karen was an Employment Lawyer in the US and has recently pivoted into a role in legal recruitment with Whistler Parters. Karen is the perfect modern-day example of a legal recruiter, with industry experience and a passion for building community.  You may also recognise Karen from her TikTok skits with one of our previous podcast guests, Alex Su!Karen shares the three lessons she has learned in law including:Cast the widest net that you possibly can and see what comes back to you.Always be open to new opportunities, and not necessarily in jobs.Social media can be a really great connector for your working life. Karen's pet hate in the legal profession is imposter syndrome and she explains why she would banish it to Room 101.Have a listen to Karen's podcast called In Loco Parent(i)s where she and her law professor husband Steve, "discuss parenting and lawyering - in that order".Presented by Scott Brown of Heriot Brown Legal Recruitment.Follow Heriot Brown:Twitter | LinkedIn |  Facebook | InstagramThis episode of Lessons I Learned in Law is brought to you by Beamery.Beamery is an AI-powered talent platform, designed to hire candidates faster, develop the skills of your workforce, and increase employee retention.Find out more at Beamery.com

  Are you in a career that is a bad fit with your skills?  But you're not sure how to transition to something that is a better fit?  Alex Su shares:    - How he used out of the box strategies to get into a top 14 law school with a GPA lower than 2.9. - How he decided to leave the practice of law to start over in tech sales. - How he went against conventional wisdom and leveraged LinkedIn and TikTok to build his reputation and land his current role.    Connect with Alex at linkedin.com/in/alexander-su or alexofftherecord.com.

This is episode 1 in the 3 part mini-episode series CLOC is releasing in collaboration with EY Law, titled The Art of the Possible. In this episode, CLOC Talk host, Jenn McCarron discusses how the delivery of legal services has evolved throughout 2020 and 2021 with guests Kristi Gedid, Managing Director at EY Law - Legal Function Consulting and Alex Su, Head of Community Development at IronClad. A special thank you to https://www.ey.com/en_us/law (EY Law) for developing and supporting this series.

It's déjà vu all over again as Karen and Steve talk about the latest setback in their attempt to have two consecutive days of childcare-less work (spoiler alert: no such luck). Then, they turn to a discussion of social media, how they use social media for their jobs/careers, virtues and vices of being active on Twitter and other networks, and advice for folks thinking about creating or expanding their online persona and presence. All of this is simply an appetizer to their interview with Alex Su, former big-firm lawyer turned Head of Community Development at Ironclad, who reflects on the intersection of legal work and sales; how he came to become a social media maven; and how he and his partner (a pediatric cardiologist) balance the demands of two crazy careers and one three-year-old.

In this episode of Lessons I Learned in Law Scott Brown speaks with TikTok sensation Alex Su.Alex is a former lawyer who now works at the cutting edge of legal technology. He is currently Head of Community Development at Ironclad, a contracts technology company backed by Accel, Sequoia, and other leading investors. He is also @legaltechbro on Tik Tok, where he makes hilarious videos observing and poking fun at the legal industry. A must follow for in-house lawyers! He started his career as an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell and clerked for a federal judge.Alex shares the three lessons he has learned in law including:Know your strengths and weaknesses, and find yourself a role that best compliments them.Keep your eyes open for opportunities.Be aware of what the world is telling you in terms of feedback. Follow what works for you!Alex also talks about his jump from BigLaw into the world of legaltech and sales!Presented by Scott Brown of Heriot Brown Legal Recruitment.Follow Heriot Brown:Twitter | LinkedIn |  Facebook | InstagramThis episode of Lessons I Learned in Law is brought to you by Beamery.Beamery is an AI-powered talent platform, designed to hire candidates faster, develop the skills of your workforce, and increase employee retention.Find out more at Beamery.com

After a hearing Monday evening, a civil hearing officer ruled against an appeal brought forward by Alex Su, a 17-year-old Newport High School senior who was emergency expelled in late November, after hundreds at the school walked out of class in protest.

Some frustration with the bar exam comes not just because it's a hard test. Differences in state licensing requirements can mean attorneys may have to take the bar exam multiple times. In the final episode of [Un]Common Law's three-part look at the bar exam, we ask why can't there be one bar exam for all U.S. jurisdictions? A national bar exam that eliminates the need for a patchwork of state tests? The answer turns in part on the test called the Uniform Bar Exam or UBE. Developed by the National Conference of Bar Examiners to solve the issue of portability, the UBE allows participant jurisdictions to accept exam scores from other participating jurisdictions. Still, some critics, such as the New York State Bar Association, have taken aim at the UBE for being “too universal,” and now recommend that their state withdraw. In this episode we speak with: Alex Su, head of community development at IronClad. Alan Scheinkman, retired judge who was appointed chair of a special task force of the New York State Bar Association Richard Maltby, a Florida-based attorney for Sandberg Phoenix & von Gontard, P.C. Natalie Rodriguez, associate professor of law at Southwestern Law School and member of California's blue-ribbon commission on the future of the state bar exam. Cynthia Martin, chief judge on the Missouri Court of Appeals for the Western District and former chair of the NCBE task force charged with recommending the “next generation” changes to the Uniform Bar Exam.

Alex started practicing law as a litigator before eventually making the transition into the legal-tech space where's he's worked in a variety of roles, most recently as the head of community development at Ironclad where he is responsible for facilitating community engagement. —————————– In this episode we cover: How being a lawyer helped Alex have success selling legal-tech Why working for a law firm isn't the right fit for all who those who graduated law school How social media helped Alex land his dream job Why communities can and should play a role in which CLM tool your team purchases —————————– Learn more about Alex by connecting with him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-su/

This week on the show I sat down with the one and only Alex Su, Head of Community Development at Ironclad, and the hands down most entertaining lawyer on Tik Tok!  Alex was a lawyer at a leading US firm before running his own practice and then making the move into legal tech sales and business development. You may however know Alex from his short video content which he has used to build a remarkable following on Tik Tok, Instagram and LinkedIn.  Alex brilliantly uses humour to make some serious points about what it is like to practice and some of the biggest issues facing the profession including technology change, mental health, overwork and burnout. We had a wide ranging discussion about social media, content creation, the opportunities to reach an audience and the stresses of “putting yourself out there”. Alex is a true leader and it was an absolute highlight to get him on the show.  

Alex Su, head of community development for Ironclad, sits down with Kaylee & Mary to talk about his journey to legal tech, focusing on his selling and social media community development.

In this episode I speak with Alex Su. Alex is currently the Head of Community Development at Ironclad, a digital contract management company. Before working at Ironclad, Alex was a Sales Team Lead and Director of Business Development at several other legal tech startups and before transitioning to the world of legal tech, Alex was an Associate at the New York law firm Sullivan and Cromwell and a law clerk in Chicago to federal district court Judge Edmond Chang. In addition to Alex's work in the legal tech space he is perhaps most well known on TikTok (where you can find him @legaltechbro) where his comedic videos about the legal industry get an incredible 3-4 million monthly views. He is also on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn where he shares his personal story and social commentary on the legal industry. In our conversation we discuss his path to legal tech, how to find the best legal career for you (even if the path is not as traditional), how being authentic on social media allows him to lead conversations about the future of the legal profession, the valuable skill of cold calling (and how to do it better), and advice for consumers of legal tech as well as those who want to enter the space. If you enjoy this episode, make sure to sign up for future episodes at www.howilawyer.com or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

En este episodio regresamos después de una semana , con nuestro súper invitado Alex Suárez , dónde resuelve la duda más grande de todas en la cancha de cemento , habla sobre emprender , su rivalidad con Víctor sus inicios y mucho más en su podcast LA CANCHAAA DE CEMENTO OOOH !

Alex and Elliot chat with Alex Su about his hugely popular Tik Tok and LinkedIn videos which poke fun at the legal industry, how he creates great comedic content, whether or not he has faced backlash and how he transitioned from practising law to selling legal tech. LINKS Alex Su on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-su

There is a reason this is the longest episode ever recorded on this podcast: Alex Su takes us on a deep dive into the strategies and tactics that have helped him grow a large, engaged audience on LinkedIn.

Alex Su is a lawyer turned legal technologist whose non-traditional career path has been shaped by his talent for building community. In fact, since we recorded this interview, Alex has moved into a new role with Ironclad as their Head of Community Development. We couldn't think of a better title for someone whose social media posts get people talking to each other. Through his transparency, humor, and vulnerability, Alex has been able to shed light on many of the “wicked problems” facing the legal ecosphere - and inspire others to join him on TikTok. Listen in as we discuss what he calls the “failed experiments” that shaped his path, the self-awareness required to leave big law, and why not being detail oriented isn't the end of the world.

In this episode, our awards show correspondent Alex Su returns. We chat about our projections, the winners, the losers and the state of the entertainment industry, and what the future of entertainment looks like going forward. You can follow Alex on Twitter and Instagram and stream his music on Spotify. Twitter: @officialalexsu Instagram: alexsuofficial Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2B97Rmm7JJOSC0bLzsgJYz?si=FHCxSKLxRZWwCTVw0LhORQ We are on: iTunes https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-social-pop-culture-experiment/id1207668374 SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/socialpopex Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/78vIrzpZqQ5QR0BOO2HTfv Stitcher https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-social-pop-culture-experiment Anchor.FM https://anchor.fm/socialpopex You can follow and chat with us at: IG https://www.instagram.com/socialpopcast Twitter https://twitter.com/socialpopcast Facebook https://www.facebook.com/SocialPopcast DeQuan: IG @mrdefoster Twitter @mrdefoster JP: IG @cheezyjp Twitter @CheezyJP Gio: IG @sanchogiovanni Twitter @dkdnkking Emily: IG @emily.in.bloom Twitter @theravenscrag --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

In this episode, our host DeQuan and special guest and awards show correspondent Alex Su make predictions and projections as to who winners will be at the upcoming Golden Globes Awards Ceremony on February 21st, 2021. You can follow Alex on Twitter and Instagram and stream his music on Spotify. Twitter: @officialalexsu Instagram: alexsuofficial Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2B97Rmm7JJOSC0bLzsgJYz?si=FHCxSKLxRZWwCTVw0LhORQ We are on: iTunes https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-social-pop-culture-experiment/id1207668374 SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/socialpopex Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/78vIrzpZqQ5QR0BOO2HTfv Stitcher https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-social-pop-culture-experiment Anchor.FM https://anchor.fm/socialpopex You can follow and chat with us at: IG https://www.instagram.com/socialpopcast Twitter https://twitter.com/socialpopcast Facebook https://www.facebook.com/SocialPopcast DeQuan: IG @mrdefoster Twitter @mrdefoster JP: IG @cheezyjp Twitter @CheezyJP Gio: IG @sanchogiovanni Twitter @dkdnkking Emily: IG @emily.in.bloom Twitter @theravenscrag --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Alex Su's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-su/

In this special episode Artist and Pop Culture Connoisseur, Alex Su joins DeQuan as they discuss their favorites and make predictions from the 2020 Emmy Nominations. You can follow Alex on Twitter and Instagram and steam his music on Spotify. Twitter: @MrAlexSu Instagram: the_alex_su/ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2B97Rmm7JJOSC0bLzsgJYz?si=FHCxSKLxRZWwCTVw0LhORQ We are on: iTunes https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-social-pop-culture-experiment/id1207668374 SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/socialpopex Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/78vIrzpZqQ5QR0BOO2HTfv Stitcher https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-social-pop-culture-experiment Anchor.FM https://anchor.fm/socialpopex You can follow and chat with us at: IG https://www.instagram.com/socialpopcast Twitter https://twitter.com/socialpopcast Facebook https://www.facebook.com/SocialPopcast DeQuan: IG @mrdefoster Twitter @mrdefoster JP: IG @cheezyjp Twitter @CheezyJP Brandon: Twitter @MylesorKazi IG @brandon__myles Gio: IG @sanchogiovanni Twitter @dkdnkking Emily: IG @emily.in.bloom Twitter @theravenscrag --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Alex Su is a former big law litigator who now does business development and sales within the legal technology industry. Currently, he is the Director of Business Development at Evisort, an AI-powered contract intelligence platform. Alex talks about taking the time to reflect on his interests and natural inclinations, and how this allowed him to identify his unique set of skills. His thick skin and talent for persuasion may not have found their place in litigation, but he uses them all the time in sales.   Being a litigation associate is nothing like what it looks like on TV Look at the associates and partners ahead of you and think whether their job/life is something that appeals to you Trying different practice environments can help you identify whether your dissatisfaction is with the type of practice, or with being a lawyer all together Alex even started his own firm, which highlighted to him that he loved the sales and marketing work more than the law practice Identify the core of what you enjoy; for Alex it was working with people Look back at what has come naturally to you in the past; you have a unique set of skills Really devote some time and effort to introspection to identify your skills and challenges  You might find your answer faster by slowing down Finding success in a legal career doesn't mean it's the best fit for your skills or your happiness Lots of real conversations are happening on LinkedIn Don't get overly focused by moving up the ladder in any field; it may not lead you to a position that plays to your strengths Keep an open mind Follow your own internal guide, not a set of job listings Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thelawyersescapepod/  Website: www.thelawyersescapepod.com

I spoke with Jerry Ting and Alex Su, the CEO and Director of Business Development, respectively, at Evisort, a software platform that provides artificial intelligence for contracts. We discussed why artificial intelligence has become so attractive in the legal sector, the benefits and challenges associated with implementing it, and where the field is headed.