Last week I had the privilege to serve as a panelist at a Northwestern Pritzker School of Law event entitled “Symposium 2020: AI, the New Law Firm Attorney: Artificial Intelligence Entering the Legal Profession.”

The event’s keynote speaker Seyfarth Shaw Chair Emeritus Stephen Poor and our panel explored the growing impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools in the legal industry to help lawyers achieve more by getting out of the repetitive, routine and mundane tasks that lawyers have performed in the past so they can “practice at the top of their license” as Mr. Poor stated.

I love the phrase “practice at the top of their license” as all lawyers will need to do more of this – especially as we see the rise of tech intensity as technology plays a bigger role in our professional and personal lives and leading technology like AI is increasingly used by lawyers, law firms and other legal organizations to deliver legal services to their clients.

As AI tools seek to automate and perform certain tasks that have been traditionally performed by lawyers, I believe that the Emotional Intelligence or Emotional Quotient (EQ) skills that lawyers use everyday to deliver legal services to their clients will be more important than ever before as stronger EQ skills will help enable lawyers to truly “practice at the top of their license.” Since AI, algorithms, machines and technology do not embrace EQ, the proverbial “soft skills” that are often associated with EQ can help lawyers provide even more high-impact/high-value legal counsel to their clients and differentiate their legal services from others.

As we use AI and other technology tools to better serve our clients, here are some EQ-centric skills that all lawyers and law students should develop, hone and embrace as “21st Century Lawyers”:

Be An Active Listener: Many lawyers can probably learn to listen more and speak less. Take the time to sharpen your listening skills and avoid being distracted when listening to others so you can better understand your clients, your team and your opposing counsel.

Embrace Empathy: In order to better serve our clients we need to create more proximity to them, learn more about them and put ourselves in “their shoes” so that we can clearly understand their needs and interests in order to help solve their problems.  The same holds true for having greater empathy for the lawyers and allied professionals that we need to work with on a regular basis to deliver legal services to our clients. We can all learn from the empathetic leadership of social justice activist Bryan Stevenson on how to put “empathy into action.”

Strong Collaborator: The ability to partner well with others, share knowledge, build upon the work of others and make others better are critical skills for all lawyers. Having a team-first and collaboration-first temperament is vital.

Relationship Builder: Invest the time to earn the trust of both your clients and those that can enable you to best serve your clients. While terrific technology like LinkedIn exists to help develop those relationships, please remember that there is still no substitute for the in-person relationships and connections that we develop with people.

Advocate & Influence: Lawyers are “sellers” as we are constantly persuading and advocating on behalf of our clients.  In my role as a lawyer at Microsoft I find myself always “selling” and trying to influence nearly everyone that I work with – whether it be my management, my peers, my team, my clients and our great customers and partners.

Great Communicator: When I was growing up in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan served as our President and his reputation as a “great communicator” was instrumental to his being elected twice as President. As lawyers we also need to be “great communicators” who are skilled in the art of communicating in a clear, concise, impactful and easy to understand manner.

Excellent Judgment: In my opinion a lawyer’s “special sauce” is her/his judgment when advising their clients on matters. Such judgment and intuition is honed over a period of time based on the culmination of a lawyer’s experiences so she/he can enable their clients to engage in smart risk-taking.

Break Down Barriers: Lawyers who can skillfully navigate through blockers, have a bias for action to drive matters forward towards resolution and have a reputation for getting things done on behalf their clients will always be in high demand. As a wise person once told me, “being done is better than being perfect.”

Feedback Seeker + Implementer: Some have said that feedback is a “gift” – especially constructive feedback. One of the ways that we can improve and serve as more impactful legal advisors is to actively seek such feedback from our clients and others who we work with – and to take action to convert such feedback towards self-improvement.

Always Ethical: While technology advances and solutions like AI become more prevalent in the legal profession, lawyers will need to demonstrate greater leadership in upholding high standards for ethics and integrity. Embracing strong integrity and ethics are non-negotiables for all lawyers and are the foundational elements for earning trust.

Embrace Change: As technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, the only constant during our current era known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution is change. We need to be open to proactively adapting and evolving as legal advisors or else we run the risk of becoming extinct and irrelevant.

Lawyers should not fear AI or the so-called “robots.” Instead, let’s both embrace AI as a tool to serve our clients and “double-down” to improve our EQ and soft skills so we can deliver the high-impact legal services that all of our clients deserve.

 

Two months ago I had the opportunity to speak about Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the 68th Annual Meeting of the Seventh Circuit Bar Association and the Judicial Conference of the Seventh Circuit in Milwaukee at the historic Pfister Hotel and at the Judicial Conference of the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans.  Both myself and James Dempsey – the Executive Director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology – were invited to speak and we did a similar presentation last year at the Sixth Circuit Judicial Conference in Nashville.

In my experience, the audiences for these events are typically federal judges, federal magistrates, their staffs and leading lawyers from their local areas.  They all have different degrees of sophistication about technology and how it can be used to better serve the public and their clients. As technology continues to change our lives, the Federal Judicial Center seems very focused on improving the technical competence of the federal judiciary.

As we were assembling at the speakers table in the front of the room for our presentation on AI at the Seventh Circuit Judicial Conference, I noticed a very familiar-looking man heading to the front row to be seated. It was new US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh as Justice Kavanaugh serves as the Circuit Justice to the Seventh Circuit and he attended the conference.

Shortly afterwards, the President of the Seventh Circuit Bar Association introduced James and I as speakers and also specifically thanked Justice Kavanaugh for attending this session. I was the first speaker so I took a deep breath and approached the lecturn knowing that as a “paper pushing” corporate lawyer I would have may proverbial “day in court” with a sitting US Supreme Court Justice to deliver a presentation on a leading technology that has the potential to reshape the entire legal profession.

Several years ago I am not sure I would have been confident enough to deliver a presentation in front of a US Supreme Court Justice – let alone so many federal judges and magistrate judges. It has been a long journey for me to gain greater confidence in public speaking – and that journey still continues.

In no particular order, here are some of my public-speaking “lessons learned” through the years:

Public Speaking Fear & Anxiety  

It has been extensively reported that people fear public speaking more than death.  While I find that to be incredible, it is also not surprising to me. Over the years I have had my fair share of anxiety and fear before delivering presentations – and I continue to be nervous before a presentation. However I have grown to realize that while some level of nervousness is okay, being overly nervous and/or having anxiety is simply not productive and will inhibit my ability to deliver a high-quality presentation. Please keep your presentation and public-speaking activities in proper perspective as it really is not a very big deal in the larger scheme of things of life. Try not to over-engineer what public speaking is all about because at its essence it is really just about having a conversation – which is something we do all the time. The difference is that this conversation is to a group of people versus just one person or a few people. Also try not to be overly fixated or obsessed in what your audience may think about you and your presentation. While of course you want to do your best and be appropriately prepared to deliver your presentation, in my experience the less you care about what your audience thinks about you and your presentation – the less fear you will have. In my experience embracing this type of mindset can be liberating.

Get Repititions & Grow Confidence

To be an effective and confident public speaker you need to actually do it as it does not happen by magic. As we know regardless of our profession, we all need to constantly work at our respective crafts in order to improve – and the same holds true for public speaking. Actively look for opportunities to speak in front of people – whether it be in the workplace or outside of the workplace – and do not shy away from delivering presentations. In order to keep my public-speaking skills sharp I make sure to speak publicly at least one a month – whether at work or as part of an external presentation or participation on an external panel discussion.

Create Your Slides

Not all presentations require visual slides but I am a big fan of using slides for talks that are greater than five minutes of length. Of course being a Microsoft employee, I am partial to using PowerPoint – but we all still need to avoid the proverbial “PowerPoint by Death.” PowerPoint is an excellent presentation tool and while I consider myself very proficient in using it, there are still so many PowerPoint features that I still do not use. In fact, PowerPoint just released some new AI-powered features to help make you a stronger presenter. When I need to deliver a presentation I try to begin to construct my slides a few weeks in advance so that I can take the time to properly develop a story (or stories) for my presentation. When I develop my slides I also add just a few words per slide at most. Many lawyers like to add lots of words to their slides, but I find that by doing so your audience has a tendency to read the words on your slides versus listening to your message and there is more of a temptation for a presenter to read her/his slides as a “safety-net” – which is one of the worst things a presenter could do – instead of telling a story. I view each of my slides as a mini-presentation and most of my slides contain interesting pictures and/or graphics that aim to capture the attention of my audience. Being a big user of social media and Twitter, I also make sure that my Twitter handle is on the bottom right hand side of each slide so that people have a way of connecting with me as needed. Finally, I am somewhat of a control freak with my slides as I prefer to develop them on my own rather than having someone else do it – and possibly screw them up.

Practice, Practice, Practice 

Before you deliver a presentation – even if it is only a few minutes in length – you should invest the time to appropriately prepare for it. Doing so will provide you with more confidence and in my experience it never makes sense to try to “wing” a presentation without the appropriate preparation. As to how much time you need to prepare that all depends on the individual presenter and her/his comfort level with the subject matter of the presentation. When you practice your talk be sure to time yourself so that you can stay within the allotted time of your talk and practice under the same conditions under which you will be delivering a presentation (e.g., using a clicker to advance slides, standing up if you are expected to stand during your presentation). You should also be mindful of overpreparing. In the past I have over overprepared with too much practicing during the day of or the day before my presentation – which resulted in my voice being overly tired, raspy and not strong enough for my presentation.

Presentation Logistics

Invest the time to understand your presentation environment and the technology associated with that environment (and always prepare for the worst and assume that technology will not work during your presentation). Be sure to arrive well in advance of your presentation timeslot and here is a checklist of key logistical considerations for your presentation:

• Try to check out the presentation location/room in advance.
• Will you be speaking from a lecturn, a podium or can you walk around?
• Do you need your laptop/device to present the slides? If so, is the laptop/device charged up and do you have the appropriate adapters?
• Will there be microphones? If so, are they handheld or lavalier microphones?
• Will there be confidence monitors?
• How many people will be in the audience?
• Have a back-up copy of your presentation slides on a thumb drive.
• Will the audience have access to your presentation slides?
• Will members of the media be present?
• Will conference organizers be videotaping or audiotaping your presentation? If so, they should first obtain your express written consent to do so.
• Print out copies of your slides in the event you cannot glance at your slides via a laptop/device or a confidence monitor.

The Shorter Your Talk, the Better

I have been asked to deliver presentations at conferences or work-related events for 45 minutes or an hour in length. In my opinion that is way too long to speak. First, our attention spans as audience members are very limited – especially when presenters are competing with an audience’s smartphones. Also I do not know of many people who want to listen to someone speak for that long – especially a lawyer (and while my business may like me, they expect me to embrace the 3 B’s: Be Brilliant, Be Brief and Be Gone). Secondly, it takes a lot out of a presenter to speak that long in a compelling fashion – and to also invest the amount time to prepare for a talk of that length. Ideally I try to speak for no more than 15 minutes tops for a presentation and if an agenda requires 30 minutes, than I will speak for 20 minutes and have 10 minutes for questions and answers from the audience.

Know Your Audience

It is very critical to understand the make-up of your audience and their backgrounds so that you can create a presentation experience that connects you with them and is memorable. Several years ago when I traveled to various cities across the United States to deliver presentations to customers on how Microsoft inspires trust with its cloud solutions, my slides included images to local landmarks and sports teams so that I could develop a better rapport with my audience. Presenters should serve their audiences by earning their attention and providing them with useful content they can easily absorb.

Self-Care Before Your Presentation 

It is so important to be well-rested and in the proper positive mindset right before your presentation. Getting a good night’s sleep before your presentation is incredibly important and if you need to travel for your presentation try to arrive the day/night before if possible so that you can become properly acclimated to your environment, be rested and not be rushed. Also doing some physical activity earlier on the day of your presentation may be beneficial to you. I am a big fan of going for a run a few hours before my presentation as it serves to clear my mind, it calms me down and it makes me feel great. Also consider embracing some mindfulness practices such as using deep breathing techniques immediately before your presentation – and of course remember to breathe properly during your presentation. I also avoid drinking too much water/coffee immediately before my presentation as I may have a sudden urge to go to the bathroom. In addition, I try to avoid eating too much food prior to my talk so that I can avoid potentially having an upset stomach and I am careful to not eating something that has a higher likelihood of getting stuck in my throat during a talk (that has happened to me before). Finally just like a professional baseball player has his favorite “walk-up song” that the stadium plays before that player heads to the pitching mound or at-bat, consider listening to your own “walk-up songs” before your presentation that will make you feel good and put you in a positive frame of mind. Here are a few of my own “walk-up songs”: Feels Like the First Time, Thunderstruck and Gonna Fly Now.

Don’t Seek Perfection 

Remember that it is virtually impossible to deliver a “perfect” presentation and the definition of “perfection” as it relates to presentations is highly subjective. Most of us are not professional presenters, we will make mistakes during our presentation and our audiences do not expect perfection from presenters. It is okay to make mistakes, just move forward with your presentation when that occurs and if you have to quickly correct an error or mistake, you should feel free to do so.

Control the Slides

Whenever possible make sure that you have a clicker/slide advancer available so that you can move the slides forward at your own pace and for a smooth and professional presentation versus having to tell someone else to do so on your behalf.  Also practice on advancing the slides prior to your presentation in the proper order in which you want them displayed.

Say Thanks

I am a big believer that presenters should always be gracious and should begin their talks by thanking both the people who have invited them to speak and the members of the audience who have taken time out of their busy schedules to listen to you speak.

Start Strong

Open your presentation in a strong manner that grabs the audience’s attention and builds positive momentum for the duration of your talk. Avoid wasting valuable time introducing yourself – hopefully your bio will be provided to attendees by the organizers of your talk or perhaps someone else will introduce you. Instead, work hard to capture the audience’s attention in the first few minutes of your presentation or you risk losing them. Consider opening your presentation with a provocative question, a memorable story or another technique that makes your audience want to listen to you versus checking out their smartphones.

Be Authentic & Energetic

Please be yourself – and not someone else – when delivering your presentations. I find it refreshing when presenters display their own personalities and styles when delivering presentations as they come across more authentic and genuine. I have seen too many presenters come across very robotic-like and stiff during their presentations. In my opinion, if you deliver a presentation in a monotone fashion, if you speak just like everyone else, if you speak in the language known as “corporate speak” or if you are just reading from your slides like a news anchor, you risk losing your audience very quickly. Also while we can all learn a lot from great speakers, still be sure to develop your own unique presence and style. Also please bring some energy and passion to your talk. The last thing people want to hear are presenters who are boring and lethargic like this teacher from the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

Spoonfeeding

Make it very easy for your audience to digest and understand your presentation as the best presenters are highly skilled at “decomplexifying” topics. Avoid using verbose words, acronyms or corporate jargon. Also consider highlighting the main takeaways from you talk at both the beginning and end of your presentation.

Add a Video 

We are all visual people and incorporating a compelling video into your presentation is a great way to convey messaging to an audience during your presentation – and it provides the presenter with a few minutes to catch her/his breath and regroup. In my experience I have seen many senior executives weave in videos into their presentations. Just make sure that your video works properly so that there will be no glitches during your presentation – and if you are presenting at an external conference/event please let their information technology people know in advance that you plan to show a video during your presentation. During my presentations on AI at the Fifth and Seventh Circuit judicial conferences I played a Seeing AI App video which demonstrates a unique application that was created by Microsoft and powered by AI to improve the lives of people with visual impairments. In fact, even Justice Kavanaugh liked the video and applauded along with the other attendees at the Seventh Circuit judicial conference after the video was finished.

Be Smart 

In our smartphone and social media driven world always assume that whatever you say during a presentation can be easily recorded or quickly shared via social media. So if you are speaking at an external conference or event please be very thoughtful in what you say as you will be viewed as an ambassador of your employer or industry whether you like it our not.

Q&A 

Always try to leave some time at the end of your talk to answer questions from the audience as that provides additional opportunities for others to learn from you and it also demonstrates your transparency. Also if the audience is small, consider fielding questions during your presentation. However, if you do take questions during your presentation try to avoid going down the so-called “rathole” by spending too much time answering a specific question as you can always get into a deeper discussion with the person asking the question after the presentation is over. Remember to repeat the specific question from the audience member so that others can hear it and do your best in trying to address a question. If for whatever reason you do not know the answer to a particular question simply say that you do not know the answer, you will research that issue and get back to that person as soon as you can.

Seek Feedback

After your presentation is over proactively seek the feedback of attendees and ask them what you could have done to make your presentation more impactful. Usually at external conferences and events attendees are asked to provide formal feedback on all presenters so be sure to obtain such feedback from the conference/event organizers. Learn from such feedback so that you can become an even stronger presenter in the future.

Get a Coach 

When needed do not be shy to enlist the support of an executive coach or trainer to help you be a stronger presenter. It is not a sign of weakness to do so, many senior executives have such coaches, and if your employer is unable to absorb an expense for a coach consider doing so on your own nickel as it is an investment in yourself and your career.

Embrace Diversity & Inclusion

Over the years I have been asked to speak at external conferences and panels where unfortunately the event’s organizers did not do a very good job at having a diverse slate of speakers – which is totally inexcusable in my opinion. Nowadays I refuse to participate in all male panels AKA “manels” and I am performing better due diligence with conference organizers to help ensure that the event I am speaking at will include an appropriate amount of diverse speakers before I commit to participating in such event.  If you are a frequent speaker at events please be a strong advocate for greater diversity of speakers at industry events like Dr. Francis S. Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health.

Best of luck being a stronger and more effective presenter. Remember that it is a journey, stay positive and never ever get discouraged.

 

This is my first Father’s Day without my dad, Dennis P. Garcia (I was named after my dad and he was named after Dennis Chavez – the first Hispanic person elected to a full term of the US Senate from the state of New Mexico). My father passed away on Saturday September 29, 2018 at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City where I was with him for the final two weeks of his life. The picture above is from Father’s Day 2018 with me, my dad and my son Sebastian.

Since my father had a huge impact upon my life it is still very surreal that my father is no longer around and the grieving process has been very difficult for me – and was similar to my grieving process when my mom passed away 23 years ago so unfortunately I knew what to expect.

While this Father’s Day will be very emotional for me, I feel extremely lucky that I had my dad for as long as I did. This realization dawned upon me during one of the very long nights when I stayed at Memorial Sloan with my dad. Late one evening I went to the family area on the hospital floor where my dad was staying to try to clear my mind. In the family area I saw a young boy – who was similar in age to my son – playing a game by himself and he was accompanied by his grandmother who looked very distressed. I said hi to both of them and the grandmother – who spoke little english – looked at me with tears in her eyes and cried, “My daughter, my daughter!!” I gave her a hug and I told her that my dad was also on this floor in the hospital and was very ill. Since I learned a few days earlier that many of the patients on this floor at Memorial Sloan unfortunately had terminal conditions, I quickly surmised that this women’s daughter and this young boy’s mom may also have a terminal condition. I looked at this young boy with tears in my eyes and prayed to God that he would not lose his mom at such a young age. At that moment I realized how fortunate I have been to have my father with me for my entire life.

I was incredibly lucky to have the best dad in the world and I learned so much from him. In memory of my father, here are just a few of those life lessons below – all of which I try to embrace as a father, husband, friend, lawyer and leader.

Be Confident & Fearless

My dad grew up on the tough streets of the South Bronx in New York City. As a Puerto Rican he faced discrimination at a young age and as a 23 year old he led soldiers in the Vietnam War as a First Lieutenant and was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. He had a larger than life personality and was highly confident. In hindsight, I think he needed that persona early in his life to survive.

While I did not have the same early life experiences that he did, my dad always instilled in me the importance of having self confidence, staying positive and being bold – something that I have increasingly embraced as I’ve become older.  I remember my first few days as a first year law student at Columbia Law School thinking that I did not belong there as I had attended Binghamton University (formerly known as SUNY – Binghamton) – an excellent state university in upstate New York – and I found myself surrounded by brilliant students from Ivy-league schools like Yale, Harvard and Princeton. As I walked around the Columbia campus with my dad during that time I remember him giving me a serious pep talk as to why I belonged at Columbia Law and that I needed to believe more in myself. Bottom line is self-confidence and being fearless can ignite both personal and professional successes.

Go Above and Beyond 

When I was a young kid and brought my report card home and if I did not get an “A” for a class, my father always highly encouraged me to go back to my teacher to see if there was more work I could do for some “extra credit” to help improve my grade. Of course, this is something that I never wanted to do.

Many years later I realized that this advice to me is so relevant to the business world and advancing in your career. In my experience during my career as an in-house lawyer for major information technology companies, we are all expected to perform the core part of our jobs at a high-level and that is considered “table stakes.” What sets us apart as professionals is our willingness, hunger and ability to really go “above and beyond” our core job responsibilities and drive a differentiated set of high impact for our respective employers.

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask

My father taught me not to be shy in asking for something. As a kid I was an avid baseball card collector and my dad used to take me to baseball cards shows in the late 1970s and early 1980s in New York City where I would spend my allowance monies on baseball cards. He taught me to negotiate hard and to never pay the asking price for something. The first time I did that was when I bought this 1957 Topps Baseball Card of Baseball Hall of Fame legend Willie Mays below which had an asking price of $30 back in 1980 and which I negotiated down in price to a whopping $25 – which was about a third of my savings at the time. There’s no doubt in my mind that I learned more about negotiation skills from my dad during these baseball card shows than in all of the professional negotiation trainings that I have taken in my career.

Never be afraid in asking for something in life or at the workplace.  You may be surprised with the answer to your ask and the worst someone can say is no.

Toot Your Own Horn 

My dad always encouraged me to sell myself to others and “toot my own horn.” This was something that he was skilled at doing for himself and on behalf of his two sons. For a long time I resisted doing so as I had a tendency years ago to be shy and introverted. As I entered the corporate world I also thought doing so was a form of “shameless” self-promotion that would be viewed in a negative fashion.

As I have become more senior in my legal career I have realized that we are our own best spokepersons on behalf of our ourselves and that we often cannot rely on others to do so. In my experience in the workplace those who promote or “sell” themselves to senior leaders and/or potential “sponsors” by articulating the positive impact they are driving are much better positioned for more opportunities versus those who stay silent.

Agitate When Needed

When I delivered my dad’s eulogy at his funeral I talked about how he had a “New York Edge.” What I meant by this is that when my dad felt that he, a family member, a friend, a work colleague, etc…were being wronged by someone else, he would “agitate” and/or “escalate” as needed to try to make the situation right from his perspective. When I saw my dad  “agitate,” he was very persuasive (and always sounded like a lawyer) and much more often than not he was able to resolve the matter to his satisfaction.

We all know that life can be unfair at times. Don’t be afraid to agitate.

Keep Perspective

Many years ago while I working as an in-house lawyer at Accenture I remember complaining to my father about my work and how demanding my job was negotiating very large and custom technology outsourcing agreements with demanding customers and the challenging law firms that represented them. My father gently reminded me that I was getting paid a lot of money for essentially putting words on a piece a paper and my job did not entail saving the lives of others. He was absolutely right and from that day forward I always tried to keep what I do in my job in perspective and to not take myself too seriously – which many of us in the legal profession have a tendency to do.

Be Transparent

My father actively cared for my mother for over 20 years as she lived with a disease called lupus. While my mom was in and out of hospitals for prolonged stretches of time, he was always open and honest with me about my mom’s up and down medical condition over the years. While those conversations could often be very difficult, I always valued his openness and honesty as he treated me like a man from a very early age.

Honesty and transparency are the keys to building trust in any relationship. From my perspective, in the workplace leaders earn greater trust and credibility with their teams and their customers by being authentic, avoiding ambiguity and being open, accessible, candid and telling it like it is.

Drive Inclusivity

My father was a role model to many Hispanics in the business world and before he became a senior executive at a major financial services company, he served as an Executive Director for a non-profit organization whose mission was to create business development opportunities for Hispanics. During his time he helped many Latinx people improve their lives and secure job opportunities. He understood many years ago why embracing diversity and inclusion made economic sense for all businesses and instilled that perspective in me at a very young age.

Always Be Networking

My dad was the ultimate networker and was often viewed as the “mayor” in the places that he worked. He was very personable, could make small talk with virtually anyone on a wide range of subjects and he encouraged me to try to meet one new person every day.

As I’ve become more senior in my career I’ve realized that who you know is more important than what you know. As a very smart person once said, our “network is our net worth,” so be sure to constantly network with others – and use social media tools like LinkedIn to do so.

Stay Actively Informed

My father would read The New York Times every single day – and every single article. He was incredibly well-informed and seemed to know everything about everything. He understood the power of information and the importance of staying actively informed about our ever changing world, trends, leading issues, etc…While he did not realize it at the time, it was his influence that got me hooked on craving the latest information on business, geopolitics, technology, my beloved New York Yankees, etc….which I consume largely nowadays via Twitter.

Embrace Change

Whether it be serving his country in Vietnam to coming home to his wife and new baby (AKA me) to returning to school to get his MBA to moving from the Bronx to the New York City suburb of Scarsdale, New York (where there were few Puerto Ricans) to changing his job several times to losing his wife of 25+ years to getting remarried and starting another chapter in his life, my father’s life involved a tremendous amount of change. He was very successful in navigating through the changes that life presents to all of us.

When I felt “stuck” in my career several years ago it was my dad who encouraged me that I needed to change as I was too comfortable. At that time he suggested that I do more to build my professional brand as a lawyer by writing articles for publication (and my first one was on the topic of cloud computing for a leading procurement organization that he was involved in) and to deliver external presentations on topics where I had expertise in. I followed through on his advice, these activities raised my visibility both within and outside Microsoft and I believe it was instrumental in helping me get promoted to Assistant General Counsel in 2014.

Be Healthy

My dad passed away from a rare form of skin cancer known as merkel cell carcinoma that originally looked like a small wart on his hand.  In hindsight, perhaps my dad could have done a better job in taking care of himself by immediately going to the doctor when this growth appeared on his hand.

While we all lead busy personal and professional lives, we all need to be extremely proactive in protecting our health and being laser focused on our wellness – and the wellness of our loved ones. This by far and away is the most important lesson from my dad so please do so in his memory.

While my dad was laying in his hospital bed during the last two weeks of his life he was constantly winking at me with his confident smile. When I was a young boy this wink and smile was something that my dad would do periodically and it was his way of letting me know that things were OK and he was happy with me. When he did this during his time at Memorial Sloan it was as if I was experiencing the “cycle of life” and I was immediately transported back in time to my earlier years in New York and the great memories that we created with my dad, my mom, my brother, my grandparents, the rest of our family and our friends. As Father’s Day 2019 approaches I plan on winking and smiling a lot at my son Sebastian.

A vital part of building a world-class legal team is not only recruiting and hiring great talent, but properly indoctrinating new legal professionals into your legal department or law firm – and also when they transfer into new practice groups or teams. Developing and executing upon a meaningful onboarding process for your new joiners will foster greater inclusivity, enable them to contribute immediately and position them well for future success. During my career I have had the privilege to help train – and be trained by –  many outstanding legal professionals. Here are some onboarding best practices for all legal teams:

Own the Onboarding Process

If you work in-house, do not simply outsource your onboarding processes to the human resources team or another group in your organization. While the new employee may of course participate in a company-wide new employee orientation program, the legal department – and the hiring manager specifically – should develop and take responsibility for the onboarding process for the new legal professional.

Deliver a Warm Welcome

When a legal professional joins your team, she/he needs to feel welcome in a new environment. Be sure to craft an email introducing your new legal teammate to your colleagues and clients. The new joiner should also review that communication before it is sent out and perhaps even add any personal information that she/he is comfortable in sharing with others. Senior leaders and colleagues on your team should also reach out directly to the new hire to extend a warm welcome. If you are a large legal department or law firm perhaps the General Counsel and/or law firm CEO/Managing Partner can record a welcome video/email for all new hires. Many years ago when I joined the Accenture legal department I remember being invited to  lunch with the then Accenture General Counsel Doug Scrivner just a few days after I started as he happened to be in the Chicago-area traveling for business. That lunch and personal connection with Doug went a long way to helping me feel a part of my then new team. Also be sure to encourage your legal teammates to connect with your new hire via LinkedIn so they can build deeper business relationships.

Develop a Custom Training Plan

I’m a big fan of the National Football League (NFL) – although my beloved New York Giants have unfortunately had several poor seasons in a row. Often times NFL coaches script the initial series of football plays that their teams plan to run on offense prior to the games. Similarly, a hiring manager should develop a training “game plan” for her/his new hire prior to that individual’s first day of work. This plan could be based on a schedule for an initial period – perhaps the new employee’s first month at work – that provides some detail regarding a slate of training and learning sessions that are applicable to the legal professional’s role. This roadmap can also take a forward looking view regarding significant anticipated milestones over the new employee’s first six months or so. You should provide your new hire with a copy of this plan on her/his first day of work and the plan should be flexible enough to adjust as needed.

Involve Your Colleagues

A hiring manager should not train the new legal professional on her/his own. Instead, embrace inclusivity and be sure to actively involve your legal team colleagues to help onboard your new joiner. Providing the new hire with the opportunity to learn from your legal group colleagues enables them to expand their network and helps to break down silos in any legal organization.

Introduction to Key Clients

Please take the time to introduce your new legal professional to your clients. When I have onboarded new teammates I have connected them with our clients from key parts of the business teams and they have graciously taken the time to describe their organizations, roles and responsibilities so that the new legal professional could gain a better understanding of the clients they would be supporting and the opportunities to partner with them to drive positive impact.

Periodic Check-Ins

Be sure to build in and schedule periodic 1:1s or “check-ins” with your new joiner as part of the onboarding plan that you develop. In my experience, for the first several weeks from my new hire’s first day of work, I would meet at least twice a week for formal 1:1 sessions with them. Also if you are unable to conduct those 1:1s in-person with your new hire because you are not co-located together, be sure to convene such sessions via Skype, Microsoft Teams or other suitable videoconferencing technology so that you can see each other and build a more personal connection with your new teammate.

Don’t Complexify Your Organization

Many organizations – including legal organizations – can have their own unique business, legal and technical lingo filled with acronyms and phrases that are difficult for new joiners to understand. Consider developing a glossary (which is periodically updated) that defines common acronyms, words and other “corporate speak” that new members of your organization will need to understand in order to be successful. In addition, always, always, always look to make your organization, its business, its opportunities and its challenges, super easy to understand for your new hire.

Leverage Leading Technology

Using and investing in the right technology tools can help create a high impact onboarding experience for your new legal professionals. Consider developing an onboarding OneNote that contains a digital collection of best practices that can help make a legal professional’s transition into your legal organization more seamless. Use Microsoft Teams as a way of collaborating, sharing knowledge and consider creating a “readiness” channel in Teams to store content that is of interest to new joiners. In addition, Microsoft Stream is an intelligent video service that enables you to produce and deliver learning and training content that can be easily consumed on-demand by your new joiners anywhere and at anytime.

Shadow Others

A great way for new legal professionals to learn is to be a proverbial “fly on the wall” by observing their teammates in action and performing their roles for a period of time.  Whether it be sitting in on a contract negotiation session to serving as a “third-chair” attorney in a courtroom to joining other legal professionals for important meetings with clients, always look for opportunities for your new legal teammates to learn by shadowing their new colleagues.

Assign a Buddy and a Mentor

Consider appointing a member of your legal team who is a peer to your new hire that can serve as a “buddy.” The role of a buddy is to be another resource – who is not an immediate manager of the new hire – that can serve as a “go-to” person on a wide-range of matters and help answer common questions and issues that may arise. Also consider asking another member of your legal organization to initially serve as a quasi “mentor” to the new hire that can provide more strategic and career-oriented guidance to the new joiner until she/he can develop mentor relationships on their own within your organization.

Learn from Others

Since other groups internal and external to your organization also need to train and onboard their new hires, be sure to embrace the growth mindset and learn from them. LinkedIn also provides us with opportunities via social media to learn about onboarding best practices for professionals.

Onboarding Feedback Loop

Please be sure to obtain feedback about your new hire’s onboarding experience 6 to 12 months after her/his first day of work – and encourage her/him to be brutally honest about it. Embracing and learning from such feedback can be invaluable to improving the transition of future new joiners into your legal organization.

New Joiner Group

Consider developing a team of legal professionals who have “graduated” from your legal organization’s onboarding process to serve as a “New to Your Legal Organization” group. This team can take the leading in constantly developing new best practices and  evolving your legal organization’s onboarding processes on a go-forward basis. Also be sure to rotate legal professionals in and out of this group over time to help ensure diversity of thinking.

Administrative Considerations

Develop a checklist of key items that needs to acquired or be put into process before a new legal professional begins her/his first day of work. Taking care of such matters before a new employee starts her/his job demonstrates your legal organization’s commitment to them. Some of those items may include the following:

• Organization issued laptop, device and/or phone;
• Organization issued corporate card for travel;
• Securing appropriate office space and/or cubicle;
• Organization badge/identification card;
• Any necessary documentation that may be need to be completed by the new hire prior to her/his first day of work;
• Business cards;
• Creation of organization issued email address for new hire; and
• Other necessary human resources-related information.

As we all know the greatest asset of any legal organization is its people. Please be sure to invest in your legal professionals by enabling them to get off to a “fast start” in your legal group.