A Listening Tour, If I Can Listen

I was going to write about margin.

About the spread between what a client pays and what the lawyer takes home. I learned it as a third-year associate, billing out at $600 an hour while about $60 reached me. Once you see the spread, you start seeing it everywhere. Most other ALSP models keep 40 to 50 cents of every dollar.

There's a good piece there. I'll write it. 

But not this month. 

Because the question sitting with me isn't what legal providers keep. It's what leaders miss — specifically, what I miss when I'm moving too fast to listen.

So I'm starting a listening tour. Which is a problem, because I'm bad at listening. 

I'm a founder. I'm a lawyer. I have ADHD. None of those come with a monk's patience.

My brain moves fast. Someone's halfway through a problem and I'm already solving it. Sometimes I hear the pattern before I've heard the person. Useful in some rooms. Not this one.

Here's what I keep having to relearn: the higher you climb, the more filtered the truth gets. People hand you the safe version. Not because they're dishonest, but because every organization quietly trains its people on what's worth saying out loud and what isn't.

If you run a legal team, you know this from the other side. You've been in the room where everyone agreed a little too fast. You've gotten the update that was technically accurate and completely useless. The more senior you get, the better the news sounds, and the less you can trust it.

A listening tour is my attempt to push against that. Our team first. Then our lawyers. Then our customers. Three questions: what's working that we'd be foolish to change, what's broken that we're not saying out loud, and where are we getting in our own way.

Listening isn't waiting politely for your turn. It isn't nodding while your brain builds the rebuttal. It's giving someone enough room to say the thing they won't say the first time, then asking "what else?" after you're already sure you've heard enough.

The hard part isn't the asking. It's the not-defending. When someone tells you your company is falling short, every instinct says explain. The whole skill is to shut up and write it down.

Josh is better at this than I am. He sits in the silence longer and lets people get to the real thing. Watching him is what made me realize listening is a skill, not a personality trait — which means I can get better at it. Slowly.

Here's the part most listening tours skip, and the reason most of them are theatre: the report-back. If I ask people to be honest and then nothing changes, I've taught them not to bother next time. So when this is done, I'll publish what I heard: what we're changing, what we're not, and why. In this newsletter. Out loud.

And if you're a Goodlawyer client or lawyer reading this, you already know the three questions. Don't wait for me to ask them. Answer one now — reply to this email. I read every response. 

The legal industry is full of people with answers. The future of law gets built by the ones still willing to ask better questions and change their minds when the answer isn't the one they wanted. 

Less talking. More listening.

Hold me to it.

Brett Colvin
CEO, Goodlawyer

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What if it all works out? 

By Zak Biggs

Chad Aboud has spent years helping lawyers find careers that actually fit. As Chief Commercial Officer at Goodlawyer, he's found the ideal vehicle for his mission. Zak Biggs spoke with him about finding your natural gift, and the question every lawyer should be asking — of others, and themselves.

ZB: What do you say to lawyers considering making a change?

CA: Lawyers are conditioned to be risk-averse. It's literally core to our training to be rewarded for finding problems. So the default question becomes: what if it doesn't work out? What if I leave the firm or my in-house role and can't find my own clients? That question is loud, and it crowds out everything else.

But every single week I see another lawyer make the leap. Someone who was terrified, who had every reason to stay put. And then they find the most gratifying era of their entire practice. The reframe is simple: what if it does work out? Because the evidence, from where I'm sitting, is pretty overwhelming.

ZB: What does "working out" look like to you?

CA: Impact, agency, autonomy. At the end of your career, when you look back, have you made a difference and done it on your terms? I've never met a lawyer who found that version of success and wished they'd stayed on their previous path.

ZB: You talk about helping lawyers find their gift. What does that mean?

CA: We all have things we're naturally gifted at. Things we do even when no one asks us to, even if we aren’t paid. That's your nine out of ten. The problem is, we almost never view it as our gift. Because it’s so easy and natural for us, we assume it’s easy (and not valuable) to others. So I give lawyers a simple exercise: ask three people what you naturally do to lift others, without incentive, without being asked. You'll likely hear the same words from all three. That’s your gift.

ZB: Why do lawyers struggle to see their gifts?

CA: Legal training optimizes for execution. Over time, the things that come effortlessly to you, such as the way you build trust, the way you hold a room, the way you ask "why" until you get to the real answer, stop feeling like skills. So lawyers spend years being told to get better at their threes and fours out of ten, and nobody ever tells them to double down on their nines. It’s your unique skills that drive your ability to have a meaningful impact on the world around you.

ZB: What's your gift?

CA: I'm deeply relational. I ask "why" a lot. Sometimes four times in a row. I do it because I want to understand what someone means, not just what they said. I've been told I make people feel heard in a way that gives them permission to be honest. That lesson has made all the difference in my career path, the impact I have, and the meaning I take from my work.

If you're a lawyer ready to find your ideal way to practice, visit goodlawyer.ca or connect with Chad on LinkedIn.

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Thanks for reading.

Have a topic that you'd like us to cover in the next issue? 

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Until next time,
Brett & Zak

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