What does Goodlawyer actually do?

Brett Colvin

We’re going to shoot another one of these today, but we’re going to take a slightly different tack. A question that I’m getting asked all the time: what does Goodlawyer actually do? So today we’re going to answer that question. You’re going to meet Josh, you’re going to talk to Pauline, and we’re even going to talk to two of our Goodlawyers and hear their first-hand perspective on what Goodlawyer’s all about. So without further ado, let’s get going.

Josh Weinberger

There’s 500 lawyers in the Goodlawyer community, and they’re based in Ontario, Alberta, and B.C. in the largest groupings, and then spread all across Canada. Our lawyers are largely made up of experienced in-house counsel. The sweet spot for a lot of our lawyers would be between, say, about seven years and 20 years. I would say our lawyers are very much business people who happen to be lawyers.

Goodlawyer on the network

I started off at a big firm in town, Bennett Jones, and you get to the point after you’re in Biglaw for a few years — it’s like, okay, is this it? And then I went to TransCanada PipeLines, until two years ago when I decided I’ve had enough of this, time to do something different. I’ve been a fractional lawyer on Goodlawyer coming up on two years now.

Goodlawyer on the network

I was in energy trading before I was a lawyer, and then I went back to law school. I originally was practicing Aboriginal law and then went back into energy trading, supporting the trading floor as a lawyer. I’ve done board work for quite a few years. Right now I’m on the board of Eldorado Gold and Alberta Innovates. I’ve been a fractional lawyer for about a year.

Pauline Chan

The very first stage of a lawyer’s journey with Goodlawyer is talking to me. So they are meeting me. I’m getting to know the lawyer better. I’m getting to know what their experience is, what brought them here. Our profession has always been very focused on what the client needs and how to make the client happy, which is wonderful, but I think you have to balance out the equation. And I think you need to be thinking about what makes the lawyers happy and how do we best support lawyers so that they can do amazing work for clients.

Brett Colvin

So what you may not know about Pauline: she’s a former barre instructor and studio owner, and we’re lucky enough — she teaches a Wednesday class for our team. Brett’s joining us for today. So this is going to be good. Let’s go.

Josh Weinberger

Our process at Goodlawyer is highly consultative. It always starts with an initial discovery call. I call it a discovery call because we do try to go in with a very curious mindset and ultimately work very collaboratively together to design the most optimum solution — to get a sense of who the best candidate is, what sort of skills they bring, what sort of work experience they bring, what industries they’ve worked in before, and what’s their nature like to be able to fit into that particular business.

Josh Weinberger

One of the things that we notice that will really light up a general counsel or a legal leader that we’re talking to is often when we start talking about how we might find the right candidate and how we might solve the challenge that they’re dealing with. And the phrase that seems to resonate with them a lot is: what if we could find somebody who looked and felt a lot like you at an earlier stage, or a different stage, of your career path — and we’re going to plug them in and really do our best to clone you and create this outlet to take some of the pressure off.

Goodlawyer on the network

Everybody’s happy to help. Everybody just understands what these lawyers are dealing with as a solo and wants to be supportive of others who are doing the same work. Throw it in the Slack and there will for sure be somebody else in the community that can help — understands what you’re feeling and thinking and is willing to jump in and support.

Pauline Chan

Having an account-management team supporting our lawyers is, to me, a very clear indicator that we care about our lawyers. We are not simply matchmaking you and saying here’s a client, lawyer, good luck, see you later, we’ll talk to you in a year. That is not how this operates. We care very much about how your mandate is going. Are you happy? Is it too much? Is it not enough? We care about the long-term success of our lawyers with their clients.

Goodlawyer on the network

It’s really nice talking to Brianna and getting the feedback. Goodlawyer does a really good job of keeping you connected. There’s a lot of firms that they just throw a lawyer at the problem. I think that Goodlawyer’s very good at setting expectations. Having the flexibility to work when I want to, having the ability to set my own hours and yet still earn what I would like to earn — that’s great. Everyone goes, wow, you’ve got a really great setup, and I say, yeah, I do. So they always find out how they can get the same thing.

Pauline Chan

We have many lawyers making over $200,000 a year. Our top earners are making well over $300,000 a year. Practice and work can be very hard, and there’s no getting away from that. What we don’t have to do is make everything else around it difficult and restricting and limiting for the lawyers. It’s about a happy lawyer, and that is why I love our mission so much. And I hear all the time from customers and lawyers that work with us that they’re really excited by what we’re doing and the pathway that we’re creating. And that is what Goodlawyer does.

Brett Colvin

Thanks for watching. We’ll see you on the next one.