Today we're talking to Chad Aboud - the lawyer on a journey to make Legal more enjoyable and fulfilling. You might have seen him across social media, or you might not know him (yet), but one thing is for certain: after listening, you'll have a new perspective on your career and hands-on tips on how to find your superpower as a lawyer.
Get insights, learn from peers, life lessons from some of the most influential GCs. If it's related to inhouse legal, we cover it. For more inspiration, go to openli.com/community.
Stine: Welcome back to another episode of Inspiring Legal. So today we are joined by a person that is all about making life the most enjoyable that you can possibly get out of it.
He is amazing. He is motivating. He is energetic. And he is all about combining happiness with lowering. So welcome, Chad. Thank you so much for having me and for that warm welcome.
We will today talk about being happy and working in-house or at a law firm and how you can combine that if it's even doable.
Chad: Sure. Thank you.
So I'm in Toronto, Canada, and I started my career about years ago in a big law firm in Toronto, and I was helping public companies acquire other companies and raise money. And so I was doing that for about five years.
And the training was amazing. I think any young professional services training skills are great. It forces you to learn how to think quickly, how to analyze, how to do a ton of work in a very short amount of time. And I valued that and I appreciated that and worked with some wonderful people.
But I think at the same time, I really noticed that I was drawn to two elements that probably weren't the core of that job. One was I really liked training students and other lawyers as they started their career. I love being part of the student committee and the hiring committee loved that.
And I also was looking at deal structures as I was doing them and saying, well, there's like % of the deal structure that seems irrelevant to the value to the client, but takes a lot of time and it's very painful for the lawyers and nobody cares. So let's wipe that out and then just do % of the work, still charge the same rate. Bottom line is amazing. Less work. Isn't this beautiful?
And I think, in retrospect, as a young lawyer at a major law firm, suggesting how important it is about training the students and changing deal structures, I think a lot of folks were a little bit confused and I think that made me confused.
And so what I realized was this probably wasn't going to be the future for me because I could tell my nature and energy was drawn elsewhere.
And so I actually resigned from big law without necessarily knowing what I was going to do next and traveled around the world with my partner for six months and a personal professional journey.
And then when I came back, went into industry, one of Canada's largest brands. And so retail, e-tail, expansion into the US with a retail footprint. And it was amazing because I'm a pretty curious cat. So I really like to like, what's a marketing team up to? What's the privacy team up to? I love that. And I love learning different types of law.
And so that actually, it made a lot more sense to me for the first time because it was less about the law. Of course, I stole a lawyer, but it was a lot more around, well, we've got an operation to run. And so how do we find the right kind of law plus business, create relationships? It just felt more natural to me. And so I love that.
Love learning how to be an in-house lawyer. But then after three years, I kind of had this same drive again about like, but I want to create the brand or the way or the relationships in my way. And so for the last three and a half years until recently, I became general counsel of this international tech company where we created the legal function and built out the team and brought in legal tech and it was part of the leadership team and it's an incredible journey, right?
You get to build it the way you want to build it, with the parameters of the company's goals. But that was very motivating for me. But even then I realized I care the most about two things.
One, helping people find the most that's in themselves and two, making their way forward easier. And while those things are very helpful for me as a general counsel, it wasn't the core of the job.
And so I resigned in September because I knew I needed to follow that nature. And at the beginning of this year, I launched my own consulting and coaching business for the legal industry because through my journey, I just know that we can be successful and happy and fulfilled. It doesn't have to be one or the other.
And so that's the journey I'm on now, coaching lawyers, doing consulting to law firms, helping their lawyers realize how to make real relationships with their clients in a way that generates business and is fun because it's doable.
And this is what I care about. So this is where I'm at now. So you have really taken a leap, so to speak, not just a leap of faith, but just in terms of your career development, which is super inspiring. I think what I'm sitting with, maybe the listeners are too, is how do you do that? Like not the leap, but more just saying, okay, I think this is doable.
This is something everybody should be able to feel, to have in their daily work because you use too much time working. You spend more time at work than you do at home.
Chad: Yeah. And that is the most important question. And this wasn't like when I was saying I was a second year and I saw these things, it wasn't fully formed in my mind at this time that this was going to be my journey.
It was just these little like flashes through my mind. And I wasn't always capturing them and knowing what to do with them, but I felt them deeply. And so what I tell people and what, you know, maybe I don't, I mean, my journey was my journey. It was the way it was meant to go.
But what I would tell my younger self is those things that you think about when you're not thinking for me, it was like, how do I help this person?
How do I help them make their way easier? Like this is your superpower. And do you know why? Because you think about it without trying. This is not effort for you. It is not hard or painful or annoying for me to spend lots of time with people, helping them find their own superpower, making their way easier for other people. It is.
I'm not saying it's better or worse. I'm saying it's right for me. And so that journey, that reflection journey of uncovering that, and that's what I do with lawyers now.
It's like lots of exercises like, okay, for the next week, every time you catch your brain, just going into some space where you're not trying, just write that thing down. And I don't care if you think it's silly.
I don't care if you think it doesn't relate to law. It doesn't matter. Because what I know is if you write down all of these little data points, there's going to be themes underneath there. Like for me, okay, well, that deal structure is silly. It wasn't really about deal structure.
It was about efficiency of the way forward. And it took me the time and the energy and the reflection and the coaching that I went through myself and talking it out with other people to clarify that. But that takes some work. I mean, just letting thoughts flash in your mind is not going to get you there.
You have to start writing them down, putting in the effort. And so that's what I did because every step of the way, when I did it more, I realized I feel something now. I don't just feel like I'm making money. I don't just feel like I'm climbing some ladder of legal prestige.
I feel something and I'm impacting people. So that was what gave me kind of the sustainable fuel to keep pushing through what is at times an uncomfortable journey. So the superpower you're talking about, I love the phrase.
I think many of us might not know what that is. And it's not to talk about myself, but yesterday, just as an example, I wrote a blog about, I wish I'd known these four things before I founded a company because Jesus, did I learn a lot from that experience? And one of the things I found out is that I have many different talents that I didn't think I had.
And it's not to say that I am super talented or gifted in regards to everything I do, but it's just, I found out that I get most energetic when I'm talking about building a community, when I'm talking to customers, when I'm on the podcast with you right now. This is my fuel. I'm not saying it's my superpower because I'm not really sure, but I found out I love it.
Chad: For sure. And I love that by writing the blog, you're actually doing the journey.
You're actually doing the exercise of having the top level reflections from a business perspective of like, I wish I would've known these things. And then if you took that kind of away to yourself, it's like, but why do you care to write about it? Why do you care to have learned these things? Why do they matter to you?
And as you get to the next level, and it usually takes like four to five levels before something inside of you starts beating a little bit faster. But when you get there, but like, well, why do you care? Okay. Then why do you care about that? Why do you care about talking to customers? That's not the end point. The podcast isn't the end point.
This is an output of what you like, which, you know, I don't know what we are seven minutes in here, but my instinct would be you get a lot of energy out of learning others' experiences and how to bring those threads together with other people so that they gain information quickly.
I bet you, you love that. And so different things that you like to do could be outputs like the blog post, this podcast, building your own community for your company. And those are just examples of what you probably deeply care about, which is like educating, bringing people together, bringing like a warmth of community together so that people are feeding off each other.
And that is a superpower because you found a way to do it in so many ways that I bet you are easy for you. I bet you it is not painful for you to do any of those things, but there's probably other things in classic CEO life that are very painful for you. And I think the magic is don't judge either list. It doesn't matter because you are only you.
And so if you create the list of things that are magical to you like this, great, double down on those things because nobody can do them the way you can do them on the things that you dislike.
They were like, ah, CEO should really like or know how to do this stuff. It doesn't matter. Outsource those things or get more education on those things because here's what I know.
We all have things that were threes out of tens, five out of tens, eight out of tens. The three out of tens are never going to be out of tens. They're just not. And if we spend all of our energy there, we're just going to spin and we're never getting above a five.
But the things you're an eight at like this, if you double down on that, that's a for you. And if you can create a collection of nines and tens, you are living your most impactful journey.
Stine: You guys can't see me on a podcast. I'm sitting and nodding because it's in many ways true, right? I get energetic from firstly learning. And again, it's not supposed to be about me, but learning, creating a community where people can interact and inspire each other. I think this is meaningful.
And therefore, what you're giving to the community right now gives me goosebumps. I appreciate that.
Because as you know, we have the community and we'd surveyed them. And what we saw is that unfortunately, a lot of them are overloaded, overworked and underappreciated. Is this what you're seeing too? And if so, what are the trends that we can maybe highlight for people to get across that not super pleasant experience or feeling?
Chad: Yeah. I don't think it is very prevalent internationally. I don't think it's geo restricted anywhere. I've seen it everywhere. So almost every lawyer I know feels this way to some degree.
I think there's two elements to think about. One is your environment and the other is your personal growth story. So the environment is very impactful and there is no better or worse environment barring the worst stuff.
So let's just let's try not to be lawyers and not only think about the extremes. Let's think about the main use cases of life because I don't want to get caught up in extremes. So in the main use cases of life, just some environments bring out the best in you and some don't.
And I've been in both as we most have. And I think it's very, very critical to swim with the current. We've created this vision of lawyers that good equals heavy lift. It equals pain. That is not entirely true. Yes, of course, there's things we have to work hard at.
It's a complex profession, but it is not the entirety of what makes a career successful. And so here's what I did when I was choosing different places of employment is I would reflect back on environments I had been in the physical space, the people around me and thought about which ones that I feel most like me in.
And so my answers would be like, let's do some, you know, like actual examples. So small, medium or large environment. For me, I like medium environments because I like it when there's like a little bit of infrastructure in place because it allows you to compete at bigger levels.
And it, you know, it's not like other than starting my own business. It's not like, you know, you're starting from zero. And I just like that when I was joining businesses, something was there, other people to connect with. But I don't want to be at a super large environment because I really value autonomy. And so for me, it was medium environments. I also like an informal environment. I love it when people are being funny or themselves are talking about what they like and what they do.
I don't like a really strict formal environment and I'm not saying which one's better or worse. I'm just saying that's better for me. And so I think if you can reflect on that, you can capture the environment that allows you to thrive.
And that is so important because then the natural state of play that is going to happen every day, you don't hate it. It's like neutral or better. And that's less painful immediately because now you're just operating without being like, why don't they like me? Here's something you said about appreciation.
People feel appreciation in different ways. Some people need to be told it. Some people need to be shown it. Some people need to be given more responsibility. So what is it for you? Everyone wants to feel appreciated. You got to know what it is for you and then figure out how to ask if that place does that in that way or not.
Because if they don't, you're going to feel underappreciated. But if you were someone who felt appreciation in a different way, you might love it. And so I think environment's the first one. And then the second one is a growth story.
You got to be reflective about like who you are and how you shine. For me, I need autonomy. I need responsibility. I need to be able to make choices about relationship branding.
If that's not there, I'm going to hate it. And so I think if you know these two pieces about yourself, you will put yourself in a spot that is the least painful and that you can grow the quickest in. And it won't be for anyone else necessarily, but it'll be for you.
So it's not possible, at least I don't think so, for everybody to go out and change jobs because, well, they don't meet that criteria of personal growth or the way that they would like to be praised, just as an example.
You might have a bad manager that doesn't really know you and know how you should be mentored. So for those out there, what can they do in their daily life to become happier? Finding superpowers is a great way. That's it. That's the second pillar. The second pillar is your personal growth story.
And your personal growth story not only helps you where you are today, it clarifies where you should go next if your environment doesn't change in the way that you want. And environments can change.
If you know what you want and you ask for it, lots of times a manager might be like, I had no idea that you wanted to be praised with more responsibility instead of me telling you what a great job you did. Now that I know that, beautiful. I would love to do less things. Here you go. So I think to your point around people can't change jobs tomorrow, good. You shouldn't. I agree.
Because you don't even know what you're looking for, so don't. I think until you know the environment that best suits you and you know your own growth story about who am I, where do I bring my greatest impact, where are the things that I have the story in my mind that I'm supposed to be doing but that I hate or I'm not good at and I don't really want to become amazing at.
If you know that inventory, then you can start having real conversations with your manager. I'm not saying you got to walk in and flip tables. I'm saying you test it out piece by piece because you got to see if you feel it coming out of your mouth, you know, and you start having a conversation.
Hey, I really get a lot of energy out of creating a community. I know I'm on the legal team, but I know we're building a community at our company and I'm just wondering like, do you think there'd be a role for me there? That might like x the enjoyment you get out of your current job. If you do that reflection and then test it by just asking little questions to see what's available that would align with you.
And once you do that more and more and more, you'll see, can my current environment actually shift a little bit or am I now so clear about what I want that I will now start investing the time and looking for the specific thing I want, not just whatever's on a job board.
For many working in-house, there's a lot of manual work. There is a lot of feeling that you're doing the same over and over and over again. And from what I'm hearing, and if I'm to take myself, that's not what I find most enjoyable.
So what do you do in those scenarios? Like how do you create joy when you're sitting and doing those types of assignments? %. So I lived this journey.
I joined a scaling SaaS company, acquiring lots of other companies. Individually they're all small to medium companies, but you push them all together. It went from pure enterprise to a high volume player, but they all had the page word template SaaS agreement, yellow fill in the fields.
You can't do that at scale, nevermind the fact that it is mind numbing. And so the first day when I went in there and I saw this, I wrote on the whiteboard in front of my desk, we need legal tech. We need a portal. And so that was my mission.
And I got it. And I didn't sell it as like, this is for legal. It was like, this is going to support the business's scale. How are you supposed to sign a volume gain if you don't have the tools to automate that, put it in the hands of the business teams, get real data, not pretend data from PDFs that are saved in some windows file, you know, maybe in an Excel sheet somewhere and it doesn't match like real data.
Well, that brought me probably other than training people, the most joy I have ever had in my career was sourcing legal tech, automated contracting tool with the business stakeholders, demoing it, implementing it, helping build it and releasing it into the world. And at that moment we created, we had multiple products, product agnostic process driven out of our CRM tool, integrated with the legal tech that drove contracts to signature under two years of which legal had to touch less than %.
And that's only because they were government entities. We might've touched less than % if they were all private entities, because we structured it in a way that it was built out of the CRM tool. And we use the talent in the business, in sales ops, in rev ops, this is their job.
And so we moved all that manual work there, not because legal didn't want to do it, but because they should want this for them. My life became a billion times better, right? You get to enjoy your career more. You get to impact things that make more value. Me populating yellow highlighted fields, okay, it's a hundred thousand dollars. Who cares? Who cares? This cannot be why you became a lawyer. It just can't be.
And if it is, you will not be a lawyer there for long. So, but you got to take the action. You got to take it, right?
And I think you're hitting the nail there, right? Because everybody knows that working in-house is changing. So it's about you developing with that change, with your company, but also with yourself. And so when we're talking about career development and personal growth, do you have any like tips or tricks or like suggestions for the listeners out there so that they also in five or years from now are sitting and saying, I think I have a pretty cool job. And I think I'm even cooler because I can now do A, B, and C. A hundred percent. So let's do a work back from what people normally think it is.
Someone says, Oh, I want to be a trusted advisor. You know, like what does it even mean? And why do we keep telling the business this? Why don't we let them actually determine if they trust us and want our advice. And then they will say that in their own words.
And so instead of telling people, Hey, we're the trusted advisor and we're going to do this and we're going to do this. We're no, how do you create a relationship with people? Right? That was step one for me. I showed up and I just got to know the humans that were there. I listened to their challenges.
I didn't judge them for it. And you know what words I've used all the time. Totally get it. Totally get it. I wasn't saying they were right. I wasn't saying that everything's blowing up, but I was saying like, they're just humans.
They feel this thing. They've been through this journey and that's real. You don't have to bring golden nuggets everywhere you go. You have to see people for who they are and let them know they can put their bags down because everyone in a company is walking around with two suitcases that don't have wheels on them only operating at % because everyone's frustrated or resentful or annoyed or not getting appreciated.
So you know, I just tell people totally get it. Totally get it. You guys are putting in a massive effort. This is frustrating. I totally hear you.
Do you know what that does? It takes the wind out of that negative energy because what are they going to say? They don't have to fight me about understanding them as humans anymore. So then they go, oh, okay.
And so then it changes to, okay, so now what? Let's make this thing better. What do you need? And when you do, when you, when you're curious and you match confidence with humility, people will tell you a lot of things.
And when you're an in-house lawyer, if you are isolated and you don't know any things, you cannot be useful for yourself or for them. You need to know things. And so you got to be a good human and you got to care about them. They tell you things. Now you use all of that information to make life better. And that's how I got the, I didn't pay for the legal tech.
The sales team paid for it because I said to them, hold on, hold on a sec. You get paid by commission, right? You're in all different time zones, right? Don't you want to be closing deals all the time? Why are you choosing and asking legal to populate these contracts with the commercial information you are already supposed to have in the CRM tool?
And then they said, well, of course we wish that was true. Great. Got a solution for you. Put a pin there, account management team. So when the C-suite calls you on the carpet and wants, you know, what's going on with thousands of clients, how do you know? Excel sheets and no, shouldn't that be in the CRM tool so that you look like a legend because you can just slice reports right away.
Yeah, of course you want that. Beautiful. Got a solution for you. And so when you're a human, people trust you. They give you information. You use that information to build a story for the company that is powered through their lens, not yours. And that's what makes your life better. Instead of going out and telling people, I'm going to do this and do this and do this and do this, and that's going to make it better. No, nobody cares. Nobody cares. I do it for their reasons.
Stine: So your superpower, like just meeting you and having this conversation is definitely about stakeholder management and communication.And I don't think anybody is in doubt that you have good skills in that regard.
Chad: I know what you mean. Totally get it.
Stine: Or what do you do when you're more introverted?
Chad: Yeah. No, it's a great question. I got a perfect example for you. So another lawyer that I've worked with, a bit more introverted, was more junior. She was very passionate about music. And she believed in kind of her passion so naturally that her background in her house
was a lot of stuff like Prince, you know, Prince frame and then a guitar there.
And it just resonated with people because so many people, whether you play music or not, if they see that you have clearly like a passion for something, they're curious about it. They start asking you, you're not just a lawyer anymore because FYI, lawyers also happen to be humans.
And so, you know, humans have interests and they have passions and people see that and they get curious about it and they would bond with her, not because she's the same as me, but because, you know, and I would encourage her with this all the time is like, lean into you, lean into you like you're funny.
You've got this passion for it. People are going to connect with that. So lean into it, you know, and she did that. And so people resonated with her all the time because she was able to use that as kind of like her relationship builder. And then she was able to drive change in the way that made more sense for her. And so I think, you know, to your point, it's like, listen, not everyone needs to be my way. They shouldn't be. It's not a better way. It's my way.
Stine: And so the magic is always what's your way like for you, you're a community builder, right? So for you, it probably makes sense that you're looking at things kind of in a larger sense, like in scale, like how do I get information and bring people together?
Like I'm sure you'd like it one to one, but this probably has even more value to you because you can push it out at scale rather than if you and I were just sitting for coffee, which you might enjoy, but this probably gives you more, more juice.
Chad: Right. And, and so it's how does everyone find their own way? You know, there is no better way. It's your own way and your own way is the best way for you. And so you don't have to be the most curious cat in the world.
You need to know who you are and what you care about and double down on that.
Chad: Yes.
Stine: Is that kind of summarizing it?
Chad: Yes. And you know what's hard when you've never done this before is you're going to think these things don't make sense. They don't matter and they don't relate to my job. I was talking to someone else that, that I'm helping and they were talking about how they really like to listen to like sports podcasts that are news podcasts.
I don't really have to relate to their job and don't end there. So like go next, right? I'm like, okay, so what, like why, why does it matter to you? Like to be informed, like to know what's next, like to be connected with different communities. I also care about these things.
Now you can very quickly see it's not about the sports podcast, right? It's about why you listen to it with the free time that you choose to have. And then, okay, so now you like this. What's next with your community building?
Okay. Why do you care about that? Because maybe you get some adrenaline, maybe you get some excitement off of that. Maybe that feels like you're growing. Okay. Why do you care about that?
And you can see how, like when you get to four or five questions deep, something in you is like, Whoa, there's something there. And you're going to feel like it doesn't make sense.
What I would challenge you to say is trust that and keep pushing there. If it doesn't feel like it makes sense, it probably means it's because you've been conditioned to think it doesn't matter. That doesn't mean that's right. It actually means your most perfect essential skills and impact live there.
And you will refine those if you put in the work and figure out how to deploy them in your career.
Chad: That's very kind. So yeah, I'm on LinkedIn pretty much every day. And I do a lot of video stuff there too.
So for folks that it's easier for me to just absorb that way too. So you can just look under my name, Chad Aboud, A-B-O-U-D, and you'll find me there.
And then my website is chadaboud.com to keep it nice and easy. But yeah, find me on LinkedIn. That's the best way you'll get. I give these kinds of tips every day.
And so if that's motivating for you, go there, shoot me a DM if you got a question about it. So that's the best way to find me. ‘
Chad: So if I think about, because I was a little bit confused as a kid. You know, like I was good enough at school. I was a good enough athlete.
Like I made all these teams, but like it just didn't really matter to me. And I'd look back and it was like helping other people mattered to me. But it didn't really make sense with this kind of like way that life was going.
I was always very confused. But one person that I very naturally connected with was someone who I'd only see twice a year, my paternal grandfather. And you know, when I was about , it was actually right when I was getting hired by a law firm.
So I was older, I was maybe . And he passed away. And I remember getting to the hospital just as you know, we were too late and I was there and I was very, very close to him. And I remember looking at him and thinking, this isn't % sad. And that was weird.
And so I started thinking like this is one of the most impactful people in my life. Like why am I not fully sad? And I remember thinking some version, some unrefined version of he's at peace. Not because like pain was gone or something, but because he lived his life the exact way he was meant to live it.
So this was a guy, you know, Lebanese immigrant to Montreal and didn't have much education and you know, built his own kind of clothing store business like local place.
But here was the magic. All he wanted to do from the time that I knew him was help people and give them his energy. And the way that I saw that prove itself out is every memory I have of him for years, I was in his house. What does that tell you? It tells you he didn't need to take me anywhere.
He didn't need to buy me anything. He just gave me his energy and he gave me his time. He gave me his curiosity. And people would come to the house all the time and every single person he would tell me that that's my best friend.
And I would say to them, like, how is this possible? Did you have so many best friends? Like it doesn't even meet the definition of the word. And it was irrelevant to him.
It's the way he thought, right? He thought about giving first, giving his energy first. And I felt like when he passed, I was like, that's the way he was meant to live. He's a human radio. Like this is what he was meant to do.
And I challenged myself in an unrefined way at that moment. Can you do that? Because when you close your eyes for that long sleep many years from now, what is going to matter to you, man? And it's that it is having the greatest impact that I could possibly have with the gifts
I happen to have and my work to bring them out. Right. It's not just enough that you figure it out. You've got to share it.
And so that's what my challenge for myself. And that's why, you know, when I, we had our daughter, I said like, Hey, I can't just tell her, find your special skills. I have to show her, this is what it looks like. This is the model because I had that. So you know, that's, that's what inspired me.
And you know, there's tons of amazing voices on, on this platform that continue to inspire me every day. And they push me and you know, when we get this out, I'll drop them in the comments to, you know, for other people to go find them.
But I think like that is my living impact every day.
Stine: How can you top that? I'm just gonna now say, thank you so much for joining us for sharing and for inspiring others.
Chad: Well, thank you for having me. And thank you for doing this. And thank you for making this industry better.
Thank you so much for listening to Inspiring Legal. Remember to subscribe and if you want more information, you can always go to openli.com/community.
