Episode Six: Leveraging serendipity with work ethic for success in the Japanese legal industry
Full transcript below.
This episode taught me that if there is someone out there you want to get to know more, then you should just reach out to them and book in an e-coffee or meet up if you can! Mindy was one of those people and I’m so glad this episode was a chance for us to get to know each other better. Mindy has done so much in her legal career already and she’s just revving up. If you are someone wanting to find out how to get started working as a lawyer in Japan or how to have a varied legal career then this is definitely a great episode for you.
If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Take a screenshot of yourself listening to the episode on your device, post it to LinkedIn, and tag me and Mindy. Or leave us a message here!
In this episode you’ll hear:
How a mix of serendipity x hard work led Mindy to find herself interning over several summers in Japan.
What happened when she graduated from law school in 2010 during the World Financial Crisis
What is the Japanese term of “ringi”
How her experience in law school has spun off to other opportunities in the legal world as a university lecturer
Her advice for up and coming lawyers who want to do varied work in Japan
Her favourite podcasts and other fun facts
About Mindy
Mindy is originally from New York. She graduated with a JD from Stanford University in 2010. She also completed a BA in East Asian Languages and Cultures, and an MA in East Asian Regional Studies from Columbia University in New York. Through her father’s encouragement to learn more languages, she started to learn Japanese and arrived in Japan in 2001 for a homestay in Tokushima. That culture shock did not deter her from interning in Japan for six consecutive summers and she was able to move to her New York firm’s Tokyo office in 2014. In 2019 she joined the boutique law firm southgate where she practices today whilst also teaching a legal writing class at Keio University.
Connect with Mindy
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mindy-allen-8391107/
Links
Mindy’s local restaurant: Tetote Apartment: http://tetote-apartment.com/
Working as a Sole Practitioner in Tokyo - Panel discussion hosted by Women in Law Japan (WILJ): https://www.catherineoconnelllaw.com/blog/working-as-a-sole-practitioner-in-tokyo-panel-discussion-hosted-by-women-in-law-japan-wilj
Full Release with Samantha B Podcast: https://www.earwolf.com/show/full-release-with-samantha-bee/
Contract Teardown Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/contract-teardown-show/id1552795073
Smitten Kitchen Blog: https://smittenkitchen.com/
Life after Law Book: https://www.amazon.co.jp/Life-After-Law-Finding-Work/dp/1138469955
The Pastry Chef’s Guide Book: https://www.amazon.co.jp/Pastry-Chefs-Guide-Secret-Successful/dp/1911641514
Connect with Catherine
Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/in/oconnellcatherine/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawyeronair
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/catherine.oconnell.148
Twitter: https://twitter.com/oconnelllawyer
Transcript
Catherine: Welcome to this sixth episode of Lawyer On Air, I'm Catherine O'Connell. Today I'm joined by Mindy Allen, who is counsel at southgate, a boutique M&A law firm in Tokyo. I'm not quite sure if Mindy herself is aware, but I have been wanting to chat with Mandy for a long while. Mindy's Japanese connection and crossover into law reminds me of my path.
Her love for the Japanese language came first. Same here, then through an experience, exposed to law as a legal intern in a firm, she found law to be her next passion. For me, it was a different experience, but still, there was a trigger to follow the law. We both also have a connection to Osaka. Mindy worked in a law firm there, me as in-house counsel some years earlier. Now she's at a boutique law firm in Tokyo and I run a boutique law firm myself. So I have been curiously on the sidelines observing Mindy's career. But let me go back a little bit and brief you on Mindy's path, and then we will get into our conversation and go a bit deeper.
So Mindy’s study and career looked to me like a perfect Venn diagram. Imagine if you will one big circle on the left, which is what I call Japanese language and Asia, and the big circle on the right is the law. In the middle is the crossover of the two, which is where she is now in Tokyo, leveraging both those parts and excelling as a bilingual M&A lawyer.
Mindy is from New York and her academic background crosses four educational institutions. She graduated with a JD from Stanford University in 2010 and three years before that with a BA in East Asian languages and cultures. Then an MA in East Asian regional studies, both from Columbia University in the city of New York. Mindy also had a year at Kyoto Center for Japanese Studies from 2004 to 2005 and Keio University in Tokyo from 2007 to 2008.
Mindy's career path in law also traverses several different terrains. Early days saw her interning at a Japanese bank and at US firms then jumping to a Japanese law firm, and another couple of US firms. She did a stint on secondment at a trading company in Japan, and then she landed at southgate and has been there for two and a half years, recently promoted to Counsel. To me, a law career is not a linear thing, it's more like a spiral or a winding road of curves, valleys, sharp turns, and long stretches. Mindy has really had a varied career and is a super example, to anyone listening, that you can do a lot with your legal career and go many places and experience different sides of the law. So I'm super excited to have captured Mindy as my guest today. Mindy, welcome to the show.
Mindy: Thank you so much. That was such a nice introduction and I've also actually been watching you and wanting to talk to you. So what a great opportunity.
Catherine: Thanks so much. That's great, the feeling is very much mutual. So today we are going to be talking about your amazing career, how you've navigated your studies, your adventures, all around the Olympic track of law, your insights into the future of law. I'd really love you to also offer some nuggets of advice for young lawyers, all those young lawyers out there on their career path here, so how does that sound?
Mindy: That sounds great. Let's get started.
Catherine: So today, again, we're talking online because the state of emergency in Tokyo has been extended for another month or so, but if we were meeting up in person, where would we be? Do you have a favorite wine bar or a restaurant you love to go to? What is your choice of beverage off the menu today?
Mindy: I wish I had a favorite one but I really don't know much about wine or appreciate it enough. So if you would indulge me, I guess I would want to go to my favorite neighborhood restaurant. I live in Ebisu and it's called Tetote and they have great pizza and outdoor seating and in pre-pandemic times it was open until five in the morning and their food is just great and it's really friendly. My favorite part as a dog owner is that dogs are allowed inside, so I usually bring my dog.
Catherine: That is fantastic. So did you often stay there till five in the morning? Is that what I’m hearing?
Mindy: No, I don't think I've been there past 11 or so, but it's nice as an option if we were deep in conversation and did not have to worry about closing times.
Catherine: Sure. I love that a lot of restaurants now in Tokyo do allow doggies to come along and it really makes the atmosphere quite different I think when you've got dogs.
Mindy: Yeah, it's really relaxed, yeah it's nice. A lot of places allow them on the terrace but it's still a bit rare to find places where they're allowed inside the restaurant as well, especially in winter when you can't eat outside. t's a nice option and
Catherine: I really would love to come and meet with you in Ebisu sometime and go to dinner there.
Mindy That would be really great.
Catherine: Thanks so much. I'm trying to think back to when we officially met. Do you remember? I think it was Women in Law Japan maybe last year in January, then last year, during the year, one of my clients needed some specialist help and I remember seeing you at your office. Is that the first couple of meetings that we had?
Mindy: I think that's right. That's my recollection that you came to my office in 2019 with your client and I know that before that, maybe a year or two before, you gave that talk at Amazon about starting your own legal practice. I was working at a trading house at the time and I was really interested in the various career paths people have taken in Tokyo, but I didn't make it to the event. That was when I first heard your name and heard about your career and it was really sad that I missed the event. So I was really excited when you came to our office for a meeting that time to get to meet you in person for the first time.
Catherine: That was 2018, I had just launched, I think I was only a few minutes in and our first podcast guest, Angela Krantz was moderating that event. That was when it was and you couldn't get there, but wow you've taken quite a few different paths since then and before that. I wish you'd been there and we could've met. I'm so glad that serendipity has brought us together. So I'm going to ask you a question here, maybe you're not prepared for this one, maybe you are but I really want to know when you were a child, what it was that you wanted to be? You’re a lawyer now, but when you were a child, what did you want to be?
Mindy’s Early Life
Mindy: I wanted to be a lot of different things. There was a phase when I was maybe in elementary school or middle school, I really loved John Grisham cause he's a legal writer in the US. and for a while, I did want to be a lawyer, but I wanted to be a courtroom advocate. Which is really strange to me because that's actually one reason why I didn't end up being a litigator because as I got older, the idea of public advocacy really terrified me. So for a while, I wanted to do that. For a while I wanted to be an interior decorator and then for a long time I wanted to be a therapist, before college, and I think maybe that was what I wanted to do the longest.
Catherine: How interesting, but I think in a way, lawyering is a little bit like giving people therapy.
Mindy: Yeah, it is like giving advice to your clients, and I'm sure that therapists also have the experience that sometimes our client don’t want to take the advice or they fight you, which is difficult, but ultimately you're trying to help your client navigate a difficult situation and figure out how to do things better.
Catherine: That's true, but even as a therapist, too, the client or the customer may not want that therapy but they do end up accepting.
Mindy: Yeah they need it. That's why you're there in that relationship in the first place.
Catherine: Interesting. So let's traverse that Japan and Japanese language journey, first. I've heard that your first experience with Japanese actually arose because of your dad's influence. Tell us a bit about that.
Mindy: Yeah, my dad had a really big influence on how I first got started studying Japanese and coming to Japan many years ago. My dad is a chef, and as part of his training, he worked in Paris and studied in Israel, he studied Hebrew and Arabic. He picked up some French when he was studying and cooking at The Sorbonne. He was always very interested in other languages and cultures, and when I was growing up, he always said you cannot just speak English. You have to study other languages and you have to study other cultures, you have to get as much international experience as you can. So he always instilled that in me and I studied Spanish and French in school growing up because of him. When I was in high school I grew up in a suburb of New York that has a pretty large Japanese expat population because it's close to Manhattan. So I always grew up going to Japanese restaurants and Japanese supermarkets, and when I was in high school, my dad had an idea for us to start studying Japanese together. Once a week, there was a small Japanese school, not too far away. So it was totally random. A lot of times people start studying Japanese in America because they like anime or something like that, but for me, it was just an idea that my dad had and I always liked studying foreign languages. I was like, okay, that’s maybe a nice activity to do together, so that was how I got started.
Catherine: Good. Great! Did your dad also cook Japanese food?
Mindy: No, he doesn't cook Japanese food, and being a chef is really demanding, so he worked six days a week when I was growing up and he rarely cooked at home because he was so busy working. He had to work every night and weekend basically and parties and dinners. So he didn't do that much cooking, but he loves Japanese food, and for much of when I was growing up, every Sunday night, we would go to a Japanese restaurant called Tsuru, 20 minutes from my house. So I always had some exposure to Japan from a young age.
Catherine: Wow. And your dad's been to Japan?
Mindy: He has. I studied abroad in college for a year and my parents came to visit me then, that was a great trip, and then a few years ago he came back. Originally he was going to come with some family for the Olympics, but obviously, that didn't happen, but he absolutely loves Japan. He loves Japanese food, it's one of his favorite cuisines, so I know he'll be back in the future when international travel resumes.
Catherine: Great. I have to ask you when you're studying Japanese together, were you competitive? How did you study together?
Mindy: No, my dad dropped out very early, so I really didn't need to compete very hard. My dad just stopped going and I continued myself, but I give him a lot of credit. He can still to this day more or less read Hiragana and Katakana, and he still tries to practice Japanese sometimes. Every year when it's my birthday he sends me a message, he says, “Tanjobi Omedeto Mindy san”.
Catherine: That is so sweet, that's lovely. So he says happy birthday to you in Japanese. You should record him when he does that this year if you haven't already had your birthday. When did you first come to Japan then? Had you already studied Japanese before you came here?
Mindy: I did. I had studied just a little bit. I was doing an hour lesson a week, which for such a difficult language is not really enough to make much progress, but because of that, I had some interest in Japan. Before I went to college, I had done a few different study programs over the summers and I found out about a program to come to Japan and live with the homestay family and study Japanese. I thought that sounded exciting, and my dad really encouraged me to do it, so that was what I did.
Catherine: Was that in Tokyo or outside of Tokyo, that program?
Mindy’s First Taste of Japan
Mindy: It was outside of Tokyo, in Tokushima. It was an organized program, so I wasn't alone, but it was my first time in Asia. I'd never been so far from home before and it was a really big culture shock to come to Japan. I lived with a family in a really rural area, and I walked through a rice paddy field to get to the bus to go to my school every day. I had grown up in a very developed urban area, so it was quite shocking, I'd never really seen rural life anywhere before so it was a big change to get used to that kind of lifestyle as well.
Catherine: Wow. Completely different from downtown Manhattan to the paddy fields of Japan. Is there a memory from your homestay, something that surprised you about Japan back then, and maybe something that was really obvious then, which is now no longer around in Japan, or something that hasn't even been changed since then?
Mindy: I don't know if this is a good answer to your question, but one of my most vivid memories, which was a bit of a shock for me, was that I think we had a retreat to go stay in a temple overnight somewhere. I packed a bag of clothes to take, and my host mom came in and went through my bag. She saw I had obviously packed underwear and she didn't think it was hidden and demure enough and she gave me a silk case to put it in. She said “Boys ga pantsu mimasu”. “The boys will see your underwear.” So she put it in a special case so it wouldn't be visible under any circumstances, even if I emptied my bag onto the floor. I thought that was so interesting, so funny, like even just living together for a few weeks, that she just had this really strong sentiment as a woman, you must be demure, you cannot show anything private like that.
Catherine: Interesting. Modesty! I remember homestays coming to stay with our family in New Zealand and we'd have washing day, the girls would always get their washing back into their room and hang it up. They brought the hanger with them and had it hanging up in their bedroom because they didn’t want it out on the line.
Mindy: Interesting, I guess it was the same reason that nobody can see, especially your private items. Another, it wasn't a huge cultural shock, but just factual, when my host family picked me up at the place where all the students went their various directions and drove to our house, they said my host dad was a chef - “he ran his own restaurant”. So I thought that's so cool because my dad is a chef, so I wonder if that's why I got placed with them. They said, “he runs a Japanese pizza restaurant” and it was right next to their house. I was like, oh, that sounds great, I like pizza and it turned out what they meant was okonomiyaki. They were calling it Japanese pizza. So the first time I had it, I was a little disappointed I admit, because it's really nothing like pizza.
Catherine: No it’s not is it. But it seems for okonomiyaki it’s the way that it's described for foreigners to understand it. But if you’re looking for a base and then everything on top, that's not what it is, but we won't tell anyone who hasn't perhaps tried it, and they can try that again at a restaurant in the future. That's so interesting. So you got your tastes, literally, for Japan, I think that's 2001. And so then you studied at Columbia University in New York and the additional study in Kyoto, you did two degrees at Columbia. So your dad influenced you on your study choices? Is that right?
Mindy: Yeah, that's right I knew, having gone to Japan and having started studying Japanese just a little bit before college, that I wanted to keep studying. I'd always enjoyed studying foreign languages and Columbia had a really good East Asian Studies program. So when I started at school, I knew I wanted to study Japanese and I wasn't sure if I would pursue that as a major or pursue something else. I started taking classes in Japanese politics, and I really liked it, so basically the more I studied, the more I wanted to keep studying in that area. In America, it's not uncommon to spend your junior year of college studying abroad, if you have an interest in another country so I knew I wanted to do that. Once I decided to major in that area, I realized all of my courses would count toward my major so it would be possible to spend a whole year there and have all my courses count.
Catherine: Right so they had an exchange program with Kyoto did they? Or did you find that yourself, that program?
Mindy: I didn't find that myself, but it wasn't quite an exchange. It was called the Kyoto Center for Japanese Studies and it was a consortium of something like 10 or 13 US universities that all get together and they have an affiliated Japanese university. I think at the time it was Kyoto University and they had some programs with Ritsumeikan (University) and we would have some exchange events with local Kyoto students, but it was like a standalone center. I think maybe now it's part of Ritsumeikan but for a while, it was part of Kyoto University.
Catherine: Right, so you did that. Many people would have just stayed and done their study, or not gone as far away from home to come to Japan again, but you did that. What did you love about living in Japan at that time, that second trip here?
Mindy: That was much easier because I lived by myself, so I guess I didn't have to worry. In some ways, I regret not living with a host family and getting that experience. But it was very challenging when I'd been in Tokushima to communicate with my family because they didn't speak a word of English and I just knew a couple of Japanese phrases. I really wanted to form a deep connection with them, but the language barrier made it really tough. So it was easier not dealing with that in Kyoto. I just loved so many things about it. I loved living independently and cooking for myself and figuring out what I was going to see and do on the weekends. I loved that the program made really great use of the city. We had a lot of field trips, we went to a sake brewery, we went to a lot of temples and we saw a whiskey brewery.
Catherine: You must have been over 20 at that time?
Mindy: I was, I think I was exactly 20.
Catherine: So what happened after Kyoto, did you come back to Japan, or did you find some work in Tokyo or around in Japan at that time?
Serendipity and Internships
Mindy: I got really lucky then. I can't remember exactly when I decided to go to law school, but I think I had basically decided by then and I got really lucky through my mom. She was a speech pathologist and she would go to people's houses and do therapy with kids, and she mentioned to one of the families that her daughter was studying abroad in Kyoto. That person said, “Oh my brother-in-law's a lawyer in Tokyo”. My mom says “Oh that’s interesting, my daughter wants to go to law school”. So I was really lucky and when my parents came to visit me in Kyoto we went to Tokyo together while I was studying abroad. I was very lucky to meet this person in person and he was an American lawyer who'd been living in Japan for many years. He worked at a large international law firm. He was very nice and gave me a summer internship opportunity at that law firm, so that was my first legal work experience. I ended up right after my program in Kyoto going back to Japan for the summer to do an internship in Tokyo at a law firm while I was still in college. That was really incredible, it was a great experience for me. It was one of my first times working in a professional environment, even getting paid. I had done a lot of unpaid internships in New York. It was nice to have a job that I went to every day and got paid for and that particular firm had Japanese, American, British, Australian attorneys. A lot of people spoke at least two languages. The work was very international and even though I wasn't doing much of the legal work, because I was still in college, I just found the environment really exciting and interesting. That was when the seed was planted. I want to come back to Japan after going to law school and do this.
Catherine: It’s extremely international. Some people may have the view that Japan must be just Japanese law firms and Japanese lawyers, but you got a peek through the door there to see an international environment. Even just seeing that and seeing that cultural and language mix, it still takes a mental jump from being an intern to considering law seriously. So what was working there for you that made you really solidify on I'm going to do law? Is there something that triggered you there?
Mindy: I think my parents were definitely encouraging me to go to law school at that time. I grew up in a strict, not as strict household per se, but my parents really encouraged me to go into one of the traditional professions being medicine or law. So for a while, I had wanted to be a therapist, when I was younger, my parents, my dad, in particular, was like you can't just be a therapist. You can't be a social worker, you need to get as much education as you can, so why don't you go to medical school and be a psychiatrist? So that was what I had been thinking for a while, but then when I started college, all of a sudden I realized I love studying social sciences. I don't really like studying the hard sciences, not interested in chemistry, so at that point, I decided, okay, if I don't want to go to medical school, then I'll orient myself more toward law school.
So that was what I had been thinking and having studied Japanese, I was also thinking about Foreign Service or pursuing a PhD in Japanese politics and trying to get an academic position later. It did seem my parents were really pushing me toward law and kind of pointing out the downside of all of these other things for better or for worse. I was preselected, so I was already oriented toward law, and working in the office, it felt okay, this is confirmation that this is a good direction. I like going to an office every day. I like working with documents, going to meetings, this kind of professional environment that I've never really experienced before, and neither of my parents has a job like that either. It was really my first exposure to business and I liked it and I found it exciting so that just felt okay, this is what I want to do. It was more the idea of an international business related job. Maybe if I'd been at a company, I would have had the same experience, but I happened to be at a law firm and already had been thinking about preparing to go to law school.
Catherine: So you'd received all that information from your parents, and then obviously you decide what you want to do yourself, but that experience at that firm, confirmed for you, what was lying ahead. A lot of people who come here and, forewarning to any listeners who are thinking of coming here, you either find it culturally a bit tough and never come back, or like most of us, once you taste Japan, you can't get Japan out of your system and Mindy you are so definitely the latter type of person. You came back for a couple of summers, so take us through that because you did your study and there was also a bank in there as well, tell me about that? It’s so amazing, what you've done.
Mindy: Yes I loved my first experience working in Japan, so basically, even though I knew at that point that I wanted to go to law school and I also was planning to get a master's degree before law school, I knew I had many years of schooling ahead of me. So I took the opportunity, every opportunity I could to spend my summers working in Japan. I ended up coming back for a total of six summers in a row before I actually started practicing as a lawyer. So after the law firm in Tokyo, I was back in the US. I was either going to graduate soon or start my masters, and there's a big Career Fair called “Boston Career Forum” that's held in Boston every year. It's basically a job fair, mostly targeted at Japanese students who are studying in the US, either studying abroad or like Japanese Americans who have grown up in both places and happened to be in the US during their college years, but might want to work in Japan. All of these companies come and you have all of these interviews to find work in Japan. That was what I did with some friends with I had studied Japanese at school and I ended up getting an internship offer to work at a bank in Tokyo. So I decided to do that my following summer. It ended up being an interesting experience because I was hired to work with someone there who was a lawyer. I had said I wanted to go to law school in one of the Trust Banks, but it turned out that when I got to Tokyo many months later the bank had been sanctioned by the FSA and had been totally restructured and completely changed its business model. The internal relations were very different and I was not able to work with the lawyer I was supposed to work with. I ended up still working in that division, but I think my work was not legal at all. It was very different, I spent a lot of time doing a SWOT analysis of getting into the student loans. It was hard to think positively about that after having amassed huge student loans myself. It was a very interesting experience and it was a very well-organized internship program. There were maybe 20 or so students who are Japanese students studying in the US, and some Americans who were interested in Japan or wanted to have a summer experience there. So it was really fun, and we all lived together in this Tokyu Stay together and would commute to work together in the morning. It was very fun and that was a great experience.
Catherine: Did you study Japanese then too?
Mindy: I wasn't studying in school at the time, but I ended up studying all through college and my masters formerly in school.
Catherine: So you kept up the Japanese? Then you went back to the States in 2007, is that right?
Mindy: Yes that’s right. I started law school in 2007 and it was the summer before that, where I had gone back to the bank, but I also enrolled in a Japanese program at Keio to get in a last bit of study before I started law school. So I was working 30 hours a week, and also going to the language program, four days a week.
Catherine: You came back to the States after that program finished, I'm guessing. Is that when you started at Stanford?
Mindy: Yeah, then I moved to Stanford and that was my first time living in a state other than New York.
Mindy Moves to Stanford Law School
Catherine: So you moved from New York over to California?
Mindy: Yeah that was a really big change because I've been in Tokyo by that point for a few summers in a row and having a really great time, and then I moved to California and it was really beautiful, but I didn't have a car. I didn't even know how to ride a bike, so it's really hard to get around, and I really missed being in a big city. Palo Alto is really beautiful, but it is not a big city. So at first, I had not culture shock of course being American, but I really missed that big city life. I wish I had appreciated Stanford more when I was there because it's such a great place,
Catherine: It’s a beautiful campus, I've been there and walked around. You actually do need a bicycle to get from one side to the other.
Mindy: You definitely do.
Catherine: You were on the Law Review there too and did some other volunteering.
Mindy: Yeah, I got really involved in extracurricular activities at Stanford. I did the Journal of Law, the specimen finance, and then my second year I was the Submissions Editor. I would review all the articles that got submitted and select which ones we would actually publish. I started at Law Review that year as an Editor, and I really liked activities so I ended up running for the Board of Law Review in my third year. I was an Executive Editor and I spent a lot of time on those activities. I thought law school itself was very tough, it wasn't as fun as college was, and I think US law schools are really geared toward litigators. I knew at that point that I wanted to go into corporate law, so it often felt like my classes were not that relevant to what I was going to do in the future. But I really liked being able to do these other activities where I could work on other skills, like managing people and processes and things like that.
Catherine: Right, did you dabble a little bit in what might be litigation volunteer work. I think you mentioned to me before we got together for this recording today that you had done some other volunteer work as well at Stanford.
Mindy: It wasn't litigation but I did pro bono for a few years at a center, helping people apply for protective orders against their abusers. Before law school, I had done a lot of activities in that area, training on abusive dating relationships at high school, and in college, I worked at the rape crisis center. So I'd always been interested in that area but I'd never considered it as a full-time career. I'm not sure why, but it was an interest that was always really important to me so I always looked for a way to pursue it. You were encouraged to do pro bono and there were different activities that were set up so when I found that pre-established program I thought that was right up my alley and I really enjoyed doing it.
Catherine: How did it affect the kind of law you wanted to do or more so the kind of lawyer that you wanted to be?
Mindy: Oh, that's a great question. Even though I didn't want to pursue that as a career, it definitely made me want to be an empathetic lawyer, be a good listener, and help people with their problems. People have these very significant problems and you listen to their heart-wrenching stories and then you help them find solutions of how they can help themselves. It's very different being a corporate lawyer, however, you do a similar process of your clients come to you with a problem or want to get something done and you help them achieve it. So I do like that aspect of the law.
Catherine: It's interesting. I was listening to a podcast the other day and the person there said “empathy is a competitive advantage for lawyers” and I thought that was absolutely brilliant. I’m glad that happened to you there, that you could try to build that muscle of empathy, and as you say, you have to be a great listener to be a lawyer as well and I could go further into that, but I think we'll carry on.
I talked about the Venn diagram before and I really think this next stage of your life is where that middle bit comes in and I think it was really quite a joyous part of your life for you too. You had your first couple of years when you may have come again back to Tokyo and what happened there, there was some serendipity weaving itself around there and some magic happening in your life as well at that time, I think you know what I'm hinting at?
Mindy: Do you mean meeting my husband or getting a job? Yeah, I did meet my husband in law school, that was good. But before that, knowing I wanted to come back to Japan in the future I knew I wanted to spend the summer of my first year of law school, working in Tokyo at a law firm, and getting a better taste of what that was like to work as a law student, rather than a college intern when you can't do very much. So I put a lot of energy into that. I had a huge spreadsheet of every international firm in Tokyo with names of either the hiring partner or a managing partner, or maybe someone who had gone to Stanford, who I could find a connection with. Once we were allowed to apply for jobs, I sent out 40 emails to all of these places looking for jobs and I found a job at a great US law firm in Tokyo, so I was able to go back for another summer.
Catherine: Okay, so you were in Japan and I think in New York transferring back and forth, is that right?
Mindy: I spent my one L summer in Tokyo and then my next summer I went back to that firm, but at that point, I was thinking of starting my career in New York, so I did spend most of my two L summer for American students. That's the pivotal summer. You usually spend, you're doing an internship or a summer associate program at the firm where you will get a full-time job offer after graduation. So I spent that at a large New York firm. And like you said, by that time, I had already started dating my husband.
He was interested in coming to Japan with me in the future, which was really great because I knew I wanted to have a career in Japan in the future, but if I'm dating someone in America, will that person be willing to just move their whole life to Asia with me? I'm not sure, as especially at the time when people heard I was studying Japanese, they thought it was really foreign and strange and so far away. So I felt that I know what I want to do professionally, but I don't really know how I'll figure out my personal life, I'll just see.
Catherine: Did he also have a love for Japan or some Japanese thread to his life? Or was it really just as he met you he grew to love Japan, the food, and other parts of the culture?
Mindy: It was a bit of both. It was interesting as we met on my first day in the Law Society in Japan seminar at law school, we sat next to each other on the first day. So he had an interest in Japan and when we talked, it turned out he had studied Japanese for two years in college and had been to Japan before. So he wasn't as devoted as I was and had never considered moving there in the future, but he was interested and open to it when I told him about what I wanted to do and he thought that sounded awesome.
Catherine: So was that around 2010?
Mindy: Yeah, 2009, he came with me when I went back to the firm in Tokyo, and then we graduated in 2010.
Starting Work in a Recession
Catherine: Yeah, that's when the recession happened, right? I remember being in Japan and Tokyo at that time and lots of finance lawyers were turning their careers into commercial and corporate to survive. What happened with you in 2010, because you would have been just about to go into perhaps a law firm and start your career, so what happened then?
Mindy: Yeah, exactly. My firm deferred me for three months, which is not that long, but at the time it just felt like forever. I've been spending so many years of schooling doing so many internships to prepare myself for this moment and I'm deferred. I ended up getting lucky again thanks to my friend and colleague at the US law firm I had spent two summers at in Tokyo. He had started his career at that firm and was a year senior to me but he had been deferred from his job for a whole year and ended up spending it at a large law firm in Osaka. He was about to go back to the US and start his job there so he asked me if I wanted to come to Osaka and work there. My title was Foreign Legal Consultant at that Osaka law firm. My husband was deferred from his firm for a full year so he came with me and just hung out while we were there. That was really fun to go back to Kansai after having studied there and to work in a Japanese firm for the first time, which was really different.
Catherine: Sure. There's such a lot of serendipity happening for you. Serendipity, I actually looked it up because it means “the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy and beneficial way”. I don't think you can create serendipity. You have to actually have an involvement or component of chance and opportunity. It sounds like that's really something that's happened for you, the chance, and you talk about luck, but I think it's chances and opportunities that you've really picked up on. Moving to Osaka is one thing and I moved there as well, and it was a different, completely different kettle of fish to Tokyo. What did you like about Osaka and do you speak Osaka dialect?
Mindy: I wish I spoke more, having studied in Kyoto, but I was still new to Japanese at that point. We studied, obviously, the “hyojungo” - regular, standardized national Japanese at my school, but I know some "Kansai-ben" Kansai dialect, and I like hearing it. I learned some phrases like “Chau Chau”.
Catherine: Oh yeah. “you're wrong, that's not right, that's not right" yeah.
Mindy: And you have to do the hand movement when you do it too.
Catherine: Correct, you’re right to say "no, no no - chau chau". That's exactly right. Oh goodness, it’s so much fun, it takes me back.
Mindy: Yeah, I loved it. I've lived in Tokyo for many years now, and I really enjoy it, but I do think people in Kansai, especially Osaka tend to be more open.
Catherine: They’re fresh and open and direct.
Mindy: So that was really nice and it was a really social atmosphere and the attorneys organized lots of yakiniku dinners and things like that. You really get to know people, even though I was only there for a few months. To this day, I'm still in touch with some of the attorneys there and some of them ended up moving to the Tokyo office as it got larger. I still see them regularly, and that experience really left an impact.
Catherine: There is something about Osaka that makes you forge very deep relationships. When I was there, I worked at Panasonic, but outside of that I was doing Ikebana flower arranging and the ladies that I met during that class, I am still in touch with. I think there is something about Osaka, that familiarity, that brings that sort of deep kind of recognition between people. What was the experience that you really loved at the Japanese law firm there, is there something that stands out for you when you were there?
Mindy: I think probably more than the work experiences, it was the people and all the different social experiences. I remember how we would have "JE lunch", Japanese- English lunch, and a lot of the Bengoshi Japanese lawyers would come and try to speak in English. We would have "JE poker nights" once a month. I'm horrible at poker, I can't play, but my husband would actually come with me and we would play together and everyone would sit around the table and just have a beer and have fun and make jokes. It was really fun, so what I remember the most, more than the legal aspects, is the social aspects and connecting with people.
Catherine: They stand out. And so I think a little bit after that you did come back to the US and get that offer after the deferral. But I sense that you have maybe missed Japan and transitioned back again. And I love to hear about that secondment that you had to a Japanese trading house because that's quite an interesting and juicy experience because again, perhaps the right serendipity is working for you. But was that the right place right time, or was it connections that you'd built up over those previous years in Tokyo and Osaka? I'm curious to hear about this part of your career Mindy.
Mindy: Yeah it was actually connections again. I guess my career has been really serendipitous. So I did start my career in New York, eventually, and my husband and I both got an apartment and started our jobs. And we said, okay, if we love living in New York and we love what we're doing, then we'll just stay here and put Japan out of our heads. But if after a couple of years we still miss it and we want to go back and we're interested then we should just find a way to go. So after a few years in New York, I transferred to my law firm's Tokyo office, and my husband got a job at a firm in Tokyo and I spent a few years there. And then when I came to the trading house, it was not as a secondment actually, I got a job in-house.
Catherine: Oh, it was a pure in-house role.
Mindy: Yeah, a pure in-house role, I never went on secondment but at that point when my husband was deferred from his law firm for a full year, he ended up getting a job at the New York branch of that trading company. He was helping out on discovery and various matters. Because he had been to Japan, both by himself and with me, and he thought we might have a future that related to Japan, he kept in touch. He had a great experience and he kept in touch with everybody there. And it turned out that some of the people who had rotated through the New York office when he was there were then back in Tokyo and his boss, who was a US lawyer in New York, ended up coming to Tokyo for a five-year stint.
When I was looking for jobs, I wanted to work in-house, and I interviewed at a few different places. Finding an in-house job in Japan has a lot of challenges. And I really didn't know what to look for, if I should go to an international company or a Japanese company, but I ended up interviewing at that trading house. People I had met years ago in New York when my husband worked there were back in Tokyo and his old boss had been there for maybe a year or two at that point. I had always gotten along with everybody and I knew that they were really nice and just really fun to work with and they had known me as well.
I had been told by a headhunter that they have a three-stage interview process and you have to do a case study and all of this. I was like, oh God, I hope I can do that. But then I just came for an interview and everyone was so nice and at the end of an hour-long discussion, they said, “Oh, you don't have to do any of that other stuff we're making you an offer”. So that was really great.
Catherine: Yes it's amazing, and I guess too, you're right on that point of trying to find a role in-house, it's not like you can do the spreadsheet of law firms in Tokyo, it’s very much harder to find one, but again, there you go. You did find one and you aced the interview. So if others are thinking about going in-house, would you recommend that as a thing to do along their career life, or would they be better off to continue up the ladder to partnership in a firm? What do you think about that?
Mindy: I think working in-house is such a great opportunity, whether you want to continue working at a law firm long-term, or obviously if you want to switch to an in-house role, then you should just do that at some point. But it's so great to see the client’s side and what the company is actually thinking along the way. And when you're on the law firm side and you hear about “ringi”, I heard that word a lot, but it didn't mean anything to me, but I'm working in-house, particularly at a Japanese company.
Catherine: What does “ringi” mean for people who may not know what “ringi” is.
Mindy: It's the official internal approval of a transaction or whatever it is, but in order to get that approval, you really need a lot of consensus. You need consensus-building and whoever is managing the deal has to go to all the various corporate departments, legal accounting, the business unit involved and get everybody on board with the transaction. So that by the time the final ringi documents get circulated, you've done the informational seminar. You've answered everybody's questions, addressed their concerns, and made your case throughout the company as to why this is a good thing for the company to do so by the time the document is circulated, everybody is already on board. And it's just like an official sign-off, the decision has already been made long before.
Catherine: Perfect definition and description of what “ringi” really is, and it's very critical in in-house roles. And so I'm just thinking about that particular trading house role that you had and anyone who's been following the weekly videos I put out on LinkedIn each Thursday, will have heard my random story about a discussion where I was in a company and a law firm partner came along and offered me a job having met me. And I believe that happened to you when you moved from the trading house to where you are now at southgate. I think it was a little similar, tell us about that, I guess the partners observed your work and invited you to jump ship.
Being Headhunted
Mindy: I guess that is what happened. Part of my job at the trading company, as one of the few foreign lawyers, was helping manage relationships with the external firms that we use. And so in addition to using them for work, I also maintained the relationships and tried to get to know them and organize presentations, and evaluated who the players were to see who would be a good fit to do the work for our company. I came across my law firm, I had heard of them before, and actually one of the founders, Mongo Kinoshita, spoke on that panel with you at Amazon many years ago that I wanted to attend. I had heard of southgate, my current firm, and was really curious about what they did. I thought it's so small and exclusive I'll never get access to it, but we happened to ask them to pitch for a small matter in the venture capital field that we have expertise in. So I was really excited because we actually asked them to come to the office to pitch, and it was my first time meeting them. I was so curious about the firm and it was great to see them in person. Having met a lot of law firm partners, as part of my job, I was just really impressed by how nice and honest, and humble they were. It was quite a contrast from a lot of the chest beating that I would hear from other firms about how “We're the best at this and you would be crazy to hire anybody else, and we've just cornered the market in this area”. They instead actually said, “We don't think we're the best firm for this particular transaction, but we're happy to introduce you to a firm who we think would be great, or we're happy to work with you and be a liaison with that firm”. I was just really shocked to hear that and I thought I would love to hire this firm and I'd love to hear more about them.
Then a few weeks later the US partner invited me out to lunch and I thought it was a typical law firm marketing lunch, where he would tell me about the firm, and I was looking forward to that because I wanted to hear more. I thought it was so interesting that they'd started this boutique and left BigLaw. He was asking about my experience at the company and I was asking about the firm and when I had gone to lunch, I was thinking they’re so small I doubt they are hiring, but maybe I'll ask about what they're looking to do in the future. And before I approached that at all, he said “we would absolutely love to hire someone like you”, I was really shocked.
Catherine: It’s almost like when they came to pitch to you, you were interviewing them, and then suddenly without saying it's an interview, going to lunch with a lawyer you've got to know, could be something like this that it ended up being an interview, but in a relaxed atmosphere. I think sometimes we do this law firm lawyers and others do this so that we can see how you react and how you behave in an open situation. How you interact with the staff and the person when you're paying the bill, those sorts of things. I think as a way of actually interviewing you, seeing you from a different perspective. So you got that job. Now, what do you do in your daily work? You’re at a boutique firm, tell me what it is, and would you recommend that lawyers look to going into a boutique law firm career?
The Benefits of a Boutique Law Firm
Mindy: It depends on what you want to do, but for me, it was a very good choice because I have really enjoyed working in-house. I really enjoyed being in a big firm, especially in the US and especially in New York, it really siloed into one narrow practice group. So I had started my career in securities and even within securities, I was working on IPO's but also aircraft finance deals. I got pressure as maybe a second or third year, the partners said “Okay, it's great that you do these different things, but you need to choose one of these narrow areas, if you don't want to do aircraft finance then you should not do so many of those deals” and it's very narrow. And then you come to Japan and you have to be a bit more of a generalist because the offices, a lot of the international offices tend to be smaller here, but you're still in one specific practice area. That's what you're affiliated within the firm, and that kind of determines a lot of the opportunities you have.
But being in-house as you know very well, you just do anything that comes across your desk. So at first, it was really challenging because I had barely even reviewed just commercial agreements, something that wasn't specifically like this type of document or this type of document for this type of deal, just like a general like coal purchase agreement. I've never seen this before, what do I do with that? So it was a great learning experience. That's a learning curve, but then you realize it's not your specific legal skills you're there because of your judgment. Your judgment in terms of assessing risk, assessing when you might need to involve outside counsel, or what departments need to get involved when you need to raise an issue. So that's really the skillset. And it's so interesting because you do so many different things, especially at a trading house.
I'm sure it's something like where you worked at Panasonic, when you're working at a company with operations all over the world, there are all these different jurisdictions to deal with. So it's never boring, there's a huge variety of work, a huge variety of jurisdictions, a huge variety of industries. Then also spanning corporate transactions and even doing some disputes work for the first time. So I really enjoyed that, and I didn't think I could ever get that experience at a law firm. But that is what I still do, working at my firm. We specialize in cross-border M&A and venture capital deals. But because we're small and we're targeting companies who maybe are looking for more cost-effective counsel, so they don't hire the largest firms or Japanese companies that may need assistance. They've never done a transaction involving English before, but they need English assistance and they can't just go to their usual “Houmon Bengoshi” the Japanese firm they have on retainer. We also work with foreign companies who are entering Japan for the first time, or maybe who have a small Japanese office. But unfortunately, during COVID we got a couple of engagements for clients who were closing their Japan offices and people dealing with employment issues. So I've been able to keep doing a huge variety of practice areas. I think for anybody who's interested in having the opportunity to do many different things, but not being in-house, it's a really good opportunity because you just do whatever comes your way.
Catherine: You've also managed to, I think if we go back to that Venn diagram, I keep talking about you’ve still got your study or your university side of things, because you teach a class for LLM students, back at Keio again. Tell me about that and how you're managing that working life, two kinds of your working life? Your study side, and where you are at southgate.
Mindy: Yeah. That also came about through serendipity, I co-teach the class with someone else who was on that panel with you in 2018, Reid Monroe-Sheridan.
Catherine: Reid, yes.
Mindy: Yeah, Reid co-teaches a different class with Eric Marks, the US partner at my firm southgate, and he was looking for someone to co-teach another class, so he had gotten in touch with Eric and asked if I would be interested, so that was how that came about.
Catherine: I love how this is happening. This is why I'm traversing your career and how you can literally see it as golden weaving all the way through the things that you've done and how important it is to seize these opportunities that you've had. Also, to keep your connections up with people and how your university is coming back through again into your work. It really is rather amazing how you've done this.
Mindy: Reid said that he thought of me for that particular class on legal writing and research because of my experience at Law Review when I was in law school. A lot of the students in our class are LLM students and they're writing their final papers and some of them might try to publish them. So because I have experience reviewing articles that are being submitted for publication and I would know what we look for.
Catherine: Who would know that it would go back to your Standford days that something would happen.
Mindy: Yeah, I didn’t.
Mindy’s Routine
Catherine: I really hope that people who are listening do pick up on all of this because it's just so important. All of those pinpoints along your path have all been connected up, the dots are connecting. You've got such a busy life, so I want to pop into your routine about how you keep yourself lined up for the day. I'd love to know what you do first thing in the morning to get yourself on the right foot.
Mindy: First thing in the morning, I check my phone, trying not to spend too much time on work emails. I really like to read, I don't know what it's called, but there's a feature on LinkedIn where they post some of the biggest articles from Asia. I've been reading a lot of articles about work-life balance and how people cope with the pandemic and burnout. I'm really interested in work environment issues, so I like to read about them and see what's going on. Unless I have an early meeting I always try to make time to exercise in the morning. I go for a run and listen to music, or I go to a cardio boxing class. I love getting outside to do that too, so I try to do that almost every morning.
Catherine: You're working at home, right? What's your favorite thing about your home workspace and when do you turn off that laptop at the end of the day?
Mindy: What don't I love? I work at my dining table, so I have a huge space right in front of the kitchen. I love being home with my dog, spending time with him, and taking him for a walk to get out of the house during the day. I love that my husband is also working from home most of the time. We used to hardly see each other before the pandemic. If I was working late, especially when I was more junior, sometimes I would just come home and we'd have half an hour to hang out before we had to go to bed. Now we work in different places in the house, but we are home and we can eat lunch together almost every day, we have dinner together every day, so I love that. I love being able to do chores during the day.
Catherine: It’s a silver lining, isn't it, being able to spend time together. So working at home and even beyond that, if we were out at that place in Ebisu and we were having something to drink, we would be getting quite philosophical by now. So I'm interested to know about things that are within you, traits that you're really proud of, and I'd also really love to hear what success means to you. So tell me something about yourself that keeps you on the straight and narrow, one of your traits, and then let me know what you think about success.
Mindy: I guess one of my traits or something that I'm trying to work on is being a good listener. I've always loved supporting my coworkers and loved hearing their issues and helping. Empathetic listening and problem solving, helping them figure out what to do about them. What I've liked when I've been in a role where I could be a mentor in the workplace and kind of help people with their problems and sometimes model how you can be a lawyer and do these other things, or how you can be an effective lawyer, but without being abrasive or maybe having some of these traits. When I was working in New York, the male partners, I always said how I need to find my own voice and how do I do that? So I guess for traits, just trying to be really supportive of the people around me, especially women, and coaching them when I can, to the extent I can.
Catherine: It's almost a little bit like that therapy you mentioned at the beginning coming through the air and looking after people and making sure that they're okay, right. Having the time to look after others.
Mindy: Yeah. I love it when people come to me with problems and I love trying to help them solve them.
Catherine: Do you have a word of the year or a theme or some kind of mantra that you have within you that guides you?
Mindy: I do this year, my word is a bit boring. My word this year is focus. It could be great, it's more narrow in that a lot of times when I'm working from home, I just can't really focus.
Catherine: I don't think that's boring. I think focus is what we need during this pandemic. I think it’s a great choice.
Mindy: I can sometimes go into a rabbit hole, looking into something and I lose track of what I'm doing. So I try to remind myself, focus on the task at hand don't get too distracted, but I think you can apply it in a larger sense as well. It can be interrelated to your word, Catherine, intentionality of focus. Am I focusing on what I'm supposed to be doing, or have I gotten myself distracted?
Catherine: Ah, I see. I think it's a good word, and focus can be focusing on the right thing and not too much focus as well. The same with being intentional, I'm not sure that too much intentionality is a good thing, but whatever we do it's in moderation.
Mindy: Yeah, me too.
Catherine: I would really love to know the wisest thing anyone has ever said to you, and who said it, perhaps it was your dad, but it may well be somebody else.
Mindy: I don't know if I have any great quotes. My dad definitely saying you can't just speak English, you can't just know about one thing, you have to learn about other people. That was obviously what has shaped a big part of my personal and professional life, so maybe that advice. I like curiosity.
Mindy’s Advice for Young Lawyers
Catherine: Yeah, keeping curious. How about the other side then, something that's been said to you that probably wasn't the best advice that you received and may have helped you to actually take a different track. Is there anything that comes to mind?
Mindy: Yeah. I've heard a few law firm partners say things like “you'll sleep when you're dead” and it's a joke. You chuckle, but the older I get and the more senior I get, the more I freely disagree with that kind of philosophy of go, go, go all the time and prioritize all of these things above your own free time and your own health. I think the older I get, the more I realize, I have prioritized work above anything else for a long time and that I don't want to keep doing that and I don't think it's healthy. If that's what makes you happy, then it's fine, but that's not what I want to do. I think that's probably not right for a lot of people, and it's very easy to feel like all these people around me are working so hard so I can't take a day off. I can't do this because everyone's just so busy all the time. It's helpful to take a step back and think, that's not what we have to be doing. If we don't take a step back, I think with connectivity, the world at work can just be faster and faster. You can get things done faster, people are always available, and is that really what we should be doing?
Or is it okay to say, just because I can be reached, doesn't mean I should be. It's okay to have boundaries between your personal and professional life. Even if you can't have a hard boundary it's okay to try to set some boundaries and try to say I'm not just available at all of these times.
Catherine: Would that be your advice then for young lawyers and young students coming up the ranks, or is this something else that you'd like to give to them as your advice?
Mindy: I think probably most people will be pretty busy when they're junior lawyers, I was. I worked very hard and I think it's okay to some extent when you're just establishing yourself and you have so much to learn. It's really good to take advantage of all the opportunities and learn as much as you can and put your hand up for deals and be on different deals, work with different clients, maybe work with different teams, if you have the opportunity. I think it's okay to make yourself busy when you have the capacity to do it, but maybe you think of your life beyond that.
In terms of other advice to young lawyers, I guess I would say, I think I've often been worried about what will people think of me? What will they think of me if I switched jobs, what will they think of me if I do this? It just doesn't matter at all. What matters is what makes you happy and what's best for you. Who are these people we think of any way? Most people have no idea what you're going through or what you're thinking and how you’re making these decisions. Most people if they see you've made one decision versus another, they're not actually going to judge you, they'll think, oh you chose that job because it was a great opportunity, that sounds great. So just don't be self-conscious and self-doubting if something sounds good to you, then pursue it. Or if you know something isn't working for you, it's okay to change and do something else or explore another area.
Lawyering in the Future
Catherine: Oh I love that because it's just so true. We sometimes are just thinking about this inside of us and it's not real. It's just an idea that we've got that we feel, what will people think, and actually it’s really just inside of us. I really love that advice. For the lawyers of the future, what do you think they should be focusing on? Perhaps even law firms, you've talked about wellbeing and doing what you wish. Is that what you'd like to say is your prediction or your desire for the future. And for you yourself, how do you want to even dig down deeper and become that kind of person in the future?
Mindy: Yeah, I think so. I think, a lot of law firms with the pandemic are talking a lot more about wellbeing and I think that's a great first step, but they may not necessarily be following through on that because it can be hard to prioritize yourself if you still have to bill 2000 hours a year or whatever the requirements are. So I do hope that more people step away from the so-called “hustle porn” and pride themselves on being busy and climbing the ladder and think more carefully and intentionally about what it is they really want to do. Or is it possible to have a fulfilling career, but also not work 14 hours a day or not be available all the time and to have that be okay. To have that path be just as interesting and prestigious as staying at a large firm and making partner and working all the time.
Catherine: Yeah, and there's nothing wrong with being a partner and working long hours, but really just being happy within. I think that is the most important thing. Is there anything we haven't covered today that you wanted to mention Mindy or anything you did talk about that you want to reemphasize?
Mindy: I can't think of anything in particular.
Quick Fire Super Six Questions
Catherine: Okay if that's the case, I'm going to finish up now with the final, super six, the quick fire round of six questions, I ask every guest when I finish the interview. The first one is: If I was to give you a million yen in cash, where in Japan would you spend that, your favorite store or destination, or maybe it's both?
Mindy: I would love to travel, but since I can't do that right now, I guess that would be a perfect amount to buy a new sofa and I've been wanting to do that for years. I would maybe go to Beau Concept or Actus and finally buy a new sofa because the buttons are popping off on mine and it's very annoying.
Catherine: Love it. Yes. That sounds like a great idea. And can you share a podcast you've been listening to or a book that you've read that you recommend?
Mindy: Yes, I guess two podcasts come to mind. I really love listening to “Full Release with Samantha B”. She's a political comedian in the US and she has a show called Full Frontal on TV and my old coworker’s husband co-produces her podcasts. I started listening last year when it came out because of that, but I just really enjoy it. She's so funny and she usually does an in-depth interview with someone like you, and a lot of times talks about the political environment. Especially living abroad and feeling so removed from everything that's going on in the US, it's nice to hear a comedic take on everything that's going on.
My nerdy podcast recommendation. I like a website called Law Insider that publishes provisions. It's aggregate provisions from publicly filed contracts that are filed with EDGAR the SEC service in the US and they have a podcast called Contract Teardown. They'll go through a different public contract every week with an expert and go through the different provisions and talk about what they would change if they were rewriting it, what they would push back on if they were negotiating it. My husband makes fun of me when he hears me listening to it at home when I'm not working.
Catherine: We need the fun side, and also we always need to be learning, so I love that. I'm going to put them on my subscriber list. Thank you for that.
Mindy: Yeah. That's great. Especially working in-house when you navigate so much yourself unlike in a law firm, you don't have real training. You just figure out how to do things. It's great to hear how other lawyers would approach this contract and think, oh okay, I would have pushed back on that too.
Catherine: Thank you for that. And so if you were stuck on a desert island and needed to bring one person, one item, and one food, what, and who are they?
Mindy: I would definitely bring my husband as a person. I would bring chocolate as my food, I love chocolate and I eat it all the time. I guess as my item, I would bring a computer because you can get information, listen to music, watch shows, do a workout video. I guess that would make the most sense.
Catherine: Lovely, and is there a famous person or celebrity you would love to meet? Maybe it's Samantha B, but you had already met perhaps too.
Mindy: I love cooking and baking, that's one of my big hobbies and I've been following a cooking blog called Smitten Kitchen since I started baking in 2009. So I would love to meet the founder, Deb Perelman who lives in New York. She's been such a comforting voice, I still follow her blog and make her recipes regularly, so it would be really fun to meet her.
Catherine: That's so wonderful. And going over the other side of the house to the bedside cabinet, what's on top of that bedside cabinet for you right now?
Mindy: Tissues, and then let's see the books I'm reading slowly are; I'm reading a book called Life after Law, that talks about former lawyers who have gone off and done other things, and that's really interesting. I also like to read cookbooks. Cover-to-cover actually, they often have really interesting stories and I'm reading a cookbook called The Pastry Chefs Guide.
Catherine: Oh gosh, you've got me hungry. I really want to see them. So thank you for that. And also just a bonus question about something about Mindy that others don't know about you?
Mindy: I think people who know me know that I love dogs and I love baking. I often bring what I bake into the office back in the days when we would go to the office. Maybe people wouldn't know that I used to be captain of the fencing team in high school.
Catherine: Yeah that's amazing. That is really lovely, and I really want to thank you so much for sharing your story. We went into really quite a deep sort of dive into your career and I loved your tips and nuggets of advice, and it was really great to connect with you in this way. I'm glad I captured you. So thank you so much.
Mindy: Thank you so much, Catherine, for having me, this was really fun. I hope one day someone is able to interview you, so we get to finally find out all about your interesting career path.
Catherine: Very interesting idea. We'll have to ask Jayne, my Podcast Manager to get onto that. Great idea. How can any of the Legal Eagles listening here connect with you? Can we do that on LinkedIn or other social media, like Instagram or email? How can we do that?
Mindy: Yep. I'm an active LinkedIn user, so I'm Mindy Allen on LinkedIn. I'm happy for anyone to send me a message.
Catherine: Fantastic, good, we'll put that in the show notes. So anyone who's interested in connecting and learning more from you can just reach out to you on LinkedIn.
Mindy: That would be great.
Catherine: Okay, I'm going to finish up here. We've had a fantastic conversation about so many different things, and I'm so grateful to you for coming on and being my sixth guest. Now we're over halfway through Season One of Lawyer On Air aiming to get 10 Legal Eagle lawyers for this first season. I want to thank you again for your honesty, especially for someone in the legal profession, who's shown all of us that you can do a lot in your legal career and experience many things, and be open to any opportunity and serendipity that comes along.
Thank you so much for sharing your journey and for my listeners, please do “like” this episode, subscribe to Lawyer On Air, and also do drop us a short review because that helps Lawyer On Air be seen and heard by more people. You can now go onto my website and find this episode and leave me a voicemail, it's a new technology. I'd love to see you go and do that and hear your actual voice. So do go ahead and share this episode with someone you think would enjoy listening to it and be inspired to live a wonderful lawyer lady life. Thank you so much, Mindy.
Mindy: Thank you so much, Catherine. Thank you for having me.
Catherine: That's all now for everybody. Thank you very much. See you on the next episode. Cheers. Kampai and bye for now.
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