Full transcript below.

Do I have a bumper episode for you this week. You might think it’s “lengthy” but I prefer to say “packed full with nuggets!” During the recording, I had tingles on my skin hearing how this week’s Lawyer Extraordinaire, Aramide Fields, uses her career in the law in service of others and how her curiosity and interest in learning continues to lead her to new challenges in her life in Japan now as Associate General Counsel for the Asia Division of Autoliv. 

If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, I’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 your Instagram Stories, and tag me, @lawyeronair or find us on LinkedIn or Twitter. 

In this episode you’ll hear:

• How Aramide came to be in the law, even after a shocking experience during an internship

• The fundamental advice that she received as a young attorney that has been instrumental in her entire career

• The importance of surrounding yourself with mentors for your career 

• Aramide’s pro-bono work in the USA and Japan with asylum seekers

• How she found herself back working in Japan and why she decided to transition from BigLaw to In-House

• How Aramide went through virtual onboarding to a new organisation during the pandemic 

• Why organisations like Women of Colour in Law and Women in Law Japan are vital to her happiness

• Aramide shares her definition of success with us and how she came to find her guiding words of the year

• Her favourite podcasts and other fun facts

About Aramide

Aramide Fields is the Associate General Counsel for the Asia division of Autoliv, a Fortune 500 company and the world’s largest automotive safety supplier. She provides strategic legal and business advice to colleagues in sales, purchasing, supply chain, compliance, and other functions throughout Asia, including Japan, Korea, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

Before joining Autoliv in November 2020, Aramide was in BigLaw for 15 years at Morrison & Foerster. She spent about half of that time in the firm’s San Diego office, and the other half in the firm’s Tokyo office working in litigation, internal investigations, and compliance. Aramide earned her J.D. from Stanford Law School, and a B.A. in psychology from the University of Virginia. She lives in Tokyo with her husband and three children.

Connect with Aramide

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/aramide-fields

Links 

Mel Scott’s Podcast:  Counsel Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/counsel/id1516422327

#Networked  https://www.amazon.com/Networked-Distancing-Connections-Cultivate-Businesses-ebook/dp/B08MB98HNX

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: Hi everyone, and welcome to the third episode of Lawyer On Air.  Today I'm joined by Aramide Fields who is based in Tokyo and since November 2020 has been Associate General Counsel for the Asia division of a Fortune 500 company, Autoliv.  If you're a car owner or a driver, you will most certainly have one of Autoliv’s products in your vehicle, protecting you as you drive.

They are the world leader in automotive safety with 41% of the market share. They develop and manufacture protective systems, such as airbags, seatbelts, and steering wheels.  Aramide provides her legal support to the Autoliv business in Japan and Asia, and they are a super busy team with the company having operations in 27 countries.  Every year their products save more than 30,000 lives and they prevent 10 times as many injuries. Those are statistics that must make Aramide very proud of the place she works at.  Aramide provides legal, strategic legal, and business legal advice to her colleagues at Autoliv, such as the sales and purchasing and supply chain teams and the compliance team.  Not only in Japan, but she does this throughout Asia, including Korea, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

She's a savvy commercial lawyer and does all the negotiating on the agreements and deals with the many issues that come up in her business around product quality, product liability, privacy, intellectual property, and commercial disputes.  Before Aramide joined Autoliv she was in BigLaw as a senior associate in the litigation department at Morrison Foerster or MOFO as this firm is often affectionately referred to.  She worked in the areas of commercial litigation, product liability, IP internal investigations, and compliance.  About roughly half of her time at MOFO was spent in their San Diego office and the other half on this side of the world at the firm’s Tokyo office.  She represented some of the biggest well-known companies in the world I understand.  But AramideI has said openly that the most meaningful work she did was in the pro bono cases she was assigned to help out on, and we'll talk a little bit about that more shortly.

Aramide also volunteers her time working alongside me at the nonprofit Board of Women in Law Japan, and I really enjoy her insights and contribution there.  Aramide is also a mum of three children, including a set of twins. Although I have the mic in front of me right now, it's Aramide that you will find done at the local Karaoke parlour singing her heart out.  When she's not doing that, she's also into yoga and is right into the Nia style, I believe, of dance and fitness, and was a former instructor of Nia.  Aramide is really a lovely person, and I was so drawn to her kind and compassionate personality right from the start.  She really does love helping people as the essence of her personal brand, and with that, Aramide welcome to the show. 

Aramide: Hello, Catherine. Thank you so much for that wonderful introduction, and also for inviting me to be a guest here.  I'm really honored that you asked and grateful to be a guest. So thank you. 

Catherine: Thank you so much.  I'm super happy to have you here.  Today we're going to be talking about your career, how and why you got involved in your work in the US and Japan, and how you're balancing the different hats that you wear such as a mum and a lawyer, and some of the issues and challenges you're facing. I'd like you to have a chance to give your gems of advice for young lawyers on their career path, how does that sound?

Aramide: That sounds fantastic, and I'm looking forward to our conversation. 

Catherine: Okay, great. Thank you so much. Today we're talking online as we're still post pandemic or during a pandemic, I should say, still in Japan, post state of emergency, and we're doing this chat online today, but if we were meeting up in person, where would we be?  Do you have a favorite wine bar or restaurant you love to go to, and what would be your choice off the menu today?  

Aramide: As a mom of three, as you mentioned, I haven't been to a wine bar in Japan, and of course, because of the pandemic as well, I haven't been to a wine bar in quite some time. But one that I would love to go to and went to one time before the pandemic went out of control in Japan, is a Tsutaya Starbucks in Roppongi that has a wine bar also with dessert.  It's actually the dessert part that probably gets me most excited. I'd probably get red wine and maybe something dark rich chocolate would be my order from the menu.  

Catherine: Oh I love that, I am with you. Let's go there as soon as we can. I know exactly where you mean, it's only a 15 or so minute walk from me, so I would love to have you there and order something delicious off the menu like you've suggested that sounds great. So I'm thinking about when we first met and I'm pretty sure it was when you were still at MOFO and we did a JICN, a Japan In-House Counsel Network event there, and you presented on litigation topics, I think it was with Dan Levison. It seems like a long time ago to me, but I really think that's when I got to know you and then through Women In Law Japan now, but you've been on Women In Law Japan boards since about 2016. Do you remember when we first met?  Was it back when I think it was, around 2012, 13, 14? 

Aramide: I'm amazed that your memory is so good, it was actually 2008 or 09, I believe it was.  Yeah, so I remember I think Dan worked with Angela Krantz to get that setup.  Dan Levison is a partner at MOFO, I think maybe he was an associate at the time, but he invited me to speak on the topic of Attorney-Client Privilege For In-House Counsel.  I remember just being scared out of my mind.  I'm like, what do I know what to teach, I was a second or third year attorney.  What am I going to teach these people who have been practicing for decades and come sit in this room?  But you know what, you just sometimes suck it up and say, all right, he's asking me to do this thing and let me just do the best I can.  Yeah, that was quite some time ago but I agree that it's really through Women In Law Japan, that I've come to know you better and been able to admire all that you've done in the community.  So it's been a real pleasure.

Catherine: Well it sounds like you've got a better memory than me, remembering it was 2008, I think that's so fantastic.  That means we've had more than 10 years of knowing each other, and I had no idea that it was your first or near to the first presentation.  At that time you were so confident and if you were nervous that never showed.  I do remember that it was attorney-client privilege that you spoke about, you are right.  I mentioned a little bit about your career or your current role, I should say, at Autoliv briefly, how do people recognize Autoliv?  Do they know the company name? How do you introduce yourself when you're talking to others, perhaps when you speak to lawyers or when you're speaking to other people in the community?  

Aramide: I think probably people don't know about Autoliv unless they are in the automotive industry.  So for one thing, because of the pandemic, there haven't been that many people that I've been able to introduce myself to and say, “Hey, this is where I work and this is what I do”.   Most of the people I'm encountering, I know them already, and they know that I was at MOFO and they know where I am now.  So I think most people probably would not necessarily know the company.  I think we know when I was at MOFO, I would generally just tell people I'm a lawyer, but I do litigation in Japan.  I think now I've literally only had one time when somebody asks me, “Oh, what do you do”?  I was so new to the role, and the first thing that popped into my head was, I work at MOFO and I'm a lawyer, and I thought, oh wait no, I have a new job.  So I stumbled over my words and I'm, “Oh, I'm a lawyer in the legal department”, it was like, wow, what do I do?  What should I do?  I think I said something like, “I'm a lawyer and I work for a car company that supplies seatbelts and airbags and other things for cars”.  I think I would probably have the same general response, whether it's lawyer or nonlawyer.  In Japan though, I probably wouldn't get into as many specifics, especially if it's another mom at my kid's school or something.  I might just say, I'm a lawyer or trying my best at Japanese I might say bengoshi, which usually gets a “oh bengoshi” because it’s a lawyer in Japanese. I'm not trying to instill that awe, but I'm just trying to convey what I do in a way that makes sense, so I guess it is very context specific.

Catherine: Yeah. When I joined, I remember I was at Panasonic and I joined Hogan Lovells, I kept saying Panasonic.  Then when I joined Molex, I remember saying “I'm Hogan Lovells”.  Oh no, I'm not, who am I, what am I?  So the same thing happened, it takes a little bit of time for your mind or your brain to catch up to the change, even though you've made a physical swap in jobs.  I'm hearing you on that one.  But tell me a little bit about your career though, Aramide, I'm really interested in what got you into the law and why you chose law, and your early stages there as a lawyer?  Can you tell me a bit about that? 

Aramide: Yeah, absolutely.  I would say for the first 20, some years of my life, I absolutely said I am not going to be a lawyer, that is not a profession that I want.  That comes from my dad being a lawyer.  He was a criminal defense attorney in Washington, DC.  He had had a career and then decided to go back to law school.  He went to Georgetown and I don't recall how old he was, maybe 40 something at the time.  He thought I'm an old man and no one's going to want to teach me how to be a lawyer, so he decided to hang up a shingle and become a court-appointed attorney.  In the US if you can't afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you, and that's the kind of attorney that he was.  He just worked so hard all the time and when I saw that as a kid I thought that just seemed hard and it didn't appeal to me at all.  

I have two older brothers, and all three of us at some point worked with my dad in his law office over the summer.  I have a vivid memory of when I was 15, 16, and it was my turn to be dad's summer intern, and I was accompanying him to a court hearing in Washington DC. Not at this time, but there was a time when Washington DC was known as the murder capital of the world, it was just horrible, drugs, violence, all kinds of things.  These are the people my dad was representing because he really believed everyone deserves a good defense and it's a beauty of the American justice system.  So anyway we're at a hearing and basically, the summer intern job was to take this to the mailbox, put these in the file cabinet.  There's nothing complicated or sophisticated or really that much related to the law. One day, I think I was carrying a binder of evidence for a hearing, and I didn't really know any of the substance, but the binder opened and I just happened to see a picture of, sorry to be too graphic, but it was basically a body that had gunshot wounds and it was like, I close it, that's it, I'm not being a lawyer, I'm not doing this, this is not for me.  I probably didn't work for much longer after that. So that was my, I'm not going to be a lawyer story. 

I went to a high school that was known for science and technology, and my mom was a professor of microbiology who always exposed us to science. Both my parents were just lifelong learners and educators and instilled the importance of learning and education. So from my mom, I thought maybe I'll be a scientist.  I went to the science and technology high school and when I got to college I thought maybe I would do pre-med maybe be a doctor. That didn't work out, just didn't really find it that interesting.  Then I went to the University of Virginia and there was a five-year program where you could get a master's degree in teaching and also get your bachelor's degree.  I was like, great, I want to get out of school, let me do that. Then I went to the practical end room where you go and observe a classroom, and that first day I was like, I am not meant to be the teacher.  There were so many kids and it just felt like chaos. I thought, okay, it's a noble profession, but it's not for me. 

So eventually I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do and I have another lawyer in my family.  I'm very close to one of my aunts who was in-house at Amtrak and she had also come to the law as a second career.  She was a social worker before she went to law school and then worked in-house at Amtrak. When I told her what I thought I wanted to do, which was this very generic help people. How do I do that?  Then I thought maybe you want to be a psychologist, maybe you want to be a doctor, maybe you want to be a teacher, and she said as a lawyer, you do help people. You just have a certain set of tools and skills, and that's what your specialty is, and you're helping people who don't have that specialty to navigate legal issues, whether you're a litigator or transactional.  That really spoke to me and I suddenly saw law and being a lawyer as something other than what my dad was doing.

Intellectually, I should have been probably smart enough to figure out there's another way to do this, but it took that conversation and conversations with others to say, oh yeah, okay law, it's a pretty good gig.  I think I was also told by many that if you have a law degree you can do anything.  I'm not sure that's quite accurate, but there are a lot of people in a lot of professions that have law degrees, business people, and politicians.  So that is what then became my path and how I ended up going to law school and deciding to be a lawyer.

Catherine: Wow.  What a story.  That's amazing.  Did your two brothers become lawyers by the way? 

Aramide: They did, yes, so we're all three of us lawyers. 

Catherine: Are they in a different area of law to you? 

Aramide: I have one brother who is practicing in Paris, he's at Orrick, and the other does mainly contract law work and he's based in Washington DC as well.  So we all have different areas, and I think we came to it in our own way, in our own time.  My oldest brother, for example, went back to law school after being out of college for maybe five or six years.  So we all found our way to it and I think we are reasonably happy that we made that decision.

Catherine: Is your dad still practicing now? 

Aramide: No he actually passed away in 2018. 

Catherine: Oh I'm sorry about that, but I think he would be extremely proud.  I think you've made a really good point, that the law that we see on TV or that we see sometimes in our minds or what we think lawyers are, the criminal kind of lawyers, the people who are doing the defending of the bad boys in court and the bad girls too, that there are different ways to be a lawyer.  I think it's amazing that you had your aunt to guide you in that way.  I know now I'm thinking as I looked at your LinkedIn profile because I really think the listeners should take a look at your profile, there are some really great hints there to talk about how to help show your credibility as a lawyer, but also as a human being. I think that's probably where you wrote and I've got it here in front of me.  “Why did I become a lawyer?  To help people, simple but true.  Before law school, that singular focus led me to consider being a doctor, a teacher, or a psychologist, but none of those stuck. Pivotal conversations with several mentors convinced me that law school was the path for me”. So I'm hearing now that your aunt was most definitely one of your mentors, right? 

Aramide:  Yes, absolutely.  I'm very fortunate to have grown up in a tight-knit family.  It was all mainly on my mom's side of the family in the Washington DC area.  So that aunt and another aunt and my grandmother and grandpa, we would all go to church on Sunday, go to grandma's house and have the big Sunday dinner as a family, throughout my childhood, up until going away to college.  I'm very grateful for that.  I hadn't really talked about what I was going to be, or what I was going to do until I was about to graduate from college and I realized okay, let me start talking to people.  Let me start by seeing what possibilities I have not considered and then raise that with her, and she was very instrumental in that decision. 

Catherine: It came from you to ask, reach out and ask people because that's something that never occurred to me when I was younger, that I could ask people to help me with what I wanted to be. I went to certain schools to find out about Japanese, for example, as my first career and learning Japanese and becoming a tour guide.  But I never thought about asking people to actually give me advice, but it sounds like one of the really important career decisions you made was to go to people and ask them to be your mentor, and they were naturally within your family.  Did you also go outside of your family aside from your father and brothers, were there other males in your community who helped you as well?  Or was it these lovely females that you had in your community that helped you?

Aramide: I think at that time it was probably more based on my family,  just because there are more dominant women in my family, that's naturally where that was.  But absolutely throughout my career, there have been males who have been instrumental as mentors and people who I've asked for advice at every pivotal decision.  Every day, every choice of should I go to Japan, should I take this in-house role? I'm very much a, let me just see what other people think about this, and it doesn't necessarily mean that I am looking for them to tell me the answer.  What should I do?  But I like to gather information, what do I not know about what this might look like?  For someone who has 20, 30 years of experience as a lawyer, what might they think about the decision to move to a different country and practice law in Japan? As opposed to being a US admitted lawyer.  So that was just something that I naturally did.  It was really more about curiosity and wanting to collect data, how do I make the best decision for myself?  And I think the way for me to do that is to see what can I learn from other people about this decision? 

Catherine: Did you know that your aunt and your other aunt and people there were your mentors at that time, or did you, do you now know that because mentoring is a thing and we all know this now, but did you know it at the time?

Aramide: No, I didn't. They were just conversations and discussions, and I was making decisions based on them. But I think looking back in my life, there are people who I now would say yeah, of course, that was a mentor.  Dan Levison for example is someone I worked with when I first came to Japan, I was here for about a two year stint.  I would say about 75% of my time was working with him.  I learned so much from how he connects with people and every now and then it would be like, Aramide you probably should do this.

So for example, if I were to travel to different offices, he would encourage me, go meet people, go use that opportunity if you're going to be in the Hong Kong office. Because you're there for an investigation, you should meet some of the Hong Kong partners, go talk to people, let them know who you are, and ask them what they're doing.  And it was that sort of picking that up as a second, third year attorney that helped me throughout my entire career, because so much of that sort of informal networking, connecting with people, people knowing your name, people, knowing your face can just help you in ways that you can't imagine. It's not all selfish, there are some really interesting people out there in the world, and you have the opportunity to learn about what people are doing. Dan is just one of many along the way when I look back on it. Yeah, that's a mentor, that's what mentoring is, that's what it looks like for me. 

Catherine: Yeah. I agree with you.  Dan, for example, when I started my law practice was one of the first people to reach out to me and make introductions. Dan is an amazing guy and I think it's men like him who are really important for women as well as they grow in the law.  I think back to a Japanese male that I knew back in New Zealand, who was instrumental in moving me from tour guiding into the law practice, and I had never thought about it until much later, I realized he was also a mentor.

So I think it's important. You probably agree that it's important to go out and find a mentor to ask.  As you gave your example there with the Hong Kong office, what's stopping you from asking a partner a little bit of information.  They would love to sit down with you and give you some advice or some guidance.  So I think you're saying what I would say is just to speak up and actually just be confident and ask people to help you.  Would you say that as your sort of advice or recommendations for listeners who are seeking out mentors? 

Aramide: I actually don't know that I've ever specifically asked to be mentored.  I will maybe call someone up and say I'm thinking about doing this thing and you're someone whose opinion I trust and what insights do you have to share?  What do you think about this?  I've heard of people who have been very direct.  You can go to LinkedIn and look at their profile and say, I want you to mentor me and reach out.  I've never done that.  I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but for me, the way that I have developed and found mentors has been very organically through work.  There were people in my career at MOFO in particular who I count as mentors or people who just by chance I ended up working on something with, a partner and a group that I've not worked with.  You do the work together, but through the work, because of the way that law firms are, you spend a lot of time with one partner or other associate or your team of people.  Just over time, these natural connections form.  Maybe you started out talking about the work, and then, later on you're talking about family and life and values and what's important and things like that.  So I think those are the people that I ended up then going back to because I feel like we made some connection on a personal level.  I feel like there's something about them that I admire or that I trust them and I think that they'll give me good advice.  So those are the people that I ask my questions of, but it's not necessarily a, I need help and I need you to mentor me.  So for me, it's all very organic.  

Catherine: Yes, I hear you.  Sometimes if you ask, please mentor me, it puts a whole burden or an obligation on the person who hears that.  But if you frame it in the way that you're saying it is as a way of saying, oh can you help me answer this question?  Or can you guide me through this piece here?  That's a little different and it's easier for the person who's the recipient of that request.  I feel if they are just being asked to guide or to give them information rather than mentors.  I think there's a really big difference there, and you've pulled out a point.  I think it's really important in the way when you ask for something, maybe not label it as mentoring, but call it as a little bit of advice or guidance or help or assistance. I think that can make things a lot easier.

Aramide: Yes, I think that's right.  I can't say that there was necessarily rhyme or reason, I didn't say, okay I can't call this mentoring, I just didn't think of it in that way.  It was more about curiosity and I am trying to get to an answer for myself, so let me go and find people who might help me get to the answer. 

Catherine: Okay.  I know you loved your work at MOFO and especially the pro bono cases that I talked about at the top, and I wondered about how people get to do pro bono cases.  Was that a way of you also, perhaps putting your hand up, or are you assigned to do those cases?  How did that happen and what kind of joy did you derive from working on those cases?

Aramide: At MOFO pro bono is one of the core set of values, and really one of the reasons why I chose MOFO out of law school. I went to school at Stanford in the bay area and MOFO is a California bay area based law firm.  It is a global company of course but that's one of the primary offices for MOFO. I just happened to meet a lot of attorneys who had come to talk to the black law students association about the core values of the firm of pro bono and diversity and it seemed more down to earth, like natural people.  Calling themselves MOFO for example, which, I had to explain to my mother one time why that was something that was a little unusual.  Pro bono is something that's really important to the firm and it's fairly easy.  There are pro bono coordinators, and you can reach out and say, Hey, I'd like to do some pro bono work and they can assign something to you.  Or you can be very proactive and go out and find something in the community that appeals to you.  If it meets the needs of the public interest you can bring that to the firm and say, this is something that I would like to do.

Over my career, I did a mix of being on a pro bono list and somebody says, “Hey, would you like to take this case”?  Other times I was very proactive about saying I want to take on an asylum case and having that be the thing that I devoted my pro bono time to. I definitely like to help people, so being able to give back in that way was very important to me.  I also learned from some of the top litigators and top attorneys at the firm, the importance of having your own thing and how much you learn and grow from having your own case.  My first asylum case was in my first or second year and I thought, oh my goodness, they're going to let me stand up in court and represent this person seeking asylum in the US.  But yes, because otherwise, he would be doing it himself, and the chances of being granted asylum increased exponentially when people have a lawyer.  So I thought, maybe it doesn't matter if you're a seasoned attorney or if you're like myself at the time, a first or second year, let me just do the best that I can. I took that case and it lasted about a year and I was able to get asylum for my client.  It's fantastic when someone puts their trust in you and then says, thank you, you have changed my life. I didn't often get that groundbreaking, compelling win in litigation for business clients, but there was that human element that was always really important to me that I was able to hold onto through the pro bono cases.

Catherine: Wow.  That is absolutely amazing.  I think a lot of lawyers probably avoid such kinds of cases and there you were going head into that kind of case and you had success in someone, just one person, you change their whole life.  I'm not sure what that person would be doing if you hadn't helped them or what they are doing now, because you have, but as you just said, owning something, that's a significant part of your career.  If you probably did nothing else, you would be proud of the fact that you had done that case and helped somebody.  I guess that the firm also gives you credit for that, right?  You're not running around doing pro bono and feeling bad that you're not billing on other cases, is that right? The firm looks after you and that success that you had with that case is especially celebrated in the firm as well?

Aramide:  It is yeah, for getting the credit. In BigLaw the billable hour requirement is fairly substantial, but at least at MOFO, the hours that you spend on pro bono are unlimited towards that billable hour requirement.  Some firms, I think, might cap it at 25 hours per year or 50 hours per year.  I got a report when I left MOFO of how many hours over my career I spent on it, and it was a lot. Fortunately, I never felt like anyone was saying, you can't do this, or this is too much, you got to focus on the billable clients.  Of course, it's a firm and it's a profit driven entity and you wouldn't want to show up and only do pro bono work.  But yes there's credit and there's also a celebration of it.  I got a pretty significant pro bono victory in Japan and then it was like, okay, can we put this on newsletters and celebrate this and share that we're doing this work. It's definitely in the DNA of MOFO to be working on pro bono cases and it's one of the reasons why I chose that firm and glad that I did so 

Catherine: Fabulous. You just mentioned one in Japan, I've got to ask you what that was? 

Aramide: So that was winning asylum for a refugee in Japan. I don't know the current number of those who are granted asylum, but it's something like 0.1% of those who apply are actually granted asylum in Japan. That was another life-changing case, my client had such a harrowing story of where she was from and how she got here, and how she was able to stay.  She was 19 or 20 years old and was told by everyone, you can't get asylum in Japan, that doesn't happen.  But she believed, and because she believed we tried and it worked. I'll never forget the day she looked at me and said “You've changed my life. Thank you, God. Thank you, MOFO.  Thank you, everyone”.  She's breaking down in tears and of course, then I'm in tears and this is just really amazing to know again, the impact that you can have as a lawyer to help people. Based on the tools and knowledge that you have that somebody else doesn't have. Yeah, it's been a really wonderful part of my career.  

Catherine: Wow, you certainly almost have me in tears. My body is literally tingling as you're telling me these stories, I am so amazed at what you've done.  I really think you're an inspiration for others who may think they can't change the world or they can't change anybody's life, and in fact, you actually can.  You've already, that I know of, changed two people's lives that you've told me about and made all the difference for them.  I congratulate you on that and I know you won't take the congratulations, but I think that's absolutely amazing. I'm so proud of you.

Aramide: Thank you, Catherine. I appreciate that. 

Catherine: Okay. MOFO kept you here for a while in Japan and you've raised a family here as well, and I'm really interested to know how you decided to do that because out of all places, Japan may not be the easiest place with language and other things happening here.  How did you decide to do that and how have you been managing your family life as well as running your work life here in Japan? 

Aramide: Yes the decision to raise a family here, like many things in my life, there were some good things that were planned and some other things that are a little bit happenstance and then you just run with it.  Raising a family here I think as you know I've had a couple of back and forth from Japan to San Diego.  I was here in 2008, 2009, 10ish as we discussed before, and then went back to San Diego.  That first time I came, it was for two years, and there's a joke in MOFO Tokyo office that once you arrive from any office, because a lot of people rotate through, that you have to surrender your passport because you're not leaving.

Once you're in, you’re in. So the first time I came it was actually a three month stint and then the litigation group asked me to return for two years.  I basically deferred the decision for a couple of months. I was polling everyone, what do you think, is this a good idea?  Should I do this?  Then I decided to do it, but when I left I tried to be as clear as I could that there was a spot for me back in San Diego at the end of those two years. I really wanted it to be clear that I am not necessarily looking to spend my life in Japan.  This is just a nice little stint, something interesting to change things up.  Everyone said, yes that's right, that's fine, two years.  So I spent two years here, it was fantastic, but I went back to San Diego and thought that was it. 

 Then that's when life happens. A lull in work happened in 2013, 14 and I've been practicing quite some time by then.  Again, having made my connections with people in different places, Dan Levison was one of the first people I reached out to and I said, “Hey, do you have any work, is there anything going on”?  And he said, “Oh, I think, we've got this investigation, maybe you can help with”.   I love internal investigations, so there I was sitting in San Diego helping with this huge investigation that was happening in Japan.  The lead partner on that was Jim Huff, who's someone I had heard wonderful things about but had never met, and then I got to work with him through this.  So I stumbled my way into returning to Japan through this opportunity.  There was someone who was leaving the firm and I could feel that there was a void. To tell you honestly, when I asked, would you like me to come for a little bit, just to help get over the hump in this investigation to get us through to the finish line. Jim said, “Oh that's a little bit tough just to come for this project, but have you considered coming back permanently to Japan or longer term for a trip to Japan”? I really hadn't and I thought my two years in Japan was it, I’m moving on and I'm back to practice in the US and that's what started my discussions for the return to Tokyo.

At this time, I am almost a 10th year associate, so there are the partnership discussions, even if it hasn't happened now, is it going to happen, is Japan going to help partnership all that stuff, all those things.  Meanwhile, my husband and I had also been thinking about starting to plan a family, and we basically said let's hold off on the family decision until we figure out what the Japan thing is.  We then decided, okay, let's do it.  Let's go back to Japan.  Then I found out I was pregnant, so then it became, okay, do we still go to Japan?  Is this part of the master plan that I had not really figured out?  Anyway, long story short, we decided to move here after giving birth to my first child.  So when my daughter was six months old, we got on a plane in San Diego and flew to Tokyo and started our little family of three living here in Tokyo.

Catherine: My goodness. Wow, I love that.  It meandered a little bit there like a river, but you got there and again, that man Dan, he's going to have to be interviewed by me I feel.  He's obviously a very significant person. He's taking you under his wing, but also your other friend there that you mentioned, Jim.  So I love that you've also had these men in your life at the firm looking out for you during that time.  So you've stayed here and the other two that you have are twins, right?  

Aramide: Yes.  So one of the interesting things about the decision to have kids, start a family, all of that, my husband always felt like if he was going to have kids, he wanted us to raise them abroad. So somewhere outside of the US.

Catherine: You got that, right?

Aramide:  Yes, and it’s part of the Japan story, how I ended up here in the first place.  I tell him all the time.  He has very strong manifesting skills. He once came to Japan when he had a girlfriend who was on the JET program and he was in college. He loved Japan, it was like the wonderful best place in the world, and he'd always wanted to return.  When I was first offered the opportunity to come for that three months stint, I actually said no at first, because I was a second year attorney and I had been really wanting to do patent litigation work and I just hadn't been able to get it.  Then I finally got on a big case with one of the top partners of the firm and I'm like, this is it.  Then somebody says do you want to come to Japan?  Ah, but I just got on this case and if I leave, they're gonna fill my spot and I can't do it.  And so on the spot, when somebody asks us like, oh, thank you for the opportunity, but I don't think so.  Then I went home and I told my husband, he was like, what are you doing? Someone offered you a three month stint in Japan, all expenses paid, going to pay for your flight, pay for your housing and you get to live in Tokyo.  Yeah. I was like, oh okay, maybe I should say yes, maybe I should do that.  So that was the first and then the manifestation of raising kids abroad. Yeah, it's been phenomenal, brilliant, better than I could have imagined.  

So I now have the three kids as you mentioned. The first was born in California, then I came here, and now I've got my six year old daughter who is at a Japanese public school and is fully bilingual in Japanese and English.  I tell people all the time, if I could even have half of her Japanese language skills, I would be set. I would be able to function at the grocery store fully in Japanese, she's amazing. So then we're ready to have baby number two and then baby two becomes two and three.  Yeah, that was a surprise, as I'm sure for many people having twins is.  I literally thought I was on candid camera when the doctor said, “Oh, there's one egg and there is one sacrum”, then “There's two and two”.  Two, what?  I'm sorry, come again. Quite surprising.  So anyway, now that we have seen what the exposure to language and culture has done for my oldest, we are wanting to repeat that for my twins.  It's really just phenomenal to see a child developing in this way, the ability to cross culture and language and it's been really amazing to witness. 

Catherine: Perfect, it sets your children up very well, I think for their future. If only all children could grow up knowing two or three cultures, I think the world would be a much better place in many ways.  I have to carry on and think about other things that I want to ask you.  There's so much because you're full of so much wonderful information, but one thing that struck me is that you made a pivot.  That word is in very common use these days, especially over the last 12 months. Pivoting from that BigLaw role, where you were managing your family, you took on a new role.  You moved from MOFO to Autoliv in November of last year, and if anyone's forgotten, it was actually the middle of a pandemic. I have no idea how you were able to do that courageously, move from job to job.  I really wanted to go back and just talk to you about that, your journey, and how you moved roles. What led you to break away from MOFO?  They were looking after you there.  I know you love the work.  Was it something else there that you thought I wanted to try something new?  I don't want to put words in your mouth, so please tell me what led you to break away and go in-house? 

Aramide: Yeah, so it was a combination of things as many of my decisions are.  But I'd say the driving factor is at MOFO, as I mentioned, there are a lot of attorneys who rotate through and because of tax implications that hit after someone's been in Japan or at least US citizens have been in Japan for five years.  That's often when there hasn't been an end to a stint before then, that's often when it will happen.  So I was having these conversations with MOFO about this five-year mark that’s happening, and we probably should think about you returning to San Diego or, do you think you would go to DC or, what office would you want to go to? But, Tokyo long term is probably not a viable option.  And it was in those discussions realizing that MOFO has been great and I can continue on in the US but again, that family experience that I'm having here, my husband loving Japan, my kids just being able to offer this experience for them.  We weren't ready to give it up.  So one of my mentors who I have not mentioned yet, Louise Stoupe, who's a partner in litigation, has been a mentor, friend,  and colleague for many years.  I would have conversations with her about the substance of work that we're working on.  Then on the side, it was, by the way, we gotta be thinking about where you're going and what's happening next and meaning back in the US.  So we were having these discussions and I’m thinking I just really want to stay in Japan, how do I make that happen.  I was hoping it would be with MOFO, but unfortunately, it was not a match.   

Louise was the first who said to me, have you considered going in-house in Japan?  There are few and far between opportunities that come up, but if you really want this it is what you should be thinking about.  I of course appreciated her wisdom and insight, but I think I was stubborn, and so I didn't really try to look for in-house positions. These conversations started in September 2019, when I came back from maternity leave with my twins and I was then at the four year mark.  MOFO was wanting to plan ahead and so Louise was having those conversations with me. So sometime during the pandemic, Louise and I had these ongoing discussions, and she mentioned that she had heard that my predecessor in this role at Autoliv was going to be leaving to be the GC of another company. We had been doing work for Autoliv and she said, “Are you interested in this position”? And I said, “Absolutely”.  I knew the company, I knew the GC, I'd met him on a couple of occasions.  My predecessor in this role was fantastic and I thought that would be great, and that's what started the discussions for me to get this role.  It's really just fortunate timing, coincidence, luck, whatever you want to call it, that this opportunity arose exactly when I needed it, and I grabbed it with both hands and said, “I'm all in”. 

Catherine: Wow, good on you. I didn't realize that it was all operating in the background. There it's almost like that tax was your overriding operating system whirring away in the background. I've got to get out of here before five years, so I don't get caught by this tax stuff, and then all this at the same time with your husband and your family, knowing how they were enjoying it here, you wanted to stay. Well, Louise, the people within the firm helping you out there as well, again shall we say, the same as Dan, and then also the fact that you had been working with the company that you're with now as a client on the client’s side of things.  So you knew people and you knew what they would be like to work with as well. So you've been almost interviewing them all the way through as you were working with them, but how fortunate.  I think that's also that happenstance that you talked about before, that sort of interesting and unexpected thing came up, but almost a natural flow from what you were doing to go into work for a client.

Aramide: Yeah. I'm so grateful that things lined up as they did.  Louise easily could have not mentioned it to me and, I never would've known, as far as I know, I never saw a public listing for this position and it was very much a, okay, let's start the discussion, then went through the formal interview process.  If I had not had someone thinking about whether Aramide wants to stay, maybe this was a good match and a good connection, and I'm so thrilled because it's been fantastic. 

Catherine: Yes and the generosity of your colleagues too, as you said, they could have kept it to themselves and not tell you, but she could see that was something that would suit you.  So that was something for you that would be very significant.  Also, it keeps you involved at the company. It still means if there's work to come back, severe litigation work, which MOFA is brilliant at, the first point of call would be asking MOFO to help.  So there's also that connection, right?

Aramide: That's right. It's wonderful I am able to maintain that connection. If there's an ongoing matter, I’ve called up and emailed Louise and others. Even having insights about how things are handled for certain aspects of the matter that MOFO was involved in.  So my boss who I report to might say, “Oh, I think I'm going to ask MOFO about this”. I said, “Okay, actually the person who's going to do it is this associate, so why don't I just reach out to that associate directly”. I can call them up and say, “This is what I need from you” and there is a short turnaround. So it's just really nice to have that knowledge and the insider view on things.

Catherine: That's amazing, and let’s call out this massive fact that you actually changed roles from private practice to in-house counsel during a global pandemic.  I don't know how you did the onboarding and perhaps that's another big topic in itself.  I think we might talk about that later on in the year with Women In Law, Japan.  But online onboarding, how was that? You've been there six months now, but are you still working remotely, and are you still trying to connect, not only in Japan but with your Asia team, while you're online, how's that going?

Aramide: Yeah, I think it's gone as well as can be expected under the circumstances.  I went to Autoliv on the first day of my employment and have not been back since, and that was in November.  So yeah, everything is 100% remote at the moment, and so that means just having to be very intentional about who I am connecting with and taking some initiative.  My boss who I report to is phenomenal and she is also very mindful of this. She has made me aware of the different groups of people, the different functions, and who I should be speaking to. Giving me a little bit of background, what they do, and why there would be a good opportunity for me to speak with them, then I'll set up a 15 to 30 minute chat with these people, just to get to know you.  I have my standard questions, how have you worked with the legal team in the past, what's going on now, how might we work together in the future?  Those answers help me understand how I can help you.  But also just to get to know you, so tell me about how long you have been at Autoliv and what's your background and things like that?  I think those are important and just help me to get a sense of the people that I'm going to be working with, but also give me more of a sense of the culture of Autoliv.  I think that's really important and something that would be really easy for me to feel disconnected to as I sit in my home office away from everyone else.  But I'm fortunate we are able to still find connections, and find ways to get to know my colleagues during these times. 

Catherine: I just so endorse exactly what you've said.  I happened to do it when I was on the job and in the actual company office and able to meet managers etc. and make time with them.  But I totally endorse what you've said with an underline and highlight in yellow because when I joined in-house I made a point of exactly what you've done.  Meeting the managers and the managers underneath and getting to know them, their pain points and letting them know that, for me, I could speak Japanese and also be approachable so that they knew you were a person who also happened to be the lawyer in the firm who could help them in the company.  So I think you've replaced that water cooler moment by doing it remotely and making that time to do those appointments with people and have 30 minute chats.  I think that's going to be something that sets you up for total success in the company. People will get to know you and they'll be talking about you as well and saying, yeah, she's great, she's joined us and she's really easy to talk with, you should have a chat. So everyone would have got to know about you I'm sure before you even managed to make the next phone call with somebody else, but kudos to you for doing that.  I think that's a magical tip. 

Aramide:  Thank you. One thing that I've come to realize is that it's a huge global company and there are many regions that I cover.  So even if I'm intentional about certain people that I speak to, I still might get an email from someone in a group in someplace I don't know. So I'll ask my boss, do you know this person they've asked me to read this contract?  But then using that as the opportunity to start a conversation.  Oh, you sent me this contract but before I do that, I'm new to Autoliv and why don't we have a little bit of a chat and I can learn more about you and how I can help you.  So even using the sort of one-off requests that I get as an opportunity to have a discussion.  I just think as you said, reminding people that we're people and we're here to help, I think all help facilitate that. 

Catherine: But being an in-house counsel is quite different from being a senior associate in a firm, isn't it?  How are you finding that? 

Aramide: It is like night and day, it is so different, but in good ways. One little detour we haven't discussed on my career journey was that I did about a year long secondment at  Alcon Laboratories in Fort Worth, Texas 

Catherine: Yes I was going to ask you about that if we had a chance because I was probably a customer of yours at that time because I used Alcon contact lens fluid to clean my lenses.

Aramide: Very good.  I used to use it too, but I don't use any Alcon or other contact lens products now.  But that was an opportunity that came up, they said, “Oh, we've got this great thing, we're looking for a mid-level to senior associate”.  I think I was maybe 7th or 8th year at the time and was asked to do this.  So it was, here's this company we have a really important relationship with and we think that you're well-suited for it, and by the way, it's in Texas.  Not quite the ideal of San Diego that I was aspiring just to stick to, but it was a fantastic experience and really gave me that insight into what in-house looks like.

I was particularly there for advertising and sort of regulatory review of marketing materials. Everything from the contact lens solutions to some of the surgical medical devices, which were very highly regulated by the FDA in the US.  I got a sense of, okay in title I'm here for this thing, but as soon as you start to tell people you are a lawyer and you work in the legal department, sometimes people would come to me and say, “I think this is supposed to be looked at by a lawyer, can you help with this”?   I'm like, this has nothing to do with advertising, but I don't want to say no, I'm glad they thought to involve a lawyer in this.  It was a fairly decent sized legal department, some 30 people and all in different roles.  But as soon as you see someone who's new, and I was excited and I just want to learn everything, suddenly I'm helping the product liability person because that's a lot of the practice that I had done. Then the privacy person who I just happened to chat with over lunch, and she was like, oh, we're gonna have these privacy matters. 

 So I really got a sense of that, wearing many hats, and dealing with everything under the sun that can come in because you're in the legal department. That's one of the things that was vastly different from my practice at MOFO, there's so much variety.  I can go from, a day of reviewing a master purchase agreement, supply agreement, to advising on engineering services, privacy related matters, and reviewing compliance reports.  There's just so much that can happen within one day, but I love it.  I love the variety and that I'm constantly learning.  I think it's not just because I'm new to the company, but because it's a huge company and there's so much going on that I'm always going to get the excitement of something new, a new area, a new product or something else. 

Catherine: Yeah and because it's a business, it's a business that's alive and it's constantly changing so all sorts of things are coming up all the time.  When you're in a law firm, I think the work comes to you and you do it and you deliver, but when you're in a company, as you just said, you're wearing many hats.   I remember when I did the same sort of thing.  I was writing while reviewing or drafting the speeches that the CEO would make externally at a business function, and I'd thought this was not legal work, but in fact, it was.  Also, obviously knowing what he wanted to say and making sure that he was saying things well, but also you've got an insight into the things that the boss was doing outside of the company.  So everything always relates back to your role as an in-house counsel, but you've put your finger on it there that not everything is a legal or a law job.  It's much broader than that, and you wear many hats.  I love that.  You've pulled that out and that's a really big difference between being an in-house lawyer and working in a law firm.

Yeah, all right, I've got so much more to ask you.  I'm going to ask a couple of things about outside activities.  I know you're very busy and I know that you're also really involved in Women of Color in Law.  I wanted you to tell me a little bit more about that organization because I recently heard you speak on a panel for Women of Color in Law.  You were fantastic, especially when you started talking about imposter syndrome.  That's also another topic in itself, but I loved it when you said that you had never really thought that you had imposter syndrome.  Someone talked to you about that at a workshop at MOFO, and you were telling the story about the first time you'd heard imposter syndrome, and you said “I don't have that”. “I don't have that”.  I loved how you said that.  Tell me about that organization briefly and how it helps you and what you are doing with that organization?

Aramide: So Women of Color in Law is a local San Diego organization started by a woman who I consider a mentor, Judge Valor Johnson, who has been in the San Diego area for quite some time. It really just felt like there needed to be a group that pulls together women of color in the law to support each other, have panel discussions where we're talking about issues of relevance like, how do you deal with things in the workplace?  It was just a way to build community and networking and it's actually not an organization that I've been involved in so much since being in Japan because of not being local in the area.  But Judge Johnson and I have stayed in touch and she said, “We're thinking about doing this panel about navigating the workplace as a woman of color, I think you might have some interesting insights to share”.  I was so flattered that she asked and I basically told her I adore her so much she could ask me to talk about anything and I'd say of course, what do you want? Unicorns, puppies, everything, yeah I'm all in.  

So I was really happy to speak on that, and I think there's a direct kind of correlation between my work on that and also Women in Law Japan.  I have found that when I come away from events where there are women of color attending and speaking, where on a daily basis you're not seeing other women or other women of color, it gives me energy.  It fulfills me and helps me remember that I am not alone, that I'm not the only one doing this.  Also to learn practical tools to be better and to grow and to learn. Organizations like Women of Color in Law and Women in Law Japan are just really vital to my happiness as a lawyer and as a person.  

Catherine: Yeah, vital to your happiness. That's how I feel about Women in Law Japan as well, and the other organizations I'm involved in. Many people might think they haven’t got the time for that, or I've got to do my job and my family that's enough.  So what's your advice then for people who might be considering or thinking about volunteering or have been asked to do that, but think they have no time?  What would you say to that?. 

Aramide: I think it sometimes just comes down to priorities, and sometimes you don't necessarily have time for everything, but if there's something that's important, you just make the time, find the time.  I know that's easier said than done, but I did manage to do it while I was at MOFO and I’m continuing to do it now in-house at Autoliv, it’s a little bit easier to do with a more manageable schedule.  Find ways that you can contribute.  Are you contributing time physically in person or, are you writing, there are so many ways to give back and also figure out what matters to you and how you spend the time. So just giving some thought to that and then doing it, I guess that's my best advice on that.

Catherine: That's wonderful. Also thinking about this last year with the pandemic and everything that's gone on, I'm wondering what your goals or motivations might be for this coming year.  Does it still involve more of that volunteer activity?  Is it the same organizations and going deeper there?  What else have you got as your goals for this forthcoming year? 

Aramide:  I've realized that not having the MOFO pro bono access means that I don't have that natural easy way to give back, so I am thinking about that more and more now, and I really haven't found the answer.

One thing I've thought about is, are there non-profit boards or other ways that I can serve. In the past for pro bono, I've done more of the direct legal services, I'm your lawyer, and I'm going to stand up for you.  But now, especially since I've moved into this business legal advisory role that you take on more in-house, I think I could see that working its way into a board of a nonprofit or something along those lines, but I haven't really quite figured out what it is. I think something along those lines, and then just personally, professionally, just really trying to find my footing, keep developing and growing at Autoliv, and understanding more of the business, honing my skills.  I think one of the things that are so exciting about the role for me is how much I get to learn about the business. Just want to do more of that and then make sure that my skills are up to snuff and that I can be the best lawyer that I can be for those who need me in the company.

Catherine: Sounds like your mum and dad, a bit of the DNA has rubbed off with the lifelong learning that you've been talking about, it sounds like you've also got that inside of you.  So Aramide what does success mean to you?

Aramide: That's a very good question.  It's such an individual question,  for me, I think it's about being clear about what it is that you want from your life, from your work, and then getting that.  Finding that for yourself, achieving that for yourself.  I think it's a vague definition, but I think the point is there's no one clear definition of what success is because for every person it has to be different.  There are too many different inputs, too many different values to do different ways to look at the same situation.  

I talk about this with my husband, and when we are doing things that some people look at and think that's crazy. Why would they raise kids in Japan, they don't even speak the language, right? Well, why not? For us, it's working, and it doesn't mean everything's perfect and wonderful all the time because having twins is no joke. But it's knowing what you want for yourself and then being able to create your life and your career in a way that aligns with what you want and what's important to you. 

Catherine: Right, do you have a kind of theme for the year or word for the year that guides you?  Do you choose something like that each year?

Aramide: I've listened to your first podcast with Angela, and that actually helped me solidify what my words were. I was struggling because I love the idea of a word, but what I found every year prior to this one, I’d thought I had a word but by the end of January, I'd forgotten what the word was.  Now I have two words this year.  My two words are curiosity and action. The reason those are my words is, that I sometimes get in my own way, I talk myself out of believing I know how to do this thing.  I realize how I get myself out of that is by being curious about the situation.  So for example, if I get an email or a text, or we use teams at Autoliv, if I get a teams from someone and they say, can I talk to you.  When I was at MOFO If I got something like that, it was oh my gosh this is going to be terrible, what do they want, am I about to get fired.   

Just having that cycle in my head, I realized that the way for me to get out of that is to be curious. What is this thing that they're going to ask me about?  What is the situation, what am I going to learn from this?  What's the new thing here?  Then, because I want to learn so much, sometimes I spend too long in that process. So the action is to make sure that once I have cured my curiosity I've let that prevail, I've asked my questions, I've got the understanding, then act on it. I interviewed for a position at Amazon, did not get it, but one of the values of Amazon that I really liked was, Bias for Action. I thought, I'm not sure how often I have that, but it's definitely something that I want to have.  So curiosity and action are my two words together. 

Catherine: Fantastic, Bias for Action, I hadn't heard that.  I know they always have day one, but I guess that's also action, isn't it.  Every day is a new day to be acting, and I love that. What am I going to learn from this?  So the person is asking you the question, so they want to learn from you, but here you are being curious and turning it around and saying, what am I going to learn from this conversation?  I think that is brilliant.  Absolutely brilliant. 

Aramide: Yeah, and a little bit of it's what allows me to ask the questions that I need to be able to answer the question for somebody else.  So it's the curiosity of not only what can I learn, but what information do I need to then be able to solve this problem?  For example, this happens quite a few times, I get a request of can you review this contract?  It seems pretty straightforward, but until I start asking the questions, I don't have the context.  Contracts don't just live in a vacuum or this standalone thing.  They are a representation of a business and agreements and arrangements, so I have to understand that context.  Is this new business, is this ongoing business? What's the product, what's the value?  There are so many questions that I need to ask to then have that inform how I review the contract.  So it's a curiosity also for the sake of getting to the right answer.  

Catherine: So what would your advice be then for young lawyers and law students coming up the ranks? Is it to be curious? Is it to take action? Is it something else? 

Aramide: What I think would have been helpful for me is to truly not be afraid to ask questions. I had the curiosity as a younger lawyer, but I wasn't always confident that I could or should ask the question. If I got a request for a type of work that I've not done before, say did I want to do a deposition outline? I might ask the standard questions like do you have a standard form or template that you like to work from, but I might not ask all of the questions that would help me deliver the best work product. I think I had a fear that if I ask questions, they're going to know I'm not smart and I don't know this.  

Some people might say this is imposter syndrome, but I don't.  Just be confident enough to ask the question, because sometimes it's in asking that people show you and you can show others, it's not just asking a question. It doesn't mean you're not smart and you don't know anything. Sometimes it shows you're taking the initiative, you're invested, you're interested, and I think it's so important to ask questions. 

Catherine: You said it, I love it. Is there anything else that we've not covered today Aramide that you'd like to talk about, something that you thought about as we were talking and didn't get a chance to say?

Aramide: I think something that's also big if I were to look back at my career. I was given this advice and I think I've done it, but I wish I had more confidence. It was when someone asks you to do something, see it as an opportunity and say yes, it might be scary, it might be hard but you won't grow if you say no because you're scared you're gonna mess it up.  If you’re scared you're not going to get it right then you're also going to miss out on having the opportunity to do it and to learn and to be better.  So sometimes just know that say yes and you'll figure it out and you'll figure out a way to get it done, hopefully with the support of those around you. But I think that's just a really important thing that I want to pass on to junior lawyers, women of color, say yes, have some confidence in yourself, because if you don't believe in yourself, then maybe others won't believe in you either.

Catherine: Wonderful, say yes and then work it out later, I do like that a lot.  I think I actually do that myself, so I agree with you.  All right, I don't want to but I have to wind up our conversation today and I'm just going to finish as I usually do with all of my guests. That is the final super six, a quickfire round of six questions to wind up our interview.  

The first question is if I gave you 1 million yen in cash, where in Japan would you spend it, your favorite store or destination or both? 

Aramide: I think for me it would be a destination. Let's pretend that there's no pandemic, I would want to take my family to Club Med in Okinawa because of the beautiful beach.  I've never been there before, but from the pictures, it looks beautiful and to have childcare on demand, that would be really nice too.  

Catherine: Perfect. Is there a podcast or a book that you are listening to or have read recently that you recommend?

Aramide: I'm all about podcasts at the moment! Yours of course, but not just because I'm a guest on one, but because your first two episodes were fantastic and full of inspiring words and gems.  Also the Counsel Podcast by Mel Scott, that's one that I've just learned a lot about the role of in-house attorneys and it's phenomenal. Then anything, book or podcast by Brene Brown, I absolutely love all that she has to say, vulnerability, authenticity, courage, leadership, it's all amazing. 

Catherine: Brilliant, they are both on my podcast list, Mel Scott I just love her way of doing her podcasts and also Brene too.  We can have a conversation about that separately too. Okay, so you're stuck on a desert island and you need to bring one person, sorry you've got lots there, but one person, one item and one food.  Who and what are they? 

Aramide: I would probably bring my mom cause I've not seen her for quite some time.   She's actually been to Japan several times, including before the pandemic, so that's good, but it's been a while, so my mom.  The item would be a radio or music playing device because I love music and being able to get back to karaoke music, enjoyment, dancing, singing, and what's the last item? 

Catherine:  Some food. 

Aramide: Food, have I mentioned I like chocolate cake.  Yeah, let's go back to that because that's always a safe bet. 

Catherine: Good, sounds excellent. I'm going to ask you a different question from what I normally ask people, which is, have you met anyone famous or is there some celebrity or famous person that you would love to meet? 

Aramide: Someone famous I’ve met? 

Catherine: Someone famous you'd love to meet in your lifetime? 

Aramide: I would love to meet Michelle Obama, I think she’s amazing. 

Catherine: I knew you were going to say, Michelle Obama. 

Aramide: I don't want to be too predictable or whatever, but I listened to her audiobook; Becoming, and I think that she's amazing, yeah that's probably the one. 

Catherine: I thoroughly agree with you.  I've read her book too, and I would love to meet her as well.  Maybe we can try and do that together sometime. 

Aramide: Yes.  A Women in Law Japan event, featuring Michelle Obama, can you imagine? 

Catherine: Great, fabulous. Your bedside cabinet, I imagine you've got some books there, but what else do you have on your bedside cabinet 

Aramide: Right now it's a little bit staged, but I had to move things through my home workstations for the podcast, but I've got a book called Networked, which is a story of 20 women lawyers who came together during the pandemic, found each other on LinkedIn and created this community.  It’s an amazing story of how each of them weathered and survived the pandemic.  I'm just learning a lot of really interesting information and I just think they're so amazing.  I've reached out to them on LinkedIn and they've been kind enough to say, “Oh yes, what insights can I share with you” and it’s just a really fun book. The other one is a Stanford Law Journal, which is yeah maybe lighter reading for a different time. 

Catherine: Yeah. Stanford Law Journal.

Aramide: Or Stanford Lawyer Magazine.  How about on the editing we cut that one, we'll just stick with the first.

Catherine: That would certainly make me go to sleep but anyway a magazine is different from a journal so maybe the magazine has got lots of lovely interesting things there.  I do love that name, The Network.  I've heard about that book, but you've reminded me about it, so we'll go and get that one.  Thank you so much.  We've come to the end and I'd really like to thank you Aramide for sharing so much with us.  Your stories, your tips, your nuggets of advice.  It was really amazing to connect with you today in this way and I thank you so very much.  How can people connect with you after this? 

Aramide: So I'm on LinkedIn and definitely welcome people to send me messages, to connect with me in the spirit of those women of the network to have found amazing connections there.  I was shocked to learn that LinkedIn is no longer just a place to put your resume, there are actually interesting discussions happening there. So you can find me on LinkedIn and that's really the only social media that I'm active in.  

Catherine: That's really fantastic. I know you're an active person on LinkedIn as well, and you're always commenting. I really do recommend people to connect with you and we'll put all of that in the show notes.  So anyone who's interested in connecting can just reach out to you. No problem at all? 

Aramide: Yeah, absolutely. I totally encourage it.  You might recall that the panel that I was on, I said, if people offer to connect with you and to help you to be a sounding board etc. reach out. I don't think anyone took me up on it, actually that's not true, not too many people, I should say took me up on that.  I'm definitely happy to chat.  I love talking about women, empowering women and the law, so if there's anyone who wants to connect that way, please do. 

Catherine: Great. Do let me know how many people reach out to you after they've listened to you speaking here today.

Aramide: I will. 

Catherine:  Thank you. And I'd love to finish up here. Actually, I don't want to finish up here.  I want to keep talking, but I have to finish up here with you and I've had a fantastic conversation about so many different things.  I'm so grateful for you to come on the show and be my guest and hopefully this will go well and we get 10 fantastic women lawyers out there for season one.  I just want to thank you again for your honesty and your especially being someone in this legal profession who is as compassionate and caring a lawyer as you are.  I really thank you for sharing your journey and all of that wisdom inside of you.

Aramide: Thank you so much, Catherine. It's really been an honor and just a privilege to chat with you today.  Also just wanting to share how amazing it's been to witness your path and journey in the Japan legal community.  It's really quite amazing what you've done and starting this podcast is among those amazing things.  I love looking forward to it and I can't wait to see who your other guests are this season.

Catherine: Thank you so much, and for all of my listeners, please do listen to this episode again and again, like it, subscribe to Lawyer On Air and also if you don't mind add a review that really helps others know that listening to this podcast is worth their time investment.  Do go ahead and share this episode with someone who you think would enjoy listening to it and wants to lead an inspired life as a wonderful lawyer lady.

That's all for now. I'll see you in the next episode. Cheers. Kampai and bye for now.

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