Why Lawyers May Be Brilliant Startup Co-founders: The Birth of Lawtrepreneurs
A story by my ehvLINC Co-Founder.
ehvLINC is an initiative founded in 2016 in Eindhoven. ehvLINC tries to bridge the gap between classic legal service providers and starting companies. We provide legal help to startups from the Brainport Region. We do this by placing teams of students as in-house lawyers at these law firms. The quality of the work of the students is guaranteed due to the cooperations we have with local law firms, who check all the work of students. As part of our program we also write about our experiences in the field! This week a blog about lawyers as startup co-founders. Ivona doesn't have a Steemit account yet, but I bet she will make one if this platform turns out to value our content:) Have fun reading!
Why Lawyers May Be Brilliant Startup Co-founders: The Birth of Lawtrepreneurs
Only recently, I came across an old blog from Venture Hackers, which has listed the TOP 10 reasons why entrepreneurs hate lawyers. At first, I wondered how long that list actually could be. Then again, 10 reasons is already a lot of negative energy. Amongst others, lawyers were accused of being unresponsive, deal killers, who care only about their overpriced fees. Through my experience in various legal environments, whether law firms, corporates or academia, I have learnt that we, lawyers sometimes act in a way that could be interpreted as hubris, skepticism, lack of attention or lack of empathy. However, for us, it is almost mandatory to display confidence, point out risks, think while we discuss and be straightforward in order to protect a client. Same behaviour, different perception. What we consider as a professional behaviour, entrepreneurs may view as a lack of enthusiasm.
Apparently, there is some kind of a gap between entrepreneurs and lawyers. It almost seems like the global legal reputation precedes us. To be fair, American TV series with legal themes have not helped to counteract that image. Lawyers are frequently portrayed as self-centered egomaniacs, who are paid handsomely, but work rarely. You may be familiar with Harvey Specter, beloved character from Suits. While I experienced legal work as a flood of documents that I needed to make sense of, he does not seem to have a single paper on his desk. While I remember being locked up in my office in order to read through dozens of contracts, he seems to have plenty of time to parade around his law firm office. While I was inseparably connected to my laptop, he seems to have all necessary information already downloaded in his head. It is hard to imagine how suit-wearing, polished-looking, always –in-control Harvey Specter could turn into a hoody-wearing, creative startup founder.
Having this lawyer-entrepreneur divide in mind, I started to think how lawyers could fit into the founding team of startups. Not as advisors, not as professional consultants but as core members of startup teams. Here are few reasons why we, the lawyers, could be one of the most important startup assets.
Because we are used to identifying red flags
It will not be a surprise to anyone, if I say that legal work is to large extent an exercise in risk management. We often think in “worst case scenarios” in order to explain to our clients all possible outcomes. We have a very fine-tuned ability to foresee situations and connect the circumstances that no one else has taken into account. We literally think in multi-verse of possibilities. Indeed such ability is not reserved only for lawyers but a frequent practice of “what could go wrong” game helps us to scan the situation much faster. In contrast, entrepreneurs often suffer from so-called “entrepreneurial optimism” that prevents them from seeing risks to full extent. Lawyers could thus perfectly complement and balance out other “overly optimistic” co-founders.
Because we are used to learning what we don’t understand
Although law studies is definitely not a piece of cake, the truth is that the tough part comes after you graduate. Law schools provide you with helicopter introduction to law and certain crucial skills, but the learning re-starts once you enter the client arena. You realize that communication is above all and psychology should have definitely been your minor. On top of that, you have to keep sharpening your legal acumen especially in highly technical areas. Simply said, you need to keep learning and improving all the time. Who says these skills cannot be applied to other disciplines such as technology, marketing, finance or others? Unless it is a rocket science, I believe lawyers have a capacity to master other disciplines to the extent that they can play multiple roles in a startup team.
Because we are persistent
Despite what Harvey Specter fans think, being a lawyer is a constant, sometimes not so graceful fight, for clients, for deadlines, for a position in a team and occasionally even for sanity. Being persistent is one of traits that we need to develop or improve already during our studies, when we spend long hours reading endless pile of books and articles. Furthermore, we are often exposed to very intensive competition, whether on the job market or within our workplace. Persistence is crucial in a legal job as much as in entrepreneurship.
Because there is not any blueprint to what we do
In law, almost everything is relative. In many cases, you cannot, beyond reasonable doubt, predict the outcome of the trial or the behavior of your counterparty. There is simply too many unknown variables. You often try certain strategy and reverse it or modify it “on the go”. This is exactly what entrepreneurs need to practice and simultaneously what they often fail to do.
Many startup founders have a technical background or an engineering degree, so they are used to apply hard science methods with accurate results. Unfortunately, this is not how law and entrepreneurship work. We need to adapt, we can almost say “pivot” on the daily basis. Furthermore, we often apply intuition, internal gut feeling that is very far from a scientific approach. As a startup founder, you sometimes need to do the same. You often have to decide instantly without sufficient information and under time pressure. Being comfortable with using intuition as a working method is important part of founder’s experience.
Where are the lawyers at?
So now that we know that we, lawyers, can be valuable startupco-founders, the question is why are they not?
There are naturally some lawyers turned entrepreneurs and many new LegalTech startups on the horizon but in reality, lawyers are not penetrating entrepreneurial sphere enough. Quite to the contrary, lawyers were not able to completely reverse “bad rep” and other professions have come to play crucial roles even in the LegalTech industry.
The asset (lawyer) is the same, but the application has to change. So what needs to happen to steer lawyers towards more entrepreneurial path?
Mindset Shift
In order to become good co-founders, lawyers need to change their mindset from advising to executing, from presenting multiple potential solutions to choosing one, from interpreting to creating, from eliminating risk to taking risk. The most profound difference in the world of entrepreneurs as compared to the world of lawyers is the likelihood of failure. It is generally known that startups fail much more than they succeed. So the possibility of becoming jobless owner of worthless shares in failed startup is not so distant. Failure in the legal environment is still perceived as Voldemort, the one we fear but shall not speak of. Many law firms realize this drawback and actively try to introduce their lawyers to entrepreneurship, where a failure is a part of the process. This transition is however still “work in progress”. It requires law firms to not only change the mindset of employees but, in fact, change their DNA, governance, decision-making and their philosophy.
Educational Shift
The mindset shift becomes easier if (future) lawyers experience their first touches with entrepreneurship already during their studies. Aside from few exceptions, law schools have been picking up this trend in a very slow manner. The main issue is in implementing creativity, the main driver of entrepreneurship, into curriculums of law programs. Creativity in legal terms is often confined to novel ways of legal interpretation. That is not what startups would benefit from. Students should be more exposed to complex business/finance/marketing/PR/legal problems, which they need to approach from multiple perspectives. Naturally, they cannot be experts in all these disciplines and this is the point where creativity shall compensate the missing experience. At the same time, not having a clue how to solve an issue and yet taking up on this challenge, is a cornerstone of one’s work independence and self-reliance, which is appreciated in every work environment.
Experience shift
Whilst legal education certainly provides crucial input for students in their formative period, the real life experience may well be the last building block, which can complete the bridge between the legal realm and the entrepreneurial world. Students or young lawyers that have a chance to experience startup environment can complete the transformation from traditional lawyers to “lawtrepreneurs”. In this respect, startup legal clinics form an important platform that enables student to explore their entrepreneurial self while studying. As a co-director of such legal clinic or as we call it, the legal incubator (ehvlinc.com), I often find myself in awe of the inspiration, excitement and creativity that the startup environment can trigger in almost anyone. Seeing founders profoundly struggle and endure, experiencing the environment, where new ideas are encouraged not suppressed, where thinking out of the box is the basic job requirement, is a transformational experience, which tends to steer people in a very different direction, professionally and personally.
Role shift
When you work as a lawyer, you identify yourself as one. Saying you work as a lawyer gives you and your network sense of the role you play in your organization, it also gives you a sense of self-identity. You know what to expect and others know what to expect from you. Being a co-founder of a business is a profoundly different experience. You can hardly define your tasks as you often simply do what needs to be done. One day you are a marketer, the other day you are a product developer and on a third day you find yourself building a PR campaign. Furthermore, you are constantly in a state of emergency. As one startup founder remarked, having a startup is like giving a CPR to a dying patient 24/7. This ability to flawlessly and comfortably shift from one role to the other without loss of a professional identity is one of the biggest challenges for current and future lawyers turned entrepreneurs.
Being a founder of a startup is one of the hardest jobs out there. Being a founder of a successful startup is one of the most rewarding jobs out there. If we manage to turn these shifts into reality, we will witness the birth of lawtrepreneurs, a new generation of entrepreneurial lawyers who can significantly help startups on their tough journey to success.
Ivona Skultetyova, ehvLINC Co-Founder (http://www.ehvlinc.com)