THE INSIDER

SHOSHANA SHIELDS • GOOGLE

An in-house lawyer, Shoshana Shields is leading the way in combining knowledge in commercial imperatives with legal thinking in a global firm. MELISSA COADE reports.

In a world in which Silicon Valley is considered to wield as much power as Washington DC and the concept of tomorrow has become ever digital, companies such as Google have clout. It has become one of the largest tech giants and wealthiest companies on the planet.

The online platform has infiltrated our lives so successfully that “googling” is now an accepted verb. Advertising is Google’s main source of revenue. 

So what is it like to work for an online behemoth? Shoshana Shields, who last year took on the role of Director of Legal for Google Australia and New Zealand, says the vibe is nothing like she has experienced in other workplaces. The 45-year-old in-house lawyer says the place is filled with clever and genuine people who want to do good.

“It’s this interesting place where everyone has a passion behind what Google stands for, and this concept of making information accessible to people, developing better products, and giving people better experiences due to technology and innovation,” Shields says. “The passion of innovation is just so ripe here.”

Google recently devised its own artificial intelligence (AI) Principles, with a focus on being socially beneficial and accountable. The company also deploys elements of its AI technology across its conferencing and Gmail services. Shields is exploring how to apply Google’s AI capabilities to the work of her in-house team.

“We have a lot going on in this space and it’s just about how far and how tailored it should be to the legal team. I am definitely working with people towards doing that here,” Shields says.

“There is a lot of opportunity to test AI and there is a lot of AI happening in the background.”

Shields is also looking at what testing has been done to introduce AI elements to contract revision and review as she settles into her role and connects with more people in the organisation.

Google relies on its own products to run its business. To use the parlance of the IT industry, it eats its own dog food. From Google Hangouts to Google Docs, common operations for the internal legal team are made that much easier, Shields says of collaborating with her local team of six and the broader global group.

“As a lawyer, Google Docs is an amazing product,” she says. “People can work real-time on the same version of a document all at once and just keep updating it and never have version-control problems,” she says.

“It’s a tool that is so simple yet so effective.”

Shields has established herself as a leading legal advisor in the tech industry, having also worked at eBay and PayPal. But the professional path that led her to Google presented itself fortuitously.

As a commercial litigator who relished courtroom dynamics, Shields says a future as a tech lawyer was not on her radar. Her career choices were not too pre-planned and the idea of finding an in-house opportunity only occurred to her after she landed a secondment at Virgin Mobile, aged 31.

“I realised that being a commercial litigation lawyer translated really well in that environment, because it’s also very fast paced, you need to think on your feet – those skills were very transferrable,” Shields says.

“It was a really different vibe [in-house] – how you interacted with people, and identifying who the customers and what the issues were and how you thought about those things.”

Following the birth of her second baby (Shields now has three children), she sent her CV to companies she thought would be great places to work. PayPal, which was owned by eBay Inc at the time and in its very early days, offered her a role in financial services. It was here that she came to understand how to combine her knowledge of commercial imperatives with legal thinking.

“When you’re working in a dynamic in-house environment, you have to work out how to use your strict legal upbringing and your private practice conservatism,” she says.

“You have to ask: ‘How does this solution work in this environment and how do you add value without compromising your skill set?’ I think you learn that over time. You come up with the best response rather than just looking at your own in a silo.”

Being solutions-focused works when your culture is one that mixes start-up thinking with established corporate values, Shields adds.

“Culturally, Google is very democratic and bottoms-up.”

THE HACKERS

ERIKA LY and EDWIN MONTOYA ZORILLA • THE LEGAL FORECAST

A coalition of early-career lawyers is rewriting the rule book for the future of law – and technology, disruptive thinking, and wellbeing sits at its core. MELISSA COADE writes.

For University of Sydney alumni Erika Ly and Edwin Montoya Zorrilla, law school has been a rewarding experience. But, after having dipped their toes into the waters of the modern workforce, the millennials say they feel disconnected from the prospects on offer. 

Like many digital natives who are coming of age and wondering what to do with their degrees, Ly and Montoya Zorrilla have found a pragmatic way of dealing with this problem.

The duo are members of The Legal Forecast, an Australian not-for-profit concerned with advancing legal practice through innovation and technology. The group offers workshops, develops content, and fundraises for wellbeing charities (among other things), all in a quest to improve access to justice via disruptive thinking. And, if you think sitting at the bottom of the food chain means they have no power to effect change, these bright sparks are keen to prove you wrong.

Her response was to petition the university’s IT faculty and seek out cross-institutional opportunities. With one more year of study left she has already written a thesis on innovation policy and law, organised a global legal hackathon, and relished an opportunity to participate in the LawWithoutWalls program developed by the University of Miami Law School.

Like Ly, Montoya Zorrilla, 27, is a first-generation lawyer. He recently took a job as a paralegal with Thomson Reuters after a stint in Berlin, where he completed a Masters in International Dispute Resolution at Humboldt University.

Ly, 24, is the first person in her family to study law and is president of the NSW branch of The Legal Forecast. Originally from Canberra, she made the decision to switch from a double degree in law and architecture to something that could combine her legal studies with IT.

“The way we teach law and the way we learn about it doesn’t necessarily connect with the experience we had growing up – which was with the internet and with technology; it was learning on computers. That world was not really touched on during my experience of law school, and I wanted to bring those two things together,” Ly says.

Montoya Zorrilla returned to Australia last year, looking for a way to tie together his interests in mediation, arbitration and environmental law, as well as find opportunities for the kind of “hands-on approach to law” he witnessed overseas.

As children, these law graduates were weaned on a diet of technology and the internet, and today see the world through the eyes of digital citizens. In their own words, they are “courageous and confident” about the future. In part, this is because they feel empowered to take the wheel of their own destiny. Google guides them on how to democratise their circumstances.

“There is something about being able to Google things you are interested in and learn about a random subject,” Ly says.

“You have to make and shape your own path if you’re really passionate about this area (legal technology).”

The Legal Forecast was recently moved to voice opposition to the dehumanising aspects of jobs in law following reports of top-tier firms in Sydney and Melbourne being investigated by Safe Work authorities for overwork, partly caused by the rigours of the Banking Royal Commission. The group published a position paper in December 2018, which proposed some solutions to issues they believe are making lawyers miserable. 

The paper suggests graduates want rewarding careers, not to be slaves to their desk jobs – and that technology can help bring the profession closer to this reality. It also aruges that billable hours have a lot to answer for when it comes to lawyer satisfaction and wellbeing, and that billing practices urgently need a rethink.

“The time has come for the legal profession to overhaul its work practices to significantly reduce overwork in the profession,” the position paper states.

“Young lawyers need to be absorbing a range of skills and perspectives that will allow them to flexibly adapt to the changing conditions of legal practice and the challenges ahead, rather than absorbing arduous routines that leave them burnt out and drive them away from the profession.”

Montoya Zorrilla, who led the push for a position paper, says there are major cultural challenges that the institution of law must also change. 

“Firms do offer ways of improving wellness and spaces where people can discuss personal concerns, but they still place heavy demands on lawyers that are non-negotiable,” Montoya Zorrilla says.

“How can we have a collective response to this? Who represents the interests of lawyers who are feeling the brunt of this pressure? That is something this conversation has got people thinking about.”

THE DISRUPTOR

BEN FARROW • FIRMCHECKER

He’s one of Australia’s youngest managing directors and is set out to tear down the corporate veil of law firm pricing and service delivery. KATE ALLMAN reports.

You wouldn’t dine at an expensive restaurant without checking its reviews on Google, TripAdvisor or Zomato first – why treat hiring a lawyer differently?

So queries FirmChecker, a new online platform that ranks law and accounting firms based on client reviews. The start-up launched last November after two years of development backed by global consulting powerhouse Beaton. 

Its young managing director and co-founder Ben Farrow believes FirmChecker is poised to change the game for how law firms win business in today’s reputation economy.

Farrow, 27, is among the generation of millennials who have lost trust in big brand names and are increasingly seeking peer reviews for advice on how and where to spend their cash. Eight in 10 of them will not buy a product without reading a review first, according to a 2018 study by UK online boiler business BOXT. They want to read real experiences from former and current customers, and will seek online advice on purchasing decisions small and large – from comparing working conditions at new jobs (available on Glassdoor.com) to ordering Thai on a Friday night (UberEats, Menulog, Zomato).

But the stakes are arguably much higher for people hiring lawyers.

“People will go to a lot of effort researching providers for fairly minor purchases, such as when picking a restaurant or where to order their UberEats,” says Farrow. “But it struck me that people didn’t really have any way of comparing providers of professional services. And those purchases can involve thousands of dollars.”

FirmChecker is one of the first Australia-wide platforms to hold a window up to the traditionally opaque pricing and service methods of law and accounting firms. It publishes real client reviews of firms in the same way that UberEats, TripAdvisor and Zomato host comments and ratings for local restaurants. These platforms have already proven that online reviews can make or break a business’ bottom line: researchers studying Yelp, the US version of Zomato, found that a one-star increase in average review ratings could lead to a 5-9 per cent increase in revenue.

The difference with FirmChecker, however, is that not just anyone can read or submit reviews. Clients must sign up for an account and submit a review before they can read others.

“Anyone can leave a Google review and that is a problem because they tend to represent extremes – those people who had disproportionately negative or positive experiences,” explains Farrow. “By requiring every user to contribute reviews, we are creating a more representative cohort.”

The idea struck Farrow in 2016 while he was collating client satisfaction data as a graduate consultant at Beaton. Beaton traditionally only catered to large, top-tier firms but Farrow realised such data would also be invaluable to smaller firms and sole practitioners. Making those reviews publicly accessible would enable potential clients – often inexperienced members of the public – to “go in with their eyes open” when choosing a lawyer or accountant. 

Farrow put together a business case to pitch to his formidable boss – the renowned “New Law” guru and author of Remaking Law Firms, George Beaton. At an age when most graduates are checking off discovery tasks in the open-floor coops of big firms, Farrow marched into the corner office of the executive chairman, plugged in a PowerPoint presentation and delivered his pitch for FirmChecker.

“His [Beaton’s] reaction was basically, ‘What a good idea’,” laughs Farrow. 

Farrow is quick to give credit where he says it’s due – Beaton provided the offices, back-end support and loans that enabled Farrow to test his rough initial ideas. George Beaton and his wife and business partner, Dr Margaret Beaton, became co-founders and met with Ben every Monday night for a year to brainstorm and refine the product. 

“We backed Ben because we believed he could do the work and because the time was right for the idea,” says George, reflecting on the Monday meetings.

Firmchecker.com.au hosts nearly 6,000 client reviews and Farrow says his team is working on verifying and publishing up to 5,000 more in coming months. More than 200 firms are active users and the company has begun to turn a profit. Farrow believes it’s a sign of the times; that clients demand transparency.

“I don’t think it’s enough that the status quo in a professional industry is to go to the Yellow Pages or ask a random uncle about who might know a good lawyer, then say, ‘Okay I’ll trust you’.” 

THE CHAMPIONS

ROBERT CUTLER, KATE JORDAN and ALISON  WOOLSEY • CLAYTON UTZ

It’s not just NewLaw and boutiques proving that law, diversity and flexibility are a good mix. One of the country’s biggest players is leading the way by challenging its own status quo, writes JANE SOUTHWARD.

There’s one statistic that proves to Rob Cutler, Chief Executive Partner of Clayton Utz, that doing things differently can pay off. Of the 20 partners under 40 from the firm’s pool of 172, 12 are women and eight are men. 

For many years, the percentage of women making partner hovered around 18. Then, a year after the Law Council of Australia released its ground-breaking National Attrition and Re-engagement Study (NARS) report, which found one in two women claimed to have experienced discrimination due to their gender, Clayton Utz set a target that by 2025, 35 per cent of the firm’s partners would be women. 

Now almost 30 per cent of partners at the law firm are women – an 11 per cent increase in four years – and Cutler claims it is realistic to strive for 50 per cent  female partners by 2030.

The problem at Clayton Utz, according to Deputy Chief Executive Partner Kate Jordan, wasn’t hiring and promoting talented female lawyers. It was retaining them; women were leaving the firm at twice the rate as men. 

“We commissioned a research report in which they interviewed all the women who had left over the past 10 years, plus all our current women partners, plus a number of our men to understand what was driving that high attrition rate,” Jordan recalls. 

“The results were that it was organisational ineffectiveness … People did not feel it was an inclusive environment where they felt (psychologically) safe in the workplace, where you can bring your whole self to work. There was a sense that flexibility wasn’t being embraced in our workplace, and that we had a non-strategic talent management process. Our women and men were thinking they didn’t have the flexibility needed to be a partner and manage all the other things in their lives.” 

Jordan is a case in point. She had built a successful mergers and acquisitions practice and, two weeks into maternity leave with her first child, made partner. She was 31. 

“I went on to have two more children and was in this cycle of building a practice when I was on parental leave and then fell off a cliff, then came back to work and built the practice, then fell off a cliff,” Jordan says. “My personal observation was the more we could do to support our people to be successful and for their practices to be well looked after and supported … that would really level things out and help people be successful.” 

Cutler agrees, saying one of the main lessons from the firm’s research was that the practices of partners who went on leave “weren’t being babysat for them”. “It was tough when they came back. We did something about that,” he says. Cutler ordered a review of the firm’s policies and found “they were underdone in terms of a statement of clear intent around encouraging and enabling flexibility”. 

“Then we looked at our technology and ensured we budgeted for a proper amount to enable flexibility and mobility,” he says. “There’s more to it than a laptop to work from home. It’s about the security of mobile connectedness, and we spent a lot of time and money with our occupational health and safety team around the safety of working at home.” 

The next step was to lead by example and educate partners overseeing junior staff that flexibility was part of the firm’s culture. Alison Woolsey, Director of Diversity and Inclusion, says 64 per cent of lawyers at Clayton Utz now work flexibly. “Flexibility means a variety of things – they may be working part time, they may be on reduced hours, they may be working from home,” she says. “It’s important to remember there are myriad ways you can work flexibly.”  

But what about junior lawyers who put in long hours under high pressure? 

“For juniors, a lot of the time flexibility looks different,” Woolsey says. “For older workers it can mean working from home or on reduced hours. For junior lawyers it just might be the gym at midday, or being able to work at home, or being at home when the plumber is coming. Often it’s about having time to participate in their charity or do volunteer work.” 

Cutler, who joined Clayton Utz in 1991 and made partner in 1998, says law is blessed when it comes to the opportunity to have diversity at all levels. 

“The diversity in the law school cohorts is incredible. Investment banks and engineers simply do not have that diversity coming out of university,” he says. “The only level where we face the challenge is in partner numbers. Everywhere else, we are solid.” 

Woolsey points to another key factor, saying the profession itself is a key driver: “Being a lawyer means doing the right thing by society, so you have that, which underpins our whole purpose.”

THE VISIONARY

MARINA BRIZAR • PLAYFAIR VISA AND MIGRATION SERVICES

A young lawyer from Sydney is exploring how labour mobility could bolster Australia’s immigration framework and change the way we think about refugees. MELISSA COADE writes.

Marina Brizar knows all too well the impact of war and civil unrest. Aged five and living with her parents and two brothers in a refugee camp in Croatia, she recognised the power that a UNHCR caseworker had over their destiny. 

“I had this sense that the person who was there in front of us could change the direction of my life. That really resonated with me,” Brizar says. 

“When we reunited with my dad [who had been caught up in the 1993 Siege of Sarajevo], he said he had dreams of going to the beach with his kids. That’s how we chose Australia. We had no ties, no English language, nothing like that.”

When her family was accepted to permanently settle as refugees in Sydney, Brizar remained fascinated by how and why they were able to start their new lives in Australia. She went on to study law and international studies, and the child refugee-turned-immigration lawyer, 29, is now making her mark on the lives of countless other migrants. 

2018 was a big year for Brizar, who visited Syria with former Australian senator Jacqui Lambie as part of the SBS documentary-reality show Go Back to Where You Came From. She was also awarded a Churchill Fellowship, which will see her spend eight weeks travelling to Canada, Germany, Jordan, the UK and the US later this year. The purpose of her trip is to explore refugee programs that foster the positive impacts of migration.

“The project is trying to see how other countries are using migration programs to assist people from a refugee background and then using that to craft a potential product, a humanitarian talent or a humanitarian skills visa, which we may be able to apply to the Australian context,” Brizar says. 

“I am looking to create a visa that will bridge the gap between humanitarian migration and skilled migration. In Australia we only have those two categories – there is nothing in between.”

The idea, partly inspired by the many displaced Syrians who are educated and speak university-level English, is to find a way for skilled refugees who are not classified as “highly vulnerable” (and therefore ineligible for a humanitarian visa) to come to Australia. Brizar believes creating a new visa class could be an economically viable way for Australia to accommodate more than the approximately 18,000 refugees it accepts each year. 

“[Displaced] people who have complete agency, who are making the most of their education and working in those countries are not seen as highly vulnerable, but they are people whom we can help and we can benefit from,” Brizar says. 

“Australia was at the drafting table of the Refugee Convention in 1951, so I see my research as an opportunity for our country to again be a leader in humanitarian resettlement.”

Brizar points out that Syria’s university in Damascus was one of the leading universities in agriculture, particularly water irrigation. Given the fact that Australia is currently in drought, she sees opportunities to match people with skills who are living in humanitarian conditions with a country in need of their special expertise. 

One of the more silent consequences of war is the assumption made about the skills of the people and the potential contributions they can make to society, Brizar adds. A common misconception is that refugees have little to offer and hail from uncivilised backwaters. 

She laments that a mention of her motherland is inevitably met with some remark about the Balkan War. Nobody remembers that in 1895 the first electric trams began rattling through Sarajevo, in modern day Bosnia, and the city’s citizens were the first in Europe to be serviced by a full-time electric tram. 

“The fact that Bosnia came from the Ottoman Empire through to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and that it was the first European city to have a tram, is completely neglected because of the civil war,” she says. 

“The SBS experience was, I hope, an opportunity to change discourse – to say: ‘For everything that you fear about refugees and people seeking asylum, I am one of them. And you can be a contributing Australian citizen but also a refugee’.”

Although Brizar’s proposed visa will not help all of the world’s 68.5 million displaced people (UNHCR estimates that in 2017 an average of one person was displaced every two seconds), she suggests it is a practical and effective measure. 

“I’m excited for Australia to be at the forefront of migration innovation and become a compassionate world leader in this space,” she says. 

“Hopefully something good come out of this project.”  

Photography: Jason McCormack and Evan Sycamnias