The Real Lawyer: Ryne Miller (Part 3)

In the final episode, Ryne Miller discusses how he stays grounded amid the pressures of a legal career. He highlights the role of mentorship, staying connected to networks, and prioritizing rest. Ryne reflects on mentors who modeled a healthy work-life balance and shares his personal interests outside of law, such as family and sports. He concludes with advice for law students and young lawyers, emphasizing the importance of mentorship, trust in career progression, and making time for personal refreshment.

Transcript

Joyce Sophia Xu (00:03.608)
Welcome back to the Real Lawyer podcast. I'm Joy Sophia Hsu, and you're listening to part three of my conversation with Ryan Miller. In the previous two parts, we had talked about how Ryan became a leading regulatory lawyer in commodities, futures, and derivatives. And in this episode, Ryan shares some of the fun stuff he does to stay balanced. He also shares insights and advice he has for young lawyers. I hope you enjoy.

Joyce Sophia Xu (00:36.44)
So Ryan, in our last episode, we talked about how your career has evolved over the years. And I'd have to say that every time I see you, you always look so calm and grounded. But we all know that just by virtue of being a lawyer at places like the CFTC and SNC, that's no small feat. It comes with constant stress and dealing with expectations of people around you.

And a lot of times your own internal expectations of yourself, right? So what do you do to deal with all the stress that's constant, you know, that comes along with work and, and, and tell us how you stay grounded and find some fun and joy in life. Yeah, those, those are great questions. hopefully I'll have some thoughtful answers. mean, one thing I've had both at the CFTC and when I was at Sullivan and Cromwell,

and even now is a mentor structure and people I look up to and I now try to do this for others if anyone, people who ask me, both formally and informally try to be mentors in different ways to different people depending on their situation. But I've had particularly really strong mentors who valued their personal life away from work and these were people who have achieved high things from the professional perspective.

They sort of taught me that they became my model for what life could look like. I do a lot of things the wrong way, particularly at S &C, both of my two main mentors there, they had their children, they had these private lives that they really enjoyed life and they made time for it. And of course we were busy and we had lots going on and they worked very hard, but they projected this model of

you it's someone's birthday, you show up for the birthday. When it's time for family, whatever, you do that and you dive in. And for many years, got, mean, as my, they were not only my substantive and professional mentors, but they taught me a bit about how they live their lives and created this model I tried to follow. And one thing that one of them told me once, we were getting ready for a client call and.

Joyce Sophia Xu (02:55.84)
I was super stressed like this client, really want to have this call now. They're so eager and focused on the timing of this. And I guess my boss at the time, he's like, calm down. It's going to be okay. says, we can do the call now. We can do it tomorrow. It's going to be okay. And like, that's not always the answer. Sometimes you need to do things right now, but he had a calmness about the way he went about his professional practice and clients loved it.

I learned a lot from it and we try to stay in that. that's, maybe that's part of it. Try not to think too highly of ourselves and or the sky is not always falling. I think we have to remember that every once in the sky does fall quite intensely, but the sky is not always falling. Yeah, that's a very good point.

I have to say you're fortunate to have such a great mentor. No, I've heard stories from people who went through big law and I don't even like the word big law, but people who went through the large law firm structure and they talk about really, they talk about working environments that don't sound appealing. I think that's the right way to put it. And I just did not have that experience. And I think it was a hundred percent due to particularly these two guys. It might, it might be.

part of the SNC model, maybe people don't agree with that. But I got two really great mentors and so was thankful not only for the substantive richness they poured into me, they cared about their own families and lives and they wanted to make sure that from time to time they would check in with me and make sure that I was not just enjoying work, but also enjoying life. So I got fortunate in that respect. That's amazing.

I mean, to have mentors who not only care about your work and also care about you as a person and making sure that you're also enjoying life. That's truly amazing. And speaking of enjoying life, tell us about your interests outside of work. What are the things that you make time for outside of work? Interest outside of the law. Well, I have two children now. So I have a 10 year old.

Joyce Sophia Xu (05:12.17)
and a 16 month old, maybe 17 months. And so 10 years ago, the answer was much different, but now I go to a lot of soccer practices. I'm supposed to coach baseball this spring, 10 and 11 year old baseball in Brooklyn. So that's gonna be a new experience. I have no idea how to do it, but they say it's easy and you just have to show up. Let's see. right, we're in a season where the extra time is usually

allocated to different activities in Brooklyn with our kids. I like going to sports. You mentioned that. It's fun. In New York, you have access to all the major sports and entertainment venues. And it's less about a love for sports than it is going there with friends and or family. And so I enjoy going out to events with people. That's always fun to do when you can make time for it. And America's great at the spectacle, the big entertainment spectacle. So it's nice to go.

to go be part of that environment. Sometimes, yeah, I enjoy that. And the theater, who doesn't like the theater? New York City, we have Broadway and other things. So between kids in Brooklyn, going to different entertainment events, that's pretty much what we do. Well, it sounds like you really do a good job of making the most of what New York City has to offer and prioritizing family. That's awesome. And speaking of love of sports,

You and I share a love for the NFL. And I think you made it to the Super Bowl earlier this year, didn't you? Well, I was in Las Vegas for Super Bowl weekend. convinced my dad and brother. So this was in February. I convinced my dad and brother that we should go. And we were thinking about going to the game itself. And then we looked at the tickets and they were like, I don't it was like $9,000 a ticket. We were like,

you know, maybe we can watch it at a restaurant or something. So unless they have a big screen. Yeah, we booked a table at what's called a sports book, one of these places with giant screens on the wall. And we had a blast. We had an absolute blast. were there three days. And Las Vegas is fun on its own, but when the power of the NFL came to town, there was different events every day and night and all sorts of, if you looked around, all sorts of famous people wandering around.

Joyce Sophia Xu (07:38.382)
I mean, that sounds horrible, probably to many of your listeners, and it might sound fascinating to some of your others. Doing it with my dad and brother was fun. We hadn't done a trip like that. And I have two brothers. Only one of them got to go on this trip. doing it like that, we had a great time. We had some friends we met up with there, spent a little time with. But yeah, it was a family trip. Well, that's a pretty special family trip.

with your family, with your dad and brother. And it really just sounds like it was a lot of fun. It was enjoyable. we, the environment, like the whole Vegas scene, there was hundreds of thousands of people there, way more than was ever going to fit in the stadium. So we were not the only ones who had this idea to just be there to be, you know, to feel some of the energy. But yeah, it was, it was worth doing. We'll talk about it for many years.

Awesome. I'm making time. think most people do this. mean, it's not all traveling and going to events. My wife and I love to go hiking, particularly around the New York area. So there's just different things though, where you're out for a day or a couple of days and you're able to truly check out from, and as a professional, you manage this, you don't leave clients hanging, but if you structure it to where you can truly check out from time to time, it allows for this refreshing to happen.

I certainly don't get it right most of the time, but we try. Ryan, you've shared with us a lot of things that bring fun and joy to your life. So now I want to bring it all back and close this conversation with one last question. Are you ready? I suppose. All right. So my final question is.

Imagine you were talking to law students or young lawyers about your career. What would you say to them are the top three things that have really sustained you through tough moments and carried you forward? Yeah, the first one, and I've shared this with students and lots of others, I really like mentoring and or sponsorship or whatever. The idea of having

Joyce Sophia Xu (09:58.048)
a handful of people that you connect with periodically. And this needs to be both personally and professionally. It's not one without the other. And then there's two different groups of people, but folks who you look to as your partners going through life, who care about what you're doing and what you're trying to achieve. think periodic check-ins, even if on a scheduled basis or ad hoc, it doesn't matter, with people who you think of as your mentors and...

you know, and who pour into you is really important. And I have that both on the personal side of my life and the professional side. I've got folks externally who I've met throughout my career who I have do this mentoring for me. So that's one. Mentoring is great. Two is, it's maybe hard to accept, but sort of live with the perspective that it's gonna be okay. Like things are gonna be okay.

And I talked to some law students about this yesterday. They're sort of thinking about what they're going to do after law school. Are they going to get a job? Are they going to like their job? Is it going to lead to whatever they're trying to achieve? And I just told them to sort of accept that it's going to be OK and allow that to take some of the edges off the anxiety. There are times when things aren't OK. you can have unexpected news. You can have unexpected developments. But

A lot of times it's gonna be okay. And I think encouraging people to live in that, and it takes the edges off some of the worry, particularly around a lot of things you can't control, it's gonna be okay. That's number two. And then number three, I do like the pattern of times of refreshment and break. So looking to make that space for yourself to truly check out.

You don't have to do it every Saturday or every Sunday. It doesn't have to be a religious experience. But I think throughout the human experience, we find that these moments of refreshing are really valuable to keeping you both productive in the other time periods, but content and pursuing whatever you're trying to pursue. So those are my three things. Get yourself mentors. Remember that it's going to be OK. And then take time to refresh. All right. Beautifully said.

Joyce Sophia Xu (12:19.242)
Ryan, I thank you very much for your time and your wise, wise thoughts. Something. I thank you so much, Joyce. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Talk to you soon. Thanks.

Joyce Sophia Xu (12:38.766)
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoy the conversation, do let us know in the comment section. And also, if you want more information about Ryan and our other guests, look us up on LinkedIn or Instagram. The links to these pages are all in the show notes. And be sure to join us for more conversations with real lawyers. Until then, be well and be happy.