The Squiggly Moments That Shape Your Career with Aoife McDonagh

In this episode of If You Ask Me, Hannah and Sarah speak with Aoife McDonagh, Partner in the Funds & Investment Management Group at Maples Group, about building a successful legal career while navigating motherhood, ambition, leadership and career change.

 Aoife reflects on beginning her career during the global financial crisis, securing a training contract at a time when opportunities were scarce and how the relationships and team culture she experienced early on continue to shape her approach to leadership today. She also discusses the impact of AI and innovation on legal practice and what firms must do to attract and retain talent, particularly women.

The conversation explores the "squiggly moments" that often define women's careers in law, including Aoife's decision to leave her long-term firm while expecting her second child and join the Maples Group with a clear ambition to make partner. She speaks candidly about the pressure women place on themselves, the importance of being vocal about your own career goals and why simply "keeping your head down" is rarely enough.

If You Ask Me is sponsored by BlckBx, the life admin personal assistant behind professional working families - saving you time, mental load and giving you back your energy.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to the If You Ask Me podcast. We are Hannah and Sarah, two former employment lawyers, 10 coaches, and the co-founders of Blue Sky.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

This podcast is all about the big conversations we wish were happening more often in the legal world. From returning to law after maternity leave to what firms can do better to support working parents, to the coaching and mindset shifts that can help women thrive in demanding careers.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

Along the way, we will also be talking to women in leadership positions across law firms, those who've been through it themselves or who bring fresh insights into how the profession can evolve.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Our aim is to create a space that's uplifting and practical, a place where law meets life and possibility opens up. We hope you enjoy today's episode. In today's episode, we're talking to Afa McDonough, a partner at Maples PLC. She takes us through her career, some advice for women starting out, and the challenges that she's had along the way, including many squiggly moments. We hope you enjoy the episode.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

Could you possibly just quickly introduce yourself and let us know who you are, where you work, what you do?

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Well, firstly, thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted to be here. Yes, my name is Eva MacDonagh. I am a partner in the Funds and Investment Management Group of the Maples Group here in Ireland. We are an international law firm. We are headquartered in the Cayman Islands, but we have presences across the globe. Um, in terms of the jurisdictions I work most closely with, that would be um Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands. And that's me.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Fantastic. Um, okay, so let's start at the beginning. Can you tell us what originally drew you into the law?

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Yes, so I was thinking about this question during the week, and I really wanted to, you know, give you a strong start and an answer that was insightful and thoughtful. Um, but ultimately, um the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was kind of just always uh a career that I wanted. And that was probably driven down or based on kind of a couple of factors, but both my parents were barristers and are barristers. Um so I was always attracted to the pageantry of the four courts here in Dublin, the wigs, the gowns. And that was really the planned path right through college. Um but when I did graduate in 2011, we were in the midst of and at the height of the global financial crisis. And so uh I had to take a step back and think whether or not that career would suit me or work for me. And I had a long conversation with my parents and ultimately decided to uh apply to what we call the big five Irish commercial law firms here in Dublin. Um I was lucky enough to secure a training contract with AL Goodbody, which was a uh very large, prestigious, prestigious Irish law firm. And at that time, it was training contracts were very difficult to secure. Um a lot of my friends emigrated or uh pursued a different path while waiting to secure a training contract. So I jumped at the opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Thank you for that um early stage of your career, which is fantastic to hear. So now take us through. Um, obviously, your early influences were your parents. Um, and we sometimes speak to people who are first generation um university graduates or first generation lawyers, but obviously you're not. You're the child of two barristers. Um, was there anything that you remember from your childhood where you had any questions about whether that could be a good career for you, or was there never any doubt in your mind?

SPEAKER_00 3:59

My interests in English and history during school kind of aligned with what I assumed would be a legal degree and a career in law being a lot of reading, um, a lot of analysis. And I think the benefit of the law over, say, an English degree or a history degree being that you could pursue those interests while also being an advocate or you know, being able to apply real-life scenarios to those interests. I quite quickly realized that that was not the case at all. And uh it was kind of in the commercial law in particular was entirely different. And yeah, I was always very much encouraged to not continue the trend per se, but that if there was an interest in that particular qualification to certainly pursue it, uh, I have two younger sisters and neither of them are lawyers. In fact, they are completely uh uh abhorred to the idea of of pursuing that same same career. But um ultimately, I think when I got into AL Goodbody, for example, what was brilliant about it was, you know, I was 22 years old, and you're suddenly in a room with other people in and around the same age as you, and albeit that you're in a much more formal environment, it's almost like an extension of university. And so you're kind of embarking on that journey together, and I was really attracted to that, and that's definitely been a theme in in my career to date. I've always been really interested in people, um, particularly as it pertains to the teams and the teams that you grow with and then potentially leave and then start again. And but the the people has always been the common thread, and I think that you know, and I'm not in that very long, you know. I'm oh well, I'm now 36, but the the people has always been the key theme throughout. And so when you when I started off, and while I mightn't have known on day one starting my training contract that I wanted to be a partner, absolutely at that point, what's kept me going and the longevity has been in the development of those relationships. And uh I think you know, talking to younger lawyers now or talking to graduates coming out of college, one of the things I always talk to them about is like this is not, you know, you're not just starting a job and your life is over, you're starting on a new journey and you're gonna make friends and you're gonna have these amazing experiences that will endure for the rest of your career. Like the people I started out with are still my friends today. The role models that I have were born, and many of them born out of my time that was spent um in AML Good Body and seeing how people conduct themselves. And so those influences, which might have started with my parents, have evolved over time and continue to evolve. I meet senior lawyers now within the Maples group, and I think, yeah, I really like how that person does business. And I would I would like to come across the same, or certainly people's perception of me, I would like to reflect this type of person or that type of person.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

Okay, nice. And and obviously you're not you're not an AL and L goodbody anymore, but talk me through what your career there looked like. And also, I'm really interested in terms of thinking about those role models that you found. At what point did you kind of look at those role models or senior lawyers and think, okay, I do want to be partner?

SPEAKER_00 7:22

So, yeah, so I joined the Maples group in 2023, after 11 years in my previous firm, and that was born out of taking a step back in terms of reflecting on the sector that I'm in, the type of lawyer that I want to be, the type of work that I want to do. Um it was, I decided to take that step back and consider just after my um, or just before the birth of my second child. So that was certainly an interesting time for me to make a life decision like that. But I think when you come through an ecosystem like many of the firms that that we've worked in, you start to notice things, some of them subtle, some of them less subtle, and it it gives you pause. And I think that for me, it was important that I assess where I'm at and where I was at at that point and where I wanted to get to. And ultimately, I was very attracted to the fact that Maples was an international law firm. We were able to set up complex structures on a close jurisdictional basis. I was able to work with this like global network of colleagues. I like I mentioned the Luxembourg and Cayman Islands and learn to become you know fluent and speak and comfortable in speaking about different fund structures. And those opportunities, um, albeit it was a fantastic firm, as a domestic Irish firm, I wasn't going to be able to do that type of work there. And with that said, it was absolutely the right decision for me. And I can talk about my experience here in Maples very shortly. But what I definitely did benefit from the larger Irish firm, they're a domestic firm for want of a better term, is that there was a very defined structure for young people to train, to learn, to develop. And so I you know completed my four rotations, which is where you do a stint in in different departments, and uh found myself working for a magnificent team and that was led by Michael Barr and Laura Butler, who are still my friends, but initial role models back then. And what they taught me was the importance of teamwork, becoming a trusted advisor, and then juggling. So managing BD, managing the client relationships, and then also continuing to be a normal human, who you know, maintaining a work-life balance, getting home to your family. Now, I didn't obviously have children at that point, so I was able to dedicate a lot more time to the work at that stage, but it was an amazing experience, and I worked for that team for many, many years, and uh I think that that born out of that, then again, was this real like need to build out my own team. Then when I came to Maples, I was very lucky enough um to be joined by uh Katrina Clear, um, who we work together now in Algabody, and we now run the team here together. And so we're able to both of us bring that collective experience as to how we were trained here, and it has adapted very well into the Maples model. So, again, all of these you don't even realize you're learning them at the time, or you are um they're behavioural traits that you're not cognizant of as it's happening. And then funnily enough, it's all I think about now when it comes to leadership, managing large clients, managing the team. It's like, okay, well, this was my experience when I was a junior lawyer. I really enjoyed it and I benefited from it. How do I make sure that that is being carried through to how we're doing our jobs today?

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Yeah, I love that because you've looked at how you were kind of mentored and had role models in your early career and you've remembered it. So often people forget what made the difference for them, and then they kind of pull the ladder up from under them. But it sounds like you're really passionate about the leadership piece. Um, so when we when we look at women's careers in law, we sometimes see um it's not a straight line. There's sometimes some squiggly moments, and sometimes those moments are connected to having kids. Do you see your career as more of a straight line? And and you you you talk about being a normal human. Did you just find that all the steps that you took in your career and making partner um followed a quite simple trajectory, or were there any uh ever some squiggly moments for you?

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Oh, there's squiggly moments every day. But yeah, no, I think the the this the main squiggly moment, well, the the move to Maples was born out of that. And it was, I think, you know, I I've touched on it briefly already, but I wish I could go back four years when I was taking that pause to reflect on the squiggly moment and say, you know, this is going to work out because there's so much, I think, particularly for women, when there's a lot on the line, you know, we attach quite a bit of ourselves to, you know, making sure everything is going the way it's meant to be going. And, you know, as a younger lawyer, I definitely admired the you know, lawyers who stayed in firms for life. And I thought, wow, that shows commitment, and they're so invested in the business and they know so much and they understand the backstory to how things were decided. And I I put a lot of um emphasis on that for whatever reason, I'm not sure, but but I did. So the decision to move was quite significant for me. And it was stressful and certainly uh emotional for me as well, um, that I was leaving this part of my life behind. But actually, I think those squiggly moments can be the best thing that ever happened to you because you think about you're thinking outside of yourself for once, as opposed to, you know, well, I must do this for this person here. That you know, it's it's okay. Well, where do I need to be? Where do I want to be? Where do I see myself going? What should I be doing if I want to have this particular role at a particular point in time? And that would be my advice to people. Now, we you know, we do a lot of um, you know, when people either are at certain points in their career and they're interviewing with a number of firms, or if I'm having coffee with them and it's a big move for them, I I say this to them, I was like, you know, think about where you want to go and think about the type of work that you want to do. And it won't be easy, the transition will be difficult. But once you're there, it becomes a very distant memory. And you can still remember all the good things and take the values and the things that you learned and the people that you met, and retain all of that good stuff and use it to like empower yourself to lift off into your next into the next space that you go to. So I am all for the squiggly moments. I hope I have more of them. And when I see it happening to other people now, I'm like, there is good in this there, and there will be good out of this, and it's all about how you you process it. And it's funny, like even when I made the decision to join Maples, uh I had actually done an internship in Maples before I joined AL. And so I was quite confident that it would be an excellent place to work. And the one of the reasons for that is the same team of leaders that were in City when I completed the internship. So Peter Stapleton, our managing partner, Adam Donahue, Emerald Wire, they're the co-heads of our funds practice now. They were still here 12 or 13 years later. And they had grown the practice out, having it's actually our 20-year anniversary this year of being in Dublin. So Maples had started out as like a disruptor to the to the legal market. It was one of the first global international law firms to set up here, and they had grown it into not only like a well recognized and respected law firm, but they also had this massive funds practice. So I thought, okay, this is a young, dynamic partnership. I will find my my place here. And so, but this is all in the midst of me being about nine months pregnant, making this decision. And then I uh met with the partners a six weeks postpartum, which was not driven by Maples, that was driven by me because again, I'd made this big decision and I wanted, I didn't want to spend my entire MATLEA focused on it. I wanted to know it was happening, that's where I was going, and I was very committed to just seeing that through. But again, I think that speaks to the pressure that we put on ourselves, particularly at that stage of your career, to make sure you're making the right decision. And because if I was, if you know, Katrina or somebody else said to me now that they were going to do that, I'd be like, this is crazy. You you don't need to do this, but I think it's just the it's it's how we operate sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

So can you talk me through what it looked like being six weeks postpartum and then having to you know have those conversations just practically speaking, what did that look like?

SPEAKER_00 16:16

So because I knew the the partners here, it wasn't it wasn't a very formal interview process at all. It was it a lot of it was chats. Um my you know, I met Emer in a in a hotel where we had a coffee. Um it might have been only four weeks postpartum at that point, but uh and we had just some very genuine, open and sincere chats about what was going on. Um a lot of the partners here had actually worked in my previous law firm. So it again, a lot of the themes were we've all been trained in a certain way and grown up in a certain way. So nothing nothing was shocking about the fact that I was I was moving or choosing to move. It was a kind of a natural progression, I think, almost because of the the industry that we're in being asset management. So um it was all very I felt very comfortable, I felt I was in safe hands. And uh that bore through right into the the point that uh Katrina and I joined. And I think the the biggest adjustment is just that you're in a new environment and it's in it's a again a different ecosystem, and you're learning people and um how they operate and how this business operates. And I think also that kind of tied into so I joined Maples as a senior associate, um, but with a very clear focus on making it to partnership. And again, Adam and Ema were fantastic and at recognizing that ambition. And it's hard to be ambitious as a woman and as somebody who has just had their children, and um it can some I often get the impression that people find it affronting sometimes. And you know, it's it's almost better to be silently ambitious. You shouldn't tell people what you want out of something, you should just you know do the work and it'll get recognized. And in my experience, doing the work is absolutely fundamental to any promotion. But actually, if you're not vocal about it and you don't clearly state what your goals are, you can not get left behind, but you can be um not singled out, and it's very rare that you know, and I see it now, and it's nothing to do with gender, it's just it's very rare that individuals will get singled out early on to be like, that's the girl or that's the guy. It's like there, I feel now there has to be an element of putting yourself forward for these roles. And so I did that very aggressively in the first year, and I was very lucky, and we had some great wins. And it, you know, when it came to it, it was again for the like the progression pathway. You were trying to demonstrate that you were doing the job or the role of junior partner anyway. So be that leading a team, um managing large clients, ensuring the business and administration side of your practice was all in order. And I was I was doing that and I was trying to demonstrate that I was doing it. And so then when it happened, I was I was delighted. And it felt like coming back to the squiggly moment, I was like, I'm so glad that squiggly moment happened because I'm not mad. I am able to do this job, you know, and you know, it's brilliant that these people are here for it and they want to progress people who are working hard. And uh so yeah, I I was delighted.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

So on that point, Ifa, we often say on our program that to the women who are in very similar positions that you were in, that squiggly moment, we say um it's not enough just to have your head down and do those chargeable hours. You have to do more, unfortunately, and nobody cares about your career as much as you do. So exactly as you say about putting your hand up for opportunities and looking around, always to kind of self-promote. And we know that sometimes women are not brilliant at doing that. But um, on your point there, when you were six weeks postpartum and talking to Maples about your next step, what did you make it clear that you wanted partnership and that was something that was important to you? And obviously it couldn't be guaranteed, but was that part of that conversation?

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Oh, it was like very open engagement, and I think that was one of the things that attracted me to Maples. It is a young and dynamic partnership because it's a it is a younger firm than the other domestic firms, and so I was able to have very frank, uh straight conversations about where I wanted this to go and if the stars aligned, where I would hope it would go. And that was that was met with favor. That was met with very like, yes, if this happens and if we can do this, we can absolutely, you know, try and match the commitment that you're willing to make. And uh throughout the process, we had very open engagement about how things were going, where do we think it would get to? Like ultimately, I now have a much better understanding of the macro environment. Like, this is a business, you know, you can't just promote people because they put their hand up and want to be promoted. And um I again coming back to what I wish I could tell myself those years ago, is this is bigger than you. You form part of a much bigger environment where there are many cogs in the machine, and we must we must endure to or endeavour to manage all and not the one. And I'm not saying that very eloquently, but what I guess is as part of the evolvement of the last of my career to date, as you said, Sarah, it's moving away from the individual and moving into the collective. And I think that because that was the that was the tone of those conversations. It's like, yes, we'd love to make this happen, but there's also, you know, a delicate ecosystem. And you have to also manage all the other lawyers. And so my expectations at all point were were managed. And equally I felt I could trust in the process. And I think the trust piece is something that where it breaks down, no matter what job you're in, it's almost irretrievable. And so where you can continue to keep the dialogue open so that the trust isn't broken, it certainly is going to help you thrive. Now I'm sure, you know, I have probably have their heads melted where I'm going in and asking questions that I'm not meant to be asking, or you know, trying to understand more about certain why certain decisions are made. And uh Adam is, I'm sure, going to block me from his office at some point. But I think it's really important to help integrate yourself then within the business. So even though you might agree with something, you understand why that decision was taken.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

Now that you're a partner, I would be interested to know. Obviously, you've got two kids, you're juggling a lot. Is there any elements of your life in terms of juggling that's actually easier now that you're a partner versus when you're a senior associate?

SPEAKER_00 23:22

Funnily enough, like you know, it's it's like that classic thing um with anything in life, but particularly promotions, it's like you you achieve it and then you think you can breathe again. But like that is absolutely not the case. It just the the new wagon wheel starts turning and you're trying to catch up on what you don't know and what you need to know and X, Y, Z. So I think that because I think a legal career is so demanding anyway, you are just learning at each stage of your life that as it evolves, so be it like you know, you're in your early 20s, you can dedicate every single weekend to work if you want to, you can put your hand up to work on the extra projects to give another team a dig out. As you move into your later 20s, you might be preserving your peace a little bit more, but you're still doing exactly what you need to do at work. But you might be um managing your social calendar and doing less of that to whatever it might be. That was the same with family for me. So um by the time I had my first child, now it was during COVID, so that was also funny because I was working from home and there was suddenly it was like this I could just get up at quarter to nine and be at my desk at a quarter past nine with my cup of tea, and um so at every different stage of my life where there has been a shift, it's always kind of just woven into my work life. Then they're interconnected in so many ways. And so while it definitely is a juggle, and um my husband is a saint, and my pair it takes a village to raise a family, so my family are always or to raise young children, so my family are always on coal. Um the juggle is just the same as I think, depending on what life stage you're at. You know, and I'd say that there's a lot more scheduling, a lot more planning. Um you know, I check my calendar three times a day, I'd say at this point to make sure there's a babysitter for Saturday or that somebody's dropping somebody there on Tuesday. But I think it's manageable. And what I also look at is there are really senior female partners in our group in Maples, not just in Ireland, in Cayman and Hong Kong and elsewhere, and they they all have families. And like coming to the point, I think, around you know, this is not an insurmountable thing to be a lawyer and to have a family and be fulfilled. It's just about getting through these kind of tough years until everybody's a bit more self-sufficient and feeling like you've had the support of your team and your leaders and everyone else around you during that time so you can survive it.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

Ifa, was it as you expected? You probably worked with women when you were in your 20s and you probably saw them maybe looking exhausted and balancing, you know, a busy home life and a busy work life. But it's hard to imagine what it's like until you're actually living that life. Um, do you think it's as hard as you expected, or are you finding it more manageable than you thought you would?

SPEAKER_00 26:23

Uh, I think during my so the early stages of my career as a when I was a super junior, I definitely lacked empathy for what new parents were going through in the in the workplace. And I kind of thought, oh, well, you made a decision to have a family, so like you should be prepared for this, you know. And when I think back to how ignorant and silly I was, um, because they were going through this monumental lifestyle change and probably not getting the sympathy or the support that they needed, because I think firms in general have evolved massively even in the last 10 years, and I now appreciate it. And that has helped me think about no matter what people are, what stage they're at, think about what they're bringing to work and what they might not be bringing and what could be happening. And um I think that definitely in my role now, in terms of leading, like we have a large team now, and in terms of managing that and leading that, I, you know, what you want to obviously respect people's privacy, they don't have to tell you everything. You kind of want to keep that line of communication open so that if there was something that they can come to you and speak to you about it and they feel comfortable and that there's trust there that, you know, while I might not be able to do much about it, from a work perspective, I can provide as much support as they need. And uh, like I think that's another aspect of the role that kind of between senior associate and partner that I not that I wasn't prepared for it, but it certainly was eye-opening was the, you know, when you do a law degree, you don't do, I don't think people development or HR is part of the the module. There's not a module that's offered, but actually it's such a key component now of the businesses and the law firms, and because people give so much of themselves to their work. And so learning how to manage, not even manage it, but learning how to be empathetic, learning how to sub learning how to support people, but also try to run the practice. There are things that I'm learning and continuing to develop, and think that there could be more focus on that at every at every stage, but like even in the law schools, because it's not something I think people talk about earlier on, but it's a key component of retention and helping people feel like, oh well no, I'm gonna stay here and work hard because this is a great place to work.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

I love that. I think that would be a fantastic addition to a law degree. I agree. I mean, partners make partner because they bring in clients and they're good at their job. It's rarely ever because they're good at managing people, and then suddenly they're in a role where they're managing people and they have absolutely no training most of the time. Um, now that you are in a leadership role, has your perspective uh has your perspective shifted on what firms need to do to retain and develop talent, particularly female talent?

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Definitely, and I think that well, taking the females aside, I'll I'll I'll talk about maybe the females a little bit later, but in general, like when you are trying to get the best quality graduates, that's not what you're meant to say best quality graduates, but when you're trying to attract the best um candidates coming out of universities, what their expectations are of law firms now versus what they were in my day in 2011 have monumentally shifted in terms of like you know, gone are the days where people are mostly concerned about what their paycheck will be. Now it's that they want to work in a in a lovely new building, they want to make sure it's uh eco-friendly and sustainable. And they also want to hear about uh what innovation you are deploying in your firms and how to use that innovation to do your jobs. Like the questions that they're asking are are things that I would never have even they weren't in my vocabulary in 2011. So I think investment in in the firm so that it is indirectly in your people is key to attracting that talent from other law firms. And you know, uh Maple's Plug or whatever, like one of the things that has been a huge um not shift but advancement for for us is I don't know if you guys have heard about it, but Harvey AI. And Harvey AI so Harvey AI is like a legal um a legal version of chat GBT. That is absolutely not how I'm meant to describe it, but essentially it's it's an AI function that allows and that is specifically designed, it's designed by and for lawyers. And I think Maples were Harvey's like sixth client internationally when we deployed two years ago, and it has since been adopted by most of the Irish law firms. And that has absolutely fundamentally changed how junior lawyers are doing their work. And so, for example, you know, in 2011, if you needed to, you know, do a document review involving a thousand agreements because you had to find, you know, niche particular items like investor notification, you would have to bring in six trainees, you would be locked in a room, you would get these thousand agreements sent up from the archives, and you would sit there for the weekend page turning in order to see if there was anything in here. Whereas now, with like these large data set uh functions, you can like upload those documents onto these platforms and they can churn out the review within five minutes. And so suddenly the work has evolved entirely because now you don't need this like large mass of people to do an exercise like that, you need one person, and it can be done within a couple of hours. And so then the question is okay, well, that was part of like the core training when we were coming up, you know, that kind of even the grit of getting in and doing a job like that. So, how do you replace that type of training for the young people coming through? Now, like my view is actually it means that because they're not having to spend so much time in this large data set review, we're actually able to give them more complex work and things that you know that they might have to wait two or three years to get to do. And so they're going to develop quicker. And much like with the invention of the email, whereby you know, solicitors used to write each other letters, so it would take two weeks for each side to do anything because you'd be waiting for your letter to come through. And then the email came and things became much quicker. I think that's where the legal firms are going. So, how do you say to these graduates coming out of college, what are we telling them their day-to-day will look like? Because we're working in an environment where it's constantly changing. And so I think law firms need to continue to make sure that they're making investment in in that area. Um, we have, and it's been brilliant, and we'll continue to make more. We have a head of innovation now, Ian. He's fantastic, and he's a team. And again, it's been huge in terms of even for our clients and what we can do for them now. But so in so innovation, I think, is going to be huge. I think that um, again, demonstrating, and this is very specific to me, but traditionally in Ireland, you know, when you came out and you worked in an Irish law firm, you you never considered, like, you know, if you wanted to work internationally, you went to London because London firms they worked with US law firms. There was a big cross-border jurisdictional piece going on that we weren't necessarily seeing in Ireland. And so, one of the things I think we need to start communicating better to graduates and and people that you're trying to attract is like the international outreach that that we now have. And again, that comes back to the you know, how do you sell yourself or how do you portray yourself in the market to these people? I think we're pretty good at it. Um, but it's something I think we'll we'll start to see more of. I think in terms of attracting women, all all we can certainly all we can do there is demonstrate look at how many women are working here, look how many women have families, look at how many women have, and if not a family, other priorities, look at their work-life balance, look at the type of work that we're doing. And we can only do that if I continue to do it, if Katrina continues to do it, if our team continues to do it, because we're predominantly made up of women. And that comes with support from for the firms. And I think it's all about visibility and who we are. And for example, you know, when we go to events, as in Maples group or whoever, who do we send? What's the what's our messaging? And and ours has always been this is a dynamic group of people. We have many female partners, our global partnership has many very strong female partners, and this is this is the place if you want to go around your career and also have the rest of it because you shouldn't be denied the rest of it. And um, I'm very proud of that. And I know the partners here are super proud of that as well. And I think that as long as we continue in that trend, I think attracting female talent won't be an issue.

SPEAKER_02 35:27

Okay. Um, I would like to end on one question, which is if you had one piece of advice for you know a junior or senior associate who wants to have a family and also wants to be partner, what would your one piece of advice to that lawyer be?

SPEAKER_00 35:48

So Katrina and I have a phrase here that we use, and it's just keep going. And so when things are feeling really hot under the collar, you just put the head down and you keep going. And because main reason for that is that there are peaks and troughs in this career, there will be very busy times, and then there will be times where you can maybe carve back a little bit of your time, go for a walk at lunch or what that might be. But ultimately, it is a hard career, but it's also very rewarding and very fulfilling, and you will meet people that you will hold on to for the rest of your life. And if you're not happy and if you're finding yourself where you're doubting yourself, look at the environment that you're in and see if it's working for you. Because it doesn't have to be just you working for them. And if after that assessment your your gut is telling you that that isn't the place, well then just you have so many options because it is such a the being a lawyer will always stand to you, even if you never have your practice, you know, you practice for two years and you give it up, whatever. It it you've already developed a skill set that is going to empower you to go on and do great things. And you know, I have yet to meet somebody who has left practice and not done anything. They've always gone on to do bigger and better things, particularly women. And that was one of the things that I looked at when I was leaving my old firm was like, okay, well, anybody that I know who has left has gone on to do really, really great things and they have a bigger profile and they have a brilliant reputation. And so it's just taking that leap of faith. That's not to say everybody has to leave, but it's just taking the time to look at the environment that you're in to see if it fits for you anymore.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

Great advice. Um, yeah, look at the goldfish bowl you're in, and maybe you need to jump into a different one.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

Exactly. Eva, thank you so much for joining us. We have really valued your insights and um your advice as well, which uh definitely ends on a positive note. So thank you very much. Um, and we have loved speaking to you. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

Thanks for listening to If You Ask Me. We hope today's conversation gave you something to reflect on, smile about, and maybe even something to put action in your own career or firm.

SPEAKER_02 38:07

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SPEAKER_01 38:19

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