The Mediator - Samantha Lowe on managing big personalities and high emotions

In this show, Annmarie Carvalho - The Lawyers' Therapist - talks to private wealth mediator Samantha Lowe, founder of specialist mediation firm Concentus. Sam discusses her journey from law firm litigator to setting up her own mediation practice for high-net-worth inheritance and divorce cases. She talks about her experiences in business, mediation and family life - and how to balance them effectively in a high-stress, emotionally charged working environment. Don't miss this lively chat - with great advice on active listening, plus some rhinos and a pooch...

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Hello, I'm Amory Corvallier, the lawyer's therapist and CEO of TCC, the Legal Therapy Coaching and Training Agency. Welcome to Staying Sane in Law, the show where every episode I'm in conversation with a member of the legal profession talking about the gritty realities of life in the law. Now, today I'm joined by Sam Lowe. Now, you're a bit of a legend, aren't you, Sam? Hello and welcome to the show. Hello, thank you. What an introduction. No pressure.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

I'm sorry, I'm gonna dive in right now. I normally have to stay quiet at this point, but I'm gonna say right now, you've had the best introduction, Sam. Uh, you know, I just I I'm still I'm still sore about the crack producer. You know, you're a legend.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

It's good again. Sam's a crack mediator. I mean, was that sound inappropriate?

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Can we say crack mediator?

SPEAKER_01 0:58

I'm not sure we can. Uh everyone else who's done the podcast now feels really mortified that they're not a legend, but you're you're all legends. You're all my favorites, Bruce Bruce Forsyth used to say. Okay, so you were a commercial litigation lawyer at a large firm for almost a decade. And then you set up your own practice, consent as mediation, back in 2016. So you are celebrating your 10-year anniversary this year.

SPEAKER_02 1:27

I am, I can't believe it. 10 years of a lot, a lot of things this year. My little lady turning 10, 10 years for the business.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Yeah. That's amazing. You set up this business in the same year that your daughter was born.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Yes, it's all part of the catalyst, really, for setting up the business and getting everything cracking. Um, so yeah, it all falls quite nicely for sort of celebrations and yeah, five years, ten years.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Babies are a catalyst, aren't they, in the legal profession? Because Emily Roskilli, who was on uh a couple of shows ago, she also decided to go out and start her own business when uh she had a baby. Francis as well, the barrister has got two young children. Uh Bav as well. Kids seem to be a massive productivity boost. You don't need A and I, do you? You just need a baby.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

I have to say, I always say this to people when our twin, because I set up when our twins were 18 months old and I left, I left my law firm. Well, I went on Matt Leave and never went back, basically. But it is a bit of a catalyst, isn't it? Or it gives you a sense of urgency, um, of like, oh, actually, and maybe a bit of bravery as well, because everything else is so scary when you have a baby, you're just like, I'm gonna add something else to the mix.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

I think that's true. I think that it's such a it's such a big time, and and it's for me, falling pregnant was it took a very long time. And then everything that came with pregnancy, and I'd done a recent post about this, and Anne Marie had commented on it in terms of um how it affected me mentally, was so huge that actually the idea later on of setting up my own business and having a go at that did really sort of did not feel on the scale that it would have felt if I'd had tried to do it say two years before, without having had all those big life events having happened.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

The sort of conventional wisdom is, isn't it, that um, you know, if you go through, let's say, a sort of wobbly time in life, that you need to then play it safe thereafter because, you know, you just need to keep everything very small and safe, et cetera, et cetera. But as you say, actually, that's not always the case. Actually, it can be a catalyst. And we were talking, weren't we, about per perinatal depression, basically, and it's something that not many people talk about. You know, looking back, I was really wobbly when we had our third kid because I was so happy and it was a complete surprise, and you know, it was a real struggle for us to have kids, as we've talked about. And um, but at the same time, biologically, my body and brain, everything was going all over the place.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

When looking back, it sort of all fits quite nicely. But at the time, it was just a crazy time. Um, having been a firm for just shy of 10 years, on track for partnership and all the rest of it, the standard process that we all seem to go through from training contract to assistant to associate to partner. Um, I know it's slightly different now as firms have devolved. There's a load of other layers in there, but back when they were the layers. Um, and and then falling pregnant right at that point, and having for years suffered from depression and anxiety and and and those things, um, then having all of that hormonal influx and whatever then is happening with your body and your mind while you're pregnant really was quite severe, um, to the point where I just sort of left and just said, Well, my body and my mind, if I'm absolutely honest, just shut down and shut off and it all had to stop. And then coming out of that when Rosie was born, it just gave me a new sort of found motivation to not want to go back there, whatever there was, and whatever was making it. And a big, big part of that will have been the environment, the litigation that I was in, the constant um sort of stress of the job, which would have applied anywhere wherever I was. And it gave me that motivation to think, well, now I've left, now we're in this situation in life. If I don't do it now, I'll never do it because I know I'll go back, become partner, be stuck in that, be and really sort of find it difficult to then make the decision of when do you leave. So it all sort of worked out that way. Um, and financially, it wasn't something where I could sit there at that point and go, Well, I can have a year off with the baby now because I wasn't working for anybody. Statutory maternity pay, my goodness, uh was a shock to the system, as well as um my husband sort of at that point just saying to me, Look, whatever needs to happen can happen. If we go back and start absolutely from the bottom again, it doesn't matter. We crack on. Um, and I just sort of got going with it. And Rosie, Rosie was part of the adventure, really. She came everywhere with me, which was an interesting thing to do 10 years ago. I think people now would still be, you've brought a baby.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

I remember going to a family law conference, but when our little one was a baby, and that was only that was three or so years ago, and people were like, that's I mean, people still mention it to me now, actually, because um, you know, they they sort of remember it. I think it's a wonderful thing that your daughter's kind of in entwined with yeah, the genesis of your business. And again, I was thinking about it this morning about masking, but you know, and and we all talk about masking in terms of neurodivergent people, but masking in the sense of in the legal profession, many of us, without realizing it, have to mask to a certain degree to look comp competent and for your clients to have faith in you, particularly, I think, when you do more litigious work where it's it can be a bit, you know, you have to you have to fight for your clients. And and over time, that I think that can become kind of exhausting. So when I speak to people who've started their own businesses in the legal industry or adjacent to it, there's you have with your with your mediation business, and you now do commercial and private wealth disputes, um, which will come on to, but you can kind of put down the mask. Um, and that's what I see with you when I see you on social media and you know, and now we're talking now, you just are who you are. There's no like side work and home some. It you just are you.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

Yeah, absolutely. You can when you're working for yourself and listening to your podcast where you talked about wanting to combine the work amory and the home personal amory, it when once you start working for yourself and you can absolutely just be yourself at all times, and you're only answerable to yourself. So therefore, if you if if being yourself some people don't like when you are self-employed, I do beat myself up a bit about that. Should I have behaved a bit differently there just to try and appease that person and therefore win work from that person? But actually, I'm so that 10 years in, I'm in a position where I just think, well, no, that actually we wouldn't have been a fit there, and that's absolutely fine. It's not a problem. They need somebody with a different style, a different approach, and and and I can absolutely just be me in my business, in mediation, and and it's absolutely liberating. I think when you've been in a firm, and especially 10 years ago, and and I do try and talk to people about this now because I think it still exists in a lot of firms, even though there's this approach of go on LinkedIn, be, you know, get get us work, get out there, but actually don't be yourself and don't say this and don't say that. And there's a whole list of things that we don't want you talking about. And please don't comment on this person and don't comment on that. It I can't think of anything worse. That would just make me retreat back again and think, well, I'm not doing it because I'd be frightened stiff to do and say anything that you should and shouldn't say. Um, by working for me and building the brand. And as a mediator, the brand is you essentially, even though I have a separate brand, it's still me, it's me going into those rooms, and so you can only be yourself in your marketing with it.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

You mentioned you know, being a chameleon or you know, not really having to do that so much. Now you have your own business and it being quite liberating. And I was thinking about the dynamics that you encounter in your work though, because lots so some of your mediations would just be with the parties involved, so the sort of lay clients, but lots of them you will have solicitors involved in the room, you will have barristers involved as well. That's a lot of different psychology for you to manage. Like, how do you do that without being a chameleon and trying to please everyone all the time? I mean, that's it sounds like hard work.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

So I think I think there's probably, there is probably still two Sam's to a certain extent. There's the Sam who is out there building the business, winning work, and sort of getting it, you know, getting it in and getting the mediations. And then once in the mediation, obviously I'm me as much as I possibly can be. But because there are so many dynamics and so many um personalities to manage, the only way to make that work is to clock all of the personalities, clock everything that's going on in the rooms, and try and manage those people in the best way possible that they're going to respond to in the best way possible. And obviously, we get it's difficult enough with the parties who are in the thick of it, suffering from all of the difficulties that come with it, all the anger, all of the grief that comes with a personal wealth dispute. Usually somebody has passed away. Um, and you've got to clock all of that, as well as their own personality styles, because that will be in the background to those feelings as well. Then we introduce solicitors of which they can be one or six, depending on the size of the team. And then we introduce counsel, and again, we might have one, two, or three in one room depending on specialism. And all of those personality dynamics become sort of huge in the room. And if I am too, if if depending on how I want to be in that room, I I've got to then clock. Well, I can't be too um abrupt with that particular person because I can work out very quickly that the power dynamic for counsel who feels they've been brought in to do a very specific job. I don't want to be, you know, isolating them or, you know, peeing them right off at the beginning of the day. But equally managing the fact that it's not their mediation, and whilst they are there to do a job, the mediation is for the person who's living, breathing it every single day, and giving them space to let me in to the client behind, which is very, very difficult. And I, you know, that that part of me, as much as one part of my brain might be saying, you know, you need to say this to that person, it's working out the right time. And so you are to an extent a chameleon in that because you've got to manage everybody and make everybody feel heard, irrespective of what might be going on in my mind about how Sam feels about it. That bit's not about Sam, and that bit's about making sure that everyone's had their chance, but equally telling them when their chance, when you know, council, that's your bit done now. Please let me in. Please let me in to client at the background, so that we can get to them as well.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

The skills that make you good at your job are yes, the legal skills, but your emotional intelligence. You said earlier, you walk into a room, you're reading the dynamics immediately. You've got all this stuff projected onto you by other people, including some quite powerful lawyers and the lay clients. How on earth do you stop it getting under your skin? Or is that impossible?

SPEAKER_02 13:21

I think the reality is some things get under your skin, some things just do. And and and again, just a shot, shout out to Anne-Marie for helping me at one point where I really was struggling with um getting past certain things. The way that the way that I am and the way that I can get through, I can get through them on the day, but then it's afterwards with reflection and when you've realized how much you've had to absorb and what what has been done and said um is can be very tough to get through. And I think in the family world where there's various layers for mediators and family practitioners, it's not quite for for help, is what I mean there in terms of helping with that. It's not quite reached the commercial civil probate world yet. Um, and so you have to sort of actively try and seek that help when you know that you need it. And and Ammarine's been absolutely sort of crucial for me with that. It's sort of eight or nine years in when I was just sort of had really absorbed a lot and really needed some help with more skills to how to how to look after me in that situation. Um, and I think that equally applies to a lot of the the lawyers as well in the in the rooms. They they they're absorbing a lot from their clients, and then somebody else is coming in, a third party is then coming in. So then they've got an opportunity to then, you know, put it all onto someone else essentially. Um, and and I think it would be I'd be lying if I said that it doesn't get under my skin with some things. And unfortunately, because of the confidential nature of the work that I do, it's not something that I can then just actively talk about um afterwards, which can be, which can be really, really difficult. So I'm not I'm not gonna lie. There's some things that people say that you can't unhear and you've heard them and you've had to take it on and and and then and move on. And in a l in a very similar way, I suppose, to a therapist's role, um, where it can get and and I am quite keen for the psychology part of a mediation to be present and for people to have the ability to talk and get things off their chest because that allows them to move into a space to look forward to the future and what a what a solution can look like. And when I started, I was very keen to push that because 10 years of working in that area and having very commercially minded mediators come into matters and not allow the parties that space, I could see there that there was a massive gap, which is why I ended up doing what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

I've been reading some of your uh posts, obviously, and I basically for Anne Marie, I LinkedIn stalk people there. Now you know.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Mediting, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 16:10

As I have gone through and I've looked at your uh top tips for mediation, which uh was brilliant, I have to say. If you haven't seen it, uh go to make sure you follow uh Samantha on uh LinkedIn and read that one, which is very good. It's the one that ends with bring a pooch if you can, because dogs do help everyone keep perspective. That is absolutely brilliant, but that's true. You talk in your posts about listening to understand.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

And that really sort of hooked me because I thought that actually is a skill, right? That that it is a it's a dying art in some respects. Yeah. That must have helped you with the business as well as a skill to deploy in your mediation sessions.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

Yeah, very true, very true. I think that it's very easy, isn't it, to have in your head what you want to say, what you want to do, how you want to respond to something. And and it and it for a lot of people, it doesn't really matter what's coming at them because they're already prepared to do that. And I think if it's a difficult skill, it requires a lot of just sitting back. And somebody commented on that post. It might have been that post, Andrew, or another one which was similar, which was about um it coming with developing wisdom in a sense of of just being able to really listen and take in what's going on and then respond. And when you are developing a business, you also have to do the same. And and not, I believe not shooting from the hip applies um to that as well. And it can be really difficult when you when you first set up in self-employment, not to just take everything that everybody is giving you. And you you can listen to it all, but then really think, how do I want to go ahead with all of that? And and that's been quite relevant to my husband's also set up a business. We've we've set this up together, but he it's his thing, and I I just do the admin in the background for him. Um, a coffee business that's celebrating its fifth birthday next month, and that again is is huge, especially in hospitality to to to have survived, to be honest, and to keep surviving at the moment is very difficult with that. Um but absorbing everything that's going on in the same way as sort of listening to everything that's going on and then really reacting in a in a in a way that's understanding everything around you is just crucial. Um, and not again, that was another thing, people coming in very quickly, seeing, seeing other people's success and wanting to have a bit of it and therefore come at you with their their proposals or ideas, and it takes a lot of strength to sort of think that sounds great, but no, because I know that that's not right for what we're trying to achieve. And that could be really tough.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Particularly, I think, when the person who's giving the advice is from a big institution or a big law firm, or you know, I've found this a lot with my business, where as you say, initially you're so grateful for the work, you're like, oh my god, this is and people give you unsolicited advice often. And and I would think, oh, I need to take everything on board, I need to take everything on board, and you know, feel mortified if something I did was something that someone didn't like or or whatever it might be. But as you say, over time, you learn how to sift through things, take what you need and leave the rest, kind of thing. Um, and it's still a challenge, isn't it, if you're a porous kind of person, but finding your own way is crucial, isn't it? And you only do it through trial and error. And, you know, and one of the things that, you know, I've already alluded to it is the way you are on social media, which as far as I'm concerned, is just who you are as a person, and it's just there, and you know, it there's no sort of side to you, and and and that you seem to know, you know, what your idea of success is for your business, you know, because I think again, when you start a business, there can be an assumption that you want to grow it and you want to do this and you want to do that and take on employees. And actually, more and more I speak to founders who are saying, I don't want to do that, I want to keep it small, I want to be agile, I want my independence, I want my freedom, that's the most important thing. I want to have control, you know, that can be healthy, it's not necessarily a dirty word. Um, and I don't want to have to travel around the country and go to all these in-person networking events and blah, blah, blah, if I don't want to do that. Um, so for you, what does success mean to you now? Do you think?

SPEAKER_02 20:22

Now it means having the time and the ability to choose what I want to do. And that feels that feels huge now. Um, and it's not when when I when I did set up the business and we'll sort of come to the rhinos, but I'd I'd in my head thought I'll have a separate brand because I might bring on other mediators, I might bring on other people, and it would be great to have the opportunity to do that. And then the more I've sort of got into it and the more conversations I've had, and the the the where where those conversations have failed, it's actually made me realise that that isn't the success that I want in any event. And I've got to a point where I'm I'm happy that I've got that brand sat there and it works with me. But it feels great to be in complete control to an extent that you you are in control of everything as being self-employed, but um, and being able to choose um the work that I would like to do, and then being able to have time where whilst it's it's it can be absolutely crazy at times, and I have to just take it and run with it because you have to, and then being able to enjoy the down times and think, you know, it's great to actually just be in control of that a little bit more than I have been over the years. Um, and that feels like success, and just being able to sort of sit and take that in, and you know, be able to sort of say, Well, no, I'm not working sports day and I'm not I'm gonna sort of the you know, prize giving or whatever's going on at school where I want to be there and I want to see Rosie or. if there's a particular fixture for cricket she's into and I think no do you know what I'm gonna take that that day off because I know she's gonna be doing that and that feels like a huge success that I didn't think I would ever get to. Who knows if I can continue that because we all know about the pigs and troughs are the business but at the at the moment that's the bit that I'm I'm enjoying the most thank you so much Sam for joining us today for Stay Sale in Law it's been an absolute joy to wait wait we haven't had the rhinos yet we haven't had the rhinos story where did the rhinos come from Sam the rhinos in your logo I love them where did they come from it was part and parcel of the wanting to stand out be different at the time not sort of just do something bog standard like Samantha law mediation with a circle round it or anything like that. And but a bit more thought went into it. So unlock horns was the was my idea that sort of came up and I thought how can I build on that for the brand um and then looking into this whole idea of when animals lock horns, it's very much structured it is a pushing and a wrestling it's not designed in a lot of cases to be just going straight in for the kill. And it's it's but it is a case of who can push the other one to to dominate and sort of the unlock horns sort of came into it of of that's what litigation's generally doing. It's pushing for one to be the winner and one to be the loser and me sort of getting in the middle to to unlock that. And then it was just looking for an image that I really wanted to be a beautiful image but equally a serious image and that one just came up with my sort of hours and hours and hours of trawling of one that worked. And then I seen it and I just thought that's it. That's exactly how I want it to be I want the website to look like that and I want it to because because social media was in my mind at the time of this is going to be how I'm going to build it because of home um people will have seen on LinkedIn that I share a little bit of my snippets of home of being growing up as a young carer now having my mum who has a severe disability living at home with us with my dad um life doesn't work for me. I tried to make it work and COVID actually whilst COVID was a horrific thing to happen for everybody and particularly for us because of my mum's disability being on a ventilator we had to shield for 18 months and just not go out until the vaccine came. And as a result of that everything for me was remote even when people were out and about during the periods of time that you could go out and about um it life for me doesn't work just jumping on trains, jumping on planes, going off to these conferences, going down to these things down south all the time and going to a dinner that might take a two hour journey. And so I I wanted to use social media as a way of marketing because that was the way that was going to work for life and for me and therefore needed something that was going to catch people's eyes with that as well. So the rhinos just really fitted in for lots and lots of reasons um and and still works and people still talk about them 10 years later which is really nice and cool.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

So yeah and um I thank you as well for mentioning talking about you know the reality you know the living a life I mean we talk a lot about being wonky on this program don't we Andrew we're all wonky you know we all have stuff that we need to deal with and you've had a lot to deal with and you're making it work with the business and your husband Mike is making it work with his business as well. It's really um it's important for people to hear this stuff and it makes you more human as well.

SPEAKER_02 25:39

Well that's it life going on in the background and and that's something that I like to try and push because we're all wonky to help people feel a bit more like life isn't life isn't all you know roses for for everybody. And therefore social media being aimed at making it look like that just makes it a thousand times worse for everybody else's mental health because they're thinking well I've got this I've got you know my mum and dad aren't particularly elderly they're only in their 60s but they've got um you know this huge huge thing that has been around since since I was a child. So therefore they need a lot of support. Other people might have their elderly parents that are needing a lot of support so that but but everybody just making it look shiny on social media doesn't help. So I always think that's helpful. And I and I think from a mediation point of view I talk a lot about showing compassion in both rooms and and I think lawyers can really help with this is that you can get so bogged down in the legal side of it and what your client has told you about the other room. And so therefore the anger and the hatred is is there and the lawyers can feed that. And I try and get them to step back a bit from that and try and remind everybody that everybody has stuff going on whatever scale that might be and whatever time of their lives they might be in and to just have a bit of compassion for what for for everybody involved in the process usually then really helps to try and break down a few of the barriers that we need to break down in mediation.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

Not all of them but if we can have a bit of compassion for the other side it can help and that's why the dog works right that's why the dog is so good.

SPEAKER_02 27:16

The dog's brilliant it is and COVID brought that as well people having the cat walk across the screen the dog coming in you know all of that the lawyers actually kids knocking on the door at tea time because they wanted their tea and and they hadn't been out all day and and everyone just seeing real life going on in the background of mediation for the advisors as well as the parties I felt really helped break down a lot of barriers of having that really formal process and just really making it that little bit more informal and we were all forced to do it actually is one of the real sort of gems that came out of what was a very difficult time for Let you're very disarming Sam I reckon in in a lovely way.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Thank you so much for joining us today. It's been an absolute joy and you are a legend as I said at the start um now you can find Sam at consentus hyphenmediation.com that's consentus spell C O N C E N T U S and also hanging around on LinkedIn like me and you can find me at carvalli therapy.com that's C-A-R-V-A-L-H-O or my LinkedIn page or my legal agony page in the Financial Times I've made that sound really a lot more jumped up than it is it's a column it's a short column let's put it that way and you can check out other episodes of the podcast at stainsaneinlaw.busbar.com or wherever you get your podcasts now Sam can you give us a little goodbye to uh say goodbye to our lovely listeners goodbye everyone and thank you for listening and thank you for having me Anne Marie thank you for being here and uh remember listeners we're all a little bit wonky short column or not it's in the FT you're in the FT don't make it sound like it's nothing that's so LinkedIn you know it's like I'm so humbled by the fact I've been made CEO of the world no you're not all right blow your trumpet blow it I'm gonna blow I'm gonna blow my trombone now it's a sad trombone it's the wrong sound effect I'm sorry I ruined it can we have a celebration for Sam's 10 years in business can we have our celebration noise let's do it Sam giving it up big time