The Space: Leadership and law - episode four

Emma Dennis: Welcome to The Space where we break down barriers and perceptions about a career in law by talking to the talented people of Gowling WLG. I am Emma Dennis, diversity inclusion and wellbeing senior manager at Gowling WLG, so join me as we get to dive under the surface and understand the diverse experiences and perspectives of our people, how they have got to where they are and what they wished they had known.

Today, we are here with Liz Gane, partner and team leader of the firm's Pensions team to hear more about her role, how she got to where she is and what a leadership role in a law firm is really like. So hello Liz.

Liz Gane: Hi.

Emma: Thank you so much for being here today. I mentioned just that you head up the Pensions team at the firm and wondered if you could tell us a little bit more about your role and what you do.

Liz: Yes sure. So, the team consists of 45 lawyers and around 10 support staff so it is quite a big team to be looking after. I do a whole variety of things, so I am looking after clients on the one hand, doing my normal day-to-day job, I suppose, but then the rest of the time is taken up with looking after the team. Whether that be a pastoral role or sometimes it is working out where people are going to sit, it is about recruitment, it is about working the finances of the team. So, it encompasses an awful lot, it is certainly very varied and very interesting, but it can be quite busy as well.

Emma: Is it a couple of years you have been team leader now?

Liz: Yes. So, just into my second year of doing the role.

Emma: How has that changed your role? What is being a team…I suppose it is what you have just said, a lot of what you have just said but how has that changed from when you were a partner in the team to now leading that team?

Liz: Yeah, so it is much more about looking after people, looking after the finances of the team. I would say the biggest part of the role is looking after people, because it is the people in the team that keep us going, they are the most important part of the team. So, I have to make sure that everybody is as happy as they can be at work and able to do their job and fulfil their role for clients. I have to say I am not doing it all on my own, I am ably assisted by my other partners in the team but the bulk of it is me leading and working out what is needed, setting the strategy for the team, setting the recruitment strategy, the recruitment policy, setting the finances for the team and the targets that we are aiming for each year.

In terms of what of has changed, it is doing all of that and the thing that always surprised me was that I was capable of doing it because as a lawyer you are not really trained to do all of that stuff but it has been quite a steep learning curve for me but it is part of a job that I really enjoy.

Emma: For anybody at the firm who is looking at what their future looks like would you recommend the role of a team leader?

Liz: 100% yeah. It is part of the role that I really enjoy. I think having a hand in the management of the team and the strategy of the team and how that feeds into the wider firm is really interesting and really rewarding.

Emma: You mentioned earlier that you are trained to be a lawyer and not necessarily trained with all those other aspects that come with the team leader role. What sort of support did you get from the firm to make sure that you could do all of those extra bits as well?

Liz: So, I would say that the bulk of the support that I have had has been hands on support from the other partners in my team. I am really lucky to come from a team of partners who have been partners for a long time, and so actually they have been able to impart their wisdom as it were. But, what I have found is that some of it comes naturally or you will have a natural instinct as to which way to go if you have got a difficult decision to make so you might have a natural instinct as to how you will deal with a particular situation. What has been really helpful is just been having that back-up support from the other partners to say this is what I am thinking, how do you think this will land or do you think this is the right way to approach it and it is really helpful just to have that hands on support from my fellow Partners.

Emma: That's brilliant. I guess if we go back a little way, did you always know that you wanted to be a lawyer?

Liz: I think I probably did from quite a young age. So, I am going to show my age now. When I was younger, I used to love a programme called LA Law. I don't know if you remember it.

Emma: I do.

Liz: But it was LA Law that kind of really made me think yeah, that is what I want to do for a living. Of course, pensions is nothing like LA Law at all but it was that that really made me want to go on a do a law degree and then when I got to the end of my law degree I thought I really enjoy this and that is what spurred me on to take the route of qualifying as a solicitor. It is not quite how they portrayed it in LA Law.

Emma: It's amazing the amount of people that say something that they have watched on television that has then inspired them to get into…and when you did your training contract and you trained, what was it that drew you to pensions?

Liz: When I did my training contract the six months was split between employment and pensions and what drew me to that initially was, I think the real human element of both employment law and pensions law. It was good in that it gave me an opportunity to do pensions law which you do not study at university, and you do not study at law school, so you do not really know anything about it. But actually as I got into the training seat, really for me it was the intellectual challenge of it, I enjoy that, I enjoy having to put quite complex ideas into something that is more straight forward for an audience. I really like the human aspect of it so I really like the fact that pensions is about providing a benefit for people that they have saved into all of their lives so kind of like the fact that I am helping trustees to provide that benefit that people have paid for and that will help them into their retirement. I like the fact that I am dealing with trustees who come from a whole range of different backgrounds so dealing with a whole variety of people and having to put across quite complex ideas sometimes to a very broad audience is really enjoyable to me.

Emma: So, when you started your career, you qualified into pensions and then you worked your way up through to partnership. Then was partnership always the goal for you?

Liz: Can I be honest with you?

Emma: Yeah.

Liz: No. It was not and when I started out what I wanted to do was to do a really good job and build up my experience and build up my rapport with clients. That was really what I wanted to do, I wanted to do a good job. At that stage, early on in my career, partnership was not something that was necessarily on the horizon for me. I would go into things thinking let me see if I can do this, let me see if I can do it well and then I'll decided whether I'm capable of going onto the next stage and that's kind of how it has been for me over the last I'm going to say 25 years.

Emma: When did it come to a point where partnership was then the goal?

Liz: So, what's really interesting is that I had my family and sort of once I'd had my children I was at that stage going for a director role. And again similarly, I was I am going to do this role and I'm going to see if I can do this well and then I'll decide, you know, sort of whether partnership is the next step for me or not. And actually, once I'd had my second child, I knew I didn't want any more children and actually at that point as they were just getting a little bit older and getting through primary school that was the point at which I thought actually now definitely I've got the time, I've got the energy and it is something that I want to do. So, it was kind of an iterative process for me but yeah it was once the children were a little bit older, a little bit more self-sufficient that that spurred me on.

Emma: We'll take a short break now and when we're back, we'll find out more about Liz's career and what advice she would give to those at the start of theirs.

[music]

Welcome back to part two, we're going to kick off with some quick-fire questions to get to know you a little bit more. What was your first job?

Liz: My first job was working in a Martin McColl's newsagents.

Emma: Oh lovely, and where did you grow up?

Liz: So, I grew up in a little village in Lancashire, so right out in the sticks, very much farming land.

Emma: Oh lovely, was it nice, did you enjoy that?

Liz: Yeah, it was lovely, it was very, very nice, very quiet, very, very different from Birmingham.

Emma: Yeah, very different. What time do you usually wake up in the mornings?

Liz: 6am.

Emma: Early bird.

Liz: Early bird yeah, I need the time to get myself and the kids up and out the door.

Emma: This question, this is the big question, is your bed made right now?

Liz: Yes!

Emma: Everybody says that.

Liz: I make it every morning, I'm very good.

Emma: This is a running joke of the series of discussion, everybody's bed is made. Mine is not. Well, I tell a lie, actually today my bed is made and that's purely because I feel like I've been shamed into making it because everyone else makes their bed every day.

Liz: I always think if it's made then it's much nicer to get into at night.

Emma: True, true. What's your favourite breakfast?

Liz: I always make myself like little egg muffin things so that's what I have every morning. I'm a big batch cooker and I sort of cook everything on a Sunday night for the week.

Emma: Wow, that's organised. What's your favourite movie? It's hard one isn't it?

Liz: Oh I'm very much old school movie, it's got to be Dirty Dancing.

Emma: Do you know it's a classic, it's a classic. Your dream holiday destination?

Liz: Ooh, difficult one, difficult one, so as you know, just come back from Australia, which was absolutely amazing. I'd love to go somewhere really kind of tropical and luxury, I'd love to go to like the Maldives or somewhere like that. Yeah, there's lots of places, lots of places I want to go. I think some of those destinations are probably for when the kids are grown up and gone.

Emma: Yeah, I agree. What's your go-to karaoke song?

Liz: I don't sing it very well but Gold by Spandau Ballet.

Emma: Ooh, good choice! A few more questions for you so these are some either/or questions – cats or dogs?

Liz: Cats.

Emma: Would you rather fly or have super-strength?

Liz: Fly.

Emma: Are you more of an introvert or an extrovert?

Liz: Introvert.

Emma: Night out or a night in?

Liz: Night in.

Emma: Would you rather travel to the past or to the future?

Liz: Hmm – past.

Emma: And learn by watching or learn by doing?

Liz: Learn by doing.

[music ]

Emma: I wanted to talk to you about Pause and Play because I know you've utilised the firm's Pause and Play policy and that supports what we like to call non-traditional career trajectories so you can pause your career at a certain point for whatever reason that might be which means you just carry on as you are, performing as you are and then when you're ready press play to then try and accelerate and move towards the next level. I just wanted to ask about what your experience of using Pause and Play was like?

Liz: Yeah, so for me it's been a really positive experience so just to explain I'd sort of had my children – my children are sort of 16 and 12 – but when I had my daughter 16 years ago at that point when I came back to work I did not feel as though I had even the time or the energy to put into everything that I would need to put into to sort of progress through the ranks at the same speed as I had been progressing through prior to that. And to be honest with you I wanted to spend some time with her and focus on her . I had my son three years later and similarly, you know, I needed some time to spend with the children and just wait until they were a little bit older and it was at the point when they were a little bit older so getting through primary school – my daughter was sort of heading off to secondary school – when, you know, at that point I kind of felt like I had, I did have the time and most importantly the energy to put into then progressing my career through. The partners in my team were really, really good at helping me with that and were very, very receptive to me saying 'look, not now, now is not the right time' but as soon as I'd said 'now is the right time', let's 'play', they were very, very good at then picking up and helping me then progress through the ranks. So, for me Pause and Play has been a massively positive experience and it's allowed me to shape my career in a way that I wanted to do it around my children and raising my children and, you know, devoting the time that I needed to devote to them but then, you know, being able to progress my career through at the right time for me.

Emma: What would you say to anybody currently that wants to use Pause and Play and is a bit nervous about potentially being forgotten about when they're in that pause?

Liz: Yeah, so I think certainly for me it's been a very, very positive experience. The key I think was communication with the partners; it was everybody being open with each other about, you know, the situation, what it would mean, the pause and then the play and what the play means and what the pause means. So, communication is key but all I can say is that it's been a hugely positive experience for me so I would very much encourage people to take advantage of Pause and Play if it is the right thing for them for, you know, for whatever reason.

Emma: Perfect. We were talking earlier about sort of your route to partnership and your experience of partnership. What would you say to anybody that is early on in their careers or sort of midway in their careers who is looking up at partnership as an option and thinking 'actually I don't think that's for me'?

Liz: So, I think number one you do need to be quite sure if you're going to go for it because it takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of energy so I do think you need to be sure and if you're going to do it you need to commit to it 100%, so that would be number one. I think number two would be really find out about what it involves, you know, I think it's very easy to look at other people in situations and think 'oh there's no way, I don't ever want to do that'. But you don't necessarily see the whole picture so people might see partners running around and very busy, and what have you, but they don't necessarily see the flip side of that which is the positives of being a partner. So, I would take time to talk to people and really find out about what the role involves before necessarily making a knee-jerk decision about whether it's for you or not. So, I suppose those would be my two key pieces of advice.

Emma: Do you think from your experience there are any misconceptions you had about partnership before you got there that have sort of been debunked now that you are a partner?

Liz: I think what's really interesting, I mean I think one of the things that could put you off is sort of looking at partners and thinking it's terribly busy and it's terribly stressful and 'I don't want that'. I wouldn't say it's not busy and not stressful but what I would say is there's a lot of support there, there's a lot of support from your fellow partners. The one thing that really surprised me and perhaps shouldn't have surprised me when I came into the partnership was just how brilliant all the other partners were and that wasn't just the partners in my team, that was partners around the firm who were, one, really, really happy for me, genuinely really happy for me, and two, genuinely massively supportive. And I know even now if I had something that I wasn't sure about or if I wanted to talk to somebody outside of the team, I could happily pick up the phone or drop an email to any one of the other partners in the firm and they would say 'yep come on, let's go and meet up, have a coffee, let's chat it through'. So that was probably the thing that surprised me the most, just the level of support that's out there, I think that has been really, really positive.

Emma: That's amazing because it is, it's all about the people that are around you isn't it?

Liz: Indeed.

Emma: I mean it works so much that that makes such a difference to have good people that you can rely on for that support.

Liz: Absolutely, absolutely, and to be honest with you it's the people and the support from the partners in the pensions team that's always kept me here, you know, I've trained at this firm, I've been here for 25 years, it's that that's kept me here, it is the people. So yeah, one hundred per cent, you know, what's really nice is that that goes across the firm .

Emma: What advice would you give to anybody that's at the start of their careers, that's just sort of maybe they've had a realisation that they want to be a lawyer and they're just starting on that journey?

Liz: I mean I think it's helpful isn't it to sort of think about, you know, where is it that you want to get to? I think you need to right from the start take control of your own career and take control of where it goes. So, no one is going to spoon-feed you the stuff, you have to yourself decide what is it that you want, how are you going to get there, and seek out the help from people who are going to help you get there and achieve your goals, so yeah that would be…

Emma: That's good. So, over the space of your career so far have you had mentors over that time that have helped you?

Liz: Yes I have. So I've had mentors from within the team so other partners within the team, as I was kind of going through, and that actually was part of the Pause and Play. So, at the point when we hit 'play' one of the partners volunteered to kind of help me in terms of putting together my business case and helping me with - I suppose the areas that I needed to work on to make that business case as strong as possible. So that was from within the team but then also I've had external help from a partner from the Real Estate team, one of the real estate teams, who helped me sort of as I was going through the process. So, since I've become a partner and since I've become a team leader it's been much more informal but actually I've had other team leaders from across the firm reach out to me and, you know, put coffees in the diary and that's been a really good opportunity to chat things through or chat things through that, you know, sometimes you just want to bounce around with somebody else. So yeah, more informal mentoring sort of at the moment but yeah certainly a lot of help and support that I've had across the firm.

Emma: That's good, I think mentors are really important. I know from conversations we've had with a few other people it's not just thinking you need one mentor that's going to do it all for you, but I think, you know, like you say, different people that you can talk to about different things.

Liz: Yeah.

Emma: And I know the Pensions team have had a diversity working group for a number of years now. Just interested in how that came about and why that was so important to the team.

Liz: So, I think it was driven initially by one of my now partners Ben Goldby who has a very keen interest in diversity and inclusion issues. As a team we wanted to find a way of supporting the wider firm initiative and across the team I think we were all cognisant of the fact that we weren't as diverse across the team as we perhaps could be and so, you know, we've done a lot of work across the team to make the team more diverse and more inclusive and that obviously over time has made it a more attractive team for people to want to come and work in and so the diversity and inclusion network that we've got within the team which is aimed at continuing that journey.

Emma: That's brilliant and it's been really good to see. I know since I've joined the firm the sort of things that you've been doing as a team and that you've had a focus on this for a number of years and actually you're almost a blueprint for what we've been trying to do with our 'inclusion for all' strategy which is to take this out to other teams so that every team is looking at what they can do within their sphere of influence to help us move forwards.

Liz: Yep.

Emma: And then you mentioned earlier your children.

Liz: Yes.

Emma: So, nearly both teenagers.

Liz: Nearly both teenagers, yes.

Emma: How do you manage what is a demanding career and then I know what it's like to have children of pretty much the same age, how do you manage all of that?

Liz: One, by being very organised, hence the batch cooking!

Emma: Yeah.

Liz: But yeah, I mean I've got some help as well so I mean the other thing that I didn't say is that I'm on my own with the children so I'm a solo parent with two children so that brings its own challenges, but actually I always refer to my army of women that I have around me, so I have a child minder that helps me sort of with the children so if for example I'm having to work late or I'm in London or something like that she helps me, picks up the children from school, makes them tea, drops them off to the after-school club, so she's an absolute angel. And then, you know, I have other women that help me with my cleaning and all of that kind of stuff, so I do have help. I think being organised, I think the children being older also helps. I think in some respects that's why Pause and Play does work so well because it does allow you to perhaps have a little bit more flexibility later on.

Emma: And it does, it takes a village doesn't it to get everything done. I think we sometimes put too much pressure on ourselves of trying to think we can do everything and actually nobody can do everything without something needing, you need help from wherever that might be…

Liz: Yes, yeah.

Emma: … to manage it all.

Liz: And there's no… nobody expects you to be Superwoman, I don't think you can be Superwoman so taking the help I think is a necessity really.

Emma: It is definitely, yeah. Well, a huge thank you Liz for today.

Liz: Thank you.

Emma: I've really enjoyed talking to you and thank you for sharing your story and some of your insights.

We'll be back next week to get to know more talented people at Gowling WLG. Thank you for listening, have a wonderful week and remember we all have the power to make a difference.