Nicola Rabson | Leading with Empathy | Extraordinary Life Stories

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9:29John Reynolds:Bad advice? You talking to me?

9:31Nicola Rabson:Kayak.

9:32John Reynolds:Got that right. I think, am I right in saying you worked on the Grenfell Tower?

9:39Nicola Rabson:We acted for Sangaban. Linkdata's acted for Sangaban, which is the parent company. And we did advise in relation to that.

9:48John Reynolds:Coming into this conversation, and of course, Black Lives Matter. and there's a there's a there's a lot that you must take out from finishing a case whether you've won or lost that has an impact on your own kind of feelings mental health yeah i want to know how you process that you know there's there's probably long hours huge amount of graft and energy that goes into doing your job to then come out of it and you're still nicola yeah and i wonder what kind of what you do to put yourself back together again because you've been through this a number

10:19Nicola Rabson:of times are you continuing to i mean it is high octane and it is very demanding and i think you know clearly in my view to do a really good job no matter what you do you've got to care right that's the difference between someone that's exceptional and someone that's good that level of care so i do care about doing a good job my in my role you don't really win or lose you just have to do the right thing at each time you have to impart advice and it can be it can take its toll physically and mentally because the hours can be very long the demands can be extreme and obviously you're also quite often stabilizing the emotions of others or ensuring that people are okay at dealing with it and managing your own team etc.

11:03Nicola Rabson:I do quite a few things and I've learned I think as I've got older to be better if I'm completely honest in my 30s I probably just kept on going and we can come back to it but I ended up with a very large operation in my late 30s now I make sure I exercise lots of us do but for me that's really important I don't overburden myself with it though I think you know at times I was like I must exercise four times and they must always be at least an hour long I just want to get some exercise in regularly I walk a lot um I whenever I can I will walk from meetings if I'm going to different locations and in the morning I quite often come into a station that's quite a long way from the office because that's pretty much the only time I'm truly on my own and it just gives me time to reflect and let my brain just think about what's going on in life and quite often having time out for you yeah

12:03John Reynolds:I think the morning routine so there's there's there's the walking do you just make I have no routine I love that because there's this connotation in there around being successful which you are uh and then all these success books and so on you've got to be up at four in the morning

12:15Nicola Rabson:so you don't know when I read about people that work in like 15 minute chunks or get up at seven and go to bed and fit this in at this time I mean that is just not my life or really refreshing to hear that no level no routine in any aspect of my life you just carve the time out make the time to

12:32John Reynolds:train station further away from the work and then use that time to not only get your steps in

12:36Nicola Rabson:but to process the thinking time thinking time because it's so important i think the world you know the world has changed i think you're similar age to me and actually trying to get time where you can just think because it's increasingly difficult i've just got rid of um social media on my phones actually because i was i found myself when i had thinking time because i've always got the phone just pressing on insta and then just going down the black hole and i thought actually i've got to stop that because i'm doing that when i've got time for me to just allow my

13:09John Reynolds:brain to be free that's brilliant the most people working in addiction are now working for um biggest social media companies in the world now aren't they as in point point being they're all fighting for our attention to get us all to want to do that so bringing up kids bringing up my two girls in that environment right now is scary because i'm on my phone doing other things but then they'll see that copying what you do and all that and then they'll go on their phone and of course they haven't got emails to send they haven't got things so they're on social media and that's there's a constant yeah i brought up role model in that instance you know in terms of what people doing what other people sort of see and um see other people doing do you see yourself as a role model because for me as a dad to two daughters growing up you've smashed through glass ceilings to be a partner at a global law firm and I'd love to know the journey you've been on and whether you've ever felt any of that sort of prejudice of being a woman coming through what

14:04Nicola Rabson:has been a sort of male-dominated business world so again I think as you get older you change and not long ago I just said oh no I don't see myself as a role model but now I think I can sit here and realize it's not being arrogant to recognize I have been a role model and quite often there's and actually this morning and I can give you a specific example of where I really feel like I've done a good job I was out with a partner at Linklater's a female partner this morning met for breakfast at 8am fitted in 45 minutes and as we were walking away she said you won't remember this Nicola because you talked to so many people but I remember you inviting me around my hat your house and chatting to me with your three children running around about how you'd made it work and actually I shouldn't you shouldn't look to someone and copy them you should make it work the way you want to work and she said to me oh that meant so much so I think over my career I haven't consciously been a role model but I've always given time to people when they've had questions I've always been willing I believe I very much hope to support people and be honest with them when being questioned about how I've done it and I hope one day my children might see me as a role model at 23 21 and 19 it's a big ask at the moment i'm 14 and 15 and they're just there's just

15:27John Reynolds:there's a whole journey for me to go through but i think yeah there's a maturity and perspective you mentioned your younger self that that comes back to look back and they'll they'll you know they'll know what you've achieved and what you're doing but that will all come back to them learning from you of course by being around you spending all the time they would have they would have learned invaluable lessons on that the uh prejudice i talked about in context have you had an experience there coming through or have you just almost sort of just ignored that and just

15:53Nicola Rabson:smashed through I think I don't think I've engaged in it to the extent you've not allowed it to be a thing no I mean I and I've been I've been really privileged and I can't criticize the environment in which I've operated I work at link laters and I I asked what for what I wanted so I asked 23 three years ago to go part-time and they let me go part-time and then I made it work and they never stopped me making it work and I worked four days John but I also did three days for a while and I had a job share for a period as well and then I was part-time when I first went into the partnership so in some ways I never thought about being a woman I just thought about how am I going to make this work for me what do I want and I recognised at each stage that if I wasn't able to do it I would just have to move and that never happened and so for that I'm very grateful to my partners I'm very grateful for the to the firm for allowing me to do that most of the time actually clients were really supportive of me I think people worried that clients might not be or they would expect you to be there but the reality is if you work in my environment and you're part-time and a client calls you on your off day, you probably still take the call because it's your client and you want to help.

17:14John Reynolds:This goes back to the empathy. Yeah. The whole, yeah, it's more than a job to you. Yes. It's a way of being. It's really refreshing to hear that because, you know, the stats with women in business, less than 2%, particularly in the founder kind of camp, if you like, less than 2 % of VC funding goes to women. And I've really tried to immerse myself in that. And I think you just not allowing it to even be a thing. It's the lack of self-belief. And it's the lack of confidence potentially that could be stopping some of these women taking the chance in coming through?

17:44Nicola Rabson:I think it might be but I want to be really clear do I think people do I think women and other minority groups are discriminated against treated unfairly yes I do and have I seen that yes I have have I advised on many cases where that has been the case yes I have but do I think I have suffered from discrimination in my career no um do I think the you know the you let's just talk about the UK forget about the global situation do I think the UK is where I would like it to be in relation to equality absolutely not do I have the answers on how we get there

18:20John Reynolds:no that was my next question not literally but I was I probably was going to say with that experience and and someone that's giving back you're doing a lot to have you know when you introduced yourself you literally said i do a lot to support women is there one part of that that sort of question that needs to be addressed that you really can see needs more work and where people could help it's a bit unfair because you said you don't have the answers but you're not only you are you're well placed you're well placed to look at it because that's a genuinely meaningful question

18:48Nicola Rabson:for me do you know what i i think women that find themselves in senior roles need to engage and think about what they can do to increase the likelihood of equality over the short and medium term.

19:05John Reynolds:So protect the next generation coming through.

19:07Nicola Rabson:Exactly. And that might be small things. It might be just ensuring that you notice the two females in your team that are struggling, but it could be more significant. So challenging the system in which you operate or questioning when all the promotions are male or not diverse so I think actually one of the big changes and you know I've got some senior female friends who've really supported me I think one of the big changes is there are many more successful senior women in the workplace today and so being available for people male or female that need your support I think is really important and carving out time to give that support is important as well i think in fact i think it's our responsibility yes and it's important

19:58John Reynolds:to hear that back and talking about change there ai so it's intimidating a lot of people it's going and it's been embraced by a lot of people as well back to go to ideas festival and it'll be full of people using ir it is amazing and it's revolutionary and i wonder where you sit with people that are aspirational watching and listening to you now wanting to be a partner of a senior senior partner law firm and where's the threat potentially with what have been traditional roles that could be taken by AI?

20:28Nicola Rabson:Well I mean it's a challenge, this is a really difficult question and it's a challenge that most big businesses in fact probably most sensible businesses will be considering proactively at the moment. In law I think one of the big challenges that lawyers face is clearly a lot of work can be automated and will be automated in the relatively short term. Linklaters is embracing AI already and we're looking at what more we can use it for.

20:57John Reynolds:You have to, right? Or you get left behind, I guess. Completely. It's just how you use it, I guess.

21:01Nicola Rabson:You've got to be at the forefront of that. You've got to adopt it. You've got to be sensible as well as lawyers because you've got to do the work yourself. You can't necessarily just rely on the AI programs that you put in place but so but one of the challenges with AI is it means that some of the jobs that the junior lawyer would have done whether that's reading all the documents for instance to work out yeah is going to be done by AI and one of the things I think is challenging is how do you get from being a junior lawyer to a very senior knowledgeable lawyer if you're not actually reading the detail of each of your cases or reading the documents or doing the research and reading the cases.

21:46John Reynolds:That's a really good point yes because you haven't just by default by consuming all that information you've become a better lawyer by doing that as well the cases you must have worked on I mean you must have a almost like I'm imagining just weans of paper in your brain how from previous and you can draw upon that in a case next week.

22:03Nicola Rabson:experience isn't it for all of us it's experience and actually if you're just asking someone else to do the work even if that is a computer if that computer's doing the work and you're not actually then reading the underlying information that creates the answer you're not learning that underlying information so how we ensure that people have a deep understanding of the law and the experience necessary to be a complete advisor at the end of their careers or a partner that's a real challenge that i mean that's my personal view um and all this is change yeah i i think

22:40John Reynolds:it opens up all sorts of questions and i wasn't planning on asking this but just just the thought process behind the fact that there's a reputational risk and accountability behind being the person in the team that consumes and reads the information to to put put it through to the next phase and if something gets missed misinterpreted which again is relying on ai and then that gets found out of the later date where does the where does the responsibility sit responsibility as the lawyers

23:05Nicola Rabson:and there have been some cases on that already in the court so it clearly is our responsibility would it be my responsibility in relation to the team that i was running but we need to know that

23:16John Reynolds:we're putting accurate information you took accountability that's so quickly i get that and that's you've got that in space but I guess as we start to rely on AI more and more as a crux that's where if there's a glitch if there's a yeah almost like the human element of second not second guessing but second reading you know getting going back over it it's going to be vital

23:34Nicola Rabson:yes but you can do where you can use it is you can use it to populate documents that you've already created or populate reports that you're drafting you would then have to verify check it but you can see that you can use it. You know, I can see, and I'm not a conveyancing solicitor, but in terms of buying and selling houses, I'm sure that there will be, if there are not already, incredible programmes or AI tools that can be used to make that something that probably the individual, an individual could use rather than a lawyer.

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25:01John Reynolds:Sip for yourself. Shop Virtuo up exclusively at Nespresso.com. Just going back to my analogy of those reams of paper, the amount of experience that you have got, and I'm sort of looking into your world now, the cases you've worked on, the things you've learned, what have been the kind of biggest challenges that you've faced to this date in your career? What have been the things you've enjoyed the most?

25:24Nicola Rabson:Probably the challenge, the biggest challenges are probably the things I enjoy the most. So I get bored quite quickly as a personality type. So I would say when I'm instructed on something or when a client calls me and asks me to advise them or help them in relation to something that hasn't happened before and is new territory, those situations, those cases are probably the things that I enjoy the most because I'm doing something new. I'm challenging myself I'm trying to find a route through a difficult situation alongside my client and so that I think I enjoy the most and I feel rewarded at the end particularly if we get you know if we get the result that we want to quite often my role is to manage things so that they never become public as well actually the challenges in some ways are as great today as when I was junior because it's because my experience is now so great I'm very aware of all the risks and so actually containing my own worries so that I can impart meaningful advice and make recommendations to my clients is a real challenge for me and actually just the sheer hours I work it's probably the greatest challenge I face at this stage in my career I mean it's hard right

26:57John Reynolds:anyone looking in aspiration again to what you do yeah it's important to share that you put you put

27:02Nicola Rabson:a massive stint in and also you know when I I've lost cases that I think I think the decisions were wrong. So I believe the case should have gone the other way. I think the judge got it wrong. That was really hard when I was junior, to lose something. When I told a client, I think the decision will be this, and I get that, I got that wrong, I found that incredibly difficult. And I took that very personally and really questioned myself as to, can I do this? Am I good enough? So I think that I'm just thinking back. because there's been so many challenges in reality um have you ever had anyone that in any way is

27:43John Reynolds:sort of almost endangered your own personal security there's there's very high emotions running through this have you ever had i'm not trying to make sound like a hollywood film here at all just but the fact that at that point there's an expectancy and there's a um you know a decision that's gone against you and then you know ultimately there's potentially some blame

28:02Nicola Rabson:yeah it's unfounded but how have you managed i didn't i not in relation to that scenario but i did have to have some personal security once in my career yes and that was that was tricky and difficult but and that does happen but ultimately the client was excellent putting that security both for me and some other people and also everybody at work who were aware of it were incredibly supportive so that that sort of thing does happen of course it does I'm just trying to think through all of the challenges because you get to a point and I'm sure you're similar but you get to the point I'm 50 now where I look back on 26 years of life and you forget sometimes you forget the challenges you've faced and things you've done

28:48John Reynolds:yeah you're running at a relentless pace as well there's so much you've done how good are you at kind of almost leaving the the day job at the door when you come in to be

28:57Nicola Rabson:fully present for the family because that's something terrible at it terrible i was terrible at that at points and i think you know actually i was literally getting to the point that the greatest challenge for me has been being the mum and wife i wanted to be or being the parent and the wife and having my career and there were times i mean to be really clear there have been times when i have not been present for prolonged periods now i'm not necessarily proud of that do I think I could have done it differently I don't know is the answer um do the best you can in the time the best I could yeah um but going back to when I asked

29:33John Reynolds:you earlier about how you almost sort of process because you know that take a case where you really felt the judge got it wrong and you come home and let's just say for argument's sake it closed on a Friday you've got the weekend now where you could and should be depending on the ages of your kids taking them out doing stuff and you're turning how have you how have you processed that how do you deal with that what's your journey to to remove that and face forwards I actually move on pretty

29:55Nicola Rabson:quickly actually once I've got myself into a bit of a state I then just talk to myself and say don't be so ridiculous and I was always on in those situations actually I was able to move on and I would have been able to play with the children engage in my life um quite quickly much harder when I'm in the middle of something. So I've got the demands of what I'm doing at that time. It's live. So the decisions I might take may influence the outcome. So I'm constantly thinking at any one time about how to manoeuvre it. And I may be jumping on and off calls as well. So much harder in the middle of one of my matters or one of the cases to carve out the time.

30:38Nicola Rabson:And candidly, I'm not very good and have never been good at saying no I'm learning to do that even today and I think I've thought about this a lot over my life I like people to praise me I really like that irrespective of whether I respect the person I like the little hit it gives me when someone said oh Nicola that was brilliant thank you so much so that feeds me tending to want to help people not just this is much bigger than my career you know I help I've helped the hairdresser the baker you know yeah I adopt people and say yes to things and I've learned to say no to more things because that is where I think probably I could have carved out more time for my family it's fascinating I

31:26John Reynolds:have to remind myself I'm talking to a lawyer and I say I have a big smile on my face because there's such a lack of ego here um real humility and um i praise you for that because rightly or wrongly you know the stereotypical kind of lawyer in a film is very full of themselves wants to um shout about what they're doing and and there's very much probably more selfish wanted whereas the the desire to give back and the fact that you're prepared to say that you actually do like to get that bit of praise back and so on it's really refreshing to hear that part of that comes from

31:59Nicola Rabson:my parenting I've got an amazing my mum and dad are phenomenal um and it's your values isn't it as well and so I've been brought up and I've had the privilege of having a husband who's in this this world as well um by people who have been nurses and doctors and different well predominantly in the medical profession actually very grounded very grounded and I have also I I think I spoke to you briefly John I've been really ill in my life I was very ill at 17 I got diagnosed with something called Stephen Johnson syndrome and I have lupus as well and then I had a very large operation as well at 36 and so those whilst when you're 17 you spend a considerable period in hospital you I never really felt hard done by but it it doesn't feel hugely fair actually I've learned that that gave me a I don't want to call myself wise but it gave me a grounding and an awareness that most young people don't have the opportunity to see because um you know I was in hospital in and out of hospital for very prolonged periods and a it makes you realize that you are you know you're human and you have a body and it goes wrong but when you're in hospital at 17 you see I was on a ward so I saw people very or I saw people die and I think that just changed the

33:25John Reynolds:way that I've engaged in the world actually yeah a lot of kids of that age foots on the gas outside doing all the different things and you actually witness things that give you that humility and also you know give I suppose you know appreciating life a lot more I think that's right I mean

33:44Nicola Rabson:probably my parents would say that when I came out of hospital finally at 19 I was a bit of a nightmare because I really embraced life and went out partying quite hard but I do think glad to be alive yeah glad to be alive but I do think it just gave me a different perspective and I'm very

34:01John Reynolds:grateful for that now and a resilience that you didn't ask for didn't wish for but that resilience probably as a as a life balance but also in business as well going back to how do you get over these things actually and because you mentioned earlier you said about the fact that you clearly got very ill in your late 30s and had operations. Just talk me through that for the context of people listening.

34:22Nicola Rabson:I won't go back through all of it, but in reality, I had an incredibly painful back. And when I say incredibly painful, I was dragging my left foot around. I ended up coming into Cannon Street one day and a woman crossed the road to help me walk. So I was carrying on as if everything was okay, but I looked to people that didn't know me so poorly that someone crossed the road to help me.

34:42John Reynolds:Is that a moment for you to realise I need to...

34:44Nicola Rabson:Well, even then, I didn't think, even then. So did you kind of break? My focus was so much get the job done, go home, look after the children, that I was the last in the list of things that I had to do. Put yourself left, wow. And anyway, I ended up, which I do talk about quite openly, not up on a big stage, but if people ask me, because clearly I should have recognised I wasn't very well and I should have engaged in the frailty of my own body before it got to the situation it did um ultimately I ended up with a very large spinal operation um which took a long time to recover from and I'm very lucky that I'm here today I can walk I can I don't run but I can exercise etc um so yes I had that as well in my late I was 36 actually I mean I again though sorry I'm talking a lot at you but I think one of the things that I've I'm fortunate because I've thought about this as well is my personality is one where I'm always able to see the bright side I don't have to work that hard and I do believe I'm fortunate for that because I've always been able to think well it could have been so much worse in relation to lots of things my children have had ill health as well at various points and I'm always to look at I'm always at some able to think well I'm so much luckier than that person and that's just the way i'm programmed i haven't worked for that but it's been but that's so lucky

36:12John Reynolds:but that's what i value so much in a conversation is i'm learning from you you know and so you anyone watching listening that's going through something difficult there's a perspective there that works for you that's that's been kind of repeated yourself and your children and other other scenarios conscious of time okay sitting here now with uh very much a successful career And with this maturity perspective you've got, how do you define success?

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38:28Nicola Rabson:how do I I think success is defined by the small things in life far far more than by the big things so I don't think it's about happiness I think happiness is the term that we use to frequently I think it's about being content in your being at any one time it's about having the right people around you that you know are there for the good and the bad times and you know it in your being that those people are there for you. For me, success has been being true to who I am. So one of the things I think is really important is not to lose yourself along the way of driving for the next goal. You know, so I want to be a partner.

39:11Nicola Rabson:I want to be an elite sports person. I want to be a podcaster, whatever it is you want to be. The journey to getting there is as important as getting there and I think success is when you remain as yourself throughout that journey that's

39:27John Reynolds:brilliant and so true and I've been guilty of not enjoying the journey to then get to a destination that I thought was what I wanted and then you're like there's a bit hollow yeah so I think that's invaluable and actually this is possibly very very close to to the answer that I'm about to ask a question about which is um a younger version of yourself or back to my daughter's aspirational women girls looking at you as someone that they can learn from and again looking back on what advice you would give to a younger version of yourself or someone that's aspiring in business not necessarily just law just just that whole like what advice would you give believe in yourself i think lots of people say that but believe in yourself be willing to be flexible if you are

40:11Nicola Rabson:not going to achieve what you want to achieve in the place you are then be flexible it's not the right place for you um i do think there's some reality though you've got to work hard there's no point wanting something up there somewhere and not putting in the hard yard you've got to work hard and yeah it's up to you really our lives are to some extent not always you know i appreciate people can be born to different scenarios but to some extent if you're fortunate enough to be thinking about where your career is going it's up to you where it goes and be flexible and believe in

40:48John Reynolds:yourself brilliant i was so looking forward to this conversation thank you thanks

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