Answering 1 Powerful Question with The Jurist: How Ahmed Elnaggar Reinvented Legal Growth - S10E11

20:14Ahmed Elnaggar:it's so important that we we highlight this as well because you know the way things are discussed or marketed actually with the wrong connotation could actually help you know people could avoid lots of mistakes if they kind of came somebody like you got the education understood how they could structure things and then the end result would be so much better rather than offshore like you say that jumps to negative negative thoughts where actually we like to talk about the positives and the way law can be used in the right way not just from obviously practicing the law but the technology and law so many other things um okay sticking with some of your key areas then succession planning you know it's often very emotional not just legal so how do you navigate family dynamics whilst focusing on the overall objective that why you're doing it in the first place that you

20:58Legally Speaking Podcast Host:discussed what i always say this way if you're not immortal you should have a succession plan you know if you know that you're going to live forever for example then okay you don't have to worry about that but maybe you need the world just to define things when you forget them you know because maybe you don't die because you're immortal but maybe you don't want anything else and someone should take these assets and define them there's so many aspects of how and why people should think of succession first of all we don't know what happened and when and what's most important is not even the fact of inheritance itself or succession planning but the fact that no one else knows what you own but you no one have an idea if you ask yourself right now to make me a list in two hours of everything you own or everything you have as interest you're probably going to take more than two hours and you will come back tomorrow and say oops i forgot something i have a watch that i landed to my sister i don't know two years ago blah blah blah and you want these things, the valuables, because you work very hard all your life, to go to the right ones, or to go to the people you want them to go to.

22:12Legally Speaking Podcast Host:So in order for you to be able to make this happen, you need to have it in writing, because our brain, our capabilities are very limited. Unfortunately, we are not AI yet. You know, we're not computers, we're just human, which is really nice and we are enjoying it but at the same time we're gonna die and the assets will go to someone at the end whether we write it down or we don't whether we decide or we don't because anywhere in the world in so many countries there are forced leadership regimes like what we have here in the uae it's majorly sharia law and if it's not sharia law it is another law that is regulating the personal status for the expats and it says certain conditions if you go to France and you go to Germany if you go to UK if you go to the US we have also first leadership worldwide but if you want to decide if you want to make sure that your wishes your ideas will be implemented you have to put it down and the easiest way to do that is to write a will or maybe a different structure because a different structure fits you more because you're Muslim and you're married to a non-Muslim, or you're a non-Muslim and you're married to a Muslim, or maybe one of your kids decide to have a different faith one day.

23:34Legally Speaking Podcast Host:And all of these elements would make a contribution to the shared distribution. Do you want to take charge and make the decision or do you want someone else to make the decision? It's up to you. And that's what I always say.

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24:28Ahmed Elnaggar:So help is always there when you need it. Ready to leave frustration behind? Visit clio.com forward slash UK to learn more and discover why so many UK solicitors choose Clio. Now back to the show. I always say if it's meant to be, it's up to me, right? If you want something to happen, you've got to take self accountability, put the structures in place so you know that that legacy whatever you're trying to plan is actually going to happen so really sage advice once again let me not interrupt you but i have

24:56Legally Speaking Podcast Host:one thing there's a huge misconception about succession planning is that everybody thinks that this is for rich people it's a big misconception it's a huge wrong mistake and to be very honest i think that the people who are not very rich they need to well or they need to do the planning more than anybody else because we have limited resources and limited assets. I would like to take care of this limited assets to the loved ones and to the people who need it the most. Plus, we don't know. I have minor children. I have 15 and 10 years old. I would like to know who's going to be taking care of them.

25:32Legally Speaking Podcast Host:And I would like to know what decisions are going to be made. If I don't have it in writing and if I don't decide right now, we don't know what's going to happen to them. So it's much better to make this decision, whether you have children, or you are rich, or you're poor, if your life makes sense in any way, you should have a plan.

25:54Ahmed Elnaggar:Really good point there as well, because they're for everybody, I think is the point that you're saying there. And particularly if you have limited resources, you want to protect that and, you know, make sure that gets to the right hands and the right people. And also from the parenting perspective, a really valid point as well. Okay, flipping to the ultra high net worth families, though, when they're planning their generational wealth transfer, what are some of the common mistakes they tend to make?

26:16Legally Speaking Podcast Host:They put their decisions on hold because they're used to spend a lot of time making decisions. And this is one of the biggest mistakes a lot of high net worth individuals and high net worth families are doing. They keep talking a lot. They make all the researches. They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for opinions and they wait for the action and this is a huge mistake and another one which is really something that needs to be avoided is to put too many emotions into the decisions. I understand that we are all human beings and we are all people driven by our emotions and our feelings but you never ever should make a decision when you're so happy you should never make a decision when you're so angry and you have to be in a place where you actually think about it think about your decisions and make the well-balanced decision and this is probably most of the high network individuals do because they feel like they can and unfortunately they have a lot of resources to allow them to do that.

27:34Legally Speaking Podcast Host:Some smart ones don't do this mistake, advised by very good advisors, and some don't. Another thing that just came to my mind right now, because I've seen this a lot, is that a lot of high-nit-worth individuals do not put all the stakeholders of such decisions in the same room at the same time. So they speak with me alone, and then they speak with the tax advisor alone and then they speak to the CFO alone and take all this information because they don't want to share all the information with all the professionals and then they cook it on their own and make all the decisions and sometimes the huge mistakes happen.

28:20Legally Speaking Podcast Host:I always advise when there is a strategic decision on tax planning or succession planning or even corporate structuring, please put everybody, all the stakeholders in the room. Let's put the CFO together with the legal advisor, together with the tax advisor. If there's an immigration advisor who's going to be making some decisions as well and saying what works and what doesn't, let's put them all in the room, have one discussion. Everybody say that is possible or not. And when it works, then we have a decision that actually fit what you need.

28:55Ahmed Elnaggar:all right now we must talk about the jurist you launched the jurist podcast the first independent legal blog in the united arab emirates could you tell us about the show and the audience what

29:06Legally Speaking Podcast Host:you're hoping for them to learn from it well to be very honest i am figuring it out still i mean there's when it started in the very early beginning it was just articles and i was inviting my friends and my colleagues who i know of their expertise and they're good at what they do i told them okay let me take your text let me publish it let me put your photo put your company name and your website and your email maybe if someone feels that there's value in this they can reach out directly to you and by time we kept posting articles posting articles until I started to get feedback from my colleagues that they got clients and some of them got new jobs and change their jobs and then I realized oh wow this is really effective and it's working very well let me enhance it a bit.

29:54Legally Speaking Podcast Host:I did the rebranding and I started to add into it until we landed the idea of starting the podcast, which was waiting for a while. And instead of having just a podcast where I am interviewing myself or I'm talking about all my profession and all my successes, like we all do on LinkedIn, I started to invite the same lawyers and we talk about legal topics and talk about them. So I was probably the only one doing this in UE at that time. Everybody else was doing video content about their firm or their profession because they felt that this is a very good way of marketing which is true however the jurist by introducing other lawyers and by introducing other stakeholders in the market we actually developed a very wide audience and it's actually one of the things that I enjoy the most in my week and in my work is that I interview my friends and my colleagues, the lawyers, brilliant ones that I get introduced to, brilliant media guys and recruitment agencies like yourself from the UAE, from abroad.

31:15Legally Speaking Podcast Host:I learned something new every day and now became one of the best legal resources of video content in the UAE.

31:27Ahmed Elnaggar:And it's incredible what you've built. It's hugely, hugely successful. You have a massive reach and yes I was very honored to feature on the the jurist actually when I was out in Dubai early this year and I was sort of exploring why lawyers can't be the best kept secret anymore talked around personal brand AI legal careers um would love your thoughts on on that because I think you built a tremendous personal brand and and any sort of takeaways you took from that

31:49Legally Speaking Podcast Host:particular episode I enjoyed our episode a lot I enjoyed this topic particularly a lot I mean the personal branding and talking about what the lawyers can do and cannot do, what they should do to show off their skills and their knowledge. It's exactly the mission that I had from the very early beginning and the results that showed the lawyers and their expertise that is driving this. to be very honest I'm very happy I'm able to help a lot of people I think this changed the life not just for me honestly changed my life this podcast and this idea of understanding the power of the personal brand like you said on the episode understanding the power of positioning understanding what really thought leadership means what is a personal brand in general what does it mean and the value of it and how it is an economic asset and how strong you can benefit from how every lawyer doesn't really matter if you work for a big law or big consultancy that you can build your own brand and build your own image I'm at the moment writing the book and hopefully it comes out this year very soon and it's all about that topic it's not a legal topic It talks about the legal industry.

33:18Legally Speaking Podcast Host:I saw it in the 80s. I saw it in the 90s. I saw it now. And I'm practicing it. I understand the power of network, the power of positioning and branding yourself. And I'm putting all my info in this book and hopefully someone reads it and enjoy it. And that's exactly what I'm trying to give, which is the value that ultimately is going to position me as well.

33:45Ahmed Elnaggar:absolutely and you do an incredible job of giving back and talking of networking that leads nicely onto where i wanted to go next which is the the emirates legal network because you're the proud founder and president of that what was the moment you realized the uae legal community needed a platform like this and tell us a bit more about it this is something that's really very close to

34:07Legally Speaking Podcast Host:my heart as well i'm a very avid networker i've been a business a member of the swiss business Council, I'm not Swiss and Spanish Business Council, I'm not Spanish. I don't even speak both languages. I was a member of Business Network International. This is a BNI, it's a very famous networking group. I've been attending every single event of the DIFC networking and so on. I like to meet people and I like to connect. I understand very well that the name and the picture on the LinkedIn and on the email makes absolutely no sense without shaking hands. So I realized that we need to talk to each other, to know each other.

34:48Legally Speaking Podcast Host:That's what my dad always tells me. And he told it to many people, speak so I can see you. He doesn't see you unless you actually talk. So we go out and shake hands and we build a network. And then with this network, you realize that you make friends, relevant trends people who understand you are at the same level intellectually and maybe socially and help you and they care about you and they care about your profession so being part of a society was the whole thing it did not exist we had to create it and by creating it we started at a very small group and by time it compounds and by time people started to invite each other and by time I realized that people are congratulating each other for joining Emirates Legal Network which is really a great success for it and now it's growing and growing every day so very proud of it I'm very happy of it because of it and just I want to say something to everyone I'm the biggest winner I mean Emirates Legal Network really is the best market entry for anybody who wants to come and do legal work in the UAE but me being the first member I'm the biggest winner because the more you stay the more you network the more you know of this network

36:06Ahmed Elnaggar:you reap a lot of benefit out of it absolutely the wisdom the expertise the friendship the the fun the education all of it i think is great and i even had the pleasure of attending one of your legal networks uh events whilst i was out in dubai and the caliber of the people there the energy just the information exchanging was was brilliant i think what you're doing is fantastic so how do you envisage the Emirates Legal Network shaping the next generation of legal professionals in the UAE?

36:36Legally Speaking Podcast Host:It's brilliant how all the newcomers, whether senior or junior, they come to join Emirates Legal Network. Like for example, one of the big airlines, big European airlines, just hired the new legal council and the first thing she did is to Google legal associations in the UAE and she jumped into one of the events and became a member and in few weeks she is already in a network of 20 lawyers and she knows and made some friends in the profession as well getting easier for her to hire people and so on so what i see emiris legal network is becoming the reference for everything uh legal uh in the uae where everybody who wants to come in and to start learning about the uae come and join Emirates Liga Network, network with the right people, with relevant people, so that you don't do mistakes.

37:30Legally Speaking Podcast Host:It accelerates actually joining this profession in this jurisdiction, so you don't really have to wait years and years and say, I'm two years in the UAE, and I already do one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, ten things, instead of spending two, three years four years to to reach out what people do with emers league and network as one so it's an accelerator and i wanted to grow in that absolutely you know it's the access isn't it to great people

38:00Ahmed Elnaggar:like-minded well-spirited um i think it's fantastic what you're building and absolutely would encourage people to check it out and amad you've done lots of interviews you've met lots of people you're a you're a real good networker you get yourself out there what's something that maybe people don't know about you that you would like to share with our audience or something that drives you that you perhaps haven't shared or don't think has had enough air time attached to your personal

38:28Legally Speaking Podcast Host:brand i'm curious maybe it's only to say that but uh it's it's hard uh breaching what you want to do is hard staying in in the same lane where uh you know what you want i mean it's just not that easy it doesn't i mean what you see online for my successes is not true because every time i have an achievement i have 10 failures so this is probably the thing that a lot of people don't know about me or maybe don't see. I fail much, much, much more than I gain. It's just that I try a lot.

39:11Ahmed Elnaggar:And you fail forward and you refuse to give up. And the reality is the more that you keep going, the more failures you'll have, but you'll be able to, I always use the acronym lose life, offering some experience. We lose a lot. And in entrepreneurship, if you have 50 good days in a year, you've had a tremendous year. Cause the reality is there is a lot of things that you're going through but I think your energy your general demeanor carries you through as well on top of obviously your incredible legal expertise the network you've built but it's built in you as well that internal drive and with that before I let you go just a final question around advice what advice would you give to aspiring lawyers then who are looking to start their legal career within the UAE I don't want to sound cliche to be very honest

39:55Legally Speaking Podcast Host:It's hard. It's really hard. It's not a playground. It's not a tax haven. And it's not a place where you are coming to enjoy your time and so on. Dubai in the UAE, it's very competitive. Very hard to find your place. if you're not serious enough about this job in this jurisdiction you're not gonna make it if you don't love the job if you don't really love what you're doing you're not gonna stand because it's really stressful and it's a lot of work so you if you don't love labor law don't work in labor law switch if you don't love succession planning don't do it switch to something else if course is not your thing switch because you will only excel if you really love what you do because if you love it you're going to spend tremendous amount of time and effort and hard work in it and only then you'll be able to be relaxed enough to dedicate one hour with a brilliant brilliant Rob Hanna to talk because otherwise you'd be working and on your desk day and day out but to have the luxury to actually define your own time on your own pace is uh is a privilege that only people who actually work hard for many years and create something and make a huge success have so you need to come here loving what you do very much and work hard you make it but it's not for

41:36Ahmed Elnaggar:the not for the easy no and i think i really appreciate the the candidness of that as well because you you have to be intentional about your career curate your career you have to be focused you have to be committed and i think if you have all of those traits and you surround yourself and you network and meet great people then you know the world is absolutely your oyster but it's right to point out that the work needs to be put in and and with that um i appreciate you being authentic open and generous with your time and you know all the great things that you're doing for the global legal community and also of course particularly within the UAE if our listeners want to follow you learn more about your career or indeed your law firm or potentially interested in joining the Emirates Legal Network or following your show The Jurist where can they go feel free to share any websites any social media handles we'll also share them in this episode for you too

42:26Legally Speaking Podcast Host:Thank you so much. Yes, you can log into my AmherstLeganNetwork.com or TheJurist.com or NagarLegal.com or go to Instagram. Just write down. The easiest thing is to write down my name and Dubai next to it and you'll find everything.

42:45Ahmed Elnaggar:Absolutely. And that is the power of a personal brand and putting content that's really good out there. You become very discoverable and you come up. I'm thrilled that we managed to make this episode happen. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. And I was honored to feature on your show as well. But from all of us on the Legally Speaking podcast, sponsored by Clio, wishing you lots of continued success with your career, the firm, Emirates Legal Network, the jurist, and other things that no doubt you'll continue to do. But for now, over and out. Thank you for listening to this week's episode.

43:14Ahmed Elnaggar:If you like the content here, why not check out our world-leading content and collaboration of the Legally Speaking Club over on Discord. Go to our website, www.legallyspeakingpodcast.com. There's a link to join our community there. Over and out.