Episode 183: From Practicing Law to Consulting With Law Firms on Strategy, Operations, and Growth

Stephen Seckler (00:05.277)
Welcome back everybody. Just a reminder that if you're listening to Counsel to Counsel on one of the audio podcast platforms like Spotify or Apple Podcasts, you could also find us now on YouTube. If you're watching us on YouTube, it's nice to have you here. One of the questions I hear frequently from lawyers who are unhappy in practice is, what else can I do with a law degree? Making that transition can be difficult, particularly when you've spent years building expertise and credibility as a lawyer.

And suddenly find yourself trying to convince employers that your skills translate to something very different.

My guest today is Shireen Hilal, CEO of Maior, a consulting firm that helps law firms and other professional services firms improve their strategy, operations, growth, and profitability. But Shereen began her career as a big law litigator and spent about a decade practicing before making the transition to the business side of professional services. Since then, she has held senior roles at the accounting firms BDO and KPMG.

Served as a COO of a national law firm, and ultimately launched her own consulting business. Today we're going to focus primarily on that transition, how Shireen figured out what she wanted to do, how she persuaded people to give her opportunities when she didn't have the traditional background for those jobs, and what other lawyers who are considering an alternative legal career can learn from her experience. Shireen, welcome to Counsel to Counsel.

Shireen Hilal (02:04.792)
Thank you. So exciting to be here. I love your podcast.

Stephen Seckler (02:09.208)
thank you. Before we get into the lessons from your career transition, can you quickly walk us through the different steps that that you've had in your career?

Shireen Hilal (02:19.0)
Yeah, sure. so I, like many lawyers, went straight from college to law school. And then from there, I sort of had the traditional big law path through law school recruiting. So I started at Clifford Chance and then moved to two other firms. First, at the time it was called Hunton and Williams. I think now it's Hunton Andrews Kirth, and then Wilkie Far and Gallagher.

I would say those were probably less interesting transitions, just given I moved with partners both times. So for me it felt very much like I was still working with the same team. and it wasn't really my decision as much to move as much as yes, I wanna come with you and stay with the team.

And then after that, I decided, as you said, to move to the business side. And my first role was at BDO. It was helping them to build the consulting division. At the time, BDO had a very robust tax and audit practice, but consulting was really more the result of mergers that had happened for tax and audit. and folks who did not naturally fit into those.

service areas got put in consulting. From there, I went to KPMG and that was a completely different value prop. It was $5,000 person billion dollar consulting division, very well established, but flat revenues, declining margins, and they were looking for somebody to help them sort of shake it up and come up with some new strategies. And then

After that, I served as the COO of a national law firm. from there, I had a brief stint as the head of growth for a communications consulting firm and then opened my own consulting firm.

Stephen Seckler (04:22.244)
Okay. So for the the audience who's not familiar, can you describe some of the projects you worked on in your various incantations?

Shireen Hilal (04:32.566)
Yeah, sure. So in my practice, by the way, I mostly did traditional big farm big firm litigation, mostly an antitrust focus, actually. That was a big part of my practice. then when I got to BDO, it was a lot of figuring out, you know, what do we want to do with the various folks here in consulting? And so that means do we have the right people? Do we need to look at

Hiring new people, how do we go to market? How do we want to price these services? What do we want to be known for? Something really fun for me is I helped to build the first business planning exercise for consulting. So, you know, getting each of the practices within the consulting division to sit down for the first time and actually build plans and try to execute against those.

Then at KPMG, I would say the role was a little more special projects oriented. It was, like I said, a very mature division. So it was more solving pervasive problems. and so one is well, wait a minute, we bring on lateral hires at the partner level, but somehow those aren't always successful. What can we be doing better? Or another issue we had was

Given that division was so large, people don't always know what everybody else is doing, of course, and operate in silos. And so are we bringing our best and brightest thinking on the biggest opportunities that we have to bring in new clients? and how do we do better at making sure when we show up at the pitch, we're bringing all of our best thinking and the best ideas and the best people. So

Those are some of the examples. Then when I was COO of the law firm, it was great back with my people and a lot of fun. they had never had a COO before. And so it was really at first mostly taking a lot of the day-to-day off of the managing partner's plate so that he could get back to practicing law.

Shireen Hilal (06:56.808)
he had a full book of business and was a practice group leader himself. and then it was really, okay, well, now how do we improve the business? and so that was a combination of do we have the right administrative staff? are we well equipped in HR finance, et cetera? What do our practice group leaders need to be successful? how do we run a better executive committee meeting and make sure things actually

Or executed between meetings. how do we increase revenue and profitability? All the good stuff. And then at the communications consulting firm, interestingly, I took that because I really wanted to focus just on the revenue growth side. I personally love sales. I think it's a lot of fun. And in every previous role, I had had an opportunity to do some of it, but

thought wouldn't it be fun to just get to focus on growth? So I built the marketing, sales and client experience engines for that firm.

Stephen Seckler (08:11.219)
Okay, so now here you are, you've arrived at your own consulting practice, you've called it my or and I'd like to hear you tell us why you named it that, but I also want to hear what are some of the projects you work on and who are your clients.

Shireen Hilal (08:26.85)
Yeah, so I named the firm Maior, because Maior means bigger in Latin. Maybe being a lawyer, we don't we don't move too far from Latin. and for me, it really meant think bigger about your firm and your business. Think bigger about what your firm can be to your clients, to your employees, what you take home yourself. So that's sort of where I came up with the name. I love what I do. It's

A natural extension of sort of the progression I just told you about, which is helping professional services firms operate better and build better strategies, essentially. So it looks different for each firm. I have some firms that are on the smaller side and bring me in for, you know, something very isolated. Maybe it's we just can't hire good employees. What are we doing wrong? I have firms that are larger where I

sit on the executive committee and help them with making the big decisions and then making sure projects move in between those meetings that normally would linger or that their day-to-day administrative staff who are amazing but just stretched really thin would never have time to execute or just wouldn't know where to get started. So things like okay fine, we're now adopting AI, but so what now what? How does this affect our pricing model?

Are we surfacing the best use cases? Or it might be, you know, we're interested in looking at flat fee instead of billable hours. but how do we get started and where where should we pilot that first? so yeah, it's great. I mean, I get to help really great firms be better.

Stephen Seckler (10:13.213)
You practiced for about ten years and at what point did you begin to realize that practicing law wasn't what you wanted to do for the rest of your career? And what was it about the business side of law that attracted you?

Shireen Hilal (10:27.663)
Good question. I think I realized pretty early on that there was something different that I saw, if that makes sense. I don't know if I knew I didn't want to practice law, but I knew

I wasn't getting what I wanted out of the traditional experience. And I say that because I I may have made a mistake candidly. I think law school sort of pushes you to take the big law position if you can get it. And, you know, certainly I too cared about the predigree and the gravitas and of course the money, right? who doesn't want to make the money? But

I didn't realize that big law litigation, it moves really slow. It's a lot of paperwork, discovery, meet and confer. you know, I was on one really large class action MDL litigation that nine years later we were finally starting to get to the opt-out cases. I mean, it's

It's a long haul and I tend to move extremely quickly. I'm just wired that way. So the things that kept me more interested were I loved talking to the clients and digging into, well, wait a minute, like I've now prepped three people in your whatever department for depositions that we'll be defending.

Why do you guys do this that way? why did you develop that product? What are you thinking next? That's really interesting. I just found that more fun. And then similarly, back at the firm, I also found the piece more interesting, which was, well, wait a minute, are we staffing this right? Or how come we have people that are constantly getting burnt out on that team? And what can we be doing better?

Shireen Hilal (12:37.763)
Why are we doing our pitch materials this way? I don't think this is compelling, even though we've already always done this this way. let's try something different this time. And I think you find when you're the person who likes that stuff, it does end up naturally starting to gravitate towards you because most practicing lawyers don't like that stuff. for good reason, right? You didn't go to law school to

redo marketing materials or think about how you should reorganize the pitch deck or to look at the whip. So but I liked it. I enjoyed it.

Stephen Seckler (13:19.303)
Here's the million dollar question, because you said most lawyers didn't go to law school to get involved in the business side of law. You didn't have an MBA or a traditional background in business or operations. So how did you convince yourself and eventually employers that you could succeed in this way?

Shireen Hilal (13:32.003)
Yeah.

Shireen Hilal (13:41.015)
It's a good question. I mean, I think the employer question is the harder one. the first job out of law was the hardest to get, of course. It was the BDO job. I I mean, I can't tell you how many resumes I sent out. I I applied to open positions that were in strategy operations.

growth, anything that felt like the kinds of things I thought I wanted to do, I got rejected a lot. one thing I did, I don't know if this would work today, but back then I didn't just apply to a role. I would also try to kind of figure out in the org chart who does this likely report into. How do I find their email and write them a personal email saying, you know, I've I've applied

My resume is with HR, but I just wanted to be sure you knew that I'm really interested in this. And here's why. And this is what I think I can contribute. And for me, the piece that I felt I had to really put in there was: look, I don't have the experience. So I better, I better kind of give a couple thoughts on what would be my approach if you hired me. because what else do I have to stand on? If you look at my resume.

I mean, sure, it says that I sat on a bunch of committees and did all those things, but it's awfully hard to hire somebody without the right background. So I got told no a lot. I got lucky when the COO of BDO's consulting division said, Look, we have this new role. I'm kind of creating it from scratch. It's called transformation and growth.

it's exactly what it sounds like. We're gonna look for you to help us grow the business and transform it at the same time. And I have no idea if this will ever go anywhere. It may never have any upward mobility in BDO. I don't even know how long we're gonna have the role, but if you're willing to take a chance on us, we'll take a chance on you. And so I took a pay cut. that's the other thing, right? No one's gonna pay a big law.

Shireen Hilal (16:00.323)
tenure associate salary for an unknown quantity to do something else. So I took a pay cut, but I actually figured it's better than taking two years to go get an MBA. and let me go just do my best.

Stephen Seckler (16:19.709)
Well, what's so one of the things that so interesting about your story that I you know wanted to interview you is that most of the clients that I work with who are trying to make some kind of a transition like this, I really emphasize that networking is really key to sort of make that bridge, to make the connection. Like the person that knows you may get to know like trust you. Maybe they were a client, maybe they just know you personally, but

Shireen Hilal (16:37.411)
Mm.

Stephen Seckler (16:49.745)
You really did this with cold outreach, right?

Shireen Hilal (16:52.813)
I did. I mean, look, I think your method's probably the better one, candidly. I think you're right. People tend to gravitate to people they already know. That's the other problem, right? When you're applying for jobs, I mean, how many of those roles are already kind of spoken for, right? Or

Stephen Seckler (16:58.319)
Ha ha ha.

Shireen Hilal (17:16.995)
You know, they're already looking at internal people. They already have their tentacles out in a network. So I think you're right. You you want to be part of that. but if you're not sure where to go, I just, I don't know. I guess I just did it. I just sent out I applied and I thought applying's not enough. I mean, this resume really isn't going to substantiate, right? Thinking about it as a litigator. I mean.

I don't really have enough proof points in my background to support the role, so I've gotta do something extra.

Stephen Seckler (18:00.286)
The one thing that you did do though, which I think is very hard for many lawyers, is that you were able to hear no many times and keep going. I I just interviewed Doctor Larry Richard, who has done a lot of research on lawyer personalities, and he just wrote a book called Thin Skinned. And we're we're outliers on a number of of of

Shireen Hilal (18:18.029)
interesting.

Stephen Seckler (18:24.167)
variables like we're higher in skepticism, no surprise there. we're higher on higher on urgency and we're lower on resilience. We're like in the 90th percentile, you know, for people who are below average on resilience. Yeah, like and that so maybe you you must be in like the 10 percentile because clearly you're you're able to keep going and and not allow that, you know, fifteenth

Shireen Hilal (18:26.883)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Shireen Hilal (18:39.108)
Really?

Stephen Seckler (18:51.731)
twentieth, thirtieth rejections stop you from trying.

Shireen Hilal (18:55.777)
Well, I've I've always been relentless. I guess I don't I don't know what other word to use. I don't even know that that's the right word, but I don't know if this is a good example, but even as a first year associate, you know, I was put on document review like everybody else, and about two weeks in

I just instead of doing the normal thing, which was, you know, you're you're tagging the documents and categorizing and you move on to the next document. If I found a document that I thought was really interesting, I wouldn't just hit back then, like you had like a hot docs but button. I would also hit print. And so I started keeping the stack of hot documents next to me. And then at the end of the week, I would take the time to go through them, highlight.

And organize them. And I walked straight into the head partner's office, which nobody had ever met that person on the case. If you were on document review, right, you reported into like a second or a third year. and just started bringing them to him every week. Well, I got taken off document review pretty fast. and then I got to lead a 70 person document review because it was clear.

She knows what she's looking for and she's willing to I don't know if it's go the extra mile, but maybe not just do what you're told, do what needs to get done. If that makes sense.

Stephen Seckler (20:29.587)
Mm-hmm. Taking initiative and in the language of my people, I would say that you are somebody that has a lot of chutzpah.

Shireen Hilal (20:37.567)
Yeah, I yes, I am a bit audacious. I am mouthy, for sure.

Which is all which also, by the way, double edged sword. large political places, that's difficult, like a KPMG. I'm a bit of a bull in that kind of china shop.

Stephen Seckler (21:00.111)
Okay. Now you've really minimized your training, your readiness for these types of jobs, but I'm sure you took certain skills from your years of practicing law and some of those skills were particularly valuable in in being able to come into these types of roles, right? I mean there was something. Yeah, okay. So what were the skills that you feel were most transferable? And then, you I also want to get into a little bit more about how you convinced BDO

Shireen Hilal (21:18.415)
For sure.

Stephen Seckler (21:29.883)
had to take this chance. I I assume it was by demonstrating transferable skills. It wasn't just your charm and chutzpah, right? Like

Shireen Hilal (21:38.307)
Correct. I think probably hopefully a a little bit of everything, right? yeah, so thinking about the skill set, I think you know, you mentioned something interesting earlier, which was that I don't I don't have an MBA. And I think for me, maybe it's an advantage, or maybe I've made it my advantage. I I was never taught a formula or a methodology.

That I tried to force onto problems. And so there's an advantage to saying it doesn't matter that we've always done it this way, it's not working, or people aren't listening. I think I'm lucky to just have an instinct to go beyond what I'm doing. And again, kind of the to the doc review example, figure out what actually needs to get done. I think the other thing that

big law definitely teaches you is all the tiny facts matter. And so like, you know, you'll never build a great case strategy without caring about the details. And the same goes for running a business. I think there's too many leaders that think they can run a business with executive committee meetings and writing memos and policies and delegating every fix, but you just can't stay above the work all the time.

Sometimes you have to dig in and make sure that the big opportunity is handled perfectly or solve the huge problem that's holding your firm back. And so, you know, like I say sometimes to my clients, if your firm was literally on fire, you would evacuate people and get out the hose, right? You wouldn't call a meeting to review the fire safety plan. so sometimes it's also just about be more practical.

And do a little less of the business book stuff and and do what's right.

Shireen Hilal (23:40.729)
Does that help?

Stephen Seckler (23:42.078)
Yeah, sure. You know, I I I was just I paused there because I I just wanted to bring up a point that you and I talked about, which is that sometimes when people work within a system, they know how to do things that are done a certain way within that system. And of course lawyers are particularly precedent oriented and ha and having somebody who's able to challenge that conventional thinking and say, Well, why are we doing it this way can really make things

Shireen Hilal (24:01.709)
totally.

Stephen Seckler (24:12.295)
better and create process improvement.

Shireen Hilal (24:14.979)
Yeah, I think it's also I'm a very curious person. I always have been. And I think one of my strong suits is empathy. And so empathy and curiosity, look, it's the heart of any business is you have something to sell, right? And you're trying to serve a market with something people need. And so you have to really understand.

what those needs are, you can also only do that through hiring people who care and know what good looks like. So you better understand what those people need too. And then curiosity means you can't assume that your firm or even your industry candidly has the right answer. And so here's an easy one. If law firms are terrible at employee engagement, and most of them are

Don't bother even asking what best practices are because best isn't good enough. who does it well? Okay, maybe Netflix. All right, go down that rabbit hole for an hour and figure out what they do differently. And there's probably a few nuggets you can apply and try it because what's the worst thing that happens? You try something else? Okay.

Stephen Seckler (25:38.919)
Is there anything that you feel like you had to unlearn in order to be successful in what what you did for BDO and what you're doing now?

Shireen Hilal (25:42.403)
Hmm.

Shireen Hilal (25:48.641)
Yeah, I'm still unlearning it. control. It's really, it's really hard. I think we're wired as lawyers. And it was one of the things I I think that probably pushed me into liking law is, you know, you you have to be the expert and you have to have a lot of discipline and control over what's going on. you gotta give some of that up if you're ever going to grow.

somebody else's business, if you're growing your own business, as I'm doing now. So yeah, that one's that one's a difficult one. The other one that I'm not sure I'll ever, I'm not sure I'll ever get to this one is patience. it's a virtue, but it's not mine. And I've always sort of been let's get it done yesterday, let's keep moving. and there's time you need to give other people

a chance, right, to chew and digest before they take the next bite.

Stephen Seckler (26:54.459)
What's one thing that you see that law firms get wrong regardless of the type of practice or size?

Shireen Hilal (27:01.667)
Ooh, good one. I think I sort of alluded to it earlier with the facts and the reality matter. the map is not the terrain. And so I think there's a lot of firms that go from one extreme to the other. So from complete chaos and everyone's doing everything in silos to okay, we get it. We need KPIs and a dashboard, and we're gonna look at

billable hours and realization, and all of these things, but there's no substitute for getting out and talking to your people and getting feedback from your clients and looking at what, again, what the market needs. And so I think we overrely and I see firms make the mistake of over relying on the reports. you know, something I did when I was COO and I

Would advise it to any leader to to figure out a version of this that works for you. I used to keep the firm directory on my desk. And every day I would pick at random three names and just call and check in on people and see how they were doing. And then I'd cross them off. And when the entire directory was crossed off months later, I would print out a new one and I would start again. And the benefit is.

When you've spoken with every single person at the firm a couple of times a year, you know your people. you see the problems as they're coming, you know the why behind the numbers in the rapport, and maybe more importantly, you know how to quickly mobilize to do something about it because you understand the politics and you know who's who's doing what and why and what the motivations are.

And maybe more important, you you give them a chance to know and trust you. So they're more apt to listen when you come and say, look, we have an issue and we need to solve it. I just don't think you can ever get away from minding the shop.

Stephen Seckler (29:14.771)
That's also great technique for building a practice and making sure that you're maintaining relationships and not just having one-off conversations with potential clients, referral sources, whatnot, past clients. What are some of the things that you've done to build your own practice or that you think are different than just the relationship building component?

Shireen Hilal (29:41.465)
Yeah, I think

I think it all comes down eventually to relationships, but I I do a lot of publishing. I put out a decent amount of thought leadership. And for me, that's a way to build trust and get to a warmer relationship. By the time I speak to somebody who's read something, I've written maybe multiple articles, maybe they've seen me speak. I think they have a sense of what I'm about and.

how I do what I do and whether I'm for them. So, so that's been incredibly helpful. I think it's just being really generous. Like I don't, I don't begrudge sharing a process, a template. you can have it. I mean, if you can take it and run with it, have it. it doesn't, I don't worry it cannibalizes my business the way that I think we've talked about,

My husband's first career was as a chef at at very fancy restaurants and you know, he'll say all the time, it's Daniel Balud can put out a cookbook. It doesn't mean people aren't gonna go to the restaurant.

Stephen Seckler (30:59.059)
Right. I remember years ago when I was first starting this podcast there was a lawyer I don't want to say much about him, but he had figured out a particular niche or a way of practicing that I thought was an interesting story to tell, and I asked him if he would be on the podcast and he didn't want to be on the podcast because he was concerned that people would like steal his idea. It was really really like a lawyerly thinking, you know.

Shireen Hilal (31:24.815)
How?

Shireen Hilal (31:28.291)
Yeah, it is. I mean, but candidly, it almost always comes down to execution. The idea is, I mean, of course you have to have the idea, but Steven, I can tell you a million times I've given people the right idea and I come back three months later and they still haven't done anything about it. So I mean, if it were that easy, like you can tell me right now how to lose ten pounds.

Stephen Seckler (31:35.687)
Yeah.

Shireen Hilal (31:56.761)
Take the fork out of your hand and get on the treadmill screen. So so why is it so hard, right? Cause it because it is hard. It is hard.

Stephen Seckler (31:59.678)
Ha ha.

Stephen Seckler (32:07.783)
Maybe I should take the spoon out of my hand too, 'cause I t my snack, my go to ice ice cream. I'm not an well, I do like ice cream a lot, but my my my go to tends to be peanut butter when I'm kinda like walking through the kitchen and it's like I need a little energy boost. Very high caloric value there, but you know, the spoon get Yeah, mostly. Depends upon what quantity of it you eat.

Shireen Hilal (32:09.711)
Well that's if you're like an are you an ice cream person?

Shireen Hilal (32:21.493)
Mm.

Shireen Hilal (32:27.319)
It at least it's nutritious.

Shireen Hilal (32:35.213)
I'm a French fry and potato chip lover. Yeah.

Stephen Seckler (32:38.436)
okay.

The potato's an amazing plant. Yep. Wow, living with a chef, that must be challenging if you're trying not to gain weight.

Shireen Hilal (32:44.665)
Just great.

Shireen Hilal (32:55.743)
well, I'm actually lucky he's a very healthy eater. and he even grows our produce. So he'll grow tomatoes and then jar the tomato sauce. He's very passionate about organic food, etc. Like he has a meat guy, a fish guy, whatever guy. yeah. So I think the bigger issue is he never wants to go out to eat.

Stephen Seckler (33:26.375)
Well, my understanding is that you can actually eat more healthfully if you cook for yourself at home.

Shireen Hilal (33:33.429)
hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. And he knows how to make things taste really good. It's nice. But in case you're thinking like I get to say, make me pad thie tonight, most days he's like, There's chicken in the fridge.

Stephen Seckler (33:38.835)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Seckler (33:48.059)
Isn't it

Eat the leftovers.

Shireen Hilal (33:53.539)
Correct. He's like, I already made something and you can eat that.

Stephen Seckler (33:56.966)
Okay. So you emphasize the importance of finding something you're genuinely passionate about because it it makes it easier to become excellent at it or sell it. But what would you say to a lawyer who knows they want to leave the law but hasn't yet figured out what they want to move toward?

Shireen Hilal (34:05.455)
Mm.

Shireen Hilal (34:16.185)
Ooh, good question.

Yeah, I think you've got to kind of explore and talk to people, kind of figure out what other people do and what their day to day is like. I know for me, I at first thought that moving to the business side, maybe I'd really like being in-house, right? So I could I could still practice, but be in the client and with the client and have more of that business lens. When I looked and saw the opportunities that were actually available.

And and interviewed at a few places. for in-house litigation roles, I was not excited by it. And so I think have the conversations and ask people, and maybe even apply to things and interview, right? You don't have to take the job, but see what's out there.

Stephen Seckler (35:09.512)
Be curious.

Shireen Hilal (35:10.795)
Right, be curious. and yeah, the passion point is really I just think it's hard to dig in as hard as you need to dig in and get enough reps if you don't like something.

Stephen Seckler (35:27.024)
Absolutely.

Shireen Hilal (35:27.107)
Difficult.

Stephen Seckler (35:33.426)
I will I will throw in just a little practice tip for anybody thinking about making a transition. Yes, get out, network, find people to talk to who might be doing something that just sounds interesting, find out what it is that they do, what skills they deploy, how you might make a transition. Going in house is a way of bridging the gap because you can take a role in house as a lawyer and then I've seen many times lawyers transition

from actually practicing into more operational roles by being in a company where they've already developed good relationships, people know, like and trust them, and now they're being being given the opportunity to do things that are not actually the practice of law.

Shireen Hilal (36:18.575)
Definitely. And and I would say the smaller the fur the smaller the company, the bigger that opportunity is. I know out of my friends that went in-house, the ones that went to more mid-sized companies where they were the general counsel of like a lean legal department, maybe even at first it was a legal department of one, or or or two, right? It's them and a paralegal.

Yeah, they've they've had a lot of leeway to shape business strategy and get to do really cool stuff that makes for a very natural transition. And in fact, I had one friend that did that and then realized I get to do enough of it that I don't actually feel I need to leave law. I like that I get to kind of do both, and which is great.

Stephen Seckler (37:12.465)
And I know a lawyer who I interviewed some years ago, Sean Hoyt, who worked his way into a COO role and then has kind of pulled back a little bit because he does find that he misses some of the legal aspects. He was overseeing law, the legal department, the legal function, but now he's kind of taken on more again the the legal role that he once had exclusively.

Shireen Hilal (37:38.425)
Yeah, I could see that. when I went to the communications consulting firm, that was the last pit my last W-2 pit stop before starting my own firm. What was most frustrating for me was I thought I just wanted a growth role, right? I said if I could just focus on growth and not have to deal with HR, finance, all right, all of the other department, the IT department, all of that, and just focus here.

look at look at how much we can help this firm grow. The problem was I I couldn't help it, right? I saw out of the corner of my eye, well, wait a minute, but I I can close the deal, but we don't have the right people on the accounts. Or I don't think we're doing the right things in terms of how we're running the business this way or that way. But now you don't have ownership over that. And that's it's incredibly frustrating to know more than you should know.

Stephen Seckler (38:40.839)
the fears that lawyers have about leaving practice is that they're throwing away all the years they invested in becoming a lawyer. So looking back, do you see your career as something you left behind or your legal career as something you left behind, or something that continues to be part of the value that you bring today?

Shireen Hilal (38:58.937)
my gosh, it's totally part of the value. I mean, first of all, I I know my clients feel in to for them it's you've you've practiced law, you've run a law firm, that experience. It's awfully hard to tell somebody to change a process or do it a different way if you've again, empathy, right? Have you done it? And do you have any credibility to say?

how this would change or to or to really dig in. for example, like I have a client that does insurance defense work and it's incredibly tight margins. And so it's all about figuring out how do we move these cases faster, how do without cutting corners, of course, and and how do we staff this the right way, given you can't, you can't pay what what your what other peer firms out there are paying, but you need great talent and people who are gonna go to court. And so we're gonna need to be really creative about the hiring.

I think that would be awfully hard to do if you didn't really intimately understand the practice. And then from a practical perspective, it helps me in my business, right? I mean, I don't have to hire somebody to look over my contracts. In fact, I've had vendors laugh and be like, How'd you turn that contract around so fast? And I'm like, well, I actually am still admitted to practice in the state of New York. So yeah.

Stephen Seckler (40:23.219)
Spent good money to get that training.

Shireen Hilal (40:24.527)
you better believe it. I keep it I keep up with my with my bar. Do you wait, are you still licensed?

Stephen Seckler (40:31.697)
No, I gave that up a long time ago. That way nobody could ask me, you know family members or friends, to write letters for them.

Shireen Hilal (40:37.583)
You're pro okay, well that's smart because I do I do obviously get asked, can you quickly look at this? Of course.

Stephen Seckler (40:47.975)
Alright, so we're getting near the end, Shereen. so for a lawyer listening to this who's thinking, I don't know. Excuse me, let me repeat that Jelko. Shireen, we're getting near the end here. so for a lawyer who's thinking, I know I don't want to keep doing what I'm doing, but I don't know how anyone will hire me to do something else, what are the first steps you think they should take?

Shireen Hilal (41:14.393)
I think you've gotta understand that you are at a deficit in that experience column. And like I said, what are you gonna fill it with? And so, real example, I got the interview after you know shoving my weight in with the email for a chief of staff role at a major airline. And when I got to the interview, I knew.

I am so underqualified, right? I mean, I'm a litigator. Like what business do I have taking this job? So what did I do? I listened to their last quarter's earnings call. And I listened to, I mean, there's only there's less than 10 competitor airlines that are public companies out there to to really listen to that matter. So I listened to them all. I took notes. I understood what was happening in the industry. And I can tell you this. I mean

Stephen Seckler (41:46.781)
Ha ha ha.

Shireen Hilal (42:12.823)
I don't know that anyone could have been more prepared. And so if there's something you have as a lawyer that you can do better than anyone, it's digging in and learning the facts, building like building up like what are my conclusions and what's the here here's what I would do next. you can wow them when they meet you. But you're gonna have to take that extra, it's take the extra step.

Stephen Seckler (42:42.803)
That is really great advice. Okay, final question I'd like to ask all of my guests. What's one movie, streaming television series or podcast that you would recommend? And this is for entertainment purposes.

Shireen Hilal (42:57.127)
It. my current favorite is Lioness. I just really like the action, and I'm kind of an action junkie. So, like I like a show like Game of Thrones. if it's a movie, I like the Mission Impossible movies or the Born series or things like that. I am a Bond fan. for me, there's gotta be a lot going on. You may have gathered with my impatience.

I need to have a lot happening in every scene, otherwise I I disengage.

Stephen Seckler (43:34.333)
Well, I like chick flicks, so I don't think you and I will be going out to the movies.

Shireen Hilal (43:39.117)
What's your favorite?

Stephen Seckler (43:41.81)
I like movies or shows about dysfunctional families. I mean, what can I say? But sometimes like really really stupid movies like The Hangover or Bridesmaids. I don't know. Yeah. We saw this great series called Bad Sisters, which is about four sisters trying to kill the husband of the fifth one. It's an Irish sort of dark comedy. and I don't know.

Shireen Hilal (43:54.871)
Those can be fun.

Shireen Hilal (44:04.751)
That sounds fun.

I say this as one of four sisters, so yeah, and we're and we're very close.

Stephen Seckler (44:10.517)
okay. Okay.

well these were five sisters, so maybe yeah, anyway. okay. So Shereen, this has been a great conversation. Thanks so much for for for joining us today. I'm I'm really enjoying getting to know you. I I love your energy. It's just so instructive for lawyers who are sitting lying in a pool of depression, feeling like I don't want to be doing this for the rest of my life. Yeah. And

Shireen Hilal (44:16.557)
Right. Right.

Shireen Hilal (44:39.279)
Thank you, friend.

Stephen Seckler (44:42.5)
you know, it it it's just very refreshing. So if anyone in our audience

Shireen Hilal (44:44.911)
Well, your life is what you make of it, right? Like it's it's yours to and you're lucky if you've gotten to the point where you have done this much and you've practiced law, you can figure out the next thing.

Stephen Seckler (44:57.811)
Sure. And I just want to underscore, as I always like to say, there are many happy lawyers who do like practicing law, so not trying to discourage anybody from having a very successful and happy legal career.

Shireen Hilal (45:10.381)
Right, but it's not for everyone.

Stephen Seckler (45:12.381)
Not for everyone. Okay, so it's been a great conversation. if anyone in our audience has follow up questions, how can they reach you?

Shireen Hilal (45:24.029)
you can find me on LinkedIn, Shireen Hilal, or through my website, Myor Consultants. It's M-A-I-O-R, Consultants with an S.

Stephen Seckler (45:34.716)
Okay.

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