Khurram’s Quorum – Ep 044: Patti Burris on turning fear into focus and freedom
Patti Burris had two kids and an associate’s degree when she started her path towards law school. Yet she made her way to the top of her class by building systems to succeed even when there wasn’t a safety net. And she’s reframing her biglaw path from a necessary drudge to an opportunity to build a rewarding life.
Patti’s law school story begins with walking into the wrong job interview, which led to a life-changing mentorship. She shares the principles she used to call her shot in law school and end up at the top of the class through relationships with peers and professors, systems for learning, and cycles of sprints and rest.
Now, as a driven biglaw funds lawyer, Patti shares the formula she uses to ensure she’s investing in herself every week. Patti also shares how she stacks goals (social, academic, professional) for exponential returns.
Keep reading below for the full link to the episode and the full transcript of our conversation.
Top Insights
Below are the highlights of our conversation:
- The Power of Serendipity and Grit: Patti shares the incredible story of how walking into the wrong office for a job interview led to a high-stakes role with a venture capital investor, proving that being an “opportunist” who can simply “figure it out” is often more valuable than a perfect resume.
- The 7:2:3:1 Wellness Ratio: To survive the grueling pace of BigLaw (where she billed upwards of 2,500 hours), Patti developed a strict “Wellness Ratio” to protect her mental and physical health: 7 hours of sleep, 2 healthy meals a day, 3 workouts a week, and 1 thing to look forward to every weekend.
- Overcoming Analysis Paralysis: Patti discusses why so many young lawyers are terrified of making the “wrong” career move and how to reframe the fear narrative by looking at the “most likely” outcome instead of the “worst-case” scenario.
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Full Transcript
Khurram Naik: So Patti, when I first learned about your career story, you said to me, “Oh, did I tell you the story of my career about how I came to law?” and I thought maybe I knew something about it, so I said, “Oh, maybe, just tell me about it.” Then you told me the story and just as the story progressed, every point I thought the story was over because it was already incredible enough, and then there’s another part of the story that’s more incredible. So I’d love to start with that. And so your story in Massachusetts begins at a Regus office. Can you tell that story?
Patti Burris: Absolutely. It was 15 years ago, I moved to Massachusetts. I was a mom, I had two boys that were adolescents and I needed a job to continue supporting them. I only had an associate’s degree, I had a bookkeeping background, so I was offered an interview with a company to interview to be their full-time bookkeeper. Being from Deep East Texas, a very rural region in Texas, I had never seen a Regus building. I was unfamiliar with the concept of shared office space or temporary office space. So I went into the lobby, introduced myself, sat down, and a gentleman came out and said, “Are you here to interview?” and I said, “I am.” So I went with him to his office, and he sorted through a pile of resumes on his desk, couldn’t find mine. And he said, “Well, my assistant must have left it out of the pile, no worries, let’s get started with the interview.”
So about halfway through the interview, two other gentlemen came into the room and said, “We think you have our interviewee,” and I said, “Well, this is embarrassing.” So I went to the correct interview and completed that interview. And on the way out, the gentleman with whom I had been interviewing caught me and he said, “Hey listen, I would like to finish the discussion. But to be very direct, I would like to offer you the position.” So at this point, I don’t know what the position is. And he said, “I will offer you a salary of $75,000 and benefits that start on day one,” and I said, “I accept.”
I still didn’t even know what the position was! So it turns out I was being hired to be the executive assistant to a venture capital investor. And I quickly learned he was involved in a number of endeavors, from everything from entrepreneurship, angel investing, venture, and if you told him that you couldn’t do something, most people did not continue to work for him. So it didn’t matter what he asked me to do, I would figure out how to do it and quickly climbed the ranks to become second-in-command of the local office. He employed 850 people nationwide and I was really just his right-hand man.
And about two years in, someone said something condescending about someone with a bachelor’s degree in his and my presence, and I defended them. I said, “Well, I don’t have a bachelor’s degree,” and he was speechless. He said, “You don’t have a bachelor’s degree?” and I told him, “I never said I have a bachelor’s degree. I never saw the job description, you never saw my resume.” And he said, “Well, at this point, you do the job well.”
So four years in, I was the corporate controller of his organization at this point, and he came to work and he said, “I have great news, we’re moving to Laguna Beach.” And I said, “Who?” and he said, “My wife,” and he said, “Obviously, you will go too.” And I said, “I can’t do that. I only moved my children here five years ago, they’re teenagers now, I can’t ask them to acclimate again.” And I cried at work for about three days. I knew I would never get another job like that, it was just—the circumstances would never align, and I live in Boston, the most educated city in the United States.
On day three, his wife was in the office and she was crying, and she said she was devastated to lose me, that their life had been a lot better with me on board, that she had had him at home a lot more because he trusted me. And she said they had always planned to make sure that my boys and I were cared for. So she said, “You know, we still want to do something extraordinary for you. You always wanted to be an attorney and we want to see that happen.” And I told her, “That’s really fantastic, I appreciate the kind words, but there’s this whole supporting my children thing that I have to do now.” And she said, “Well, you need two years to a bachelor’s degree to apply to law school. So what we’re offering is a severance that you will be very comfortable the next two years, you will not feel any diminishment of your income in the way that it’s structured.” The terms are confidential, so I can’t say much more than that, but she said it’s contingent on you finishing your bachelor’s degree and applying to law school.
And of course, me always planning the long game, I said, “Okay, what happens when I can’t pay for law school? If I get in and I can’t pay for it?” and she said, “You’ll figure it out, we have faith in you.” So I signed up at UMass Lowell. It was five minutes from my house, I lived in Lowell at the time. And every assignment I picked up over the next two years, my driving thought was “I can’t afford law school.” So I tried harder than I had tried at everything. I understood that becoming a Commonwealth Scholar could help my applications to law school. Most people have four years to meet those qualifications, I only had two. So consequently, every course I took was an honors course and though I was not the only person in my college at UMass Lowell to graduate with a 4.0, they weighed the difficulty of the courses and ultimately I graduated as the Valedictorian of the College of Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.
At that point, I had applied to law schools. I had scholarships from almost every law school in the region, and I had full-ride offers from Suffolk, New England, and New Hampshire. I didn’t understand academia, so I wasn’t really aware that to practice in the venture capital and private equity space, that it could have been worth it to invest in one of the higher-ranked or more prestigious law schools, so I accepted at Suffolk. In the first week, they had an admitted students event and I attended that and they asked me what I wanted to do with my career. And I told them I have this experience in the venture capital space, investment, and I know I want to do private equity or venture capital law. And again, I was met with the uncomfortable—the obvious—that someone has to break news to me and they said, “Okay, like, we’re a great law school, you know, known for litigation and the judiciary, however, where do you want to practice?” and I told them, “Goodwin Procter or Kirkland & Ellis.” And again, you see a little bit of surprise and they said, “Okay, you’re going to need to be in the top five.” And I said, “Okay, top 5%, there’s 300 people, I do still have kids but I think I can probably do it.” And they were like, “No, people. You’re going to need to be in the top five people.” And I said, “Okay.”
So I finished 1L at the top of my section and at that point, I did early OCI at Kirkland and Goodwin, I did regular OCI at a number of firms and ultimately at the end of 1L, I chose between Ropes & Gray and Goodwin. And I committed to Goodwin, spent my summer there, they understood that I had the boys, that I had some challenges not all students have. They had a clerkship program and they created a position to allow me to clerk through school at the firm, so I worked at Goodwin continuously since then. And I guess it suffices to say everything that happened to me was a result of going to the wrong job interview in a Regus building.
Khurram Naik: Yes, I would say that definitely is an unlikely outcome from going to the wrong office in Regus. But so, let’s going back to your time at that funds financial services company. So you mentioned there was this attitude of finding ways to make things happen and just rejecting the assumption that there were things you couldn’t do. Can you give us some specific examples of that and then what were scenarios where you said, “Okay, this seems impossible but I’m going to figure out a way,” and then how did you do that?
Joe Ahmad: Absolutely. So my boss at that company collected luxury cars, from Ferraris to Rolls-Royces, any kind of car you can imagine, and because he was such a good customer, he had access to limited edition cars. There was a situation at the time—I’m not sure if it still rings true—but if you sold these cars prior to 500 miles or so, you could generate pretty large profits on them because of the supply and demand. So at one point, when he was turning a profit on these cars and then occasionally taking a loss, he said, “I’d like to start a business around it,” and he came into my office and he said, “Hey, do you know how to start a car dealership?” And here I sat and I just looked at him dumbfounded and I said, “Um, yeah, sure, I can definitely do that.”
And so he left and, you know, that sounds like an overwhelming thing—and I’ve run into a lot of overwhelming things in my life as I’m sure we all have—but the fact of the matter is the concept of a car dealership is not new. Someone has done it before. Therefore, I only need to do the proper research to figure out how other people have done it and therefore we can do it too. And that’s exactly what I did. I figured out the permitting system, the allocation of cities, how many permits they have, how you go about one, that you have to have an office on-site where you keep your inventory, all of these registration requirements. And within two days, I had delivered him a full plan, from the entity creation formation all the way through the permits and registrations with the state and the cities and a plan to how we could open a car dealership.
He was in everything from farms in the Midwest—he was a genius investor. So when the crisis happened, the property and housing crisis in ’08, he bought up all of the farmland that the farmers had lost and then he leased it back to these same farmers. That was their only way to make a living. So that was one blanket rent payment a year, he would pay one insurance payment a year, and these investments just ran themselves. So farmland was something I worked on. Luxury cars. He had a nursing home chain. He opened a medical supply business with the sole goal of being acquired within a few years by Medline or McKesson and was—he was successful at that.
So essentially, I would help him with all of these endeavors, open these businesses and help him run them, babysit them until they were big enough for a board of directors or to get acquired. And through that is where I learned that I would like to learn how to do this myself. I had learned that, you know, I come from a very humble background and this is one of the wealthiest self-made men that I’ve met. And much like other people that I’ve met now that are more comfortable than I am financially, they learned how to make money off of money. So I did always want to be an attorney. I learned that I would be more appropriate in the corporate space. I like to be liked, I like other people, I like collaborating to get a project in common completed. So that’s really—any given day, I had no idea what I would be working on, but I learned to embrace it and love it.
Khurram Naik: So you saw—it sounds like this person is unusual in having just raw investment skill that can translate across very disparate industries and seems like business structures. That’s pretty rare, so it’s a really valuable person to learn from and you were learning very closely from this person. If I’m hearing you right, it sounds like you’re preferring the kind of work that you do—like, why don’t you be an investor? Why do that instead of practicing law? It sounds like you just inherently like the nature of the work—so for instance, the collaborative aspect of it. I don’t know enough about the nature of this person’s businesses, but maybe they were less collaborative, less about other people and problem-solving in the way that you enjoy. What’s your take on that? Like, have you thought about going down that route or are you—do you enjoy inherently the work of being a lawyer? Like how do you think about that?
Patti Burris: I’m risk-averse due to my background. I understood that if I graduated law school with a law degree, I hold something of value that I can never lose and that I can leverage into opportunities. And from that point in life, I can go from the place in which I always existed—from becoming a mother as a teenager through that point in life, which was 39 years old—I operated from a place of safety and survival and a constant fear that if something went wrong, I could lose everything, my children would pay the price. And at that point, I understood that even if I never achieve wealth, even if I never achieve big-law momentous success, no one can ever take that from me and I’ll be okay.
The investor side, I do find it fascinating. The more that I’ve worked on the law side, I find it more fascinating, and the entrepreneurial spirit is inspirational to me. And the upside, the potential upside in working in private equity is unlimited, it’s incredible right now. So it does appeal to me, but I tend to play it more safely. And every opportunity that was put in front of me, there was the analysis of how can I maximize this opportunity the safest way possible. Now that the boys are all grown and gone, I might take on more risk, but at the same time, my life feels like a dream every day as it is. I never dreamed I would be able to swipe my credit card without worry, to pay my bills in advance, anything like that. And I’m pretty happy doing what I’m doing. So I do try to limit that. I think the little motivator inside all of us who are type-A or lawyers or high achievers, that’s always “what’s next, what’s more.” That’s where I’m at now is trying to assess when it’s enough.
Khurram Naik: Yeah, I think it’d be interesting going back to law school to talk about how you de-risked that opportunity so you don’t accidentally end up to be—you said third from last? And so that’s—you have to be very deliberate about making that happen, especially with the constraints you’re working with. And of course other people in law school have constraints, but yours are pretty pronounced and I think most lawyers would agree that those are significant constraints compared to other people. So tell me about how you approached law school. How did you set yourself up for success? Tell me the semester-by-semester playbook for how you progressed and pulled yourself forward.
Patti Burris: Absolutely. So my—I was largely driven by anxiety and fear in the first two semesters. You know, I had imposter syndrome, which I think drives a lot of attorneys to do good work. But then also my children. I was out of the home, I did still team mom for all their sports teams, I still sat on every board of directors. At this point, I had taken another teenager into my home and was helping him build a professional sports career. I still had all of these obligations and I didn’t want to take away from them and then not yield the result that I was doing that for. That was the goal.
So my first semester of law school, all I did was study. I did everything I was told. I thought to myself—not dissimilar from what we discussed about the car dealership—I’m not the first person to go through law school. These professors in this school are giving me the blueprint to success. They’re telling me, “If you read these cases ahead of this deadline and you outline them and you read and you participate in class and you answer questions and you listen to your professors, you will be successful.” So I did everything that was prescribed by the school.
And then in addition, I thought, “How can I maximize the time that I give to school, the investment that I give to school against my busy life?” So at that point was a time analysis. There’s only so many minutes of the day, so many waking minutes of the day, and how can I use every one of those to advance my goals and or my responsibilities? So where it could be that between 30 minutes between one class and the other class other people would walk to get a coffee and socialize, I would sit and outline my materials for that class.
I had one course in which I did not understand the professor’s preferred approach to teaching, nor did my classmates. I think he forgot we had the toolbox of a 1L. He was a brilliant Yale guy, had worked at the SEC, and he just taught on a very high level. I quickly realized I would not be able to learn contracts from this person. Not due to any fault of his, I’ll just say I couldn’t learn in that style. So instead of spinning my wheels and listening throughout that class, I would in that class do my homework for other classes and then I also downloaded all of the Barbri contracts courses that you do as a 1L and I would put in my AirPods and I taught myself contracts through Barbri in that time period. I did end up winning the Jurisprudence Award for the highest grade in the class in that course through that method. So there were sometimes there was an analysis of figuring out just what works for me and how to do things more efficiently.
I did have social concerns. I, despite being an extrovert, a social butterfly, I was much older than all of my peers. I did want to fit in. I did want to have those lifelong friendships. And every Friday everyone would get out of school around 1:30, 2:00, and they would go to Sidebar at Suffolk, on the side of the Suffolk building, and that was like the team bonding. As much as I wanted to enjoy the social aspects of school, I would go to the library instead. It was the only day a week that the library was slow, that it was quiet, and I would do all of my outlining.
Patti’s willingness to take a leap reminds me of Sunny Kim, who quit her BigLaw tax job without a backup plan, wrote one LinkedIn post about it, and 60,000 people read it. She now teaches lawyers how to build authentic personal brands.
Other students quickly picked up that I was ahead on outlining, that I like to be helpful. So anytime students missed class, I would share my notes with them and even my outlines at the end of the semester. Where other students tended to be more protective of their outlines, it was my opinion that if you waited until two weeks before the exams to start, I’m not going to have to outcompete you for rank, which was the concern of all law students. So I would share my outlines and even teach them the material. We would go in study rooms and I would help them, and that was another way I helped drill it into my brain. My train rides to and from Lowell—I had almost two hours a day on the train—I would brief my cases for the next day. If momming picked up and I didn’t have time to brief my cases, I would go to Quimbee. I would at least do every little bit that I could. But that whole—I would say throughout the first two years of law school—it was figuring out how to make every minute of my waking day work toward my goals.
Khurram Naik: How do you think about law school as—for better or worse—a zero-sum game in terms of rank, right? So in that sense, it’s zero-sum and it’s a very important sense of how people go to law school. And then some people like yourself understand that another part of law school is collaboration because, hey, these peers are yours, they’re going to go on to do a number of things. And if you only look at it professionally and only look at it for the instrumental gain you’ll get, from that lens alone it’s good to do this, apart from just—it’s inherently good to just connect with other human beings and it’s just—some people have missed the appreciation that this is a really unique phase in life. So Patti, like you, I went to law school after some years and I felt very old. I entered law school when I was 28, which you know, now I mean, it doesn’t seem like young but it definitely doesn’t seem like old. So but yeah, I think that gave me some context to say, hey, like, law school, like, being in school is a really unique thing. Like, this is just a unique format that you don’t really get to take advantage of very often. So tell me about how you thought about the—you had your resolute to say “I need to get in that top five because I have these outcomes to achieve.” That’s a zero-sum game. But then there’s these other collaborative ways to work with other people. How do you synthesize those two beliefs and attitudes then and now?
Patti Burris: So innately do believe in karma. Not—not in so much as there’s a cosmic force, you know, that’s around like checking everyone, but I do believe that what we put out is the energy that we see around us and the energy that we notice and let affect us in return. And I do believe in helping other people. I do believe good things come of it. And then there’s also the pragmatic knowledge of we all need a network, and they stress that in law school. Friend of my professors, I would go to office hours just to chat with them.
I ended up being the research assistant to Joseph Glannon, who’s well known in the lawyer’s world of academia, you know, textbook author, the Glannon Guides we all used at exams. That was a valuable relationship. The contracts professor from whom I had a hard time learning offered me the opportunity to be his contracts teaching assistant the next year and I took it. Because it had been such a challenge for me, I understood him at this point and I thought if I understand why they’re not understanding what he’s teaching, I can bridge that gap. That course had 105 students in it. My office hours were packed every week. My reviews had every student in the class. And by wanting to help others and then also seeing the opportunity to learn contracts even more because I knew at that point I would be practicing at Goodwin and also taking the bar exam, that’s where I made my best friends in law school.
I have two lifelong girlfriends that were from my class and then I can’t tell you how many friends from the class after me from being their contracts teaching assistant, including two of my best friends in the world. One is at Paul Hastings, him and his wife made me the godmother to their baby. The other is at Kirkland, and both of them just helped through law school, helped with their career search, and we ended up making best friends. When I recently decided that I would like to try something new and switch firms, during the time that you and I met that I reached out to Freshwater Counsel, I of course—I’m very open, it was known in the community that I was looking at making this change—and I can’t tell you how many people from various firms, including these two from K&E, from Paul Hastings, a friend at Greenberg Traurig, Ropes—people reached out from all of these law firms offering to help me. Offering “you should come here, I’ll put in a great word with you here.” And these are all people that I met in a capacity of wanting to help them.
So I do think that by trying to advance my own goals and rank as high as I personally could on my own merits without doing anything ugly or dirty, but then also trying to help people, which I also understood was reinforcing my learning, I do think it worked in conjunction to help me achieve academic success and then also building out a really big network.
Khurram Naik: Yeah, that’s a really interesting way to tie the two together. The asset of doing so well is an asset you understood was useful to other people. There was a social benefit to you leveraging your performance.
Patti Burris: Absolutely. And I think that’s completely applicable in the law firm context too. I look at my experience—I’m a rising sixth year now. I’ve been doing this a little while now. And I look at it and I would tell you of course in BigLaw you’ve got to be a wonderful attorney. You have to do great work, you have to be responsive, treat your clients well, be eager to learn, produce a work product that’s consummate with your year and the experience that you have and your billable rate. All of that’s important.
But I think internally, as far as finding support and opportunities for advancement, it’s just as important to be liked. It’s just as important to have a network and to be respected and to be viewed as someone who had people pour into them and then you’ve paid it forward into other people. I think that not only motivates other people to help you—I certainly could not have achieved anything I’ve achieved without people who are far more successful than me wanting to see me succeed. And then I do feel an obligation, no matter how busy it is, to mentor junior attorneys, to mentor law students, to help pay that forward. This is a hard job, but it’s a rewarding job if you have all of the proper supports in place. If you’re leveraging the resources that become available to you that go with a position like this and you’re helping others and you’re still looking to those above you, I think a combination of great work, luck, and being liked is the only way to really thrive in this space.
Khurram Naik: You know, another interesting transition story is the transition from you were in a—so when you worked for the founder that you worked for, at that phase you were raw talent and drive. And so you had things like “I’ll just figure things out.” It wasn’t like you had some bench of expertise, some specialization, that that was your skill and your value to a business. It was “I will figure things out.” And so for yourself, it sounds like with your own career, I maybe I missed it, I didn’t hear any vision for what would come next in your career that you said, “Hey, that’s what I’m aiming towards.” But then it seems like by the time you got to law school you had a very clear and definite vision for where you wanted to go. And I’m inferring, but we can talk about it, that that came from your experience at a fund working with lawyers where you had a sense of the law firms out there because I think few people entering law school would understand with a lot of specificity the firms that have strong ECVC practices or whatever nature of work they’re looking for. Very people had that definite goal in mind. And so what was that transition like for you to go from “I’m good at things, I’m getting feedback I’m good at things, I don’t really know what I’m doing apparently, people are telling me I’m really good at things” to “I have a vision for what comes next”?
Patti Burris: It was—I view that as a privilege. Before I had done everything I had to do to meet the needs of myself and my family. So it was a privilege to finally have enough bandwidth to be able to exhale enough to picture what do I want? What do I want for my life? And what is every experience that I’ve had until this point—what does it make sense to do? There was the whole litigation/corporate analysis, right? And I did enjoy going into the litigation exercises, I was on a moot court team.
But I had this valuable experience from working for a tax attorney when I was 23 years old as his receptionist turned legal assistant, and then moving in-house to one of his clients where I got my bookkeeping experience. I managed multiple entities they owned under one umbrella from a bookkeeping and accounting standpoint to then moving to New England and accidentally getting a job with a brilliant serial entrepreneur and venture capital investor. And it was during that experience that once again, although I was handling a variety of different tasks, I always organically gravitated toward legal. At one point his law firm of record, Burns & Levinson, mistook me for an attorney. They thought I was general counsel based on the way I carried myself, the way I attacked the things we were working on, when I delivered documents to them in the format that I did. And it just—it felt like if you were—if there was a loop throughout all these different phases in life that seem so different, the one constant was that I always leaned legal and it was always in the numbers.
So when I learned about this area of law during my summer at Goodwin, I knew I wanted to do corporate. That—there was no doubt about that. But there now I understand, especially I do teach a course that’s private equity and venture capital transactions, so I’ve given a lot of thought to the specific timeline of a transaction. And all the corporate departments are is “in which part of the transaction do you work?” Like which part of the timeline is your specialty? So I did know I wanted to work on transactions. I had originally due to a mentor that I had at K&E, Amanda Border, she’s a brilliant M&A attorney, I thought—she was a big supporter of mine—I thought perhaps I would do M&A. My summer at Goodwin, as soon as I was exposed to fundraising, that was it for me. That was when I had the aha moment that you’re speaking of, that I have found my purpose.
And it was, you know, so many lawyers, if you tell them you’re going to operate in the world of spreadsheets and numbers and complicated calculations to figure out profits interest and carried interest, they want nothing to do with it. It excited me. I loved it and I still do. There was also the aspect of helping people. I did become a lawyer because I wanted to help people. And you go into BigLaw and there’s this misperception that you’ve sold your soul to the devil and that essentially we operate to help the wealthy get wealthier and that’s the only people we serve. And I don’t view it that way. When you work in funds, many of the large institutional investors represent pension plans and retirement plans. They’ve got Ma and Pa’s money that they’re trying to generate returns on to make sure they’re comfortable in retirement. You have these inspirational first-time fund managers who have these ideas and they’re willing to risk everything and they need you to partner with them.
This systems-driven mindset is something Manisha Sheth has taken to an extraordinary level — she manages 15 to 20 cases simultaneously through strategic delegation and weekly team meetings where everyone from summer associates to partners contributes.
And it’s that closing day where so many people hate closing week and it’s so stressful and you’re not sleeping. And it was my first closing that I worked on as a junior associate—or I guess a summer associate—and of course I’m sleeping, I’m being wined and dined throughout the week, but I’m seeing this process in the most stressful week when everything’s wilding out and everyone is hating their jobs, I was so excited. It was so exciting to see a million moving parts converge at the exact same time. To see them tell this client who had become crazed that we’re closed and that transference to a place of gratitude and even emotion because of all of their hard work coming to fruition. And I thought, “I want to do this. I want to work with this specific area. I want to help people. I want to help these investors close their investment and they’re so excited to be able to participate, but then my clients, the fund sponsors, are so excited that they are participating.” You’re witnessing and facilitating relationship building in real-time, and it really feels like the work that we do matters. So that’s the long, long story to get there. That’s how I decided that’s exactly what I want to do and I will put all of my efforts into pursuing how to do that.
Khurram Naik: So I’m looking at different phases maybe for you. And so maybe the phase where you’re executing on somebody else’s vision very skillfully and discovering things about yourself—so discovering like, “Oh, like, I can run through a brick wall. Like, I—I know that I’m capable of achieving.” I don’t necessarily have a decision yet for what I am looking to do with my career, but I’m satisfied with this, this is already fantastic. Like, I’m very gratified with the progression that I have here and the way that I’m valued here. You know, I know the context for I know that I have an associate’s degree, I don’t even have a bachelor’s degree. I know this is an extraordinary outcome for somebody with those circumstances to achieve, I’ve made the most and the best of this opportunity.
And then, I don’t know if anything was missing for you in that phase, but then you discover, “Oh, I can have a vision for myself” and then work towards that. So like once you said like, “I want to get to Goodwin,” then I’m going to work backwards to make that happen, then you did. So you apply the same skill to to that. Now, you have at this point even more experience, more confidence, and now at this point I’m kind of terrified about what your potential is—I actually just thrilled because I can’t even believe what what impact it will have. But so, what is it now?
Patti Burris: I think what the biggest takeaway has been and what has allowed me to take more risks with pursuing what’s next is I’ve learned through all of this, no matter what happens, I will be okay. And I will thrive in some capacity. And there will always be people who want to help me along. When I made the switch from Goodwin to DLA Piper, it was in furtherance of that goal. I had to really think what’s next. And you know, logically on the timeline that we’re all on from the time you start as an associate, you have a certain number of years as an associate to figure it out if you want to go in-house, be of counsel and continue to practice without having additional responsibilities, or whether you want to go for the partnership. And at this point, I think I do want to go for the partnership.
That’s, you know, I’ve spent all of this time now in school and then all of this time in practice learning the craft, learning the law. And I don’t know everything about the law and I don’t think I ever will, but at this point, I do understand the system of who I can ask, who I can go to, how to find the information that I need. And the next step in a law firm career, partnership, you become the person who’s generating the business. You become the person that your clients are truly partnered with to trust in you to partner with them, to help them advance their goals, the furtherance of their business. And it really becomes a relationship-building exercise and like I said, I think really, if there’s anything in life that I’ve been training for, it’s this. I’m—it is my time to shine.
If it comes down to when you’re ready, the next goal in life is for me to build partnerships with people who have common goals as me, who want to grow and learn together. I’m ready for that, so excited for that. And but at the same time, I have had enough adversity in life that I think I’m wary not to hitch my identity to that. At the same time when it’s my turn to come up to make that decision and I’ve decided “if this is what I want, I would like to be part of the partnership,” there’s also is that the firm’s need? Is there—is there room for me in that capacity? Do they have a need? Do they see a mutual benefit? And it’s possible they don’t. And so at that point, I don’t want to feel like a failure. I don’t want to feel like everything I’ve done until this point in time doesn’t matter. It’s going to be great no matter what.
This next chapter, I’m all about taking care of myself. I leverage the resources that have become available to me in BigLaw that I never had access before to take care of my body, to take care of my mind, to take care of people around me, whether in my family, my friends, or my community. And everything I’m doing, I do with intention. And I have no doubt that whether it leads to partnership or or something else, it will inevitably I’ll continue to be happy and that’s enough for me.
Khurram Naik: You said two things that are very interesting that I’ve been thinking about. So one of them I’ll pick up on is the identity piece and then you then you were just talking about the gratification you get from caring for yourself and people in your life. And so, are you really at a risk of identity being attached to your professional development? Because it seems to me that somehow what’s so interesting is the relationship between your identity and your performance. So like the two of them are separable but feed into each other, it seems like. Where like in law school, you were still a caretaker. You still had other people that you were responsible for, which is extraordinary and extremely difficult in law school. It’s just—it’s enough to take care of yourself at that phase. And so it seems to me that the very challenge—on the one hand, the first thing I think of is challenge, but what maybe is not really appreciated are the benefits that came with that.
And so I you know, I think for myself as a parent, you know, with my son who’s a little more than two and a half, when I—there was a period of time earlier on when he needed diaper changes where I was like, “Oh God,” and so it was just like, “Okay, here we go, I’ve got to change this diaper, get through this.” Now at this phase, every single time—without exaggeration, every single time—it’s like I need to change his diaper is a privilege for me because I know this phase will not last. And it’s something that you just can’t know until you’re in a position like that. And you can do this outside—it doesn’t only have to come from parenting. I think there’s other ways you can get meaning in similar ways where there are things that seem like only downside, only difficulty, only challenge that have these benefits for you and give you gratification. So I wonder for you, did the other responsibilities and other identity you had in law school drive you? Did it give you meaning? What was the relationship between that and your performance in law school which the two are somewhat separate, right? So like, how—what was the relationship between those two and have you had kind of a separation of identity from this professional performance?
Patti Burris: I don’t think so. I think I view my identity as multifaceted and I don’t view it as a pie graph in which the sections of the pie are predefined. I can add sections, I can take them away, I can expand sections. And I do think a common thread throughout all of that: first and foremost, I’m a mother. I’ve lived my entire adult life as a mother. My boys are grown and launched now and I have a grandbaby, but they remain my driving force. They were behind all of the hard nights, all of the times I felt like it was impossible when you have to dig deep into—into strength you don’t even know you have in you. It was the boys. It was my children. It was a desire for them to have more than I did. It was a desire for them not to become statistics of a teen mom or someone who didn’t have an education for most of her life. I wanted equal opportunity for them.
At this point in life, though they are grown and thriving, I still feel an obligation. I am exposed to people in financial situations much better than mine and I see how much of a difference it makes when kids even inherit a house. Something as simple as inheriting a home, how that can change their trajectory. And I want to leave my boys with an inheritance. So that’s still a big driver of pursuing opportunities that inherently have financial benefits to them.
However, I have become a traveler. That’s something new with the BigLaw paycheck. You know, one benefit that seems taboo to talk about or people tend to avoid it is the money. A lot of us are doing this or did this initially for the money. Yes, we also wanted the training, we wanted the exposure to the high-level client work and all the wonderful things you say in an interview when you’re a law student interviewing for a BigLaw position. The travel—this is a hard job. When I’m on trips and I wake up in a country with a culture that’s completely different than mine and it feels like you’re on a different planet, those are opportunities that I would not have but for this job. So that’s a motivator to continue to be excited about my job. Not to view it as something I have to do, but something I get to do.
All of the increased investment in myself. I get massages regularly. I invest heavily in functional medicine, in NAD+ drips and the whole thing. You name it, we do it. In yoga classes. And that’s to take care of my body. I am enjoying the fruits of my labor, but I still have a lot of motivation in me. I still have a lot of hard work left to do, so I want to take care of the vessel that’s doing all of this for everyone. As far as being a lawyer, absolutely that’s part of my identity. I’m proud to tell people that I’m a funds attorney. I’m proud to tell people that I co-lecture a class at BU with Mike Kendall, who’s an absolute just phenom of a human and lawyer. I’m proud of those things. I would have told you—actually, to be honest, I think I was concerned about—and I think you and I talked about this—I was a little bit concerned about my identity leaving Goodwin. Goodwin had been so good to me from the time that I interviewed with them throughout my last day at the firm. It was a safe place for me. It was scary to branch out and do something different. But at the same time, understanding that for the particular opportunity to grow the practice that I was looking to grow, that that group was growing in a different direction than what I really saw for myself.
I did worry about leaving there. I worried, “Will the people at DLA Piper like me? Will I have the opportunities I’ve had at Goodwin? Will they think I’m a good attorney?” So even being a Goodwin attorney I feared was my identity, and maybe now that’s why I look at it a little bit differently. I look at it as a huge part of my life. I’m grateful for them, I always will be, but now I’m a DLA Piper attorney and I’m proud of that too. And I think I could be Patti Burris with her own shingle hanging, or Patti who works at the SEC, and I still view these opportunities and these accomplishments, the identity portion of it, as more what you described: the girl who made all the wrong decisions early on and even created some adversity for herself, but then became an opportunist who could see it, identify it, and make the most out of it. And that’s the biggest part of my identity. I’ve got all of these other drivers. You ask me on any given day whether I’m more hiker, more mom, more lawyer, whatever it may be—more friend, more mentor—all of those are important parts of my identity and I embrace all of them. And I think depending on what season it is, all of them help me grow to be the next version and the next version of that—that pie chart.
Khurram Naik: You said something really interesting, so “the girl who made all the wrong choices.” So that seems to me a story. You’re telling a story, there’s a narrative about this accomplishment you’ve achieved, this narrative arc. And I don’t think anyone listening to you could—could not be thinking about what a skillful storyteller you are. How important are stories for getting us to accomplish our goals?
Patti Burris: Our life is stories. Whether—whether it’s the narrative playing in your head as memories or whether it’s expressing it to other people or whether it’s describing what you want next, a story that hasn’t happened yet—it’s all stories. And I think the narratives that we tell ourselves are huge to our identity and they’re huge to our ability to accomplish and to our capacity to accomplish. Like when I was in law school, imposter syndrome that I think we all have in common—that’s a fear narrative. We’re telling ourselves a fear narrative. And and whether it’s law school or whether it’s in your personal life, in your relationships, your friendships, your—buying a home, whatever it may be—we all have fear narratives. And if you give those narratives too much power, you don’t reach your full potential, you don’t maximize your capacity.
Whereas if you’re telling yourself these same narratives and they’re stories of inspiration or overcoming or accomplishing—we can’t change our past. I can’t change that I became a mother when I was a teenager. I can’t change that I got into a car accident with someone—I got into the car with someone who had been drinking. I had a car accident with that person where I broke my back and 15 other bones that, you know, set me back another few years. I can look at all of those things and beat myself up. I’ve had a failed marriage. I can—I can tell myself I failed. I was a failure. I failed then, I could fail again. Or I can tell myself I failed and I won’t make that mistake again. I learned the lesson the hard way, as I tend to do, but those are some of the most powerful lessons.
So the story that I tell myself is that we all have that kernel inside of us to overcome adversity. We all have it. We all have that belief that we’re something more or we’re something bigger or that we have something great inside of us. And the only two ways that you can test that theory and grow that is either through accomplishing without adversity or with overcoming adversity. And in my life, it’s been overcoming adversity that has convinced me that I can do anything. There’s nothing that I can’t do with the right resources and the right team and the right amount of determination.
Patti’s insight about reframing fear connects to something Hilary Gerzhoy told me — that most ethics violations don’t start with greed, they start with fear. Fear of not making it, fear of losing clients, fear of being left behind.
Khurram Naik: I wonder if you have noticed this, but it seems to me a lot of people that are comparably talented, comparably hard-working, comparably performance-still struggle with meaning and still struggle with a with direction. You can see it in different phases of life in the context of law—you can see it in law school, you can see it after that. I mean, there’s a lot of people who have very serious challenges with trying to make sense of where they are or what—what comes next. I definitely experienced those as a lawyer, for sure. So it seems to me that you’ve consistently been able to hone in on goals and sources of meaning that there’s a nexus between the two of them for you. What have you seen—how can you help other people hone in on that? To hear you talk about the way that you got so excited from your funds work—there’s a number of other talented lawyers who, you know, they consider funds work, the kind of work you do, like you say, kind of punching a clock, or or maybe it’s running against some sort of narrative they have of, you know, you heard it all the time in law school I’m sure—”I didn’t go to law school to do math.” So I mean, like, there’s maybe counter-narratives that people have that are obstacles to them and maybe that’s one problem. But I’m trying to figure out what it is that you can share with people to help comparably talented, hard-working people find more meaning and find better goals for themselves, because it seems to me that’s something that a lot of talented—otherwise talented—people struggle with.
Patti Burris: So I think I’m definitely not qualified to advise other people on this matter because I—I’ve been a train wreck at any number of times in my life, whether anxiety in my own head or externally manifesting, you know, difficult circumstances. But if I said I have to put it into words, I’ll write it in a book or whatever for someone else, I would say the purpose part is—I’m not a religious person. Therefore, I believe this is the one life I know I get. And I’ve been down and I’ve been up and I’ve been everywhere in between. And other than down, it’s been a beautiful ride. If—if it was on the way up and I felt that purpose you’re talking about, it feels good to know what you’re working toward and to hack away at it a little bit of a time. And then when you get the validation at the top, whether it’s the diploma, the class rank, the job you want—that validation is what then supercharges that motivation to that next level and it just feels really great, right? Like we know that scientifically, the serotonin, the dopamine—it’s a proven science.
So as far as the purpose to do that, the way I view it is this is the one life I know I get, I want to live it. I want to know that if something happens to me tomorrow—and it doesn’t even have to be death, I think that’s the one we go to, like cliche, “If I die tomorrow I want to know I made the most of it.” I know what it feels like to wake up and be in a wheelchair and be told you’re never going to walk again. If I wake up tomorrow and I find out I can never use my legs again, I want to make sure that I used them to the best of my ability every day that I had them. I don’t want to know what it feels like to live with that regret. The same of my brain. People that have early-onset Alzheimer’s—think about attorneys, our brain is our capital, this is our well-being. If—if I find myself in a position to receive a diagnosis like that, I want to know that I learned everything that I could, that I taught other people everything that I could, that I made a big difference in people’s lives.
So it doesn’t matter what it is, the specifics of it. So the first part of that, the purpose: I think it’s accepting that we have very limited time here and it’s your responsibility to make this experience what you want it to be. And we all get dealt hard cards sometimes. I will not hold it against anyone for having a hard day, a hard week, a hard year, and even people who’ve had so many hardships that they just can’t continue to do it, and they give in and they quit and they don’t want to do it anymore—I don’t begrudge them that, it is hard. But if you’re able to lean on those around you and you’re able to find that little kernel inside you that still believes you’re great, I do think that you have a big enough purpose to overcome just about anything aside from things other people would do to you, people around you getting sick and dying—there are some things out of our control. I think everything else is a choice, whether it be by affirmative action or omission.
As far as setting goals, I think it is a product of our society and being overstimulated in every way that many of us suffer from some level of anxiety or analysis paralysis. And that’s what I see hang up more law students and young attorneys than anything else is analysis paralysis. Terrified to make the wrong decision. Where it’s been my observation through people that I’ve mentored and my own journey: pick one thing and then stick with it. Don’t get up every day and say “I have to go to work,” get up and say “I get to.” I get to go to work. I have to talk to this client today—I get to. This is an inspiring person who has accomplished things I respect—I get to talk to them. Have a good attitude about what you’re doing and don’t forget to stop trying. Don’t get comfortable.
But I think the issue is the first little hint of “I’m not enjoying this” or “I’m not enjoying my law firm” or “I’m not enjoying the people around me,” we automatically determine we chose wrong and we have to make this huge pivot to something different. And I think a lot of times you can just make a small adjustment. Like for me, it was just “Okay, I need to go somewhere different and do what I do. I’m going to continue to do what I do now for the same types of clients, but somewhere that’s got a little bit different of a future focus for the firm.” That if you hear their trajectory for the group, it doesn’t mean that anyone did anything wrong, you’re just growing in different directions. So I think don’t overhaul things, don’t ascribe to them more importance than they deserve, and then just stay focused on the one thing.
Khurram Naik: Tell me more about this “stay focused on the one thing” concept. I think what you’re talking about is profound and I think the analysis paralysis is probably one of the biggest problems that lawyers face. It’s very acute, I think, for associates and definitely a lot of partners run into this as well because lawyers are overthinking things and then spinning their wheels and then it’s a reason to not act. It gives them an excuse to not act. But what’s really interesting is that you’ve defined yourself as risk-averse and yet I think analysis paralysis flows from risk aversion for most people, where they are working back from the premise of like, “I can’t really make changes, I want changes but it’s really hard for me to do that and I’m fearful of it.” And so then the analysis paralysis I think is the technique they use to procrastinate to avoid making a decision and to stay the course. So how for you do you synthesize your risk aversion with “focus on the one thing” and then, you know, hone in on that?
Patti Burris: So yeah, I do think that’s part of the risk aversion, right? I’ve invested all of this time, it is scary for me to think about doing something different. And at the same time, I can say I thought about making the recent change that I made almost two years prior and stayed out of analysis paralysis and, more specifically, ascribing more weight to what could go wrong than what can go right. So I do think those two things go hand in hand and I do think that’s the hardest thing to overcome. And I think ultimately, that’s where the belief that we talked about earlier—that ultimately I will be okay.
Even if I blow it completely, even if I leave this firm and don’t get a job at this other firm—we tend to go to as humans the worst that can happen instead of what’s likely to happen. Okay, the worst that can happen is—I’ve been pretty smart with my money, I’m good for at least a couple of years. So I don’t get another job at a large firm, a comparable firm, and I have to take a lesser job—or a job that pays less, I don’t want to say there’s no such thing as a lesser job. What’s the worst that can happen? Okay, I make less money. Is that—like, okay, that’s fine, right? Like, that’s absolutely fine, I’m still fine. So I think we just have the—the fear narrative of “I’ll lose everything, I’ll lose being able to tell—being proud of what I do, being able to tell people where I work, I won’t make these huge amounts of money.” And it’s like, “Okay, so what?” Like, what’s the worst that can happen?
We do the same with relationships, right? Like, “This is not working, we’ve tried everything… but if I leave, I’ll never meet anyone, I’ll be alone.” And it’s like, that’s just not likely. So I think a huge part of getting over the analysis paralysis is looking at: What’s the best that can happen? That’s what you’re hoping for, you wouldn’t be going through this analysis in the first place. What’s the worst that can happen? But then most importantly, what’s the most likely thing to happen? And then if you just can’t get there on your own, if you just still go into that worst place, then great, run the analysis. The worst happens—so what actually happens? What are the consequences of the worst? I think at this point in our lives, when people have a law degree in their corner and some experience and presumably at least a few references, your worst-case scenario is that you’re still going to have a badass job doing something that you love. I think there are also the case of people who pivot completely, and I have respect for that too. Like I said, for me it was “I need to recalibrate.” There’s a few misalignments here that are causing me distress, and I think if I recalibrate them I can feel like I’m thriving again and I can find that motivation to shoot high. But then there are people who leave the profession completely. They do law and there are so many that we see on our GO teams at the firm—they learn that actually, they want to be in recruiting. They love helping people. They love exactly what you’re saying—helping people find their purpose. We find people who decide they want to be career coaches. They see the—the mental illness that’s endemic to BigLaw or the proclivity for addiction, and they want to help. They believe they understand it. So I don’t think there’s a bad result. I think it’s just really the analysis paralysis is accepting that you’re going to be okay. So do it. Like, don’t stay in something that doesn’t serve you.
Khurram Naik: What do you see for yourself as the payoff of—you talked about staying in a lane and just like continuing to iterate on that. What do you see as the payoff of—for yourself, what do you see as the payoff of doing that?
The eagerness Patti describes — raising her hand for every opportunity, building relationships by helping others — mirrors what I heard from Ambika Kumar, who was once called “too eager” in a review, only to become the most respected associate at her firm.
Patti Burris: I think the payoff is that you become an expert at something. I think for the most part, at least in the legal world and maybe beyond, we value experts, no matter what it is. You want a nutritionist who understands nutrition, you want a personal trainer who has big muscles, you want a litigator who’s won a lot of cases. We value experts and I do think that’s the one big benefit with staying what you’re doing. If you’re able to recalibrate, whether it be pivot to another role within that world—like we just discussed several within the legal role that aren’t necessarily practicing law—I think if you continue to start over, because I did that for a very long time, not out of choice, you know, but I didn’t find this path. I didn’t go—I didn’t graduate law school until I was 39. I’m 45 years old now. I’m not an expert by any means, but I’m hoping to become one because I do believe that’s the means to the end.
Ultimately, do I love my job? Do I want to work for many, many more years? Of course I do. I love learning, I love going to work, I love seeing people. But ultimately, at the end of the day, I want to hit the numbers that are my goals to be able to leave my children with the legacy that I want to. I want to look back and feel satisfied that I’ve helped enough people, that I’ve mentored enough students and baby attorneys, and I want to feel like I made the most out of the time that’s available to me that I have on this earth. And I think you do that by becoming an expert, by staying the course.
So I do think there are people who have that ability to do anything and they’re jacks of all trades, and you know, we see it with influencers now with—with like the young people who we tell them, “That’s not a great plan, you’ve got to get an education in something and then pursue that path and then put in this hard work,” and it’s like, “Oh, they’re a gazillionaire by the time they’re 21, you know, just for having like a great fashion sense” or whatever it is. So I’m not—it’s not like a one—a one solution, I don’t think there’s one solution for everyone, but I think for the most part, if we’re able to hone a specific skill until we’re viewed as an expert and then you pair that with these other important things that we’re learning, these other important aspects of human interaction, that’s the way to ultimately be successful.
Khurram Naik: Yeah, I think what’s remarkable about your journey is the ability to set understand goals then also achieve them. I think those are two separable skills—some people have one or the other—and you have both, which is very powerful. So can you talk more about the the maybe the tactics, the tools you use for achieving outcomes? And so you talked in law school about the resourcefulness—I mean the resourcefulness to to get BarBri outlines. I mean, so I was—I became a BarBri rep in my first year and then you start talking to your your peers about BarBri and I mean—I just I did it to to learn about BarBri and and they also happened to—the model back then was that you got a free course out of it for for doing it. And it was also very social, so there’s a number of benefits. But anyways, the point is that there’s a lot of education that that we were doing for for because like any number of lawyers in the first year and law students in the first year had no clue that you know what was coming here, understandably, right? And they’re just trying to survive the day. But so you were being resourceful enough to work backwards to say, “Hey, like, if that’s good for learning this in a short period of time, then why couldn’t I use this now?” That’s remarkable.
So I think of tactics like that as being—no matter what your goals are, or even if you don’t know what your goals are, you’ll achieve things and then from there you can—that puts you in a better position to make decisions from there. And so like, let’s say because you used the tools that you have, you graduate top of your class or get into the the kind of job you want. Maybe you don’t know what you’re doing from there, but hey, like, you’re at a pretty good spot to begin with. So let’s talk some more about those techniques because I think that’s very helpful. So the ones you talked about law school, very interested if you have others that you want to share and add, but as a lawyer, what are the kinds of techniques of resourcefulness or tools that you’ve used to level yourself up that you can share that that probably are—are not appreciated or used?
Patti Burris: Um, yeah, so there’s a couple of buckets of that. The primary one being human capital. I will say I approach every analysis the same. I think we tend to overcomplicate things and if we have—whether it’s a goal or a problem, it can be either, they can be interchangeable for this—you have where I am now is right here, and then this is where I want to be, somewhere down the road. If it’s a problem, this is where I am now, this is what I’m solving for. If it’s a goal, this is where I am now, this is where I want to be. The only thing between those two points on the timeline, the only distance between those two things, is a series of actions. And so the analysis is: “If this is where I am, this is what I want to be, what do I have to do to get there?” And that’s usually pretty clear.
If you want to become a lawyer, first thing is you have to get a bachelor’s degree with a decent enough GPA to get into law school. And then you’ve got to do well on your LSAT, you’ve got to go to law school, and then you’re a lawyer. And then from there let’s break it down semester by semester. What is school really? It sounds overwhelming if you look at it as “I need seven years to a law degree.” Don’t look at it like that. A semester is three and a half months long. We’re human beings with incredible potential, we can do anything for three and a half months at a time. If you were qualified enough to get into school, you can be successful for three and a half months at a time. And then you get a good long break and then you just have to do it again.
So I think number one is setting a clear timeline of where you are versus what you want to be. Identifying and defining the goal. Number two is identifying the steps between where you are and to get to that goal. So now you start down that timeline and then what’s the pitfalls? And that’s really what we deal with in a law firm context, right? And it’s like, “Okay, great, this obstacle has now popped up. I was on my path, I understand the goal, I understand what I have to do to get there, but this obstacle has come up.” So now what do we do? We identify resources. What is the problem? Simplify it, put it into words, and then what are the resources required to clear that obstacle? And sometimes there may be something that we don’t have access to, maybe there is a financial need needed to clear that goal and we don’t have access to it. But almost at any point, if you can’t identify a resource that’s easily accessible or which you can access with a moderate amount of effort, ask for help.
If you’re in law school, that’s your professors, that’s your peers, that’s the deans. It doesn’t matter what you’re going through, if you try to do it without help, you’re probably going to fail. In a law firm, it’s a senior associate, it’s a partner. If it’s something substantive that’s law that’s out of your—it’s a specialist, it’s a tax something, it’s a banking, a regulatory. There are people to ask. If it’s something personal you’re going through, you’re not advancing toward the benchmark at the—the rate at which you should, talk to your attorney development manager. Talk to your training team about what trainings are available in the subject in which you’re deficient. If you identify a deficiency, there are ways to solve that deficiency. You just have to break it down into a very clear path of what that is.
And that’s what I mean by human capital. I think most of our problems can be solved by communicating. By the time you’re in a law firm, you have a team. This firm’s invested in you, they’ve put money into you, they’ve put time into you, their clients know you, they want to see you succeed. So if you’re struggling with something, you need only to tell someone and brainstorm it with these other geniuses that you work through who are experiencing the same thing in life that you are. If it’s a parenting thing, talk to another parent at the firm, maybe they’ve got some hack in their routine that you haven’t thought of yet.
So I think most problems can be solved with human capital. From there we have all of these incredible tools available to us now like AI. I automate my life with AI. My challenge right now is time. I want to workout, I want to eat right, I want to have a supplement stack that serves me, but I work a lot. So what do I do? I use ChatGPT. I run ChatGPT, it feeds out my meal plan every week. I eat the same exact thing for breakfast and lunch and I get the variety I want out of dinner. That simplifies shopping, it simplifies planning, it’s giving me the macros that I need for my workouts. I plan my workouts also around my schedule. I’m not logged in until 9:00 AM every day. So I ask ChatGPT, “Plan me workouts.” It tells me exactly what I can do at home or if I have time to get into the gym, what to do there. My supplement stack. I tell it my age, my weight, my physical status of—of how much I can do, how active I am, how sedentary I am at work. It will produce the supplements that most people should take that you can confirm with your doctor. I tell it I have longevity and wellness goals, it suggests additional. There’s no excuse in my mind to suffer.
And I want—I will qualify that to say I’m speaking with great privilege. With with that comment, I’m speaking specifically toward people who are in law firms. I don’t think everyone on the planet has access to everything to make their lives easy. But I think for us, there are innumerable tools to overcome the obstacles using the resources we have available to us. You didn’t have these resources before. So can you go get the new fancy car? Of course you can. Can you go buy the house and be house-rich? Like, sure you can. But I don’t think that makes a lot of sense if you’re not using those same resources to just maximize your quality of life. So I think between communications, human capital, leveraging AI, training materials, there’s nothing that comes up in a law firm context that you can’t overcome.
Khurram Naik: It also seems to me what you’re talking about is—it seems you you’ve had a really strong sense of your values in terms of how you allocate your time, attention, money. And in doing so, that makes it clear to you what you’re willing to sacrifice. Like you are a very social person and I, you know, can just feel the the drive you get from from talking to people and connecting with them. And so it must have been a really difficult thing for you in law school to give up that social time at the end of the week. Blow off some steam, you know, relax. You know, you have so much pressure to just Sidebar’s right around the corner. But to say “I am going to sacrifice that for—for this.” So and then you’re doing it now. Like now you’re fortunate you have significant financial resources and you can allocate that in a variety of ways, but now as well you’re—you’re allocating your time, attention, capital to the things that are highest value to you. Can you talk some about that concept of sacrifice and and how you’ve applied it?
Patti Burris: Sure. I so I think the best way to look at sacrifice is that it’s temporary. I would tie it back to that concept of a semester is only three and a half months. Like, yes, I do want to be at Sidebar with my peers, I want to be bonding, I want to be supercharging my social batteries. But can I sacrifice that for three and a half months and then make up for it over Christmas break? Can I go to—I look at the every Friday Sidebar. Is it really that special versus when you go to Sidebar when everyone finished their final exams? That’s the memorable one, and I would go then. My work here is done, I’m able to celebrate.
Like I said, through focusing on my goals like becoming a contracts TA, I satisfied the social needs that I had that way. So I just view sacrifice as inherent. Anything you hear—it’s cliché but it’s true—anything worth having, there will be some sacrifice. It just can’t be butterflies and rainbows all the time. But it’s temporary. So how big is what I’m being asked to sacrifice? Like what are the effects? Will it have a permanent and lasting effect on my mental well-being, my emotional well-being, or on my family? Then probably not something I’m going to consider doing. Anything else where, you know, maybe I don’t just love that part of my life for a few months—I understand that it leads to the life that I do want, and it doesn’t seem that bad. It just seems like something else you have to do.
Khurram Naik: It seems like two other techniques you use there. One is like focusing on what’s the highest ROI thing to do. So any given week, Sidebar hang, not so high ROI. End of semester Sidebar, very high ROI. So only focus on things that are very high ROI. And then it also seems like you’re stacking things. So like the TA thing accomplished two goals at once. It was developing your your your skill set, it looks good on a resume, and then it was social. So you’re stacking multiple things at once.
Patti Burris: I think so. I think one key to success in both law firm life and your personal life, any aspect of life, is identifying efficiencies. If you can think in terms of strategy and how to combine things and make the most of it, like life just runs easier. And there are limits. It doesn’t mean if you identify and solve an inefficiency that you should then take on another goal and fill that time. And I think that’s where the balance of what you’re talking about with making sure you’re prioritizing what’s important to you.
In law school, a lot of it was just getting by. The kids’ schedules were dynamic, their social lives were dynamic, I was facilitating a lot of that. But once I got into the law firm life, it was a lot more predictable. Even the unpredictability is predictable. You know to expect it. And from there my prioritization—my first couple of years I came in really hot. I suffered the imposter syndrome, constantly scared I would lose the opportunity that had been extended to me. And I billed—I want to say 2,400 and 2,500 hours respectively those first couple of years, it may have been reversed. But even in those times, I operated on a wellness ratio. And this is where being a numbers nerd comes in, but my ratio was 7-2-3-1. 7:2:3:1. And what that stood for was 7 hours of sleep at night—that’s what I need to function at a high capacity. Two healthy meals a day to fuel my body and my mind. Three workouts a week for the same reason. And one thing to look forward to on the weekend so I remember why I do all of this. And I never deviated from that for more than a couple of weeks. The only time I ever reached out and said “boundary, limit, no more, I’m—I need to come off things” was when I was not able to maintain that ratio.
Khurram Naik: And, you know, you are very skillful at stacking things because this is going to be audio-only but people can’t see it, but you’re climbing a mountain right now.
Patti Burris: [Laughs] Absolutely. I love—I love thinking about all of this. I love thinking about and in learning from others. You and I have had so many experiences and you—I understand you’re you’re shedding the focus on me, you invited me to be on your podcast, but a lot of the conversations that you and I have had, I’ve taken away tips for myself. Even though your kids are still younger, there’s insights that you’ve had. And even my thoughts on pivoting careers—you identified something that works better for you and your family. And your posts about how much more satisfied you are in doing what you do now versus when you were this badass litigator. It’s just like—I have so much respect for that. And if you don’t ask people their stories and then really listen to what they’re saying and deciding like, “You know what, I honor that in them. I would like to incorporate that into who I am.” And I think as lawyers we do it with practice. We see a certain way a partner communicates with a client, or even the way someone organizes their to-do list. And I think if we’re constantly learning and open to improving and we’re humble and we don’t believe we’ve got it all figured out, we’ll continue to thrive and grow.
Khurram Naik: I, um, from my time in Boston, near Suffolk, there’s like Emerson, right? And so Ralph Waldo Emerson, a quote of his that I’m not getting quite right is, “Every man I meet in some way is my master.” So there’s just there’s something you can learn from every single person and I—I really tried to practice that way. There’s something you can learn from everyone. So yeah, I think that—sounds like we share that idea. I’ve learned a lot from you and frankly, you have—in our conversations talking about this episode, you know, hearing about some of the tactics you’ve implemented—like you have, Patti, you’ve really leveled up my expectations of myself and said, “Hey, you know, am I really bringing my A-game? Am I really making the most use of my time? Am I really doing the most higher ROI activities? Am I doing three-and-a-half-month sprints?” So you’ve really thrown down the gauntlet for me, so like I—I have my own—well, I’ve thrown down the gauntlet for myself because—because you’ve been very inspirational in that way.
Patti Burris: I really appreciate that. Life is hard. Life is never easy for any of us. And and to believe, in my opinion, that we’ve had any impact on someone, whether it’s making their experience better, more tolerable, whether they feel more loved, more included—those are—those are the biggest compliments that we can receive. It’s to know like I’m struggling through this trying to make the most of mine, and if in any way I can improve your experience, just that much more validating.
Khurram Naik: Yeah, and I think there’s also that concept of, you know, people don’t really remember what you say but how you make them feel. And so—and then a mentor early mine in law said to me, “Hey, you know, as lawyers we’re not really paid for outcomes, you’re really paid for managing clients’ worldview and expectation. You know, we’re really guiding them on what to expect as litigator, our work is inherently unpredictable.” That’s the whole problem litigations—if it was predictable, it wouldn’t be litigation. So yeah, so a big part of what it means to be successful in this work is is that people have mentioned that that there’s so much to learn from you from.
Patti Burris: Absolutely. I agree wholeheartedly.
Khurram Naik: Patti, this is a great episode. I’m so glad that we took the time to to document this and I hope that this is something that people can turn to for inspiration.
Patti Burris: I love that. Thank you so much for having me. And obviously, we will stay in touch and I hope to speak with you again soon.