The Geek in Review Ep. 147 – Sang Lee: Talent Management That Enables People to Be True to Themselves

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Marlene Gebauer  0:17

Welcome to The Geek in Review, the podcast focused on innovative and creative ideas in the legal industry. I’m Marlene Gebauer.

Greg Lambert  0:24

And I’m Greg Lambert. So, you know, Marlene, it was exactly one year ago this week that we were all frozen inside our houses here in Texas. And, and I and I just looked in, it’s like, it’s 70 degrees right now. So I like this type of weather much more than the frozen stuff.

Marlene Gebauer  0:43

Yeah, I remember the dripping of the faucets from last year, and I can’t say I missed that. And again, you know, we’re not trying to rub it in northern friends. But I have to agree with Greg. I’m quite happy if the cold weather stays up north because yeah, it gives you more time to kayak.

Greg Lambert  1:03

Well, they can tease us in August when it’s you know, sweltering 100% humidity, 100 degrees. Yeah,

Marlene Gebauer  1:10

So when we’re all melting, you know, you have free rein, guys.

Greg Lambert  1:14

The big thing that reminded me was, Facebook sent me a picture this morning of us a year ago, we actually used our fireplace we had a gas fireplace, and we cooked biscuits on the fireplace. So you know, they weren’t great, but, they were fun. So well, you know on the podcast this week, we get back on track with a little more of a traditional episode featuring a really wonderful interview with Sang Lee from Thine. You know, I love her reasoning for the name of the company from the phrase “To thine own self be true.” So it’s, it’s a great conversation.

Marlene Gebauer  1:59

Yeah, I think people really gonna like this one. So stick around for that. But now let’s get to our information inspirations.

Greg Lambert  2:10

I have a couple of podcast recommendations for everyone this week. The first one is one that I learned from learned about from our friend Bob Ambrogi. From an interview he did back in December with Qudsiya Naqui. And it’s her podcast is called Down to the Struts. Qudsiya is a lawyer who identifies as blind and uses her podcast to discuss issues around disabilities. And sometimes the podcast is about law as well. But you know, the episode that I just listened to was actually about podcasting. And the challenges that podcasters who have disabilities face. So she had Cheryl Green and Thomas Reid on to talk about their experiences in creating podcasts, and how the non-disabled approach the topic of disabilities. You know, one of the things that really caught my attention was the discussion around giving a platform for authentic disabled voices, and centering those voices and not trying to pander either to, the phrase I love, inspiration porn, or the sort of tragedy narratives that you see a lot of. You know, there was an extremely strong emotion from all three voices about the lack of support, that these types of podcasts that are focused on disabilities get from the commercial platforms for a podcast, and you could just feel it. I love the honesty that you could feel from their experiences. So this is well worth a listen.

Marlene Gebauer  3:47

So when you think of data privacy and protection, you think of them more as a compliance concern for organizations including law firms, right? Well, there’s a small group of organizations and even some law firms that are showcasing data privacy and protection as a strategy in their ESG statements. And this may become a trend. Some companies which are not heavily involved in data, you know, they may not be doing this now. But they really might want to consider following the lead of those who like tech companies, and in some instances law firms are doing. Data may be undervalued as an ESG strategy now, but as the report notes, data is really at the heart of everything in business in government, and social concerns. Plus, Dow Jones and the S&P are scoring companies’ ESG statements in their investment evaluations. And those scorings include the company’s use of data. So given these factors, you know, it seems like a good idea for organizations to focus more closely on how they handle data and use it as a selling point in their favor.

Greg Lambert  4:51

It’s a good idea.

Marlene Gebauer  4:52

Also, I’ll tell you, there’s an update that the ABA rule I mentioned last week regarding anti-bias training in schools passed.

Greg Lambert  5:00

Well, my second podcast that I have has a few colleagues of ours on announcing the new Justice Technology Association or JTA. So Maya Markovich, Kristen Sonday, and Sonja Ebron join Talk Justice’s podcast hosts, Jason Tashea to discuss this launching of the association focused on supporting initiatives that seek to shape the consumer legal experience for the greater good, drive social impact, increase access to justice, and grow the newly minted justice tech market. So quite a handle there.

Marlene Gebauer  5:34

very ambitious. Yes.

Greg Lambert  5:36

The JTA is just getting started. So this sounds like a, you know, great topic. And, you know, this group of innovators, we need to actually probably get them on the show sometime. Pretty soon.

Marlene Gebauer  5:47

Yeah, definitely.

Greg Lambert  5:49

But until we get that lined up, you know, listeners can go check them out over on Jason’s podcast at Talk Justice.

Marlene Gebauer  5:55

Yeah, absolutely. My last inspiration is FTI Consulting recently announced the findings from part three of the General Counsel report 2022, Leading with Endurance through Risk Culture and Technology Challenges. The technology segment, it’s an annual study of corporate legal departments in partnership with Relativity. Now in this segment, Ari Kaplan shares insights from his interviews with Chief Legal Officers at large corporations. Respondents discuss technology trends within their departments, such as digital transformation trends, and how in-house counsel rate on technology competency.

Greg Lambert  6:35

Alright, well, that wraps up this week’s information inspirations.

Greg Lambert  6:43

Today’s guest walks us through her experiences over the past 20 years of legal recruiting and talent management, including how the industry is adjusting to get a better return on investment during this very hot lateral talent market.

Marlene Gebauer  7:01

We’d like to welcome Sang Lee, CEO and co-founder of Thine. Sang, welcome to The Geek in Review.

Sang Lee  7:07

Thanks so much. I’m so excited to be here.

Marlene Gebauer  7:10

You know, I always smile whenever we have fellow Fastcase 50 members on the show. It just shows the diversity and creativity you see, and being a member of that prestigious group. So congrats on your induction in 2021.

Greg Lambert  7:22

Congrats.

Sang Lee  7:23

Thank you. True story. True story my kids actually thought it was my selection was because I turned 50 in 2021. And I thought, well, do I share it?

Marlene Gebauer  7:37

So wonderful and horrible at the same time?

Sang Lee  7:40

Yeah, I was like, I really didn’t know if I was going to share that with you guys. Because everybody knows I’ve been doing this for a really long time. So if I was younger than 50, that would be really weird. So I might as well just claim it.

Greg Lambert  7:54

So, Sang, you’ve been in the legal recruiting field for quite a while now. And really, you weren’t that far out from graduating at Georgetown Law School when you decided to take this on as your career. So I want to before we jump into your work at Thine, you know, what is it that drew you to this part of the legal industry?

Marlene Gebauer  8:18

Can you tell us the basis of the name? Since you shared that beforehand? I think everybody has heard about that.

Sang Lee  8:24

Yeah, no, totally, I’m happy to. So Thine came from my experience as a recruiter and as a career coach and as a consultant. And the opportunities that I had to interact with law firm leaders and lawyers and recruitment professionals. And I just thought, gosh, there’s so much about the talent management process that feels like a charade. And how great would it be if there was an opportunity if there was a process, a platform, a series of protocols that enabled people to be true to themselves? I thought, oh, “to thine own self be true.” And so that’s really how we came up with a name. And it’s funny, as I was thinking about the question that you just posed around what drew me to this industry, I thought, gosh, that’s really generous that you would think that at the age of 27, I had any idea what I wanted, or that I was intentional in any way. I’d like to believe that everything is connected, I really do believe that everything is connected. I have made a lot of leaps. But I think when I was 27, if you’ll let me I’m going to kind of digress a little bit, but I swear it’s all connected. So I’m the youngest of three daughters. And I’m also an immigrant, and my sisters, my parents, and we all moved to the United States in the 70s. And I grew up in New York and we were public school kids all the way and then we moved away for college. And when I graduated from college, I wanted to either be a film director or a theater director, or religious studies professor. And in many respects, right, I came out of college exactly the way we want kids to come out of college with the world as the oyster and lots of opportunities there. You know, I had a great childhood and had a great life. But because I am a first-generation immigrant, I didn’t really have, I didn’t even know what informational interviews were right. I didn’t know what range of careers might exist. And so my older sisters who had gone to law school before me, because none of us was interested in medicine, and none of us was interested in engineering. And so we, we went to law school, they had already paved the way. And so to turn away from that, in pursuit of something where we knew nobody just seemed like unrealistic. It was folly. Right. So yeah, it seemed, I mean, like, into my parents, can you imagine they’re like, you’re not doing that. And no, no, you guys are gonna graduate from law school. In we’re going to start the law firm Lee, Lee, & Lee, I’m not even kidding. Like that was like on my dad’s radar, which is kind of amazing and adorable. And so I went to law school and true story, we all went to the same law school. We all went to Georgetown, we all graduated from Georgetown. And again, true fact, I think the longest practice, career like I think the longest tenure was two and a half years. And I’m the youngest. And so by the time I came around, they had already left the practice of law. And so I’m really lucky, because they did show me that it was possible to leave. And I wasn’t miserable as a lawyer. Like I really actually I was pretty good at it. Because as a junior associate, I’m not a complainer by nature. And I’m a really hard worker, and I’m generally pleasant, pretty pleasant to be around. So I got staffed on deals, and I have good stamina. But I knew that something wasn’t quite right. And so I had started looking to graduate programs in psychology. And so I’d started looking to graduate degree for like Organizational Psychology, or perhaps even getting my PhD in psychology and having a practice and so on, I got a phone call from a headhunter, who was trying to basically make an easy placement. Because, you know, I had good reviews, and I went to good schools. And I give him a lot of credit, he asked me questions, not around how much money I wanted to make. He didn’t ask me questions about what kind of law I wanted to practice or whether I wanted to go in house, he actually asked me questions about what I wanted my life to look like. He asked me questions about where I thought I could be a value. And it was really kind of fascinating, right. And so he had hunted me to become a headhunter. And so once he convinced me that a really meaningful percentage of an ethical recruiters day is devoted to career counseling, I thought, oh, I can do that. Because I was actually thinking about going and getting a degree in psychology anyway. So I left to become a recruiter. And over the course of, you know, the next 20, 40 years, I was a recruiter, and then I managed recruiters. And then I started my own recruiting company. And then I decided that I wanted to become an executive coach. And so I acquired a coaching company and, and I just kind of moved through the entire talent management lifecycle at law firms. The entire time, being grateful that all of my clients were willing to kind of show me all of the things, all of the different pain points that existed within the law firm practice. So 24 years later, I’m still here. And as your, you know, audience knows, I’m 50. And now, I’ve realized kind of true to the observation that I made earlier, that everything is kind of connected, because when I look back on all of the different hats that I’ve had the privilege of wearing, I realized that it all makes sense and brings me to where I am right now, because I’m a natural connector. I really, really believe in, in putting people together for experiences where they can identify what they have to offer and feel like they’re bringing value. And because I, I come by entrepreneurship and risk-taking pretty organically as an immigrant. And also because as an immigrant, I didn’t have a blueprint for careers. It makes sense that I find myself in this space of wanting to help people know themselves, like themselves, connect with others in a really meaningful way. And hopefully, to take some risks along the way.

Greg Lambert  14:35

You know, that it kind of reminds me of when I right after I graduated, I actually interviewed with the University of Houston, because I thought I’ll be an academic law librarian. You know, that’s what I knew. And it was a situation where I talked with Jon Schultz, who was the library director at the time and he doesn’t remember saying this, and I’ve never forgotten it. And that was he looked at me and he was like, Why in the world would you want to limit yourself to this? And it really kind of made me think beyond what I knew, and was able to kind of kind of stretch my imagination and think about, well, here’s some non-traditional ways that I think that that I would really enjoy using my legal experience. So it’s, it’s really interesting. It just kind of reminded me of that experience as well.

Sang Lee  15:32

I love that. I love that. And I hope that you, I don’t know whether you’ve stayed in touch with him. But I hope that he’s listening to. And so that he can, yeah, so that he can hear your acknowledgement, because that’s really nice.

Marlene Gebauer  15:43

So saying in 2019, you and Jon Strom decided to start time, what motivated you and Jon to create this unique way of not just recruiting legal talent? But you know, as you frame it in the description of Thine as a recruitment solutions for the modern law firm? What makes Thine different from traditional legal recruiters?

Sang Lee  16:07

Oh, we are so different than traditional legal recruiters, I promise you, I assure you that.

Marlene Gebauer  16:12

I can hardly wait to hear this.

Sang Lee  16:14

Well, here’s the deal, right? So this is a little awkward, because I just spent time talking to you about how grateful I am that I was headhunted to become a headhunter. But I did put that behind me. And I did wear lots of different hats. After I started and closed a recruiting company. I mean, so first and foremost, Thine is not a placement agency, we have absolutely no ambition to be a placement agency. We’re not interested in making matches or connections that way. I mean, I’ve done it. And I do think that there are recruiters out there, maybe a dozen of them across the country who I could recommend who operate at the highest levels of law firm strategy, doing M&A and acquiring practice groups. I generally think that the headhunting industry as it has come to be, represents a pretty dangerous threat to the modern law firm, to the ecosystem. And I think that many bad actors conduct themselves in financially toxic ways. And I do believe that it’s just a matter of time, before a meaningful percentage of the legal recruiting industry is phased out because their very existence is a threat. And, you know, the thing is internal recruiters, because I’ve known them now for 24 years. They’re my clients, internal recruiters and internal talent management team members, particularly PD directors, they’re so talented. They’re so talented, and they could accomplish so much if they were unshackled from the constraints of traditional recruitment and development processes at firms. And those processes were created in the 70s and 80s. And law firms have completely different than OCI timelines, OCI guidelines, they were created in completely different contexts. I mean before computers were even rolled out? Right? Computers were not even brought down until the 90s. But nothing has changed. Like nothing has changed. Because this is an industry that honors precedent.

Greg Lambert  18:13

Yeah

Sang Lee  18:14

This is an industry that values, doing things the way that they’ve always been done until it’s absolutely necessary to do things differently. Headhunter contracts, they’re designed in the 1980s and 1990s, when 25% of lawyer salaries felt acceptable, because lawyer salaries were lower, and the volume of lateral moves was not such that it would meaningfully impact the top and bottom lines of law firm budgets. But change generally just it’s not considered in this industry. And it’s certainly not adopted until it feels absolutely necessary. And then the idea of necessity, like when is it absolutely necessary. It’s determined by market forces, and almost never by cultural forces. And like an I’m a girl who talks about people and culture, like that’s my jam. Like, that’s what I really, really care about. I care about people, and I care about culture. And so I’ve been watching all of these cultural forces within the industry bubble up for decades, and nothing changing. And so despite overwhelming evidence for decades, that traditional recruitment processes make it difficult for immigrants, make it difficult for people of color, make it difficult for women to flourish. That technical and business excellence, that diversity, that diversity of perspective, that diversity of background brings, that technical and business excellence hasn’t been seen, much less acknowledged as a market force. And so there’s never been an incentive to upend the traditional processes. And so Jon, my co-founder, who also practiced in big law, before he transitioned to practice group management, also at Simpson Thatcher, where he practiced so Jon was a client of mine, and he and I would talk and we knew firsthand from our decades of experience serving the industry, in recruitment and professional development, like we knew that recruiting and integration and development processes systematically, just systematically overlooked, or excluded or passed over law students and lawyers who could and would and should be incredibly successful if the processes themselves were recalibrated or redesigned. And so we got together in 2019. And we said, let’s do it. Let’s just do something. And so here we are.

Greg Lambert  20:35

Just to follow up on that, because I think a lot of us maybe think that this transition for internal recruitment, internal professional development is related, potentially, to just the changes that occurred after the COVID situation. But you started in 2019. And I’m sure that this is something that you’ve seen the talent kind of evolve internally. So is it really more that the fact that leadership that had traditional Boomers have left the leadership role? And then the next generation, whether they’re Gen X, or Millennials, are taking a chance on internal development? Or what’s causing the industry to change?

Sang Lee  21:26

That’s a great question. I definitely think the generational preferences generational needs generational, depending on who you ask, senses of entitlement have come into play. And I remember because again, I’ve been doing this a long time when millennials were first coming on the scene. And I remember clients, Chief talent officers, although I don’t know if they were called chief talent officers at the time, I don’t think chief talent officers existed at the time, it might have been just directors of recruitment or directors of PD right before the conflation of talent happened. I remember listening to them and listening to partners just need to express themselves and externalize and vent about all these Millennials. And I remember thinking and saying to them, because I like owning the awkward, we’re so lucky that they’re here. And also, before we start being too upset about the changes that they want us to roll out, let’s just remember who’ve raised them, like they’re our kids. And I think that those preferences that we complained about in 2006, 2008, 2009, right, those came along with iPhones and all of the different technological advances, they’ve enabled us to actually have the sea legs to get through and to survive and to even flourish during our current unprecedented time. I think that generational forces definitely laid down the groundwork for the change. They started kind of externalizing grousing expressing their need. Often they were kind of swatted down and told, you can’t have that. But clearly, some aspect of their ask was heard, because people started changing slowly. And even though there were still a lot of growsing and complaining about the changes. By the time all of this stuff hit with the pandemic Zoom was something that people knew they didn’t like it, but they knew it. The idea of working from home was not something that anyone really liked. But it had actually already started happening, where people were requesting, you know, the ability to work from home or some people had to like leave town to take care of families, and they were accommodated. So like accommodations were things that had happened not with the kind of volume or frequency that they’re happening now. But it wasn’t completely foreign. So it wasn’t a total shock to the system, which I think is good, because there’s been so much about the last two years that have been utterly shocking to the system, that the baby changes that the generations that preceded Gen. X, Gen Z. I think that you know, the next one is being called Gen. Glass. Do you know? Yeah, they’re, they’re being called Generation glass, because they’re the generation that has been tapping on glass since they were babies, like their iPhones and all that. So they’re called Generation class.

Greg Lambert  24:31

Are these the Zs? Or is this the next gen after Gen Z?

Sang Lee  24:36

It’s post its post. It’s post Z, okay. They’re considered Generation Glass, which I think is fascinating. But anyway,

Greg Lambert  24:42

I’m just I’m still adjusting to the Gen z’s.

Marlene Gebauer  24:45

I know. Yeah. I think I’m glad

Greg Lambert  24:48

they’re here. They’re here.

Marlene Gebauer  24:50

They’re here.

Sang Lee  24:51

They are. I mean, they’re around the corner, right. I think the first year, assuming that first-year lawyers graduating classes are 25 and they don’t have to But assuming that the majority of them can be 25, I believe that new Gen Z is here around the corner. And then, you know, we’ll see what happens after that. But anyway, I kind of like lost myself along the way. But to answer your question, yes, I do believe that the generational forces that preceded this current generation lay down the groundwork for the kind of changes that we’re seeing now.

Greg Lambert  25:22

Very interesting. Well, one of the other things that that you’re doing that I find absolutely fascinating with Thine is, you’re using individual and organizational psychology tools to help you kind of create this more holistic view of candidates and talent. So what are you doing to, or how are you using these tools to create this more complete view of candidates?

Sang Lee  25:50

Well, competency frameworks have been deployed by law firms for the last 30 years, they were actually begged, borrowed or stolen from the corporate space in the 80s and 90s, when I think law firms started realizing that they had to think about developing their lawyers, once they left that traditional apprentice model, right? It might actually, I might be misstating, it might be more like the 90s. I just remember when do you guys remember when CLEs became a thing in the 90s, and all of a sudden, professional development departments were born, because somebody had to keep track of a lawyer CLE hours. And from there, I think the opportunity was realized to really think about a lawyer’s development beyond her technical skills. To really think about the critical business skills. And if you wanted to think about critical business skills, like leadership, or business development, or their communication style, all of a sudden, you’re like, well, what do we call that? And they took a look around and realized, oh, a corporations have been calling that stuff competencies for a long time, right? And so law firms started really building competency frameworks. And I think that, generally speaking, the majority of law firms already have competency frameworks in place. And so when we are building out Thine, we thought, let’s give our clients something that they can hold on to that feels familiar. But let’s modernize it. And let’s help them to appreciate that the competency frameworks that exist at law firms right now are not modern, in that they contemplate that a lawyer begins and ends her career at the same firm, which is absolutely not the case. Right. So you measure a lawyer’s progression at your firm from beginning from, you know, soup to nuts, but she’s probably gone at the end of her second year. And then by the time she ends her career, she’s probably touched or interfaced with, I don’t know, six to eight different employers. That’s what the data shows. So that means if you’re bringing laterals into your firm, as virtually every law firm employer, or every legal employer has had to contend with particular in the last couple of years, then you have to acknowledge that the lateral that you’re bringing in has probably been trained at a number of different places. So to measure those competencies against your competency framework doesn’t feel sensible. So in order for us to really think about how do we measure how lawyers are progressing in a way that feels holistic, that feels universal, but also feels fair and equitable? Because again, like side note, adjacent most competency frameworks measure for success and progress, using a white male heteronormative ideal of success. So we thought, hmm, we got to build our own. So we built out our own modern competency framework, where we think about success as a modern lawyer in private practice along seven dimensions. Embedded within those dimensions are 22 competencies that you would look for when selecting lawyers. Also, because in my extreme nerdery, because I love this stuff. I know, as our PhD in house knows, that you can’t use the same competencies that you’re measuring, when you’re selecting lawyers to help your lawyers develop. So you need another set of developmental competencies. So we have this huge competency framework that’s really sophisticated. And we built it out, not out of thin air. We built it out using decades of industry specific research, and then interviewing hundreds of lawyers who they themselves identify as diverse in some way. So we’ve got black, brown, Asian, immigrant, neurodivergent non-binary. We’ve got it all because The Modern Law Firm over the modern legal ecosystem is fully diverse or should be.

Greg Lambert  30:07

Yeah, I’m just imagining all of the round holes that we’re trying to hammer in square pegs.

Marlene Gebauer  30:17

Yeah, I was gonna ask that. Like, I mean, how are clients responding to this? I mean, are they overwhelmed by the complexity of all of this? And what goes into it?

Sang Lee  30:31

No, they love it. They love it.

Sang Lee  30:33

Do they? Okay.

Sang Lee  30:34

Well, they love it, because I don’t talk about it this way. Because, well, for those who want to nerd out with me, I talk about it this way. But for those who really want to understand why it works, how it works, what I usually say is, this is your way of ensuring that you don’t perpetuate the problem that you’ve identified. And they get it, they get it, what we’re trying to do is recreate a shared language around excellence. So rather than doing what a lot of, you know, companies out there, like who are hawking AI, in the traditional way around selection, saying, oh, you know, let’s come in and test all of your lawyers and gather all of your data. And then we can use it to form an algorithm that is going to indicate what it takes to be successful at your firm. What we do instead to say, Yeah, we don’t want to do that. We don’t, we don’t want to do that. We’re not going to test your lawyers and try to help you confirm your own bias. What we’re going to do instead is we’re gonna start over, we’re gonna start over, but we’re going to do make it easy for you. Because look, what we built and helped Let us teach you about it. And they get really excited because they want to hire people based on something beyond grades. And based on something beyond law school rankings. They all do. I mean,

Sang Lee  31:50

They just don’t know what it is?

Sang Lee  31:52

They just don’t know what it is. And so when you say things like adaptive communication, or resourceful, or, you know, image management, they’re like, oh, wait, you can look for that? And then we show them how, and they get really excited. And it doesn’t, I don’t think it feels too complicated to them. But thank you for asking the question. Because I get like, sometimes I nerd out,

Greg Lambert  32:10

It’s really you’re, you’re giving them the language, the vocabulary, is that, am I reading that right?

Sang Lee  32:17

Totally. We’re giving them the vocabulary. And then we’re showing them how that vocabulary translates to a question that they might ask in an assessment. And depending on how the candidate answers the assessment question, or the assessment item, and how they choose to respond, we can get a sense using IO psychology using data science of how you can get to know them better, or how they might actually show up at your firm.

Marlene Gebauer  32:46

And the success criteria, I mean, that seems to be compatible to what firms would see as success criteria? Particularly, you know, you’re particularly mentioned, you’re looking at a variety of different people, and also that you’re looking at what would be considered non-traditional in terms of what is success? And so I’m wondering if firms are, you know, are kind of looking at this and appreciating this and saying, you know, yeah, you know, okay, this is how we’re going to develop. This is how we’re going to develop people, you know, even though they may leave in a few years. And they’re, you know, they’re accepting of that.

Sang Lee  33:28

Well, I think their great hope is if they get it, right, because they have a sense of who the candidates truly are. And if the candidates have a sense of who the law firm truly is, because they can cut through the nonsense of, Oh, I see you ran a marathon, what’s your best time? Oh, I remember the time that I ran a marathon when I was 20. You know, they can cut through that, that awkward 15 minutes of casual conversation that helps them to try to figure out whether they get along at a bar, as opposed to whether they would be really good colleagues. And if they can talk around things like resourcefulness, or resilience, or, you know, whether someone’s socially attentive and understands how to be dynamic and her communication. If they can get a sense of one another and have a robust, meaningful conversation about the kind of opportunities that exist at the firm, then hopefully, people won’t leave after two or three years. And if they continue to be assessed along their lifecycle, for however long they choose to be at that firm, and if they’re integrated and onboarded and assimilated and deployed, according to who they are and what their skill level is. Those expectations will be aligned and people won’t find themselves so unsatisfied in their careers and unsatisfied in their relationships. Because I’m at the office where we’re, you know, on Zoom, however, however it might look, whether it’s in an office or whether it’s on Zoom, those relationships are critical, because we’re with these people, our colleagues, anywhere between eight to 12 hours a day. So getting it right. I mean, there’s a lot there, it’s pretty high stakes.

Marlene Gebauer  35:14

Traditionally, new attorneys or laterals to a law firm are given annual reviews and promotions are either lockstep or through some type of, you know, rigid standard. Now, this can create issues later in careers when it comes to stepping into leadership positions. Now, you’ve talked about how a lack of benchmarks for promotion often leads to bias and inequitable leadership, can you elaborate on that for us?

Sang Lee  35:44

Well, so in the ideal law firm, there are skills benchmarks, that you measure people, you measure their progress or their skills, benchmarks. And there are competency benchmarks, even if they’re a little outdated, right for and there should be skills, benchmarks and competency benchmarks. In an ideal world, for each practice, where for each region, for each industry group, for each, you know, cohort that has some kind of unique characteristics, or some unique client needs. That should be in place, right that lawyers can embrace and measure their unique progress against the unique learning and advancement goals in order to exist in that context. And I’m just gonna hit pause for one second and laugh because as a funny aside, I’ve been in the industry so long, I don’t know if you guys have been in the industry for so long that we’ve observed, like all of the different marketing strategies that have been thrown out there by law firms. Right. So all of those law firm marketing strategies are responsive to market forces. Again, market forces. And do you remember when there was a departure from like, where a law firm was headquartered?

Greg Lambert  36:59

Yeah.

Sang Lee  37:00

And a move to we don’t have headquarters.

Marlene Gebauer  37:02

We don’t have headquarters, right?

Sang Lee  37:03

No, we are one firm.

Greg Lambert  37:05

One firm!

Sang Lee  37:06

One firm, right?

Marlene Gebauer  37:09

Just difficult to talk to vendors when you had that system.

Sang Lee  37:13

Right. And then, and then you think about, like how now law firms are realizing that this one firm concept, doesn’t do anything except suggest homogeneity. And now everyone’s talking about diversity. But they’re talking about it in such a limited and myopic and, and I would say it’s a deeply upsetting conversation around diversity. But truly, if that’s what they want to do if they want to talk about diversity, and remember, I was saying like each, each cohort should have its own unique benchmark and own unique skills competency frameworks. So but in order for a law firm to retain diverse perspectives, because that’s the priority right now, in order for them to retain diverse perspectives, you know, what you need to respect diverse perspectives. And in order to respect diverse perspectives, to advance them to promote them, you need to do everything possible to embed them into the fabric of your firm. And because most benchmarks, and most competency frameworks were built and designed, albeit, you know, unwittingly, hopefully, unwittingly, around this hetero homogeneous kind of heteronormative ideal. We find ourselves in a pickle, if you don’t have diverse benchmarks. And if you don’t have a diverse competency framework, what you will end up doing is pushing people out, that can’t exist against your homogeneous frame. If you don’t have benchmarks at all, then you’ll find yourself resorting to your own set of like confirmation bias, implicit bias, because you’re just going to measure their progress against your subjective view of whether they’re progressing. So In either instance, until law firms fully embrace the idea of diverse perspectives and embed them within their benchmarks and embed them within their competency frameworks, you will find yourself in a pickle as a law firm leader,

Greg Lambert  39:17

That kind of ties into what I was going to ask next. And that is, how do you work with the law firms to help them develop these competencies and skills assessments to better support and develop the people that they’ve brought on into the firm?

Sang Lee  39:33

So a lot of that has to do with the architecture of our platform and the architecture of our suite of assessments. And one of the things that I mentioned earlier is because we believe in embedding diverse perspectives, it’s really important to us that the people who designed our assessment items, the people that we validated the assessment items against, the people who informed our competency framework that they self-identify as diverse in some way. So we deal with the possibility have bias in the architecture of our platform and bias in the architecture of our assessments by ensuring that there’s diversity in that particular data sample, or that data set of designers. Working with the law firms, a big piece of it is about talking to them about when they deploy the technology, because if they deploy the technology at strategic points, they could be circumventing right, the desired outcome, which is true diversity. So if we are designing an assessment that is supposed to widen the net of possible candidates, then they shouldn’t really be using it just at the offer phase, they should be using it at the very beginning, so that they’re seeing more people from different types of schools at different levels of “academic achievement”, or whatever that transcript is supposed to suggest. So a lot of it is about when to deploy these assessment. We’re also moving away, not just, we’re moving away from only using it in the context of selection, because it’s one thing to use an assessment to select diverse talent. But we all know, as people who work within law firms, that a big issue is in retaining that talent, and developing that talent, and ensuring that if you hire more people who self-identify as diverse, they feel that they have the resources, they feel like they have the opportunities that everybody else has in order to be successful. So you need to keep assessing them for development. And you need to keep using the assessment results to give them what they need. So we’ve designed, for example, a lateral assessment. But we’re not going to have you use it in order to select out people who don’t pass muster. Because we know the foregone conclusion is you’re going to hire people who you don’t really know very well, because the market is so ferociously competitive right now, so you’re going to bring people in. And once you bring them in, we’re going to set it up so that they can be as successful as possible. So we now work with law firms to roll out lateral integration assessments and skills assessments for the candidates that they’ve brought in and who they’ve hired. So now they’re existing lawyers at the firm, within the first couple of weeks, giving them language around professional development, giving them language around, we want you to be successful here. So we’d like you to take this assessment. And once we understand who you are, and what you can do, we are going to do a better job of making sure we deploy you in a way that makes sense, and in a way where you can be successful. So as a recruiter, I can tell you and also as a consultant, and as a coach, I can tell you, and I’m sure you guys have seen this, maybe not at your firms, but maybe you’ve heard about it, you know, when you’re having a cocktail with your friends, these lateral associates come in, and everyone’s really busy, they get a call, they’re asked to work on a deal. And very little attention has been given to what they can do and whether they’re going to be able to do the assignment. And so they’re kind of set up to fail. Because they go in and they either don’t do the job on the assignment, they don’t know how to acclimate to the culture of the particular practice group. And then they’re not successful. And you know, the power of the grapevine that law firms that gets around, they don’t get, they don’t get staff again. And all of a sudden, these lawyers who were brought in to hit the ground running are going to be transitioned out, and then the law firm is just hemorrhaging money. And, and the people that had the experience are heartbroken and they feel unsuccessful. And they feel really pretty lousy about themselves, because they thought they were getting this new job, great job and getting this new, great opportunity. And the next thing, you know, three months later, they’re being told that they need to leave. And so the deployment of the assessment at a critical time, using an orientation of development is really, really important. And I think that our law firm partners who are excited about this opportunity to really take care of their talent. I think they see it, they see it very clearly. And so that’s one illustration of how we’re partnering with them.

Marlene Gebauer  44:09

So switching topics a little bit. We’ve seen in recent news that you’re working with our friend Ian Nelson at hotshot. He’s been on the show a couple of times. So what are Thine and Hotshot doing with summer associate bundle collaboration?

Sang Lee  44:26

I think Ian and Chris are such high-quality guys. I really do. And I and I think that they’re in on I feel like we’re on parallel paths in some ways, because we care very deeply about our clients. And we care very deeply about the industry. And we’ve also been trying to sell legal tech into law firms that have historically been somewhat slow to adopt legal tech. And so I think that in our conversations, we realize that we could collaborate and really leverage one another’s reputations and brands and tell a pretty good story. So that lateral example that I just gave you. It’s perfect, right? You hire an M&A lawyer, we just did a webinar together, you hire an m&a lawyer, and you don’t know what she can do. And then you have her take an assessment, and all of a sudden you realize, oh, this is who she is, this is the partner that she’s probably going to work most successfully with. And this is the level of skill that she currently has. But we still need her to stretch a little bit. And she doesn’t know how to do this particular assignment. So let’s get her to a Hotshot video, that can give her some real-time as needed direction training, learning to support her, and will at least be able to set her up to ask better questions of the people that she’s working with. And so,

Marlene Gebauer  45:39

She has a basis to start with.

Sang Lee  45:40

Yeah, as a basis. And so, you know, Ian, Chris, Jon, and I got together and we realized, Oh, this is such a better story for our law firm client, because they don’t have to connect the dots, we can connect the dots for them. And on the summer associate piece, I think that it’s really true that you’re talking about summer associates who don’t even know what they don’t know. And I say that with respect, because a lot of summer associates are really super brilliant and far smarter than I. But when they get to a law firm, and they don’t realize where the resources are, who to turn to, it can be super helpful to give them an opportunity to go to a library of resources. And I think that hotshot provides that.

Marlene Gebauer  46:18

Yeah, and I mean, I like that concept of kind of as needed just in time type of training. Because I mean, we’ve all you know, known for a long time, and that generally works the best for adult learners. And, you know, if you try and like, throw a bunch of stuff at them at a, you know, a non-relevant time, it just, it doesn’t stick. So, you know, and I like this, because it’s sort of a short format. And, you know, they just get the information that they need when they need it and can apply it right away.

Greg Lambert  46:45

It’s been one of the things and I’ve said this before is like in my firm, I tell all of the laterals that come in, we typically don’t lack for resources to help you. Where we lack is getting you to understand which resource to use at the right time. And I think products like Hotshot is. It’s kind of funny, because just this morning, I was talking to some peers at another law firm. And that’s exactly what we were saying is, you know, like we should leverage this, because most of the time, they don’t know what to ask. And they’re afraid to ask, they’re afraid to look like they don’t understand it becomes this vicious cycle of, you know, by wanting to do it on their own to prove that they know what they’re doing. But lacking the understanding of the resources in the process. It’s just this vicious circle, or vicious cycle that then you know, like you said early, three months later, then all of a sudden, you know, word gets around and out the door they go. So yeah, very, very interesting. We’ve all heard and had been talking and reading about the great resignation. But I like how some people are rephrasing that lately, and calling it the great upgrade in that people are leaving positions, but they’re leaving positions, you know, maybe for a while being at home, but then upgrading to something else. And this lateral market is super white-hot right now. And I feel it because we have to do conflicts on all of our laterals, and we are overwhelmed. But, you know, the reality of losing and hiring attorneys is that it’s expensive. In fact, I think I read something today that it’s basically about three times what the salary is, is what it cost to replace someone. So, you know, this whole process just hasn’t kept up with the demand that’s going on. And our mutual friend, Ari Kaplan, we were talking before we started recording about Ari’s work and uncovering, you know, some of the information on how law firms are changing their, their recruiting efforts to improve, you know, the return on investment. So, what are you seeing firms doing to improve ROI of recruiting and Talent Management?

Sang Lee  49:10

They’re doing a lot of different things. And I’m really happy. I’m really happy for them that they’re trying new things out. So one of the things that they’re doing, that Ari’s report didn’t cover, Ari’s report is great, by the way, and we are really, really psyched to have the opportunity to underwrite it. And if anyone wants to follow me on LinkedIn, I actually posted something today about how Ari and I actually came together to put this report out six months ago, I called him and I was like, Dude, we got to do something. We got to do something to help. Because this is a crazy time and everyone is feeling so out of control. What can we do to help? So in any event, everyone should read the article because I did read the report because 30 Different chief town officers and diversity directors and recruiting directors, I mean, they were really generous. to share all of that information, and there’s a lot of information on how they improve their ROI. And so you can get it there. One of which is like, you know, they’re doing internal referrals. And so instead of going to recruiters externally, they’re asking their lawyers internally to recommend their friends for openings, which not only saves a law firm, a little bit of money, but it also increases the likelihood that the person who’s being hired is going to feel a connection to the firm and stay and have kind of a built-in ally. So they’re doing things like that. And Ari’s report shares that what Ari’s report didn’t actually touch on. So I wanted to add value here that I’m seeing law firms do is they’re starting to really get serious about coaching. And they’re reframing coaching as developmental rather than remedial. So 10 years ago, when you heard about somebody getting coaching at a law firm, it was because they weren’t behaving well, or because they kept blowing deadlines. Now, I think law firms realize that coaching is not for the broken. Coaching is actually for folks who want to get farther and faster. And it’s pretty exciting to watch.

Marlene Gebauer  51:12

It’s like proactive, rather than reactive.

Sang Lee  51:14

And making coaching available for associates, summer associates, all the way up through partners, branding, coaching, not just as developmental but critical for leadership. And, and I, you know, I happen to agree with that. I mean, I’m an executive coach, I remember when I had got my first coach in 2009, I was totally blown away by how someone could take someone like, you know, someone like me, I’m pretty ambitious. And I’m a really hard worker. And I think I’m pretty self-aware. And I thought, Oh, I don’t need coaching. And I’m just do this as a favor for this friend of mine who need some advanced hours for certification. And she rocked my world, because she gave me a technology around language. And she gave me a way of thinking about who I was and who I wanted to be. And she gave me a framework to hold myself accountable. And so, you know, I thought I want to do this. And so I went, and I got my certification, and then I bought a coaching company. And here we are, right. And but law firms are starting to really kind of get in there. And a lot of them are hiring directors of coaching for associate-level partner level, I mean, I think

Marlene Gebauer  52:30

I was gonna ask, like, who’s doing that, besides, you know, folks like you, and it sounds like they’re, they’re hiring internal to.

Sang Lee  52:38

Yeah. And they’re sending their people to coach training academies. And we’ve recently gotten a ton of requests in my consulting company, we were getting a lot of requests to come in and do training sessions, not to train people on how to become coaches, but how to start thinking in a coach way. I just did a session for the City Bar, the New York City Bar on management strategies in a hybrid work environment. And a lot of the strategies are around how to communicate in a way that demonstrates you’re investing in them, as opposed to giving them feedback. Because investing in talent feels really good to all of the parties who are involved in that relationship. But when you call someone and say, Hey, I wanted to give you some feedback, that sounds kind of dreadful. So a lot of it is about orientation, and an intention, and all of that is coaching. So I think law firms who are trying to maximize the ROI, are thinking about improving their communication strategies, their leadership strategies, and they’re using a lot of coaching,

Greg Lambert  53:50

I don’t know anything about how the coaching is working in law firms these days. Is it something that, you know, maybe they spend an hour a month on? Or is it something that’s more… How frequently do the coaches interact with the attorneys? And then I’d also ask is, are you also seeing attorneys take it upon themselves to reach out and have their own coaching outside of what the firms offering because they may there may be more that they want to do that may or may not be related to their work in the firm, but it’s a passion that they have, and they bring a coach on to kind of help them work that out?

Marlene Gebauer  54:35

And I’ll add on to that, are they incentivized to reach out or to participate in coaching? You know, I just keep thinking as I’m listening like, billable hour, billboard or billable

Sang Lee  54:49

Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. These are great questions. And I know that technically, we’re supposed to be talking about technology, but I could talk about coaching all day long. So like I’m so

Marlene Gebauer  54:58

This is innovation and Creative in the legal profession. So yes, we’re right on point.

Sang Lee  55:05

Awesome, so there are all different ways that coaching arrangements can look, there can be very defined coaching relationships for partners that go anywhere from six months to 12 months. I would probably recommend 12 months because that’s how you see meaningful change, particularly with people who are kind of dug into their behaviors, it takes a little longer, and it takes a little more intentionality. So those engagements might be like 12 months, twice a month, an hour, an hour and a half in person, sometimes in Zoom by Zoom or by phone, but a consistent demonstration of effort by both the partner and the coach, I’ve seen that. Sometimes you see laser coaching, where you’ve got an associate who is kind of struggling around commitment management and time management, but their struggle is really kind of deeply embedded in particular perspectives. And so that needs a little bit of work. And so that might be like a three-month engagement. But more and more law firms are starting to offer something that we call on-demand coaching, which is making available to their, to their community members access to a cohort of coaches that are external to the firm. So it’s kind of like a hotline if you will, and every lawyer as part of their PD budget might have anywhere between three to five sessions a year, that they can call whenever they need help. And the most successful firms tend to appreciate that you can’t just offer the service and have it sit out there, you need to roll it out. And so coaching company will come in, like we’ll go in and we’ll do a session where we talk about what coaching is, and what coaching isn’t when you can use it, how it might be useful. And so the lawyers who typically call in aren’t calling because they’re in crisis, but they’re calling because they realize, Oh, I’m about to go and have my like mid-year review. And I want to have a little bit of support around how to hold myself what questions I can ask how I can be an advocate. And this would be a great opportunity for me to talk to somebody who’s on my side, and everything is confidential. So any law firm that hires a coaching outfit, will be able to confirm that if the coaching outfit is credible, that they observe confidentiality in a really, really profound way in order for the lawyers who avail themselves of the engagement to feel safe and invested.

Marlene Gebauer  57:34

So okay, we’ve kind of almost answered this question, but I’m going to ask it anyway. This is our crystal ball question that we ask we ask our guests. So you know, we’d like for you to pull out your crystal ball. And take a look into the future, if you don’t mind. And you know, what kind of creative changes are you seeing on the horizon when it comes to talent management in the legal industry?

Sang Lee  58:03

So we talked about coaching, we talked about the assessments. And it’s funny, because I don’t as I was externalizing, that I thought, well, you want me to take out my crystal ball, if that’s right. Because the stuff that I’m talking about right now it’s here, it’s happening.

Marlene Gebauer  58:18

Let’s talk about what isn’t happening, but you think’s going to happen.

Sang Lee  58:24

So I will go on the record, even if people think I’m Looney Tunes, that’s okay. Because I like being a little kind of out there. I will go on the record and say, and maybe it’s not that out there that I think that the big competitor for law firms is not the accounting firms. It’s actually law schools.

Greg Lambert  58:47

Okay, I’m intrigued. Tell me more.

Greg Lambert  58:50

Yeah, let’s go on.

Sang Lee  58:52

So, law firm clients, right, not law firm clients, but clients of law firms. So big corporations have been complaining, as we know, for a really long time, about having to pay for junior talent. And that has brought the brought on the emergence of these alternative legal service providers. Like I know that you guys know Bryan Parker and Jon Greenblatt, right. So what they’re doing is really cool, because they’re, they’re addressing the need. And they see that there’s a cohort of talent that needs to be developed, and that should be developed and deserves to be developed, and then ultimately, be given the opportunity to demonstrate their profound value after Legal Innovators has trained them up, right. So there’s a whole kind of community of alternative legal service providers that are coming up. Well, why wouldn’t NYU, or Michigan, or Harvard Law School, or Georgetown, right, my alma mater, why wouldn’t they develop like a clinical program postgraduate? Like so Georgetown has one of the best clinical programs in the country? For 3Ls that want to get practical work experience, why wouldn’t they do that postgraduate? I mean, they have the chops, they have the credibility, they have the infrastructure already in place. But all of these extraordinary law schools that already have that brand name recognition that have the also the troubles that they’re having right now, right, around placement, and why wouldn’t they just have an extension of the experience, they can also, in doing that, introduce a different dimension to the whole US World News rankings, which you know, right? Yeah, exactly. So I think that there are all kinds of opportunities for different organizations, different entities that already exist in the legal ecosystem, to be thinking about developing cultivating talent at the junior ranks, which addresses a clear business need. Clients don’t want to pay for junior people that don’t know what they’re doing. So there’s an opportunity here to get those junior people who deserve the opportunity to get some training to get some practical training. Because as we know, many of these extraordinary law schools of which I am a graduate, didn’t give us a ton of practical training. So maybe they could. So that’s my crystal ball prediction.

Marlene Gebauer  1:01:31

That’s very interesting. You kind of took something that I’ve talked about, like one step further, where, you know, firms could partner with law schools and develop some sort of skills program where they got this type of experience and sort of were more prepared when they went out. But you’re just saying it’s like, look, the now they don’t even need the firm’s, they can just do it themselves. And, you know, and so then folks are ready. So yeah, that’s great.

Greg Lambert  1:01:57

I think you’re right, I think Bryan and Jon, at Legal Innovators are or have been are working on this path. I mean, they’ve kind of already set it up. They’re doing just that with a number of law schools. So be it’d be interesting to see that dynamic expand to where they’re connecting law schools, law firms, corporations. Yeah. So that I think that’s a, that’s pretty good insight.

Sang Lee  1:02:26

I’ve got one more. Wait, I’ve got one more.

Marlene Gebauer  1:02:28

A bonus!

Sang Lee  1:02:28

This actually goes back to the thing that you guys were talking about. So in 2013, when I decided to step away from legal recruiting, and move into professional development. I saw that, again, responsive to client needs, and law firm clients of law firms or starting to kind of demand that law firm leaders tighten the belt and to manage their firms more efficiently, less expensively. And I remember thinking, Well, what can they do? They’re not going to address associate salaries. I mean, they don’t seem willing ever to address associate salaries. And so what are they, they’re going to cut? Whatever, they can cut inside, and I thought, Oh, well, where’s their duplication? Where is there the opportunity? And I thought, oh, okay, well, I was a recruiter, and I thought, there’s this vertical of gatekeepers on recruiting. But I saw that there was also professional development, and I thought, Oh, they’re going to come together one day, they’re going to come together, this is 2013. People thought I was insane. And you know, and then when I moved into professional development, I actually, you know, took some flak, if you will, I definitely took some heat where they’re like, she’s a recruiter, she doesn’t know anything about PD. And I thought, Okay, well, you know, we’ll see it’s gonna come together. And sure enough, in 2014, 2015, 2016, they started become really started, you know, being called where they are now, which is talent, right? Talent Management, which is cool. So that experience of connecting the dots, that’s continuing to happen. And it can be the crystal ball in 2022, your crystal ball moment in 2024, your crystal ball moment in 2026. Any place in this ecosystem, where there are opportunities to connect the dots, they will be actualized, because of technology. Because everyone is looking for where the pain points are, and where the opportunities are. And there are so many in this wonderful ecosystem that for some reason, decided to operate as a system of silos. And so I think the opportunities are there. And whether it’s a talent management platform that speaks to every vertical in the law, firm marketing, business development, recruiting, Professional Development, Alumni, it’s coming, it’s coming.

Greg Lambert  1:04:49

that’s very, very interesting. I like what your crystal ball is telling us. Well, Sang Lee from Thine, I really want to thank you very, very much. for coming on the show, this has been delightful.

Marlene Gebauer  1:05:02

Thank you so much.

Sang Lee  1:05:04

Thank you. It was so much fun. Thanks, guys.

Marlene Gebauer  1:05:09

Well, that was super enjoyable. And again, once again, we had a great conversation offline.

Greg Lambert  1:05:17

We’ll just expect that to be the norm from now on.

Marlene Gebauer  1:05:21

That’s gonna be what we do.

Greg Lambert  1:05:23

Although I think we did line up we talked a little about Moneyball after and I think she’s got some unique views on what works for Moneyball, and what doesn’t work for money doesn’t work for us. So we need to have a Moneyball episode.

Marlene Gebauer  1:05:40

Yes we do. Moneyball yay or nay? She’s doing some really interesting work in terms of, you know, organizational psychology and psychology tools. And that is something I think that really lacking in legal that is just not something I don’t think that that is used regularly. So well, that’s really cool. And also the, you know, the professional development. I mean, I appreciated what she said about how, like you have one set of criteria for people coming in, but then you have to adjust that criteria in order to develop them moving forward. And I’ve never heard anybody say that before.

Greg Lambert  1:06:17

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, there was a couple of things that she touched on. One was the technology, especially like the buzz that’s around AI and helping

Marlene Gebauer  1:06:28

AI will solve all your problems. Yeah.

Greg Lambert  1:06:31

It still has a ways to go. And I think this may have been in our after episode discussion was, you know, she was thinking possibly even 20 years out before, something like that will work. So kind of interesting, scary, at the same time. And then I also love the fact that, you know, she talked about coaching, and I think it was, you know, it was interesting, because, you know, she shared a lot about her own experiences and personality, and, you know, being an immigrant and what that meant and the pressures that were on her and how she took that, and really dove into something that I think that wasn’t our plan, but that ended up being her passion.

Marlene Gebauer  1:07:16

And I mean, important to make a difference.

Greg Lambert  1:07:20

Yeah. And it did remind me of, you know, when I thought I had a path laid out early in my career, and someone pointed out was like, you know, why are you limiting yourself to that? Really, really cool. So appreciate Sang Lee from Thine, coming in and talking with us. This was absolutely fantastic.

Marlene Gebauer  1:07:42

It really was, it really was. And of course, thanks to all of you for taking the time to listen to The Geek in Review podcast. If you enjoy the show, share it with a colleague. We’d love to hear from you. So reach out to us on social media. I can be found at @gebauerm on Twitter.

Greg Lambert  1:07:58

And I can be reached at @glambert on Twitter. I’ve yet to get a Tic Tok account. Maybe that’d be next.

Marlene Gebauer  1:08:06

Yeah, I look at the videos but I don’t have an account. Yeah. Where were we? okay.

Greg Lambert  1:08:18

Off track.

Marlene Gebauer  1:08:19

Yeah, like Tic Tok just threw me yeah. Like or, or you can leave us a voicemail on The Geek in Review Hotline at 713-487-7270. So you can go old school that way. And as always, the music you hear is from Jerry David DiCicca. Thank you, Jerry.

Greg Lambert  1:08:35

Thanks, Jerry. All right. Marlene, I will talk with you later.

Marlene Gebauer  1:08:37

I’ll be opening a Tik Tok account.