G'day leaders. In this episode we had the privilege of sitting down with Susan Warder.
Susan is a partner at the law firm Mills Oakley. She's a family lawyer who's been in the business
for 30 years now and in 2013 was named Woman Lawyer of the Year in private practice by the
Women Lawyers Association of New South Wales. We got to chat to her about all of the lessons she's
learned on her journey about being a family lawyer but also as a leader. Enjoy. Why did it count
backwards? Are they? We're now recording. What? Hello Captain. What do I say?
Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly. What are we going to talk about? I don't know.
So leadership, life and everything else. Yeah.
And we're live. No we're recording. Sorry Susan we do this all the time it's a bit of a bug bit.
And our neighbour who's our biggest fan he says you've got to keep doing it because it
annoys Michelle so I'm not going to stop. Probably not a good thing to do in front of a family lawyer.
No. Not taken. And welcome Susan Warder. Thank you for having me. So you're as you said a family
lawyer and I've known you for just on 10 years now. Might even be a bit longer because I think we
met before I moved my practice to Mills Oakley. Yes it was. And we've hit 10 years last month
at Mills Oakley. Wow okay time flies. So a bit longer than that and time does fly yes. Yeah so
the reason why we asked you to be on our podcast is our podcast is about life and leadership
and exemplary leadership and I thought of you and I've spoken to Guy and told him so much about you
just I've watched you over the time that I've known you not only yourself in your leadership style
but how you have encouraged and mentored and brought up with you other lawyers in within your
companies that you've been at the businesses you've been at and it just it got goosebumps it just
it's a it's a great you're a great example of a leader who doesn't just you know fight to get to
the top but brings people with you and so I love your style. Thank you Michelle. You're welcome.
So what I want to know is your background have you always been interested in law?
I have I think from the time I was certainly in high school and being part of the debating team and
studying legal studies and being part of the mock trial and watching television shows that were
always courtroom dramas. What's your favorite? Well back then it was probably things that aren't
on anymore but I certainly was an Ali McBeal fan for a long time I watched LA Law and then probably
a decade ago when The Good Wife was on I certainly enjoyed watching Alicia Florrick and her life in
The Good Wife but yes always wanted to do law didn't really know what area of law but that
decision was kind of made for me because in my first the first firm I went to work in in 1993
the two partners had a very mixed practice a varied practice but neither of them were really
interested in family law that was the emotional stuff that they didn't want to get involved in
and so there I was at 23 as a very junior lawyer not knowing anything about practice let alone a
lot of experience about relationships being given the family law work that came in the door and for
the first few years I did everything that the partners didn't want to do so it was a variety of
work small matters being sent to different courts in and around Sydney and then about the third year
probably about 1995 1996 that became my area and whenever calls came in to them about that work it
was always allocated to me and I developed a family law practice and I really enjoyed it and
I have to say having hit 30 years of admission in June last year I still enjoy it as much as I
did then I've seen a lot of changes within the law but within society and the observations I've made
have been really interesting to see who I'm working with now compared to who I was seeing
day in day out 20 years ago and 30 years ago and how gray divorces for example of we're just not
there when when I was a younger lawyer in the 90s and we're now seeing people divorcing later
I'd say probably when I hit 20 years admission so maybe 10 years ago a lot more internet
relationships started dating apps that led to people having relationships and then those
relationships breaking down Facebook when when Facebook became a big thing at some stage during
my career we saw people reconnecting with old school friends perhaps through social media
deciding that they wanted to rekindle those old relationships that led to marriage breakdown or
marrying someone who lived in another country and the complications that go with relocating children
I've never thought about it like that that your industry has evolved and changed it certainly has
yes yes technology had an impact and the and I'd say what's happened in the last decade with the
in the last decade with the the gray divorce and and having more clients in their 70s and 80s than
we've ever seen before going through family or proceedings is generally because people are living
longer there's more money in certainly if you practice in Sydney everyone made a gain over the
years through their home values increasing so I think there's been a number of contributing factors
to why we see people separating at a later age that we probably wouldn't have considered or
people wouldn't have considered 30 years ago I wouldn't have thought about there there is one
in particular that comes to mind that's in the media a lot that's a gray person an older person
and he has had a number of wives which are publicly and you don't apart from celebrities
not that he's really a celebrity but he's in the in the news yeah I wouldn't have considered that
older people were getting divorced yes yeah I often refer to them to my lawyers as as the true
believers in love and they keep coming back you know I'm acting I was acting for a lady
up until a few months ago and her matter resolved and it's the third time I've acted for her I've
acted for it each in each decade of my career yes and I said to her when when you meet
husband number four I think we need to go through a vetting exercise and maybe a prenup
that's because you know paperwork in order yes yes beforehand and you don't think of family lawyers
as having repeat work as such because people generally used to have one one marriage breakdown
but the longer you've been practicing the more likelihood there is of you being able to see that
client again and work with them again and it might not be for another marital breakdown it might in
fact be for a financial agreement if they've decided to to enter the next relationship with
a prenup or similar yeah so you you targeted law you always wanted to be a lawyer but you seem to
have fallen into family law I think like a lot of young lawyers because I know when we meet young
lawyers who start with us here at the firm they're unsure as to which area of law they think they'll
be interested in I knew very quickly that I'd be interested in an area where I was working with
people rather than drafting documents you know I didn't ever imagine I would enjoy being a lawyer
sitting in an office drafting contracts and leases and and documents of that nature and
and would probably find myself in an area where I actually had more client contact
and enjoy that interaction and and an opportunity which family law gives you
to also do some advocacy work whereas depending on the area of law you've chosen you you may not need
to really have a lot of conversations with clients if you're engaged to draft documents you might have
some initial meetings but are very different to to what we do and the high touch points that our
clients have and need you took on family law because the other two the two gentlemen that you
worked for initially didn't want to touch it some of us are probably very much in the same
and managing with those things and I have male colleagues who are equally good at managing family
law matters you know who are brilliant lawyers as well as having if I call the softer skills to
manage clients but I think the partners I was working for when I started in 1993 were was a
different era family law was practiced quite differently to what it's become as well yeah there
was a lot less collaboration that movie the war of the roses was probably more reflective of that
time and whilst you still have acrimonious and bitter separations now the rules of the court
the education lawyers are provided with at ongoing conferences and the expectations the court has and
clients it's to try and collaborate wherever possible to to minimize issues and to progress
matters differently and that's really change it's very different now even the terminology when I
started it was custody children lived with you you had custody of those children yeah or you had
access to the children if you were the parent who visited them and that language was changed so the
government changed the legislation amendments have come through a few times in in the times I in the
three decades I've practiced and so practicing in the law and in the law and in the law and in the
and so practicing in family law has changed it certainly is my observation and I think this is
fairly accurate and representative of what's happening in the profession that more female
lawyers are drawn to family law yeah if I looked at newly admitted solicitors who elect to going to
family law or if I was at a family law function or conference there would be a lot more females
in in recent years that seem to be drawn to family law I follow you on LinkedIn and I see a lot of
posts where you are there with a lot of female lawyers and and yeah and I look at my team and
there are 13 lawyers I'm one of 13 and they are all female and that's not because we advertise
looking for a female practitioner but there are very few male practitioners in family law in in
recent years why do you think that is I'm not sure I I really don't know if it's because
females are more drawn to that emotional element of it yeah but if you looked around at sort of
leading family law specialist law firms there would be a lot more female lawyers certainly under 40
okay there's still some very senior male practitioners who've been practicing for a long
time but in recent years I think it's really swung the other way to to a lot more females
well there's a lot more females in the profession so that in itself would contribute and I think
with a number of the universities that offer law there are more women enrolling than men as well
so yeah being a partner in the firm you are in a leadership position and we talk about leaders as
being somebody that you're inspired to follow or emulate what would you say are the main
characteristics of a great leader look I I think that too has changed because as a young lawyer
when I started practicing you really wanted to be a partner one day you wanted to to increase your
and improve your technical expertise so that you you could answer all of your clients questions
and had really good grip on the law and you wanted to you aspired to progressing your career so that
you could ultimately become a partner I don't know that as many young lawyers these days want
to do that I think a lot of them look at partners and think I don't want to work those hours yeah
and I don't want to have to work that hard to to try and become a partner so I think that's change
and that's a shift that most of us who've been practicing for a long time have observed and
the but going back to your question in what do I think
I'd like people to in my team to observe and be inspired by I think it's about the way you respect
your clients and trying to do really good quality work for your clients trying to keep your word if
you if you're giving your word about this is going to be done at this time on this day then
then following through with that and having them understand how as lawyers we trade on our word
and that that's a really important thing and our ethical obligations not just to clients but to the
court if you are in court which a lot of young lawyers may not have the benefit of knowing about
because we've got this generation of lawyers who were admitted and then covered here so for two
years they didn't get to go to court it's all a Microsoft teams and I was at a seminar on Saturday
to help lawyers understand about ethics and how to present if you are online and the fact it is
still like being in open court and so there's different things that we need them to to hopefully
watch and learn now and then and then separately to that is I hope they get inspired by the
outcomes you achieve and the difference you make to someone's life to their family and the help
you've given them so if someone is you know sending you a thank you and you share that with them and
you speak to them about this is why what we do is so powerful because it stays with people for a
long time and and a lot of young lawyers really want to be part of that and in helping their
client be able to navigate and and get out of the situation they're in because I mean let's face it
if you're a family lawyer you're not seeing people at a happy time in their life yeah so giving them
a sense of purpose yes yes and then they feel like they've been a really integral part of this
family being able to move forward and and do those things and then also just the importance of
the conversations we have being approachable being able to workshop any questions they have
and to be able to have that within your your team because we we do have the advantage of being a
large team so there's always someone else who will be able to answer the question I make a real point
we have a meeting on a Thursday of asking other lawyers around the table in my team what they
think should be in a matter because they're all then contributing and I often say to them
I want to work with people who know more than I do about so the family law covers a lot of areas
and we also have some lawyers who are really interested in parenting matters others in complex
financial matters and or internet international matters so workshopping sharing that and everyone
feels like they've really contributed to maybe the
more senior solicitor's case and giving them some guidance or tips or bringing to their attention
something they should know so is that a formal CLE so continuing to legal education so we have
every Thursday at one o'clock all the lawyers in our team meet together down here on on this floor
we in a room like this a bigger room than this and we go through our weekly lawyers meeting and talk
about what matters people have had where they might need some assistance or one of our lawyers
have had where they might need some assistance or one of us might say our client came in and
they've got x y and z has anyone been in a matter where this has happened and there might be different
valuation issues or whatever it is and and people share that experience together each week are there
still things that come in that you've never seen occasionally yes yeah you know every separately to
things i may not have seen that require a legal resolution and legal advice that doesn't happen
as often but as far as stories and facts just when i think i've heard it all six months later someone
shocks me again but it's good because you can go home and say thank goodness i have a really boring
life and you're a voyeur listening to to other things that that people have done in their lives
so without details can you tell us anything that's shocked you in your career or something that's
really funny i think one of the things that really strikes me the most is when people have two family
law matters going on at the same time so with a spouse and with someone else they were seeing
that the spouse may not have known about but now has to know about so they've got two properties
settlements and it gets quite complicated because you have to deal with the spouse first and their
entitlements and then whatever the person has left to go goes into the pool for the for the next
property settlement so i always think that's um you know keeps people very busy yes clearly if
they're running uh two relationships and sometimes in different states or uh with complex arrangements
yes and then trying to to unravel that and it's inevitable then that everyone finds out about
the other person that um that's been involved so we know a story about a particular pilot who had
i think seven around the country at the same time so they were keeping the international family
lawyers busy with different jurisdictions of life yeah
yeah i i see that you uh mentor your teams and i i have seen a couple of uh female lawyers that
that you have brought up through the ranks who inspired you who did you wish to emulate or gave
you tips that you thought yeah we'll take those on board yeah look for the first seven years of
my practice i was in a very small firm and we didn't actually have anyone who provided any
mentoring formally or informally but at the end of that seven years i had a case against a very
experienced lawyer uh who i really respected and she had a position available she was in a in a
large firm and i wasn't able to commit to a full-time position because i had very young
children but she was willing to take me on three days a week and she was inspirational she was
generous with her time in teaching and training and letting me sit in on on appointments uh she
wanted me to succeed i i always knew that when i was applying for example to be an accredited
specialist in family law she had my back yeah and the other interesting thing about our dynamic was
she didn't have children right yet always understood if there was a bit of a crisis
for me because i did have young children and she knew i'd get my work done even if i had to rush
off some medical emergency or something to do with one of the kids and so she was a great role model
and to have her calm approach because she was always very calm and she used to say she didn't
feel calm but she presented very calmly to all of us who worked with her so she was very influential
in my career yeah and then interestingly the ceo who was appointed for our firm when i was at colman
greg and i'd been there for 12 years the partners were very brave and decided that look they're
lawyers but not managers and they should step back from managing the firm and appoint a ceo
and they appointed a ceo who was not a lawyer but an accountant and he took us all out of our comfort
zone and it was really unsettling with the changes that he implemented but he became the person that
was my greatest supporter and the best mentor i could have had wow by really pushing me outside
of my comfort zone but also guiding me lovingly and in a caring way so it was interesting because
i had a male and a female yeah and he was the person who i credit for being responsible in
me being able to progress with my team and then when i left colman greg and started at mils oakley
the three lawyers who i'd worked with came with me and they're here and we've had a really good time
working with each other yeah for the last 14 years and we've added other other lawyers who
uh since come and gone in in that time that we've been here but yes so i would say one was a lawyer
a partner a female family law partner and the other was the male non non-lawyer yeah but i would
think both of them really made a very big difference to me progressing in the law the way i did
yeah and i i also was fortunate i guess which isn't the story that many females
uh in leadership positions have but when i went in as a partner at colman greg i was in business
with seven really decent men yeah who valued my work my contribution and whilst they'd had very
different lives to me because they were much older they all had uh wives who were at home
yeah and weren't having to manage young families and you know they were at a very different stage
of their life uh they really let me come on board and work in a way where they recognized how valuable
my work was for the firm but to do it in a way that some of my female colleagues have not always had
and women in other corporate environments that i read about or i know so i have had that good
fortune of working with uh really good men to that have contributed yeah and it hasn't just been
females that's fantastic so actually being appreciated for what you bring to the business
and your professional knowledge and now and like how you handle yourself yes it's very different
to a story that michelle told me once about a captain that she used to fly with who used to
help hover his hand over her hand on the control panel because of a lack of trust yes
it's it's great to hear that you've worked with with two leaders one who was a technical expert
in the in the law and one who wasn't necessarily a technical expert but showed that leadership
could you list some of the character traits of both of those mentors i think generosity with
their time yeah and being really available to me when when they were with me and also thinking
about how they could assist me when they weren't with me so that they would send me an article
or have a chat with me about someone they'd met and making those introductions and
connecting me with people that they thought i would benefit from either learning from or working with
or who would expand my own skills and skill expansion actually was was something that
our ceo did undertake with those of us who were identified as people who wanted to embrace the
changes that he wanted to roll out which were quite unconventional for a really old well
established law firm firstly to appoint a ceo that was a non-lawyer and then give them a stake in the
practice so equity in the practice and so that was telling of the partners that i was in business
with and how progressive they were at that time because i became a partner in 1997 and sorry in
2007 but he was appointed as ceo a few years before that and he identified those people who were
willing to embrace this change and the new direction the firm was going to to go in which
was a very brave move and then saying well you should be able to go and learn how to do this
and do that and acquire different skills it's not just about having the technical expertise that's
a given after a while in the law you know you get good at it like any job you've been doing it for
a long time but it's all of these other skills that you need as part of your skill set and i
don't know that as a lawyer if i would have actually thought about doing that i would have
just been working in the business and not on the business and then progressing in that way and then
also the work that was done in making us a bit more aware of the impact we have on others working
with us yeah and the younger lawyers or our support staff who work within our teams and
trying to engage with them and inspire them so that they could see what you're doing hear what
you're saying and think okay well i'd really like to aim to do that or follow that pathway
so it was that awareness that the mentors gave me of these things that i probably wouldn't have
thought about because you're so focused on your work and getting your work done complex
career that you've chosen yes and it's very consuming so you need to have some time to
step back and think about these things but i even remember when the sydney olympics were on
and for a couple of months it was very quiet in the office and the partner i worked for saying
to me enjoy the lull this doesn't last whereas as a young lawyer i was getting really nervous
oh we're not very busy at the moment and now i long for those but i just remember the calm approach
with which amanda said enjoy the lull this is a good time to to catch up on your admin and do
this and do that and it was just experience maturity having seen it all before and how it how it
unfolded i really like what you said about not just working in the business but on the business
yes a lot of leaders or people in business don't think about that their their role is lawyer and
so you come to work you do your job and then you go rather than maybe being partner you have more
equity in the position but working on your business not a lot of people think of that yeah and that's
that's one of the things that i think i was able to get from having the benefit of that mentorship
and and it came at a time in my career where i probably really benefited from it yeah because
i i wasn't too junior but i wasn't setting my ways enough for it not to make a difference
and i was very open to trying to to embrace it and and could see that he had a lot to offer the
firm and and what he was going to do for us yeah have you developed any routines throughout your
career so that when you do come to work you're bringing your best self so we often talk about
routines to make sure that when you're turning up anywhere you've done everything that you can
to turn up the best version of you possible yeah look i think i've become very aware of the
importance in the work i do of being my best self regardless of what's going on in my own life yeah
and i remember having young babies and dropping them off and driving to work and being very stressed
because someone was crying when i left and getting in the car and thinking this is this is going to
be really hard the guilt yes and stepping into the office thinking oh you know i hope they've
stopped crying but then realizing that what those people around me needed people who worked with me
was me coming in being as upbeat as i possibly could be and ready to focus on what i was doing
in there and and compartmentalizing that and leaving it to one side so having come to that
realization regardless of what's gone on in my life i have tried really hard 99 percent of the time
to do just that getting to work and i am in the zone yeah and i'm completely focused to such an
extent that if my mother says to me oh tomorrow can you ring and do this i'll say mum one time
at work i will never remember to do that can you please message me and she couldn't understand
initially about why why wouldn't you be able to make that phone call when you get to work tomorrow
when this shop opens or when the doctor opens it but it was because when i get here i'm consumed
by what i do with the work i do and i do a lot of face-to-face work with team members and clients
and then when i get in the car and go home i can think about the other challenges that are still
there yes and and what i have to deal with yeah i think similar i would when i went into the the
blue emu car park at the airport that was my i was no longer mum yes i was a pilot and that's you know
my normal life admin stopped until i went drove back out of the blue emu so yeah that was yeah
which is good to hear when you're flying a plane that's right they're focused yes
yes being able to compartmentalize yes definitely and it's not easy and and i see it in a lot of
people i work with you know when they bring that to work and that too has changed in my observation
once upon a time not many people brought those issues if they had any issues personal issues
at home to work whereas now when you are managing people you have to be prepared whilst you're
expected to to be on and together and composed and in the moment that your people might have
issues that are preventing them from being able to completely be committed to what they're doing
and if they're comfortable in sharing that with you how you accommodate and deal with that as well
because it's changed the the workplace has changed and and what people are willing to to discuss with
you and you almost have to be a bit of a psychologist yourself yeah if you are in a position where you
have other people that work with you that where you're you know in a leadership role so they spend
so much of their lives with you we spend a lot of time at work having that support structure is
is very important for people these days yes and and sometimes it's important to for i i think
for your staff to know when things might not be right for you because it makes them feel more
comfortable yeah and i say this from my own personal experience when i had a crisis in my life
in 2011 it was remarkable how many people that i knew in our office on different floors
were able to then come and speak to me about what had happened in their life
because i think they thought absolutely that that vulnerability made them feel comfortable
or susan will understand she's been through it and then they'd share some stories with me of what
they'd endured which was a real privilege that someone would come in and say do you have a minute
and you know i just wanted to say sorry about this and this is what and then share their story
yeah and it was an incredible time it happened for so long and i even remember presenting at events
oh emceeing events and we ran a women in business forum when i was at colman greek
colman greek and at the end of the event someone who'd heard of what i may have gone through at
that time waiting till the end of the event to come and speak to me and share with me
there and they were just a member of the audience not someone that necessarily knew me
yeah or had any close connection with me but so it's a balance isn't it um you want people to still
feel comfortable because no one's life is composed and together all the time it just doesn't happen
but if you look composed and like your life is all together then people probably feel less
comfortable and i sometimes as i get to know clients share things with them that helps them
feel better about the fact that things do work out and this will all find a level and it will
all be okay again we're big believers in storytelling and using situations from your own life or someone
else's life where you can tell them what happened and you don't even need to tell people look so you
too could it's people put it together themselves don't they they put themselves in that story
something similar and like ah okay yep and they come to the conclusion well it it will work out
or it you know there's there's light at the end of the tunnel so yes yes we talk about how it's a
it's a big contributor to psychological safety in the team culture as well where if you feel like
you can approach your leader which you've obviously just described then people feel safer and when you
feel safer you can stop fearing and when you stop fearing you're going to be performing better as
well yes and and as you as a leader get older you endure more yourself because that's just what
happens in life so you have those stories to share when someone wants to come and speak to you about
what's going on in their life or with a relative who might be ill or whatever it is they're
they're enduring you can give them some guidance based often on having gone through something
yourself too by by that stage of your life yeah now you you really are in the the business of
changing people's lives family's lives and guy has mentioned a couple of times in our podcast that
about um disney and it's disneyland so they're not in you know the market of so a cleaner for
example is not there to clean the park what is it they're there to make magic happen and then
and then clean the park and i was in disneyland with my adult children last month oh well uh
because i do think it is a magical place and i love and that is exactly how you are left to feel
everybody seems to love what they do regardless of what they're doing so the model must i didn't
know what it was everyone to a higher purpose so they don't go to work thinking i'm a cleaner or
i dress up as goofy they're going to make magic happen and by the way you dress up as goofy by
the way you're a cleaner yeah and so that goes back to what you were saying before about giving
your team a sense of purpose and showing them how they're contributing to your clients lives
and that's why i make a point of always sharing the emails or cards that clients send
and often more than two one or two people have worked on that client's file so they've all
contributed in their own way in helping that client resolve their issues whatever they are
financial parenting or now i'm getting a picture as to why i heard so many great things about you
before coming to this podcast now your time has been very valuable thank you so much for sharing
my absolutely pleasure and i feel very privileged on being invited to to be on your podcast i've
heard so many fantastic things about you but i'm going to put you on the spot is there any life
advice you could give anyone who might be thinking about moving into the legal profession
oh gosh that's a tough one it is a tough one because it's such a broad industry can i say
this the legal profession continues i think to operate to a large extent the same way it did
many years ago and that is it is hard work it and and i think you really need to be committed
because there are so many other professions available now that weren't they didn't exist
when i was becoming a lawyer but so i think people need to really be prepared to commit to
long hours lots of reading and sure there are practices that have developed in recent years
where people are trying to do it a bit differently to still be able to manage the work-life balance
but that also very much depends on the area of law you're in and if you're moving into an area
like mine or any area that has that lends itself to litigation where your time is not really able
to be controlled by you because timelines and dates are set upon you by a court or a tribunal
depending on what area of law you're in you you have to go in understanding all of that
so it's very rewarding and if you enjoy working with with people but still not one of the jobs
i would be suggesting or career paths if you're someone who wants to do it differently and and a
lot of younger people now do want to do things differently so i don't know who the partners of
large law firms will be in 20 and 30 years time yeah but maybe it will just be a very different
way of operating possibly interesting times ahead
thank you so much for your time thank you really appreciate it thanks for having me thanks a lot
well that was fun that was fun you're such a clown lady captain
and who's gonna listen to this maybe i'm not thanks mom