Today we get to see what it actually looks like when a leader builds an entire organization around empathy and people – operationalizes it, measures it, and watches it drive real, bottom-line results.
When Alex stepped into leadership of JLG Lawyers, she brought an operational mindset and a transformative question that became their cultural north star: what would the legal profession look like if it were built around people rather than billable hours? That question became the foundation of everything. They call it Justice with Humanity.
Alex gets refreshingly practical about what it actually means to walk the talk. We dig into how JLG Lawyers has operationalized their people-first philosophy for both employees and clients. We talk about the fascinating tension of being both an employee law firm AND an employer, and how they hold themselves to the same standard they fight for in court. We get into their counter-cultural approach to AI, using it responsibly to grow the business without displacing people, and why understanding your workflows is the key to knowing where you actually need human judgment in the loop.
If you have ever wondered what it looks like when empathy stops being a value on a wall and starts being a genuine competitive advantage, JLG Lawyers is your proof of concept.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Listen in for…
- Leading with a moral center and ethical consciousness in an industry that rewards greed and conflict.
- Using AI ethically to augment, not replace, humans in your workflow and processes.
- Building systems for clarity between clients and your organization.
- Using mentorship to build up less experienced employees.
- Why empathy and critical thinking are the same ability and a key ingredient in leadership, no matter where you are in your organization.
“My leaders absolutely challenge me. They push me. They tell me things like that, and it’s because they care. They, and you, have the same values, and the same goals.” — Alex Tieu
Episode References:
- The Human Middle: a free guide with questions and guidance before conflict goes too far. Download The Human Middle for free at thehumanmiddle.ai
About Alex Tieu, Founder & CEO, JLG Lawyers:
Alex is CEO of JLG Lawyers, where she leads business strategy, operations, technology, and organizational development. She brings over two decades of leadership experience from real estate, technology, entrepreneurship, and venture capital, including senior roles at Keller Williams, Movoto, Propy, and Twenty Five Ventures.
At JLG, Alex is known for building an organization that’s both high-performing and deeply human, using technology and AI to support attorneys’ judgment rather than replace it, and creating multiple paths to success for both attorneys and staff. JLG believes there is rarely only one path to success, and that strong organizations can maintain high standards while giving talented people room to excel in different ways. She calls this broader approach “The Human Middle”: proof that accountability and opportunity, high standards and empathy, don’t have to be trade-offs.
Connect with Alex Tieu
JLG Lawyers: jlglawyers.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/alexandra-tieu-62845b6
Instagram: instagram.com/jlglawyers
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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Maria Ross 00:04
Welcome to the Empathy Edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host Maria Ross. I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator, and empathy advocate, and here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society. It’s great for business. We talk a lot on this show about empathetic leadership as a business strategy, but today we get to see what it actually looks like when a leader builds an entire organization around it, operationalizes it, measures it, and watches it drive real bottom line results. My guest today is Alex Tieu, founder and CEO of JLG Lawyers, a California employment law firm representing workers who’ve experienced discrimination, retaliation, and wage theft. JLG Lawyers has secured millions of dollars for clients each month and surpassed $500 million in total recoveries to date. When Alex stepped into leadership of the firm, she brought an operational mindset and a transformative question that became their cultural north star: What would the legal profession look like if it were built around people rather than billable hours? That question became the foundation of everything. They call it justice with humanity. Today, Alex gets refreshingly practical about what it actually means to walk the talk. We dig into how JLG Lawyers has operationalized their people-first philosophy from a proprietary client communication app that reduces the stress and uncertainty of legal proceedings to a groundbreaking apprenticeship program that allows paralegals to become fully licensed attorneys without a single dollar of law school debt. We talk about the fascinating tension of being both an employee law firm and an employer, and how they hold themselves to the same standard they fight for in court. We get into their countercultural approach to AI, using it responsibly to grow the business without displacing people, and why understanding your workflows is the key to knowing where you actually need human judgment in the loop. And Alex shares why their lead conversion rate is 13% compared to an industry average of closer to 1%, and the beautifully human reason behind that number. If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like when empathy stops being a value on the wall and starts being a genuine competitive advantage, Alex is your proof of concept. Take a listen. Alex Tieu, welcome to the Empathy Edge podcast. I am so excited to have this conversation with you today because you are your firm, JLG Law, a prime example of empathetic leadership in action, and I love featuring people in the trenches that are not just talking about this work, but they’re walking their talk. So welcome to the podcast.
Alex Tieu 03:24
Thank you so much, Maria. I’m really happy to be here and that you have a podcast about empathy, which is absolutely a subject that should be talked about in every single workplace that’s out there. It’s a key ingredient.
Maria Ross 03:36
Seriously. So before we get into the good stuff, let’s quickly just hear about your story and the story of the law firm you work for, because you are not a lawyer, but you are actually the brains behind the operations. So tell us a little bit about how you got here.
Alex Tieu 03:51
Yeah, just real quickly. I actually started my career just as in real estate really. I was one of the first operators at Keller Williams, had what, a thousand agents, led a bunch of proptech companies, a couple of exits before I came into the law firm. Just recently, about six years ago, you know, this law firm’s been in our family for 18 years, and about six years ago, I just, you know, as an executive in proptech, I had just finished selling for $65 million one of, you know, one of the companies and and then COVID happened. My husband got really sick, and you know, I found myself in a position where we had our family business struggling. He was you know, we only had at the time like 6 to 10 employees. My husband was doing employment law and probably doing maybe about 15, 20 cases a month. COVID happens, nobody’s working, you know, we had to lay off people, my husband sick, and then I found myself having to jump in and help run this firm and you know, pick it up. And today we’re we are what, 80 employees strong. We’re doing about 300 to 350 cases a month, you know, just revenue, streamlining, doing all sorts of things, just taking stuff I learned in, you know, real estate and, you know, startups and bringing it to law firms.
Maria Ross 05:14
I love that. Well, and just proof positive that the approach we’re going to talk about today actually does lead to success and profitability and all the things we want, right? Like all the whole both/and philosophy that I talk about all the time. So, let’s talk a little bit about the philosophy of the firm, because I love you sent me some information ahead of our call, and you boiled your whole firm’s philosophy down to justice with humanity, and that your mission is not to prolong disputes for the sake of fees, but resolving problems and restoring dignity to individuals. Now, those are all beautiful words. And so talk to us first on how you got to that, and then we’re going to talk through the actual operational examples of how you bring that to life.
Alex Tieu 06:00
Yes. I mean, these are all really good qu- questions. I, you know, a lot of the times when we talk about justice for humanity like at the end of the day, I’m I have a very unique perspective. I am running a employment plaintiff’s law firm. We represent clients who have been discriminated against, you know, retaliation, discrimination, sexual harassment, you know, all huge issues in the workplace. But also, I am also an employer myself, you know, I have 80, you know, I’ve been on the management side both, you know, in my past businesses and currently right now. And at the end of the day, I see both sides. And I say this to everyone that at for us, we restore the dignity of, and so often we have so many clients where that is the most important thing to them when something like this happens. But also, I have a bigger goal in mind, which is, you know, I really want to improve workplaces in general, everywhere, you know. I don’t want clients to end up in my office because there was a some sort of retali- now, granted, there are bad actors that are out there. But my experience tells me that most employers are good, right? And most employees are good, and they want to do good work. And you know, if I can prevent that from happening by, you know, having conversations about what should happen, having a conversation before dispute gets out of hand, right, at the workplace, is so much more valuable to the people that I serve. Keepout of my office, right? Nobody, you know, I don’t I’ve never met a client who said, Hey, I wanted to sue my employer, like this is not, you know, when I got this job, you know. And I think that there is a lot of disputes that can be resolved. Now, there are some really egregious ones that, you know, should absolutely be in our office. But then there are others that, you know, just them it just got gets out of hand, and and that’s the stuff that I want to talk about. And especially right now, in this day and age, with AI taking over, so much of it being done either remotely and people are just not connecting at all, like I see a lot of problems that could simply be resolved if, you know, these conversations are actually happening at the workplace.
Maria Ross 08:19
Yeah, it’s like I always say, like AI is not getting rid of all those human-to-human issues that we have. We still need to learn the art of talking to each other, the art of discernment, the art of curiosity, of active listening. Those are still skills we have to refine for ourselves as human beings. We don’t get a free pass because AI is coming and doing all these things. So I just want to point out I love your mission and your philosophy, because back when I was doing purely brand strategy work with clients and helping them really understand what was their purpose, what were they there for, like your customer doesn’t care that you’re there for to make money, why are you choosing to make money this way? What is the change you want to see in the world, right? And I used to challenge them to say, Pick a vision that actually puts you out of business, because that’s the world you’re working towards. That’s why you’re doing this work. You know, hopefully you won’t be, but especially when you’re doing work, because you see a lot of nonprofits do this, right? Their vision is so specific about what they’re trying to do that if that vision is realized in the world, you don’t need that organization anymore, right? If your vision as a nonprofit is to no child goes hungry, if all children in the world are fed, you don’t need your nonprofit anymore. So I just want to say this is a total segue, but I just want to say kudos to you for picking a vision and a mission and a philosophy that’s like here’s here’s where we’re going towards. And we’re going to be brave enough to put a stake in the ground and say this, someday in the future, could put us out of business, and that’s okay, because that’s the world we’re trying to create.
Alex Tieu 09:58
Absolutely. And, you know, there are so many attorneys out there, and I’m sure your audience has seen the billboards, has seen the commercials, Oh my god, so many billboards. Yeah. and it’s always about doom and gloom. And it’s like I feel like attorneys are just waiting for something to happen that’s bad. They want something It’s almost like you know, you you I don’t want to be that type of law firm where you want something bad to happen to someone, you know, in order for you to make money, you know. And because and if that if that’s the, you know, place that you want to be, there’s plenty of them out there. That’s just not JLG. JLG is not about that. You know, we represent really good, solid employees who have been wronged. And if you know you get a lawsuit from JLG, you know you’re in trouble. You’re in trouble, you know, because we take cases that you know are that deserve it. That you know we don’t take cases where people are not being truthful, things like that, you know. So, yeah.
Maria Ross 10:58
Well, and what’s that like to have that sort of moral center and that ethical consciousness in an industry that rewards greed, that rewards conflict, that rewards people trying to take advantage of other people? Like, talk to us about how does that feel on a day-to-day basis for you, for the lawyers. Like, what are the challenges in that, and how do you stay centered?
Alex Tieu 11:24
Yeah, that’s a really good question, Maria. I think that it is very challenging, right? Because in the law firm world, you have polar opposites, right? You got the the guys that you know. It’s all about greed. They take any case that walks in the door. They will, you know, put crazy liens on cases, make up medical reports, not make up, but go ahead and put this
Maria Ross 11:46
neck brace on while we’re in court. Yeah, yeah,
Alex Tieu 11:48
exactly. Things like that, and it’s just, it’s like you know what it does is that it diminishes the people who have the real problems, right? Exactly.
Alex Tieu 11:58
It diminishes the people who have the real problems, and so as a result, it’s really hard to do. And so, you know, for our firm, we believe that it starts first with us, you know. We have to, as an employment firm, we have to be good employers first, right? If we’re going to talk about, you know, work-life balance, for example, you know, having flexibility in certain things while still being a profitable business, because then you got the other extreme in our business, right? Where you know you have these solo practitioner who are going bankrupt, literally,
Speaker 2 12:29
because
Alex Tieu 12:30
they’re too much on the other side. Where it’s like everything has to be perfect, and so they’re not making any money. And so that so there’s two polar opposites. So how do you again? This is my life’s work. Go down the middle where you have the solution, which is the solution is being able to run a business where you have so much business, where you could take the good business, you know, the ones, the best cases, and turn down a ton of cases. We turn down. We do probably about 1,000 intakes a month. We turn down down about 90% of that. Oh, wow. So, about 900 cases we turn down, or, you know, after doing intake, we tell, you know, these clients that we cannot take their case for various reasons, and you have to have a commitment to what that looks like, right? And so, I mean, that’s the way that it’s done for us. So, the first thing is, you know, having a culture that instills that amongst the employees, starting from within. we promote things. Like one of the things, Maria, that we do is in this world of AI everybody is wondering like where is their job. Paralegals are wondering where they’re going to be, you know, are they going to be replaced? I mean we, for example, started what we call the apprentice program in California. And so what that does is that we listen to our paralegals. Most paralegals are, you know, working parents who have to support their family. They cannot go to law school, although they are so smart. They should be. Right. And so we there’s a program in California where that we got approved from the State Bar where we can educate and they can do in-office training and sit for the bar. And what we’ve done is gotten that curriculum approved, and so our paralegals can actually go to school in our office, Mhm. take the baby bar, and then take the bar and become actual attorneys in 4 years with no debt. And we invest in their classes. We’ve invested in instructors to teach them. And so it’s a It really a commitment for the firm to make sure that our people that have given us the privilege of their careers to grow it with our firm, that they will continue to be marketable and have like opportunities years after us.
Maria Ross 14:40
Yeah, well, I mean that’s such a great example of operationalizing empathy to say let’s look at this from our employees point of view, Mhm. what do they need, what can we do, let’s provide it, let’s change the business model from what’s standard in this industry, and let’s invest in them as human beings because what’s going to come back to us, and I’m assuming, is retention, engagement, Yes. high performance. And what I also love about this, and we’re going to talk about your use of AI as a firm in a second, but for like roles where people are scared of losing their jobs to AI, roles where maybe you could leverage AI to do some of the tasks that you used to give to paralegals, you’re creating a talent pipeline Mhm. because what’s happening with a lot of companies is they’re outsourcing all the entry-level jobs and then they don’t have a talent pipeline
Alex Tieu 15:31
Yes.
Maria Ross 15:31
when their existing executives and leaders leave because they haven’t mentored anyone, they haven’t trained anyone, they haven’t gotten the wisdom of the building that experience for those younger workers or those entry-level workers, and then they’re basically going to shoot themselves in the foot for the future.
Alex Tieu 15:48
Yes. Right? You see that happening a lot. And then, you know, what what do you do then? And so, that’s one of our answers for it. We we definitely use AI. We built our own AI agents within the firm. But, you know, especially in the legal world, you have to be very careful of how how you use AI because the stakes are so high if you get it wrong. Oh, yeah.
Maria Ross 16:12
Yeah, if it starts hallucinating laws, you’re in trouble. Yes. You know, the courts
Alex Tieu 16:17
are are sanctioning people. You know, there’s all sorts of things that are happening. I’ve seen like various facts in cases get just switched around. They hallucinate witnesses that don’t actually exist, you know. And I’ve seen our counterparts fall into these traps where they are heavily and irresponsibly using AI. And so, for our purposes, we do use it. We have checks and balances within the firm where nothing that that is used from AI Like we use AI in the very first level of when something goes out and it goes through two levels before it finishes because we do see the benefit. You know, the benefits are undeniable, right? Undeniable, yeah, benefits of having AI, but we also see what happens. And I mean I’ll give an example. Like for example, there’s a lot of companies that are using AI, for example, in intakes, right? Intake is just, you know, you’re not drafting any documents for the courts or anything like that. But, you know, for us, I’ve seen you know our competitors replace it completely with AI, where there’s no humans at all involved, and I think that’s a very dangerous thing. So, so we do we after examining everything, we do something again in the middle, in between, right, where our intake specialists use AI, and we’ve actually developed our own program where the AI coaches the intake specialists on questions they may have forgotten to ask while the caller is still on the call, and then afterwards there’s a summary that then gets checked that, you know, helps. But then it is still the same thing because, you know, there’s checks and balances that are happening with the help of AI, but it is not the end-all-and-be-all. We still have attorneys that look at these intakes and make the final decision.
Maria Ross 18:07
Uh-huh.
Alex Tieu 18:08
So, things like that, and I have seen it go completely wrong when you don’t have someone looking over what’s happening.
Maria Ross 18:16
Yeah. Yeah. Well, the the biggest advantage you can get from AI is when you still have a human in the loop. Yes. And they’ve talked about the fact that First of all, there’s a hidden cost to AI that companies are now just discovering and just talking about that they’re realizing they’re actually not saving as much money as they thought they were if they’re trying to just rip and replace humans out of the process, right? But the ones that are getting the ROI out of their AI investments and actually streamlining, creating efficiencies, creating a better client or customer experience are the ones that have humans in the loop.
Speaker 2 18:50
Mhm. Yeah. So
Maria Ross 18:51
it’s how do I use AI to augment the incredible talent that I have within my organization. And your example is a perfect example of where you can use AI to actually not as a search engine, not as like a do this for me, but as a what am I missing? Right, as an as an interrogation. And what I also love about this is, you know, you talk about some firms that have completely outsourced the the intake to AI. Think about the state of mind of people coming to you and just the psychological state they’re in, the trauma they may have experienced, the emotional dysregulation.
Alex Tieu 19:33
Yes.
Maria Ross 19:33
You need the human connection in that environment.
Alex Tieu 19:37
Absolutely.
Maria Ross 19:38
You need someone to They need to be listened to at that point, right?
Alex Tieu 19:42
Yes. Right. Right. I mean, that it’s also the reason why we don’t outsource our intake. So there’s also a lot of companies that outsource intake to, you know, other countries and gigantic call centers, things like that. So our firm doesn’t do that. We do not do that because you do need to have somebody on the other line that number one, you could lives in the United States, Right. Right. for legal purposes, yeah. you could tell on the strike. Yeah. But But also, you know, to really understand because, you know, we’re talking about cases where people, you know, sometimes have been working at, you know, companies for 15, 20 years. Yeah. And there’s some like traumas there and there’s a lot of history there that just can’t get just from AI or even a call center that doesn’t act hasn’t been trained. So I absolutely agree to that. I will say, however, that I I’ve said this before. 2026 is really about workflows. I know everybody’s all over the map, right? And I think that operators, business operators in this year Yes, there are AI agents and stuff like that. Don’t get like lost in actually that technical part of AI. It is understanding your workflow, every little piece of your workflow. Once you understand every single little piece of your workflow and break it down, then you can take small segments of those workflows
Speaker 3 21:04
Yes.
Alex Tieu 21:04
use AI for that those small segments. And, you know, and the more you can get your workflow down to like step-by-step by step, that’s where the time is being spent. And don’t put it in a AI thing, then let the AI tell you what your workflow is. You know what your workflow is, right? Yeah. Yeah. What’s the best
Maria Ross 21:25
experience for our clients, right? Yes. And the other piece of that is when you sit down and identify that, then you can identify the opportunities where humans can really add add the secret sauce, right? Where in that workflow does a person need to sit down with somebody? Where in that workflow and where can our employees spend their time instead? Yes. In all the think tanks I’m in and and research that I do where we talk about AI and and making workflows more efficient,
Speaker 2 21:54
Mhm. they
Maria Ross 21:55
talk about saving employees time. What they’re not communicating to their employees for each individual culture and industry and company is where do I want you spending your time instead?
Alex Tieu 22:06
Yes.
Maria Ross 22:07
They’re sort of assuming that those people will figure it out, but maybe they need to spend more time client-facing. Maybe they need to spend that time shoring up their EQ skills. Maybe they need to spend that time doing some additional interviews or legwork, right? But really being prescriptive about, okay, now that you have all this time savings, maybe some of it goes of course to work-life integration, right? But it can also go towards what are the skills you need to be building now that you’re not worried about this task anymore and where are you going to add the most value in the customer experience?
Alex Tieu 22:41
For me, it’s even more powerful than that. So when you get your workflow down, right, there’s a couple of things that you can do. You can see which one goes to a paralegal, which one, for me, goes to a you know a legal assistant, which one goes to a calendar clerk, which one could be done by AI from a you know from a legal assistant standpoint. Now, once you do that, what we have found is that we’ve categorized how long each task takes, right? And so over time, you already know how long a small task in your workflow takes, and so guess what you’re able to do? We’re able to give tasks to our paralegals, to our attorneys on a daily weekly basis where we know these tasks are going to take you eight to 40 hours. Guess what? That’s how you guarantee work-life balance. Cuz how often it is Cuz I think a lot of times when employers talk about things like work-life balance, they think about hours in a day, right? They’ll say, Hey, Jack, here’s your work-life balance. You can take Friday off, right? Well, Jack here is thinking, Oh my gosh, how do I take Okay, I could take Fridays off, but I have so much work to do that if I don’t actually work Friday, Monday is going to be a disaster. That is not work-life balance, right? Work-life balance is about the operators thinking about their business and what these and what these workflows look like, knowing what you are assigning that person without a shadow of a doubt should take them no more than 40 to 45 hours for that week. And then and guess what that is so powerful. Now you know when when you need to hire, when you don’t need to hire, who actually doesn’t have enough work because not all tasks take the same. And when you have that history of what those tasks and those workflows look like, you just become a more efficient operator. So you’re not depending on your staff to tell you they’re busy or what they’re doing with their time, right? But you know.
Maria Ross 24:36
Well, and they can plan ahead. That’s the other thing, right? Like I can plan ahead and know, Okay, maybe I need to grind for two days and then I’m going to take a three-day weekend, right? Like
Speaker 4 24:44
being able to do
Maria Ross 24:45
that. Okay, so we’re talking about the employee side and the way that you’ve you’ve operationalized empathy on that side. Let’s talk about your client experience platform. And you know, with this philosophy of justice with humanity, what have you done as an operator with the platform and the the the client experience with the with the tech interface? Yes.
Alex Tieu 25:08
So what we’ve done is, one of the biggest complaints that we get, all attorneys get from client is communication. They don’t communicate with me. I don’t get an update, right? So what we’ve done is develop our own client portal. And one of the things that GLG has done because of my tech background is that we’ve hired our own engineers in our firm to develop proprietary, you know, systems and software within the firm. And so now, you know, we send out preemptively with, again, going back to workflows, when you have a workflow and you know what stage your case is in, you don’t need the attorney or the paralegal to call the client and tell them what’s going to happen next. You already know what’s going to happen next. So, for example, if we have a demand letter go out or we’re waiting for personnel records, guess what? Our client’s already getting a video of their attorney, and they have a portal that they can text their attorney on, where they’re already saying, Hey, this is going to take 45 days. So you know, we just sent it out. It got sent on this day, and we’re going to follow up on this day, and it’s going to take blah blah blah. And guess what? The client doesn’t have to call because they already know. And guess what? Our attorney didn’t have to call, our paralegal didn’t have to call, and the client feels like they know what’s going on. They know what’s
Maria Ross 26:25
going on. It’s it’s the clarity pillar of my five pillars. It’s not leaving people in limbo, and that’s both for employees and for customers.
Speaker 5 26:32
Yes. Because
Maria Ross 26:33
that whole like, Well, I don’t have anything to report, so I’m not going to report anything philosophy that some people have, that doesn’t fly. And it’s not empathetic, right? It’s not it’s not really saying, What can I do to alleviate your stress and your worry about where this is in the process? I mean, you may still be stressed and worried about the case, but the point is understanding their frame of mind just for the little details, right? Where is this in the process?
Alex Tieu 26:59
And clients appreciate that so much because they’re like, Oh, I wasn’t even expecting an update, and now I got one. I got
Maria Ross 27:04
one proactively, right? It’s like I I always liken that to when you go to the airport and your flight’s delayed. There’s the really great gate agents that give you constant updates. Like we You know, well, we we still don’t know more, or they’ve just called the maintenance team, or they’re waiting on this. And then the ones that are like, Well, I I’m not reporting that we’re boarding the flight yet, so I’m just not going to say anything for 2 hours. And then people are like, What is going on? Right. Right. So, right. No, I love that. I want to talk a little bit. I want to kind of go back to this idea of mentoring younger, less experienced talent, right? You mentioned to me before that, you know, as a law firm, you and as experienced lawyers there, that you deliberately develop the ability to judge. And that’s something that comes with experience, right? And and that empathy and critical thinking are in fact the same ability.
Speaker 6 27:58
Right. So
Maria Ross 27:58
talk to me a little bit about that and where that fits in into why you started that apprenticeship program and why you keep that going.
Alex Tieu 28:06
Well, we started the apprenticeship program mainly because, you know, one of the pillars I have is really about, you know, listening, you know. So often as employers, you have to listen. The best ideas truly come from your employees, right? And this whole mentorship program or this apprentices program star- I mean, started because I was talking to my paralegals, right? The, you know, so many of them want to go to law school, you know, and but they can’t cuz they can’t afford to stop working, you know, and because they have to support their families. And then I’ve had others where and then they’re the debt, right? And so truly solving that with this program. And then I also listen to why they’re afraid of the program. A lot The success rate for this program is actually very low in California because most people don’t study, right? Because most law firms have it, if they do have it, they don’t follow through on it. And there’s no classes, you’re not going to law school. So you have to actually pass the bar, you know? And so we invest in classes, we invest in instructors for our people. So and then we also add more people. So guess what? The paralegals that are in it have each other. They’re going, Yeah. you know, they’re going to study groups. Yeah. They’re we’ve we the firm has taken on the cost of hiring instructors, hiring, buying the prep books for the and creating a community Right. of apprentices that Right. one day is going to run the firm. They’re going to run the firm.
Maria Ross 29:38
Right. And you don’t want them just reaching for like AI tools or something like that. You want them to develop that critical thinking and develop that discernment, Yes. and I’d love to understand why you feel empathy and critical thinking are actually the same ability. Like, tell us your perspective on that.
Alex Tieu 29:53
So, empathy and critical thinking are definitely the same ability. I I think that it’s a key ingredient in leadership.
Speaker 2 30:03
Mhm.
Alex Tieu 30:03
It’s just you know, you can lead from anywhere in the firm. Mhm. I truly believe that. We develop leaders in the firm, and and that means that you have to have empathy in order to do that, and being able to listen, being able to find like solutions that others may not see,
Speaker 2 30:23
Mhm. and
Alex Tieu 30:24
being able to see the bigger picture when, you know, when you’re able to step back and see the bigger bigger picture. And so all those things are really important.
Speaker 2 30:34
Mhm.
Alex Tieu 30:35
So so so when you and even for myself when I think about judgment, you know, it’s funny because you can’t, you know, when you hire people, it’s hard because you don’t really know what the judgment is.
Speaker 7 30:46
Right.
Alex Tieu 30:47
You don’t really know what the judgment is. But when you do find someone with good judgment, you promote them, you build their career, and you just Well,
Maria Ross 30:56
and I love this because we don’t want people Empathy requires that we’re not judgmental, Mhm. yet critical thinking requires that we have good judgment. Judgments, yeah. And that’s the difference of being able to discern fact from fiction, being able to discern if someone’s being sincere or whether they’re lying, right? Right. Being able to discern is this a a decent case? Is this a case we want to take on or not? Right. And you know, if you if you were to create a law firm where everyone’s reaching everyone at the entry level’s reaching for a tool to tell them what to do,
Alex Tieu 31:28
Right.
Maria Ross 31:28
again, like we said earlier, you’re not building that pipeline of experienced eventually lawyers or even more experienced paralegals who need to make those critical human decisions.
Alex Tieu 31:39
And believe it or not, part of good judgment is they need to be able to challenge you.
Maria Ross 31:44
Yes.
Alex Tieu 31:45
And so often I think that, you know, operators they tell people what to do. And so and if I like people around me, my leaders absolutely challenge me. They push me, they tell me, you know, things like that, and it’s because they care, you know. Yes. It’s because It’s because they care, they and you have they have the you have the same values, you have the same goals, and I think that, you know, I think about this. I I have three little girls at home. I’m a mom of three little girls, and, you know, I think one of the toughest jobs I have, and I think it spills into my work here as a the CEO of the firm, is that what do you do for these little girls to make sure that when they go out into the world that they can challenge, you know, men and, you know, in big, you know, conference rooms or
Speaker 2 32:36
Mhm.
Alex Tieu 32:36
in power? And I think that and I I I do think that that is a key ingredient, being able to speak up when it’s hard or when you feel like, and as an operator, you got to create that environment. I’ll give you an example. Well, and
Maria Ross 32:51
and just real quick, you have to create an environment where people feel safe enough to do so. And the fact that you’re doing all this listening, and you’re putting in programs like the apprenticeship program, you’re encouraging people to come up with new ideas, you are creating that psychological safety so that you don’t get lied to, so that no one’s present You know, I was on a call earlier today where they said, If the executive team is not getting any bad news, somebody’s hiding something. Oh, absolutely. Right? And so, absolutely. but all of these little operational deci- not little, big operational decisions that you’re making all go towards creating an environment where it’s like it’s okay for you to feel safe enough to speak up, and you don’t have to have like a pretty poster on your wall that says, you know, I have an open door policy, or I have, you know, you’re living it through the actions that you’re taking as leaders, and through the policies you’re putting in place where people say, That’s something that was developed for me because you understand my point of view. And that’s why actions speak so much louder than words to create that culture. I’ll
Alex Tieu 33:55
give you a perfect example. I was just talking to somebody yesterday. They’re like, Well, how do you get people to tell you things, Alex? And I you know, How do you get your employees to tell you things? I was and I I really thought about it. I was like, You know, you can’t just come up to an employee and be like, Hey, You can tell me anything. you can tell me anything. You know, this is a safe environment. It doesn’t work with my 12-year-old.
Maria Ross 34:13
And then I was like, Dude,
Alex Tieu 34:15
that is the like That question in and of itself is so uncomfortable, right? And it’s like It’s like that’s a really uncomfortable question, you know. So, I said, You know, this is what I do. When an employee comes in, I can tell you right now, the first or second time you ask them this question, they’re not going to actually tell you. You know, it’s it’s just hard. And so, what I what I realize I do is I when somebody comes in, I actually tell them. I say, Hey, how are things going? And, Maria, so you know, you know, I I just want to share with you something that we’re doing at the firm. We just implemented like this review process, and it was Joanne’s idea, right? And from that idea that Joanne had, we’ve been able to do X, Y, and Z, and it’s been spectacular. Had she not pointed this out to me, we wouldn’t have had this like amazing, whatever. And it’s like And And I never ask them for their input. I just gave them an example of someone else in the firm doing it and how I’ve listened, and I’ve implemented it, and so that the And so it’s I’m asking them, but not really asking them. And then I I will say, Well, you know, you know if there’s anything that you would like, you know, I would love
Maria Ross 35:25
Yeah.
Alex Tieu 35:25
And you just leave the door open. It’s as easy as that.
Maria Ross 35:29
Right.
Alex Tieu 35:29
And so that’s a tip that Well, I
Maria Ross 35:32
again, it’s the actions speak louder than words, and like that’s, you know, as a parent myself of a 12-year-old, it’s like I remember when he was younger, and that was always the way you did it. You didn’t do it by necessarily saying, This is a teachable moment. But it’s almost like you’re talking to your spouse about something that the child did so that you’re, you know, Oh, it was so great today when so-and-so did this. You, you know, You weren’t there, but this is what happened. And it feels more sincere when they hear it about like it’s almost like someone else is talking about it versus it’s being directed at them and putting them under the spotlight. So I love that. Well, this is such good stuff. One of the other things as we kind of wrap up is I want to talk about going back to judgment and this ability to say no. And you’ve you’ve talked about the fact that you only take on certain cases. You’re very discerning about the cases you take on as a law firm. What How do you encourage your employees to learn to say no and to hold their own boundaries vis-a-vis you needing them to do work? This is always This always seems to be the struggle with a lot of leaders that I talk to, where it’s like, well, I want them to protect their boundaries, but when their boundaries start to bump up against them doing the work I need them to do, that’s where I don’t know where to go. Can you offer any advice or a little golden nugget to the leaders listening of how you encourage your your employees to have boundaries, encourage them to be discerning and to be able to say no, and be there when you need them?
Alex Tieu 37:03
Yeah, I think that it all starts with how you start the relationship and the expectations that you create from the beginning, right? Because if you, for example, my attorneys, we sit down very, you know, before we hire them, and we tell them, Hey, these are the metrics that you got to hit. For paralegals, these are the hours or Clarity. Yeah. clarity. It is everything. Why it’s a pillar.
Maria Ross 37:28
Yeah. Yes, it’s clarity.
Alex Tieu 37:30
You Because it’s actually on you, as the employer, to be very clear. It is not on the employee. It is on you, the employer, to be very very clear on what that looks like.
Speaker 7 37:41
Right.
Alex Tieu 37:41
And then you can say, Now, as long as can you do this and still hit meet your boundaries? If you cannot- Because everybody’s boundaries you can’t Then let’s talk about it. Yeah. Yeah, let’s talk about it. And, you know, you may have somebody that has unreasonable boundaries. Don’t even start the relationship at that point, right? Because somebody might say, Hey, I can only work part-time. I can’t. There’s not a match. You end it at the beginning, right?
Maria Ross 38:04
Mhm. And
Alex Tieu 38:05
if Now, if they say, Hey, I can do this in this hour, whatever it is, and again, it goes back to your systems. If you are asking them to do something that is unattainable, unattainable in the hours that you are expecting them to work, that is again on you, right? Yes. Take that responsibility. You need to, number one, be very clear on what the goals are. Number two, make sure that the goals are attainable in the time constraint that this employee has. And then, Mhm. actually And then, once that happens, then we can talk about, you know, whatever those boundaries are. I have Right. Right. I’ll give you an example. I have an attorney came to me and said, Hey, one thing for my mental health, this is before we started, I will do the work, but for my mental health, I need to leave work every single day at 4:00 p.m. so I can go work out for my mental health. I said, I respect that, right? Yeah. I absolutely respect that. This attorney comes in at 7:00, leaves at 4:00 every single day, and gets and is one of my top performers.
Maria Ross 39:02
Right.
Alex Tieu 39:03
Because I knew, cuz we take mental health very seriously at this firm, we want to make sure
Alex Tieu 39:10
I know that if my employees are healthy, they’re happy, and they have they get their fuel tanks refueled. Yep. Self-care pillar, yep. Self-care things, they’re gonna come back and be better.
Maria Ross 39:24
Yeah, yeah. You know,
Alex Tieu 39:25
they can give me their best, but I need to make sure that I have built a firm that supports those things. Right. And so, so that that’s an example. So it’s about being very, very clear. Because if you’re not clear, guess what’s gonna happen? Now you’re gonna have performance issues. Well, that’s
Maria Ross 39:42
like I say, there don’t make assumptions, and especially like I mentioned with the clarity pillar of the Five Pillars, it’s spelling things out for people. So when there’s a disconnect or when there’s a performance slip, it’s like help me understand what you didn’t understand about this, cuz we we talked about it, we both agreed to it. I’m not making any assumption,
Speaker 8 40:02
right,
Maria Ross 40:02
on the part of, you know, like, Well, I assumed that if we had a client emergency, you would work on the weekend. Well, the person didn’t say that because you said, I would never have to work on the weekend, right? So just things like that of being crystal clear because you can’t hold people to an expectation that you haven’t clearly set.
Speaker 2 40:17
Yes. Like you
Maria Ross 40:17
said, that’s on you, right? That
Alex Tieu 40:19
is. And I can tell you the people who end up in my office are the employers who are not clear. Clear, 100%, yeah.
Maria Ross 40:28
who are not clear. Alex, as we wrap up, I know you have a wonderful free guide for people to help them avoid conflict and keep it from getting to the point that they might need to take legal action. So, tell us a little bit about The Human Middle, which is your free guide, and we will have a link to it in the show notes.
Alex Tieu 40:47
Yes, so it is the thehumanmiddle.ai, and it’s a free guide. And it’s really about precisely what we talked about on this podcast. It’s about being able to communicate with your employees, avoiding, you know, getting sued, the end of the day, creating a good work environment. Because, like I said at the very beginning, the reality is that we have a lot more in common. And I have seen amazing businesses and amazing careers blossom from when an employer and employee works really well together. And I’ve seen amazing things happen for people, including the people that are in this firm. Right? Now, I’ve seen it break apart. So this guide helps answer those questions on how to avoid it, both on the employee and the employer side so that, you know Now, it also tells you when it’s like over the line, and you should probably be getting seek legal advice. But that’s what that’s about.
Maria Ross 41:43
Yeah, I love that it offers questions people might not have thought to discuss. And so definitely, it’s thehumanmiddle.ai, and like I said, we’ll have a link in the show notes. Alex, thank you so much for your time today and your insights. It’s so great, like I said, to speak to actual operational leaders in the trenches doing the work that I talk about all the time and giving people the real-life examples of what this looks like in practice. So, I will have all your links in the show notes. But for anyone who’s on the go, really quickly tell us the URL of the law firm as well.
Alex Tieu 42:16
Yes, it’s jlg-lawyers.com. jlg-lawyers.com. And Maria, thank you so much for having me. Thank you for the work that you do.
Maria Ross 42:25
Thank you.
Alex Tieu 42:26
You’re helping a lot of people. Thank you.
Maria Ross 42:28
You as well. And thank you, everyone, for listening to another episode of The Empathy Edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do: please rate, review, and share it with a friend or a colleague. And until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit theempathyedge.com. There, you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources, book me for a keynote or workshop, and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news, and events. Please follow me on Instagram @redslicemaria. Never forget: empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
