Powerhouse Lawyers

0:00:02 - Speaker 1
That's important, that all students are asking these questions ahead of time, because it's a demon you haven't seen before.

0:00:12 - Speaker 2
You are more than a lawyer, you are a powerhouse. Welcome to Powerhouse Lawyers. I'm your host, erin Gerner, a former lawyer, wife, mom, entrepreneur and coach, and I'm here to show you what's possible. So if you're ready, let's go. Hello everybody, welcome back to Powerhouse Lawyers. I'm your host, erin Gerner. Thanks so much for joining us today. So before we get into our guests, I just wanted to say hi to everybody, welcome everybody back.

And I just had to tell a funny story from this week and because I just think parenting is just a constant life lesson all the time. And for me, parenting my two daughters, especially my older daughter, is a constant lesson in releasing control. So I don't know if my fellow lawyers out there resonate with me, although I kind of think that you probably do. We're control freaks. I mean talk about having a hard, tough grip on life. That's us, and I really have to have conversations with myself, right, and we have to all have conversations with ourselves as parents to not transfer our limiting beliefs and our fears and our doubts internally with us onto our children. But I mean, it's just hard. We love these creatures. I mean we die for these people and you just have this grip and you just want everything to be OK. But of course I mean I don't live in like a participation metal land either, like that is not my personality as a mom. We need to like fail and all this kind of stuff. But you know, sometimes our hearts can't take it. So but my older daughter is a constant lesson to me to release control and just sit down. And she's got it.

We moved to a small town last year and she before that was in a really small school, like a small private school. She has a learning disability, she's dyslexic and ADD but she's super smart. But we sent her to a really small private school where they just have like 10 kids in the class and it was like intense on that and they like whatever. So that was like in third grade, through fifth grade or whatever and they go all the way through high school. But I knew at fifth grade that we it was time to kind of move on and so that kind of coincided with our move out to the country into public school, small town, all this kind of stuff. So of course as a mom I am like flipped out that she is. You know that all of the things can go wrong. Send this kid into school. She is off to the races, just off to the races. Off to the races Again. She just keeps proving me wrong. So this last week she decided in her seventh grade year that she wants to do pre algebra so she can go ahead and get the credit.

Now, mom not a math major, this woman right here on the podcast I am just here I would probably have to Google what all algebra entailed to remember. That's where I am in the math scene. My husband great with math, so clearly he will be the one helping with homework. But my first limiting belief is oh my God, this is going to be a disaster because she's ADD, she's dyslexic and she's bad at math. Well, first of all, yes, the first two are true, but she's not bad at math. That's my own doubt about myself. But I'm having this fear, don't you know? I get her report card yesterday, y'all, and she not only has an A, she has a flipping 100. I was like okay, god, I see you.

Thank you so much for that parenting lesson this week. Up to just sit down, release control and to know that I'm doing a good job. I may feel like I'm failing all the time. I may feel like I'm messing this thing up all the time, but we're doing it, y'all, we're doing it. We're raising good human beings. It's all going to be okay. They've got it. We've got it.

So just let this story hopefully just be a little nugget for you this week. If you're out there momming or you're out there life-ing, it's okay to just release control and just let it happen. It's going to these people that we love and that we support, like these kids. They have it. And just a lesson for me overall to just know that I'm not in control of this life. Somebody higher up is more that is in control of this life, not me. So, anyway, I'd love to know if any of you guys resonated with that story. How are your kids teaching you to release control on life? Like, what lessons are your kids teaching you? Tag me on social media at Aaron Garner, dm me at Aaron Garner. Let me know. I'd love to hear some of your stories about the lessons that your kids are teaching you. And again, we just have to laugh and chuckle and not shame ourselves because, honestly, this life just ends up being funnier and funnier. You think you've got it and then all of a sudden, something new and crazy comes along and it ends up being the biggest blessing ever. So, anyway, thank you guys so much, and now we're going to get into the show.

Hello everybody, welcome back to the show. I'm so excited to have you here and I am so excited to introduce our next guest. Her name is Kayla Britt and I connected with her on LinkedIn, and she is a changemaker, like all of the women that I bring on this podcast, and she is in the younger generation of attorneys and a changemaker which I I am doubly excited for you guys to hear about, because we've heard some people who are in the older generation of attorneys, but I'm so excited to hear from women coming up behind us and how they are trying to change the narrative in the law. So Kayla's been practicing law for about five years and she is an assistant attorney general at the North Carolina Department of Justice, and she is also the hashtag fairy law mother, and she's going to talk more about this, but I will just give you a perfect example of how this woman always leads with a servant's heart.

First yesterday or maybe it was Tuesday I woke up to the most beautiful LinkedIn post With no prompting. She did not even tell me that she was doing this. I had no idea. She has gone through and she's listened to all of the previous podcasts that I've put out and she's given, like one sentence, lessons for all of the legal community from every single episode. I was brought to tears, first of all just out of the gesture of kindness, but also just the enormity of how she pays it forward every single day in her life to somebody, to anybody who needs it, even a perfect stranger. So, kayla, that was a very long-winded intro, but I'm just so excited to have you on the show. Welcome, thank you for having me.

0:07:23 - Speaker 1
I need to have that printed off so I can read it every morning.

0:07:27 - Speaker 2
I'd said what to one of my previous guests? That we should wake up every morning and someone should read our bio to us. Just to be like you know what. You are freaking, kicking ass today. I read your bio and you go, so maybe we need to further that out. Maybe we need to figure out how to monetize that. Kayla, we can wake up and someone can just read out our amazing bio to us.

0:07:47 - Speaker 1
That's right, we can do our long, long, long.

0:07:49 - Speaker 2
Encounter our day. But anyway, I just told the audience a little bit about you, but I would love to hand it over back to you and I would love for you to tell me a little bit about your journey. You've only been practicing law for about five years, so why did you go to law school? How did you end up where you are? Just tell us a little bit about your journey so far.

0:08:10 - Speaker 1
So I always share my story a little further back than just law school, because it makes the whole picture make sense. So when I was 11 years old I was diagnosed with blueprints and I began chemotherapy that I took for two years. Obviously, that took over my entire childhood. I was told I would never graduate high school on time because I missed a lot of school for being sick. But I just wasn't hearing any of that. So I did graduate high school on time and I was 15 in a class of like, or 35 in a class of 500 and something. So I was like I did it and I did it well. And then I went straight to college and while I was in college I had majored in biology. I wanted to go to medical school to help kids like me.

But in my second year of college I was diagnosed with a second autoimmune disease and my doctors were, just like you know, your immune system's really low, like we might want to think about this. And then at the same time my parents divorced after 35 years and I didn't see it coming. So while I'm thinking about my career, I'm thrown into the courtroom to testify in this divorce and when I got off the stand, my mom's attorney says you have to go to law school. And I was like, oh OK, well, that's the message I've been looking for. So I went back to school and changed my major to criminal justice and I decided to go to law school. And so I entered law school immediately after undergrad with the plan to practice family law, because that's the only experience I'd had. And so I was academically dismissed after my first year and I was still like y'all are getting rid of me that easily. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to run over here across the street where the Masters of Public Administration building is, and I'm going to get this degree for two years and then I'm going to come back.

So I graduated by a Victorian from my NPA class, reapplied to law school, got back in, completely redoed my 1-0 year. And that's the part where everybody's like you are crazy, but if you want it bad enough, you're willing to do crazy things. So that round I was able to graduate a semester early with honors and a certification in constitutional law and civil rights. So I say all of that to say that my path has been very, very bumpy, but all of those things has made me the person who just wants to find a way to make it easier for those people who are coming after me, because it makes absolutely no sense for us to continue to suffer if there are methods out there to help us to avoid as much suffering as possible. So that's where my love for law students come in. That's where my love for disability and the law comes in. I just want to make people's lives easier.

0:11:00 - Speaker 2
Kayla, seriously, you are such a gift, like such a gift. What a story of freaking perseverance and grit. I think that you just maybe put an exclamation point behind those two words of never giving up and I'm always coming back Like I will get down, but I'm coming back. I'd love to talk about and go back to your academic dismissal, because I think that's something that Many people in the world do not talk about. In fact, they probably would shove that so far under the rug and never speak about that. But you, that is a huge part of your story and a large part of what you talk about, and I like to know why and how that experience affected you and how you are trying to affect change so that doesn't happen to someone else.

0:11:49 - Speaker 1
Yeah. So the numbers for academic dismissals are so high, which means we know so many people who have been through it. They just don't talk about it. For me it was so what it hand thing kind of thing. Like it took me a long time to tell my family but like everybody at school knew, everybody in the master's program knew, when I came back for my second one year I told my class look, guys, I've been here before, I was academically dismissed, don't do what I did. So the reason I was dismissed was to make sure of things, but predominantly I was too focused on preparing for class and being like prepared for cold calls and not as prepared for the material. So I was finding myself waiting too long, too far out to study and just trying to cram that material. It just it wasn't working. In all honesty, it just wasn't my time.

So many things happened after that second round of law school that would not have happened had had not had that dismissal. So I talk about it because I'm pretty shameless when it comes to things and I'm like if I'm willing to share, it might help somebody else, and so and it has. I have folks who have come to me and said Kayla, I was dismissed. What do I do now? And the question is well, how bad do you want it Like? Are we taking a different path or are we, you know, thugging this out all the way through? And those people who go back really hold a special place in my heart and I would do absolutely anything for those people. So that's why I share it, because I don't want people to feel alone. It's stigmatized, but like, look where I am now. I'm still amongst the same people who made it through the first time and I just want to give people hope, like don't give up just because it got hard, don't give up.

0:13:37 - Speaker 2
Golly, just because it got hard, don't give up. I mean not just in law school, but in life, like I mean. That is just such a resounding message. So what kind of conversations are you having with these students who have been academically dismissed? Who are the like? What are the conversations like with the ones who do go back, and what are the conversations with the ones who don't go back?

0:14:03 - Speaker 1
So I always start by how bad do you want it? Because if you went to law school because your parents wanted you to go to law school, chances are you're not going back after a dismissal. If you are blaming someone else for your dismissal, chances are you're not going back. I think that you have to be in a place where you can say okay, I've agreed this, but now it's time to have a serious conversation about my future. You have to take responsibility, because it's nobody's fault that you're on. There are sometimes external circumstances, but at the end of the day, you have to take responsibility for that.

Was the school a good fit for you? Do you want to go back to the same school? What do you think you did wrong? What do you think you could do better? And I think identifying those things is hard because human nature is the school didn't provide me the resources and therefore I just did terrible when in fact, if that's true, then the school didn't provide any of those students the resources, but some of those students figured out how to make do Well, it's much easier to be a victim than to take accountability for the issue.

0:15:16 - Speaker 2
So there's always in failure, there's always something we can do better, absolutely Always.

I mean that's the point of failure, right. So I find it really outstanding that you are forcing these young students to answer questions, because I think the quality of our life is directly proportional to the quality of the questions that we ask ourselves, and I think that that is incredibly wise, that you're asking them to ask those questions of themselves right now. And to be honest, because, if I'm being frank, if someone, if that had happened to me, like I'm just putting myself in your shoes, like I went to law school because I didn't know what the heck else to do with myself, like, if I'm being frank, like you, your story, like that, you know what I mean. I'm like golly, like it almost makes me feel like what, when the heck was I doing? But if I had been academically dismissed and then I had encountered a woman like you and she was asking me hard questions, like that would have been exactly what I needed to hear. If I was like am I going to do this or not?

0:16:25 - Speaker 1
I call these people, my fairy law children, and I always tell them it's like tough love, like I'm not a mom but in the professional world I'm going to mommy you because I feel like we have to have that person who's willing to be completely upfront with us, ask the questions that nobody else wants to ask and kind of give you a perspective that it's isn't babying you Like let's, let's get down to the nitty gritty, you know. And the folks who want to go back, I can help them with the appeals process or the reapplication process, depending on where they are connecting them with resources, at their school or whatever school they choose to reapply to. And at the end of the day, I think, I think that's it. People like that, I keep it 100. People like that I'm not about the bullshit, but at the same time I will help you. Like if I have the power to help you, I will help you, and if I don't, I'll find you somebody who can.

0:17:21 - Speaker 2
That's incredible. That's incredible and that's, honestly, that's what we need in this life. That's what we need. I mean, we don't need anyone else to hold our hand, you know, like we don't need anyone to hold our hand, especially not when it comes to something as serious as going or not going back to law school. I mean, you're making really determinative decisions about your future and your career that have, you know, like long standing consequences, most of all financially, if that turns out something that you don't want to do. So tell me about the Ferry Law Mother and how this came about.

0:18:00 - Speaker 1
So I'm very active in the North Carolina Bar Association and I've been in the law student division for four years, and it makes sense because these are the people who right now are my passion, and so I started off as co-chair of the Law Student Outreach Committee.

I did that for two years, and now I'm on my second year of being director of the Law Student Division, and so I found myself posting a lot on LinkedIn about opportunities for law students. And then I was in the shower like one day, just like washing my hair, and then this hashtag pops in my head Ferry Law Mother, and I was like, oh, would people get that? And so I was like I'm going to try it. So I tried it for a week and it stuck with me immediately and I was like, okay, this is a thing. So I just kept posting it and now it's turned into this whole thing that I never expected and I don't know. It was just given to me. It was a gift for me. It's not something that I thought about, it's not something that I created. It was literally a gift that was put in my head and it fit my mission and I've been so excited about it.

0:19:12 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean God lays things on your heart for a reason. I mean that's all it is, and then it's our job to walk it out. And that's exactly what you're doing. And it is so beautiful to me your story and the fact that you are so aware of the fact. You know, when you said the first time you got academically dismissed, you're like it wasn't my time, it wasn't my time, like the Lord wasn't ready for me to do that yet. Like that, I needed to have that experience and I needed to go through that trial and tribulation to be able to come back stronger and to be able to be more capable in my mission, to be able to help and empower more law students who are struggling and feel alone.

0:19:59 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I wouldn't have been qualified to talk about the subject if I hadn't gone through it.

0:20:04 - Speaker 2
Yeah, so what has Ferry Law Mother turned into?

0:20:08 - Speaker 1
So it's mostly. It started as what was like a local you know to North Carolina kind of thing. Now it's become a nationwide hashtag. Law students reach out to me from all over the country asking for resources for law school, asking for connections. A lot of out of state law students who want to practice in North Carolina reach out to start that legal network in North Carolina and honestly, I don't know where it goes from here. I'm kind of I want it to remain fun. I don't want it to become a job or a burden. I just want it to be something I enjoy. So I'll just let it grow, however it's going to grow, and just enjoy it in the meantime.

0:20:54 - Speaker 2
That's incredible. What are some of your favorite connections or conversations that you've had as a result of the Ferry Law Mother hashtag?

0:21:03 - Speaker 1
So I think, some of my favorite conversations. I met a student who she was a law student in a different state. She was originally from North Carolina, though. So she decided you know, I don't want to be in law school in a different state, I'm going to come back home to North Carolina and then I'm going to reapply to law school. And so someone told her to contact me, someone that I didn't know. It's always someone that I didn't know that that connects me, and so I sit down with this student at a coffee shop and everything that she's saying I can relate to.

I'm explaining my story as I do, so that people feel comfortable speaking with me, and I say you know, I was academically dismissed from law school. And she was like oh, I wasn't academically dismissed, but my GPA wasn't great. And then I say you know, I have lupus, so I have to take things into consideration. Oh, I have lupus and I'm like every single thing is like clicking, and that has happened so many times. It is unbelievable. And so my favorite thing is that my very law children become my friends, Like when I was fundraising for the lupus walk. So many of those donations came from LinkedIn people I've never met before, or people I met through LinkedIn who have now become my friends, and so you know I think I'm just helping people. It turns out they're helping me too, Like I've built a network that I never intended to build. I have supporters that I never intended to have all from giving back to others, and so that's really been my favorite part of all of this.

0:22:42 - Speaker 2
Well, and that is truly the ethos of powerhouse lawyers and why I am so passionate about community and connection, because that's what it does. That's what happens. That is the beautiful thing that happens when you just lead with service and value and just show up with like no expectations of who's going to give you what or do what for you, and you're just showing up to say like, hey, I'm just paying it forward. Here you go. It is incredible the traction and momentum that happens in your life. Just like you said, you haven't been doing anything, you've just been showing up as you, and I think that so many people get caught up in the how, the how would I do this idea that I have on my heart, this mission that's been laid on my heart? How would I do that? And I think that you are just such a beautiful example of just literally showing up in the space and doing the do Imperfectly, but just offering value.

0:23:51 - Speaker 1
Absolutely. I get asked the question all the time like how do you do everything? And I'm like it just comes out. I don't plan it. You know I do have like certain things I'll plan, like like, let's say, ncdoj Thursdays Obviously those are planned out in advance, I don't have to think about those, they just go out. But like the random posts that you see, those happen so organically. I'm not spending my time and spending my wills figuring that stuff out, it just happens. And I think that when you are given a gift and you have a purpose, it doesn't feel like stressful or like it's taking up all my time or anything. It just happens naturally.

0:24:33 - Speaker 2
I love that. I mean it's just, I love the fairy law mother. I mean she's amazing. Okay, so if we've got some listeners who are out there, or some listeners who know of a law student or thinking about going to law school, or maybe they are on academic probation or maybe they've somehow gotten hold of this podcast and they're struggling academically, what are some tips and advice that you would give them now, in this moment, and some action steps that they can go take to get some clarity?

0:25:05 - Speaker 1
So the first thing is to never think it can happen to you. We all go to law school and we're all smart. Obviously we're one who got in, but that doesn't mean that you can't be academically dismissed. I had so many people who were telling me I was doing the wrong things and I wasn't hearing them because I had to figure it out myself. So if you have someone that's telling you, hey, I think what you're doing is probably not gonna work, consider the source and then consider the advice Like are they right? Will this cost me an entire year of law school? But then look inward at yourself and you have to understand that law school is different. We prepare for the law school differently.

It's a challenge that a lot of us haven't faced before. Are you ready for that challenge? Are you ready to go through it again? Is my GPA a GPA that is gonna require me to climb so hard and high for the rest of my law school journey? Is it worth me withdrawing and reapplying so that I can get a better GPA and do better at the end?

You just have to look within. What's my learning style? What could I have done better? What didn't I do that I saw other people doing? You just have to figure it out what works for you and how can you make that better. And if you're academically dismissed, you have to explain that when you go back. Why do you think this is gonna work this time? Why should we think that you're gonna pass the bar? Those are things you've gotta ask yourself and you've gotta be prepared for. So when I came back, I said it was because I had identified what the issue was. I now know how to prepare for law school. I have shown that I'm capable by graduating from the MBA program, and all of those things together gave them a reason to give me another chance.

0:27:01 - Speaker 2
Yes, all of that. So I'm curious though do you think a lot of these questions obviously like not what I did wrong or whatever with yourself and with your, the students that you're working with are a lot of these questions going unanswered before they go to law school in the first place? 100%.

0:27:20 - Speaker 1
So I get asked so often about should I take a year off or should I go straight into law school? And I'll be honest, my answer is very different now than it used to be. Originally I would have said go straight there because you don't wanna risk not ever doing it because you took that year off. But now I see so much growth in people when they take a year off or if they have experienced before law school. It's a different level of commitment. It's a different level of understanding, like real life things, because so many of us had no like no introduction to law and were thrown into this bizarre thing and expected to understand it. So at the end of the day, I think it depends on the person and what's best for them. I wouldn't change my journey for anything, but I do believe that having that time to sit out and do something else made me a stronger student.

0:28:07 - Speaker 2
And what are some questions that people cause? I get questions all the time of. I mean, I get DMs from people all the time like people will see me online. My daughter's thinking about going to law school. What should I tell her? So what would you tell her? What are some questions that you would ask her Cause? I mean, honestly, I'm gonna put myself in that seat and be like here's 21 year old Erin and she's thinking about going to law school. What are the questions that you should that I should have been asked before I went?

0:28:33 - Speaker 1
So why do you want to go? If you want to go because somebody expects you to go, don't go. If you want to go because you want to make a lot of money, don't go. If you want to go because you think that I am just gonna have this really nice job and then I'm gonna have this luxurious life, don't go. But if you're going because you genuinely want to be a lawyer, you genuinely want to make some kind of difference, you genuinely want to practice in some kind like some specific area of law, then let's do this. But let's also ask the questions of well, what am I gonna do to make sure that I'm successful? Am I familiar with what law school requires? Do I know anybody who's been through this journey before? What can I get from those people to make sure that I'm prepared the first day? Because law school is, you walk in and you're hitting the ground running. People don't know that there is no. Let's go over the civil of this today.

No, so I think that's important, that law students are asking these questions ahead of time, because it's a demon you haven't seen before.

0:29:46 - Speaker 2
Oh, that is such a good way of putting it, caleb Britt. That is like the mic drop moment, because the thing is, it's a demon that you've never seen before and you damn better be prepared. Yes, and that's exactly right, and that is such valuable information, like that snippet right there. If you hear nothing else in this podcast, if you're thinking about going to law school, if you know somebody who's going to law school, they need to listen to this podcast and they need to connect with Kayla and become friends and connections or whatever. Read her stuff.

But that is exactly what I told this mother. I was like she needs to ask as many questions and meet as many lawyers as she can. In fact, if she's got time, go intern in a law office as she can see what this day to day looks like. Because I think you can watch a show like Suits and get this like really grandiose idea of like what's going to happen and like, just for the record, it's not Meghan Markle's life, okay, like just for the record. However, what is true is like the intensity of that, like I think that show does reflect, like you can feel, the intensity of the law from that. But that's really the only accurate part that I will say. So how can people find you miss a fairy law mother?

0:31:09 - Speaker 1
So I'm strictly on LinkedIn right now. Just find my hashtag or look up my name. Profiles open, so I welcome all follows and connection requests.

0:31:21 - Speaker 2
Awesome. So, as we chatted before, I have a fun new segment that I am doing on the podcast and it's our legally blonde moments. Because you know what? We just need to laugh at ourselves. I mean, as we're coming off the serious conversation of how serious law school is and how committed that we need to be. We really do need some humor. So, and it's much easier to laugh at ourselves than to shame and blame and whatever, and I think if we can just start to just laugh more, we will feel a lot more joy and feel a lot less guilt. So, kayla, what is a great legally blonde moment that you can share with us today as we head on out?

0:32:05 - Speaker 1
I'll be honest, I am probably one of the most ditzy people I know, so I probably have so many of them. But the one that comes to mind is I was walking from work to my parking spot the other day, and it's a good five-minute walk, so I just walked kind of long and I'm almost to the parking deck and I hear someone calling ma'am, ma'am. And finally I turn around, like what? And she was like your dress fit your dress. So when I put my book back on, my dress had come up in the back and I was like oh my God. And so she was like I'm sorry. And I was like no, it's fine, like, thank you, like. The only complaint I have is that you didn't tell me sooner. So I'm embarrassed.

I go on about, you know, my journey to the parking deck. She went a different way. I'd be darned if I didn't hit that elevator button. And she was in there and she said so, you're Kayla, right? And I said how do you know me? And she said LinkedIn. Being LinkedIn famous is not all it's cracked up to be.

0:33:08 - Speaker 2
Now that is amazing. You had a little like Marilyn Monroe moment and then she knew you were LinkedIn famous and she knew you in the elevator. That's a riot.

0:33:19 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I was like so not only did it happen, but she knew exactly who I was when it happened.

0:33:25 - Speaker 2
Yes, that is such a good way to end the show. Kayla, thank you so much for coming on today.

I think that this is such a wonderful conversation and I hope that anyone out there listening to this episode resonated with it. And if you, you know, are struggling academically in law school, or you know someone who does, or you have got a question about if you want to go to law school, or if you've got a daughter or a niece or a cousin who's like I want to be a lawyer, this is the episode for them, and Kayla is the person to follow on LinkedIn for all the advice. So thank you so much for joining us today, kayla. Thank you, erin, I really appreciate it. You have a need.

Thank you so much for listening into the powerhouse lawyers podcast. Don't forget to follow us on Spotify, apple or wherever you catch your podcast. If you loved this episode, I would be so honored if you left a review and, because I know you are the type of woman who wants to see other women win, be sure to share this episode with someone who needs it. By sharing it, you are empowering a fellow sister in the law to know that she is not alone, that there is nothing wrong with her and that she can build a life and career that she loves. Thank you, see you next week.

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