Alex Su on his escape from Big Law

In this episode of Lessons I Learned in Law Scott Brown speaks with TikTok sensation Alex Su.

Alex is a former lawyer who now works at the cutting edge of legal technology. He is currently Head of Community Development at Ironclad, a contracts technology company backed by Accel, Sequoia, and other leading investors. 

He is also @legaltechbro on Tik Tok, where he makes hilarious videos observing and poking fun at the legal industry. A must follow for in-house lawyers! He started his career as an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell and clerked for a federal judge.

Alex shares the three lessons he has learned in law including:

• Know your strengths and weaknesses, and find yourself a role that best compliments them.
• Keep your eyes open for opportunities.
• Be aware of what the world is telling you in terms of feedback. Follow what works for you!

Alex also talks about his jump from BigLaw into the world of legaltech and sales!

Presented by Scott Brown of Heriot Brown Legal Recruitment.

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Transcript

Scott Brown  (0:01)  

Hi, and welcome to Lessons I Learned in Law with me, Scott Brown, founder of Heriot Brown In-House Legal Recruitment, and I'm a recovering lawyer. I left private practice in a bid to find fulfilment, in my own career, and I founded Harriet brown to help lawyers do the same. On each episode of the podcast, you'll get to hear my conversation with someone from the legal industry, as you decipher their three lessons that they've learned from working in law. Now, I'm joined by really special guests today, someone I'm really excited to have a conversation with, and I'm sure a lot of our listeners will be familiar with the name Alex Su, you might be familiar with his personality on Tik Tok, where he's a social media sensation produces some often hilarious content about all things legal, and legal tech. I'm obviously in awe of all the guests that have on the show, for a variety of reasons. But the creative spark that goes into the content Alex creates is really impressive. And something I find baffling. Alex is currently Head of Community Development ironclad which is really cool Contract Lifecycle Management Platform. And prior to this, he spent some time in big law working his way through back to his current role. We'll talk about that a lot more later on. Alex, welcome to Lessons I Learned in Law.

Alex Su  (1:23)  

Thanks for having me, Scott. And I'm really excited to be here to talk to you, I feel like there's a lot we have in common. So really excited to share my journey.

Scott Brown  (1:31)  

Absolutely a lot to digest, and a lot of crossover, and maybe frustrations that we've shared at some point in our career. But I'm hoping some of your your magic Marketing Gold Dust rubs off on me today, as well during the episodes. Before that will kick off into lesson one. So if you could talk us through that, please. 

Alex Su  (1:51)  

Yeah, I would say my lesson one is to know your strengths and weaknesses. And this is a big part of my journey. You know, I'm 38 years old now, you know, I went to law school, you know, pretty close to, you know, maybe a couple years out of college. So I always thought I wanted to be a trial lawyer. And it was because of the books I read the movies I saw. And I just had this idea in my head that being a trial lawyer would be the career for me. And so I charted out a path in the US, you know, you've got a standard path to becoming, say, a maybe Department of Justice or Assistant US Attorney job, you'd be a federal prosecutor, it would open up a lot of doors. So I created this career ladder for myself. And I thought I would succeed at this level by this age. But But somewhere along the line, I realised that that I made a mistake, because I was making career decisions based on something I saw on TV or that I read, and not really understanding who I was and what I was good at and what I was bad at. And so I remember my first week as a summer associate in big law, that was part of my career path, by the way, going through big law. I was a summer associate. And I just immediately felt like I was in the wrong job. So I went into my office, I closed the door, and I wrote down a list of like, things I was good at and things I really enjoy doing. And then another column, I wrote all the things that I was bad at and that I didn't enjoy doing. And it turned out all the things I had to do for work at that law firm were in the column of things I was bad at or didn't enjoy doing. So I knew very quickly, I was like, this is not the right path for me. 

Scott Brown  (3:24)  

Yeah, it is an early time to realise that and a lot to pick out there. Particularly as a summer Clark, you had your own office, which not sure, not sure law firms in the UK offer that but the thing that the thing that jumps out at me is that the US Route to law, it being not an undergrad, there's a bit of thought going into it there. How did you feel at university? Did you enjoy the study of the subject?

Alex Su  (3:49)  

You know, I I wasn't a focus student when I was in university, I was I've had always had this struggle with focusing and I wasn't very good at school. I spent a lot of time, you know, hanging out with friends, doing a lot of things that were fun and did not really focusing on my studies just because I struggled with it. One of the things that I did do a lot about a lot of was I created a lot of content. And this was in 2000 to 2013 2000 2003. And I would create social media content on blogs, I would write jokes, I would do a lot of the things that you kind of many people know me for now. But those were things I did for fun that were genuine. I never thought I'd be a lawyer. I wasn't a very serious person. And I'd get bored by reading the few cases and like my business law course. So my career goal was really driven by what I thought a lawyer was like it there's this bundle of maybe you're part articulate, you're very smart. You're very polished like that. That was what I wanted. But as I got into it, I realised like the actual job was not a fit for me. And that's why like I always go back to knowing your strengths and weaknesses because if you look at it from a 10,000 foot view, the job of a lawyer especially a junior lawyer at A large company or a large firm is very much a set of skills and things you need to do that are that are not in line with what I was good at, which is being focused, being detail oriented, fitting into a hierarchy and organisational hierarchy. I just it was just not a good place for me. So knowing my strengths and weaknesses, knowing that I really enjoyed working with people that I like people that like being funny, I like making content, which came into play later, I decided to leave that big law world that was a bit stifling for me. So I tried different things. I went to a smaller firm, and I even tried opening up my own practice. And none of those things worked out. I just learned more about myself as I went through each setback in each job that didn't work out. And then six years out of law school, so by then I was like, 33 years old, I decided to start over. And I went into legal tech, and I decided to pick a sales role because I had a hunch I'd be good at it. So things really took off after that. And it was because I picked that job very deliberately. I knew that the job entailed a lot of things that I that I was good at. 

Scott Brown  (6:01)  

Yeah. And I really enjoyed talking to you is like talking to a more articulate version of myself in describing those feelings that you had. What did you feel because I guess, making that switch and understanding your strengths and weaknesses is one thing, but quite a scary jump to make to something that you've made that commitment to and studying for that period of time. Yeah,

Alex Su  (6:25)  

I mean, there was part of me that was thinking I was throwing a lot of way by starting over. But at the same time, I made some careful choices. Like I chose legal tech, instead of general tech or some other industry, I chose a space where I kind of understood the product. So I joined a legal tech company that was involved in ediscovery. And previously, I had done a lot of ediscovery at my law firm job. So it wasn't like I was making a complete change, there were things I could take from my past that were still going to be useful. And over the years, you know, I've been in legal tech for five, six years now, there have been different parts of my legal background that have come into play, it's not always exactly the same. So I don't feel like I wasted it. But at the time, when I made that pivot, there were moments where, for example, I had to report to a very young manager who, you know, again, I was 33, I think he was five or six younger years younger than me never had any interaction with the legal industry. And he was training me on how to pitch lawyers in my head. I was thinking, remember, Alex, you got to be a little humble. You don't you're starting from scratch. So don't try to walk in there. Like you know, everything. So it was challenging, but at the same time, when I look back on it, you know, he and I are friends now. And it's just it's just a funny. It's just a funny experience that yeah, many of us experience when you make that pivot.

Scott Brown  (7:39)  

Yeah, awesome. My own background, having been in a law firm and feeling those feelings that I wanted to do something that was more people orientated, I liked the look of being a partner. In some of the firms where they were the Rainmaker winning work in doing traditional business development. I didn't like the look of the 15 years journey to get there of being a black letter lawyer and studying and committing that time to being a subject matter expert didn't have the day for detail. Let yourself yeah, I also explored whether sales was an opportunity within within law within law firms, but couldn't really find it. Did you ever did you ever look down that path or think it was an angle,

Alex Su  (8:23)  

you know, I kind of came close to it in the firms I worked for. There wasn't really an opportunity to do that. And in retrospect, I probably should have brought in my search to find that but but really, it came down to when I was a solo, I was able to do everything. And I realised that I really enjoyed the the rainmaking the business development part of the job. And I wish that I had associates who could help me get the work done. That's when I realised that you know, I wasn't successful, that practice was not successful, I didn't make very much money. So I couldn't have hired as an associate, but it made me realise, okay, I'm actually more interested in this other part, it gave me the confidence to believe Hey, this, the sales thing is something worth pursuing. Even if I have to start from the bottom, I have to take a big pay cut, I got to make a lot of cold calls, which is what I did have to do, I made a lot of cold calls, a lot of emails, I had managers telling me, and you may be familiar with this. But if you're in sales, you have these numbers, you have to hit you've got to hit a certain number of leads, you have to make a certain number of calls, you need to set a certain number of meetings. And, and for me, it was hard because I was good at calling. I felt like I was good at calling. But there was no way for me to achieve the numbers that they had expected of me. So I started trying to think outside the box and come up with other ways to to generate leads. And that's kind of what led me to social media to LinkedIn to content creation. It opened up this entire path for me.

Scott Brown  (9:50)  

Yeah, it's such an interesting journey. And like you said, focusing on your strengths and weaknesses. I found out rather than mapping out like it's so I think you're a hell of a lot more thoughtful than I was about it. But I just think doing something that you enjoy doing is half, there's so much more than half the battle and being good at and be in being good at something. And looking back looking back on it, I was so unhappy because I wasn't good that being alone, all the things that you're you're describing as your weaknesses, you're, you're always going to be better you're going to be best in class, if you enjoy what you're doing, or there's an opportunity to be best in class. 

Alex Su  (10:29)  

But yeah, I don't want to make it seem like it was so well thought out. I think it sounds really good when I talk about it. Now, let's talk about it and make it sound like it was a brilliant plan. It was exactly what you described, it was I don't like this thing I'm doing. I think I like this other thing better. And I might be good at good at it. Right. And so let's make a change. That was it. And, you know, I, the part I also didn't share is that, you know, it wasn't like I was thriving in the traditional practice of law. Like, I had jobs that didn't work out, you know, I left big law on my own choice. But when I went to a smaller firm, they fired me because I just wasn't good. And when I look back on it, I think there were things I could have done differently. And after I got fired, and I feel like a lot of lawyers have this experience, and they don't want to talk about it. But sometimes getting let go from a job is a blessing in disguise because it puts you on a different path. So I started thinking, Okay, I'm going to try to open my own practice. And that's gonna, you know, that's gonna be my how I'm gonna be successful. But once I did that I wasn't and at the same time, by pursuing something different, and, you know, scrambling and just running in a different direction, every time I ran into failure, just keep on keeping on moving. You know, over time I got I got closer and closer and closer to the thing I enjoyed. So yeah, it sounds really like a like a really well thought out plan today. But at the time, I was just basically going from failure to failure, telling myself just to keep moving forward and closer to things that you like to do. And things maybe will work out. That's literally how I thought about it.

Scott Brown  (11:59)  

Yeah, and being being hungry. I was actually made redundant myself in. In law. I think I was a friend that was just like, every, every good careers got got redundancy in there at some point. You learn from it and moving on. Yeah, I also think people that maybe have a second haven't have a career, and then maybe a second career or a pivot, you bring so much more to the table. Because you've you've had that life experience that you've gained, the first time of asking, and a lot of the lawyers that we place, a lot of them have maybe done something in industry and then moved into law. And you know, they love it, because they've seen something else and they've got to where they're at. Yeah, it sounds like it's in for yourself.

Lesson two,

Alex Su  (12:46)  

yeah. Lesson Two is keep your eyes open for opportunities. And I kind of alluded to this earlier, but you know, I was making calls I was doing well. But the numbers were so hard to hit. So I needed to come up with a creative way to hit those numbers. That's when I started trying to keep my eyes and ears open. And I had heard at the time, from some sales trainers, some sales influencers, that you could actually leverage LinkedIn to get new business. And this was in 2016. And relatively new, they call it social selling. So I started to post content, as I did when I was in university. When I was in college, I used to post on a personal blog, I started posting content on LinkedIn, on my professional social media profile, in the hopes that it would drive business. And it didn't work like posted and nobody cared about it. I went, I would text my my friends say, Hey, I posted something, can you like it because like, no one's liking it. And I did that for like a few months, again, keeping my eyes open for the opportunity, paying attention to what content did better than others. So I learned very quickly that I was posting the wrong type of content. I was posting out like these articles about legal tech. Nobody wanted to read that stuff. But they didn't want to read about was my career journey. So I started sharing stories from my career in law, why I left, and those got got some traction. And so I doubled down on it, I tripled down on it. And I kept posting through 2016 2017, I started building my audience little by little, and you know, I started paying attention to, you know, what else I could do with it, like, you know, what people liked, how I could interact with people. And lo and behold, I started getting a trickle of inbound sales conversation. So what would happen is, I would post about something completely unrelated to my company, or what I was offering. And then someone would reach out and say I love your posts. By the way, we might be looking for some ediscovery technology. Yeah. Can you jump on a call? Yeah, let the business Yeah. So, you know, my lesson number two is to keep your eyes open for opportunities because I never would have imagined that this would be something I did. But in 2016 2017 I feel like because I made that pivot. I stumbled into this like thing that I was uniquely good at, but also had this bottom line impact for my career and for the company.

Scott Brown  (15:00)  

That's really good, great sales advice. And from, from the legal the legal angle, it's, I think there's a lot to be learned by, by lawyers by their, their their in house and selling themselves within their own their own team or within the wider business. And similarly private private practice lawyers, the conversations where they are like that it's such a door opener where you're not talking about selling, or they don't people don't think you're selling to them, or maybe giving away tricks of the trade and recruitment here. But yeah, I think it's, it's, it's a good opener, what was your mindset towards? Or what was your thoughts on the seals? Prior to moving into that space? Did you have preconceptions of sales? Growing up?

Alex Su  (15:43)  

I didn't. Because, I mean, I had my you know, I had the idea of what a salesperson was just based on, you know, what you again, see on TV, or maybe hear about, like, car salesman, or I don't know, like real estate agents. But really, you know, I grew up in an immigrant community, we, you know, we were always pushed to get more schooling, more education, more credentials, and then maybe become an engineer or a scientist or a doctor, like a professional degree. And so no one ever talked about sales as a career when I first heard about what sales was, and not, you know, not your traditional, you know, again, real not not consumer sales, but b2b sales. I was just fascinated, I thought, Why didn't anybody tell me about this type of career? And so I started asking other people, and then that's when I started hearing about the negative stereotypes because people would say, Oh, you're gonna do sales? Like, you went to get your law degree? And then you're going to do sales? Yeah. What do you mean, you get to you get to talk to people all the time. And you don't have to, like, you know, check over typos. Like what that sounds incredible. Again, everybody's different. Everyone's got the right thing for them. But I did start to hear about that. But, but I didn't care. Because again, remember, I had by then, when I went into sales, I knew I kind of knew myself. And I knew that, that prestige, the respect and admiration and all that it wasn't important to me. And I had a lot of grief. So I had enough of that, like, I didn't need to worry about that. I just needed to worry about finding a job that I enjoyed that I felt like I was making a meaningful difference. So So I actually did was not bothered by that at all. Contrary to I think a lot of what other I have friends who made the jump, and they they felt the same way. They felt a little mixed feelings about making that move. But I in my head, I was like, if I can bring in revenue for my organisation, like I get a lot of respect in the company. Yeah, I kind of love that. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if you had that same experience. But But I mean, for me, I just I just loved it.

Scott Brown  (17:31)  

Yeah, no, I, my perception of sales has always been a bit tinted in the past until, again, similar to what you said, until you're actually until you do it and live it and breathe it and see what goes into that and the relationship and how important that is. There's there's nothing like it, but from family like that being an engineer and that should it more traditional professions, it would have always been the sales guy falling up and trying to sell something on the House floor and getting a mouthful from her dad. So yeah, I think historically, I've probably had that. And then I just think I always scratch my head. There's never there's, I can't think of a film or a movie where there's a there's a sales guy portrayed as the good guy. It's always like, I don't know, do you know any any movies that portrayed with lawyers, on the other hand,

Alex Su  (18:20)  

I was thinking about the movies. And I think each one I had to cross off because it was not a great depiction of lawyer of salespeople. So yeah, I'll get back to you on that. But that's every point.

Scott Brown  (18:30)  

Yeah. Like Glengarry Glen Ross is just like,

Alex Su  (18:33)  

Gary. Is boiler room. Wolf of Wall Street. I mean, even the titles like sound so yeah.

Scott Brown  (18:42)  

Horrible guys. Yeah, yeah, we're not like that.

Alex Su  (18:47)  

Like movies. tell you one thing. I mean, I watched a few good men when I was growing up. And I was like, I want to be that lawyer. And then I realised when I went through the process, I, I was not that lawyer. It was so different, just like That's why no one knows about sales. I think that's why there's fewer people who grew up saying I want to be a salesperson when I grow up, because there is not that media depiction, which may change over time. But I think I also was lucky that I got into sales and technology sales specifically, at a moment when technology was rising. You know, we'll call it the last five or six years, especially in the legal space. And so if I wasn't doing what I'm doing now, I think I would, I would still be doing sales. I loved it. I didn't leave it because I hated it. I can't believe I'm lucky enough to have the job I have today. But But I really love tech sales. Like I would love I would do that to get that job again in a heartbeat.

Scott Brown  (19:35)  

Yeah. It's actually ones just come to my mind. What was that Google? There was a Google Vince Vaughn and

Alex Su  (19:44)  

was it the internship or something internship? Yeah,

Scott Brown  (19:46)  

they were I'm sure they were predominantly sales focused. Yeah, they were sales guys. So yeah, I'll tell give that one. Yeah. And how much do you think is as a factor within law firms is so underutilised. sales because it just relies on partners. Yeah, being the sales guy, but the training that goes into that prior to becoming a partner, you're given this badge and then expected to generate work. But as an associate, I never felt that. It's been rewarded, as you said, for for generating work and being a breadwinner, I guess there was never that reward or recognition even as an associate for doing for doing that. What do you think we can learn from it?

Alex Su  (20:26)  

Yeah, that's, and that's an entire set of I think there's a reason why that happens. I think that law firms really benefit especially large law firms, they really benefit from people just working, because you can't have a bunch of rainmakers. You need people to process the work, and maybe they already have either rainmakers, or they have institutional relationships where they don't need to find new business, like the big law firm I work for never really had a need for rainmakers, because they had relationships with all the major investment banks in New York. And so they, that's where they get their work from. So I do think that in the future, it'll change because you're going to start seeing a bit more competition where sales and business development will start to matter more. But But up until now, I would say the firm's have had a generally pretty good in terms of not having to do that same type of selling that that the rest of the business world has to do.

Scott Brown  (21:17)  

Yeah, good point. Where do you get your ideas for your content? Where does that come from? And I'm hoping you have a team of people around a blackboard or whiteboard to generate these ideas, because it's, you're prolific.

Alex Su  (21:34)  

I'll tell you how I started and then how it is now because it's very different. Right? When I started, obviously, it was my own stories. And then I started to, so I would hope so as part of my sales job, I would talk to a lot of in house counsel, a lot of his deputy GCS, even some GCS, and as you know, in sales, you got to be a very good listener. So you got to listen to everything they say, You got to ask questions. So I started to learn a lot about their day to day, what they liked, what they didn't like about their jobs, their frustrations. And I felt like I was hearing so many of the same patterns that going back to my original point of driving leads or doing more marketing with my own personal social media content, I started to combine them together. So I started taking relatable concepts and thoughts from from these sales calls, and creating these little skits, or creating content on LinkedIn to post so that it would become relatable to other in house counsel, and we helpful from a marketing perspective. So it was very organic. In that sense. I stopped posting about myself and started posting about the things I started seeing and hearing. And it worked really well. And I continue to do this. And then around 2019, right before the pandemic, I started to really, really start posting consistently, I started making, I think, one post every weekday. And I realised that this was going to be my special thing, because at the time I, I had originally thought I was going to be like a sales executive, like a VP of sales, hopefully. And I felt like that wasn't in the cards, like I needed to spend a lot anymore. I needed many more years of experience, I wasn't being taken very seriously as a sales leader, because I didn't have an experience. And, you know, I was always there was like, people would see me as a lawyer more than a salesperson. So it was more of a struggle. But then I realised I had this other special thing that was happening on my social media, on my LinkedIn where I was driving inbound sales conversations, and I thought, I'm going to focus on this thing that I'm good at. And this is what the world is telling me. And maybe this is like my third lesson. Yeah. Yeah, really. It really is, I think, you know, at first I was paying attention to what I was good and bad at. And then I became more aware of what the world was telling me in terms of the feedback. The sales executive career path was tough. But content creation was like this special thing that no one else could do that, that I was able to do. So I focused on it. And when the pandemic hit, obviously, I never predicted that would happen. But it like it threw like fuel and grease on the fire. Like I was already having a consistent audience. And then it really took off. And that's when I was like, I really have to focus on this. And Saturday, I started to have these content calendars, and I was I would structure my posts. And I would do all sorts of different things, too. I hosted meetups, I created silly videos, I did a lot of strange, wacky, unusual types of content just to see what would work. And so it was probably about a year end of the pandemic, when people started telling me hey, you should get on this platform called tick tock. It's a short form video. And I think you'd be good on it. I was like no that that platforms for dancing teenagers, I don't do that. I'm a serious like b2b salesperson lawyer. Not going to do that. But so many people spoke to me about it. And a lot of these people were GCS or from you know, the legal field. And so I was like, Maybe I should listen to them. So I started making videos there, you know, kind of similar content, what I've done in the past was kind of funny content, relatable to in house counsel. And it just took off. Like, I went viral, I built a following. And so I've been doing that for a year now. And so it's only it hasn't been that long since I've been doing this. But these days, I continue to have lots of conversations with the community, I pay attention to all of my comments. I am something's wrong with my content, and people will correct me or send me direct messages. So I have like an ecosystem of source material to work with. So I don't have to like, it's like me just sitting in a room picking up things, and listening to the feedback and listening what people's suggestions are, and especially the frustrations people have. That's always good. That always has good ideas. And in terms of making content or videos or really anything. That's funny.

Scott Brown  (25:50)  

Yeah. Fantastic. You mentioned the word community. So So tell me tell us a bit more about your your role, ironclad. And,

Alex Su  (25:59)  

yeah, I'm a head of community development. Yeah, so I'm Head of Community Development, I am responsible for driving engagement within our community, I didn't go out looking for this job. They found me because of the content that was producing, it was resonating with ironclads. customer base. And, you know, after one thing led to another, I found a great team here, my boss, Mary, oh, Carol is just the dominant force. In the legal operations community. The company leadership is very strong, the product is strong. And so my job that that enables me to focus on my job, which is to again speak to in House lawyers, legal operations, folks listen to their challenges connected with one another. And it helps me create content, like when I hear them talk about the things they deal with, it helps me create content. So everything kind of works together. And as I put out more content, people start to hear about iron clad. So there is marketing value there. So it almost seems like it's very, very much everybody wins. And I love my job. I love my coworkers. And I feel so lucky that I'm doing a job now where if I were to drop that same column, all the things I'm doing are the things I enjoy doing, or I'm good at very different than working in big law.

Scott Brown  (27:09)  

Yeah, sounds it and certainly certainly looks like it, I'd like to see a day in the life of it sounds sounds like a great place to be. You're like the unicorn candidate for them in their job like it did the job doesn't exist without without you. But similarly, you're monetizing what you've you've done in terms of a profession, and I wouldn't win on both sides. Yeah,

Alex Su  (27:30)  

and that's why I think a lot of unhappy lawyers were unhappy. Like, I feel like a lot of people have a structured or too rigid of an idea of what success looks like, like when I was younger, I like I grew up that path, like, I'm going to be a law firm partner, I'm going to be a trial lawyer. But when you know your strengths and weaknesses, you start to understand, like maybe you shouldn't fit yourself into a job description, you should try something different. Keeping your eyes open for opportunities. Like as you're going through that process, you got to keep your eyes open to see, you know, I didn't create content, just just for fun. I mean, there was a practical reason behind it, it was solving a problem. And as I focused my energy on what I was good at on a problem that was real. The world came in, they found me, you know, ironclad found me. And I think that that's something that people don't recognise enough that the people who are doing the most meaningful work. It's often because they followed a hunch, and they had to take some risks, but the position they had was created for them. And it wasn't like they were trying to fit their own personality into a unique job description. You know, obviously, I've been very lucky. I'm not going to pretend like it was it's a repeatable process. But, but that's how I ended up where I am. It just might my own story.

Scott Brown  (28:39)  

Yeah, that was a great story. And the principles are the principles are relatable and transferable into other things. But yeah, amazing how you've done it. I love it. I love the I love following your content and seeing it and I get lost on things like tick tock often, and Instagram, you go into a bit of a hold on you. But yeah, I could flick through, I could flick through those quite happily for a good half hour and watch them so keep keep doing it. Yes, social media.

Alex Su  (29:07)  

Social media is an interesting thing, Scott, like, I mean, at first, I thought it was just about the content. But what I've come to appreciate is the value I get out of it. I think the value a lot of people get out of it isn't just the main content. It's the comments that come after it. And yes, you know, some platforms, there's negativity, there's toxicity, but on platforms like LinkedIn, generally there isn't. You get a lot of great back and forth people sharing their own stories, people who don't feel comfortable posting on their own, they will feel comfortable sharing off the record insights in the comments, and some great dialogues happen. I've even seen it on you know, Instagram and sometimes on Tik Tok. I think the community that creates created around the content, that's the valuable thing. The content is almost there just to kick off the conversation. Almost like a friend, a mutual friend who's hosting a party. They're just going to say something funny everyone laughs And then suddenly somebody says something, somebody else reacts to it. It's that community part that that's so important. Yeah, we have clients all over the world. And I feel like the world is becoming more international. And I'm seeing this also on social media that, that the people who are engaging in conversations and making the comments, they're not just people from the US, they're not just people from California, they're there all over the world. Like just like you, you know, how we how we got to be. So, so ironclad does have a international footprint. And I think that's really cool. I never, like I said, I never imagined that I'd be in a position where I am. And I feel very lucky. And I appreciate that you've taken the time to, you know, talk to me. I mean, it's I'm looking at your background, it's like dark out there.

Scott Brown  (30:37)  

Yeah, it is. But yeah, it's winter in London. So it's dark, pretty much from four o'clock, so don't worry about that. But no, it's a pleasure to it's a pleasure to speak with you and learning about your story. And I'm sure a lot of it will resonate with the our listeners and yeah, it's unique. Definitely a unique a unique journey within within the legal profession. But amazing, but if people wanted to get in touch and learn more about you or about iron clad what's the what's the best way to reach out?

Alex Su  (31:08)  

The best way is to find me on LinkedIn. That's the my main platform. Feel free to you know, send me a message or connect with me. You can also find me on Twitter, on Instagram. And on TikTok, although I feel like I'm not very responsive there. But yeah, connect with me on LinkedIn. That's probably the best way.

Scott Brown  (31:27)  

Amazing. Thank you, Alex. And thank you all for listening to Lessons I Learned in Law. For more info on all of my guests. Head over to heriotbrown.com/podcasts. I've had some great guests on the on the show. Thank you. Thank you, Alex. Thanks Your time again.

Alex Su  (31:44)  

Thanks, Scott. This is a lot of fun.

Scott Brown  (31:46)  

And if you've enjoyed listening, please rate and subscribe or perhaps share with a friend if you're feeling if you're feeling generous, but I'm Scott Brown. See you next time.