Episode 48: Paula W. Hinton
Complex Commercial Litigator and Partner at Winston & Strawn LLP
01:07:15
Subscribe and listen on…
Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Amazon Music | PocketCasts | iHeartRadio | Player.FM Podcasts
Watch Full Interview
Show Notes
The path to success is rarely a straight one. Paula Hinton shares her journey from watching her trial lawyer father in court to trying cases herself. Paula is a Complex Commercial Litigator and Partner at Winston & Strawn LLP, and previously served as a member of its Executive Committee. She offers incredible advice on litigating, leading, and carving your own path. Tune in to hear her chat with host M.C. Sungaila for valuable lessons in law and life.
This episode is powered by LexMachina
Paula W. Hinton
Paula W. Hinton is a lead trial partner in the Winston & Strawn’s Houston office. She serves on the Firm's Executive Committee and as past chair and member of the Firm’s Women's Leadership Initiative. Paula focuses on representing businesses in complex civil litigation. She has represented clients in courtrooms across the country, before administrative agencies, and in international and domestic arbitration forums to resolve a wide variety of disputes. Matters she has handled include those concerning contracts and general business issues, business torts, consumer disputes, environmental issues, trademark issues, trade secret issues, product liability, telecommunications litigation, energy-related litigation, and numerous class actions. Paula received her B.A., M.P.A., and J.D. from the University of Alabama. She is admitted in the Texas and Alabama and before multiple federal district courts, the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Transcript
In this episode, I'm pleased to welcome to the show Paula Hinton, who serves on the executive committee for Winston & Strawn. She is also a world-class trial lawyer, litigator and a leader in so many efforts, both for fostering women in leadership at her firm and also within the American Bar Association. Welcome, Paula.
Thank you. I'm happy to be here.
Thank you so much for joining us. I think that you have so much to share in terms of your career, advocacy skills, trial skills and your overall career in supporting women lawyers as well and what you have accomplished in your career. First, I wanted to start out with the law in general. How did you decide that you wanted to be a lawyer? You probably have a more personal experience with that with your dad, but I would still like to hear the story about how you decided you wanted to go to law school and be a lawyer.
The story is true that I had no free will as to whether I would be a lawyer and where I would go to law school. I was told very early by my father, who was a general practitioner lawyer in Northeast, Alabama, in our hometown of Gadsden, that I would be a lawyer. From the time I was little, I was following him around to the jails, to visit clients on Sunday mornings, sitting in the laps of judges while he tried cases. I knew it was what I wanted to be and what he told me I would be. That was I was at. I was going to be a trial lawyer.
You had a lot of pre-law training there. You don't realize that type of thing, but you can soak that up in a way by seeing the cases be tried, seeing things like that at a very young age and being in that environment. I would think it would give you a real comfort level with it.
That's absolutely true. While he did a lot of criminal work and you saw the human tragedies and the people could get themselves into, he had a very general practice. It was primarily men in my hometown who were the lawyers and the judges. They were such honorable people in the civility they displayed too. They could be fighting out in court during the week in front of the gentleman who was the judge who was in my living room on the weekend, but they treated each other with such respect. It was amazing to see the true advocacy of the positions taken.
That's a real testament to the profession. As we would like to believe, the profession is in our best moments in terms of professionalism, civility and duking it out in the courtroom, but then being able to have a very cordial relationship with people outside the courtroom.
I wish there were more of that now like I saw growing up, but it has improved over the last decade compared to the ‘80s of the Rambo days that some of us remember. It was more like you were in a mud-wrestling fight at every small matter, but civility is in the courtroom is back on the rise.
I forgot about that Rambo litigator term, but yes, I experienced some of that as well, at least in the early-‘90s. That was something else. I'm glad that I have seen the same thing that there's collegiality and an effort to, both by the judges, I would say, but also by the lawyers through local and other bar associations that try to work to encourage that as well and to foster that collegiality with people.
Civility in the courtroom is back on the rise.
The appellate law does not get you anywhere to do that. People still try to be a little bit maybe jerky in some situations, but I don’t know if it advances the ball in litigation generally, but at least people have the perception that it does and it does not get you anywhere when you are advocating in front of a panel of appellate judges. People tend to do it less in that setting. That's when it’s a blessing of doing appellate work primarily.
The Disciplinary Committee has helped with that, too, to pull back on some of the bad behaviors and we often see that. It's much better and it's all wasted energy where it's not personal. That's something to keep in mind when you are doing this. You are doing your job, but it's not personal.
That's a good reminder. Some people will take it and treat it personally and then it can be hard if you are on the receiving end of that, not to take that personally. To some degree, it's happening to you. Someone is doing that. It can be hard to disassociate from that and say, “This person thinks this is effective.” “It's not and it's not about me or something that I did necessarily. It's how they roll, so that's an element of toughness.
I have to tell a funny story. My associates say that apparently, after years of this, I must have developed some coping mechanism for abuse from early on that I have been on many calls and someone will start slinging insults. I hung up and much of it I did not even hear. The associate would say, “I can't blame Paula if you didn’t react.” I said, “I didn’t hear that.”
I'm absolutely convinced whether it was a sexist statement or something incredibly personal. Somewhere along the way, I developed some coping mechanisms to stay in the game that I don't hear it. The associates laugh that if it gets too bad, I don't react and then they have to tell me what was said. There must be some coping mechanism.
You are like, “We can turn off the audio now and come back when it becomes relevant or important.”
Who knows that I do that?
It's funny. You have to have somebody telling you, “Did you?” “No. I did not. I was not processing that at all. In fact, I did not even hear it.” That's a good skill to have. You don't even have to pull back from something like that. I had never heard that, so I don't even need to pull back from it and get some distance. It's all good. When you decided and your father decided that you would go into the law early and that you would be a trial lawyer, which is amazing. I would think there were not a lot of women trial layers at that point in time.
No, there were not. He went to law school and finished with a very great woman lawyer, Camille Cook, who became a Dean at the University of Alabama Law School. Dad had gone to law school right after World War II with a couple of women, but there was no doubt in his mind I would be a lawyer and I would be a trial lawyer, but he did not want me or my brother to practice law with him. He wanted us out and about doing our thing, but we were both and we did both become lawyers.
That's so interesting that he looked at it that way. It’s to make your own mark in that way instead of having the family practice.
He wanted to practice on his own and be his own boss. Who knows, but it works.
That could have been it too. “No, you need to make room. I liked doing this by myself.” You did take a different route because you were have been at different large law firms almost all your career.
This is, after many years, my third. Two at Vinson & Elkins, one at Akin Gump and here at Winston & Strawn, but I did take a different right route what dad would have called two briefcase experts and white-shoe law firms, but he wanted us to do very well and practice at the highest level and go into big law. That's what I did.
Were there many women in those positions at that time or I would say entering big law firms and then being a partner in a big law firm?
No. I finished law school in ‘79 and clerked for a federal judge and studied in Europe International Comparative Law. I came back and moved from Alabama immediately into a big law firm, which did not have in the section that I joined another woman trial lawyer. When I joined this section in 1981, I was the only female trial lawyer in the general litigation group. There was not anything else. There were women in the Antitrust and Security Section, a handful, but not in the general commercial lit. They were not there.
I interviewed for the show Patricia Hunt Holmes who was at Vinson & Elkins for a long time on the transactional side, but she said that there are not a lot of women in those settings either. I assume you overlapped with her.
I think she came much later than me because she went back to law school after. Her girls were born and all. I did overlap with her but maybe a decade after me. I was not lonely, but I was alone.
I think about it that way too. To some degree now, I would have thought, either it's a luxury or it's not a reality to expect that you would see a lot of women in those positions because it was not happening or it had not happened yet. If you waited for there to be a critical mass, you would never move forward. You put your head down and do it even if there are not a lot of women in that setting. You go ahead and do what it is you want to do. I think that there are more of us. It's nice that people can get some role models, but I thought about it in the early-‘90s when I entered practice and I could not wait for that because you have to make your own path.
You have the other women ultimately and more and more started appearing as the ‘80s went on and into the early-‘90s. You also had supportive young men too. These men were some of the first who had gone to law school classes with more women starting and so there were great young male friends among the group who being in the office next to a woman wasn’t a big deal. It was different from the older men, but for your peers, they were very supportive.
I have benefited from a lot of very supportive male colleagues and mentors too, who were happy to provide opportunities so you could show your stuff. If you are good, they are happy to have you on the team. It helps everything go well. There is no issue if you are delivering at a high level.
In those firms, you had to in order to survive. It was an interesting time and it got better and better. As you went on, you began to see what obstacles confronted you with perceptions about women being incapable of being trial lawyers, particularly if they were mothers.
That is another aspect here. There's entering and being in the trial lawyer group, but they are different. I remember having that feeling too that I had never experienced, thankfully, that sense that there are limitations because of your gender. It did come at a certain point, whether it's a partnership or more senior levels in firms, that you felt there might be a little difference here in how people view these decisions, I would say several years ago.
I remember someone looking at me years ago and saying, “You have to make a decision. Are you going to be a trial lawyer or are you going to be a mother?” I said, “I don't think those are mutually exclusive. Why in the world would that be mutually exclusive?” They said, “I could not decide to be a good golfer, but then if I spend all the time learning to be a golfer, I can't be a great trial lawyer.” I was like, “How could you possibly compare motherhood and procreation to learning to play golf? Being a mother does not make you incapable of being a trial lawyer.” Back in the late-‘80s, early-‘90s, there were beliefs that you could not do both. I know you don't accept that and I didn’t accept that. It made no sense to me.
I think true in terms of people thinking that long hours, single-minded devotion and all of that stuff is the only way to do it, shall we say, but that’s not true.
I do think choosing your partner well is critically important and that you have to choose your partner well. You also have to remember that the most valuable thing you have is time and that you can outsource a lot of the things that can give you more time for work and family. That's what I did. A support structure is critically important and I married well.
I have a very supportive husband in that regard too. That's critically important to this day is you can't be all things all the time. I had someone ask me, “Your group seems to have a great work-life balance,” and I said, “No. There's no balance. This is called work-life management. The balance will make you feel guilty and shame all the time. Always remember, we’re managing as best we can.”
That's a good description of the balance term because wherever you are, it means you are feeling badly that you are not in the other part of your life. If you take that out of the equation because sometimes there is not any balance. There's that one time that something takes precedence and something else does. I think about it as, “You can't have literally all of the things 100% and at exactly the same time. You can have them all, but not at 100% going 60 miles per hour at exactly the same time. You have to manage them.
We need to eliminate the word balance from the vocabulary for not just women lawyers, but in general, and think about how am I going to best manage this for me and all the pieces of my life? You will be much happier. I have been.
That's part of the longevity question or equation, too, is being able to do that because if you are not fulfilled in a broader way, it's eventually going to impact no matter how meaningful the work is that you are doing. All of the other things in your life and your humanity can impact that and if you are not having those parts of your life or feeling that they have some meaning as well, then there are only so many times you can be on one track and only that track.
It’s not personal. That’s something to keep in mind when you’re doing this. You’re doing your job, but it’s not personal.
You need to avoid that terrible monster called bitterness. It will eat you up. That's why I say, “Never reach that point. Figure out how to manage the situation because nobody benefits home or work if you work yourself into a state of bitterness and anger.” It's hard or that you feel like you are a failure because you are not a failure. You are human. We are all humans doing the best we can.
The decisions in that regard are important. Your partner's decision is very important in terms of your life overall but can accomplish what you want to accomplish in the legal arena. Part of that, too, is recognizing, as soon as you can, the importance of maintaining your independence to be able to make those kinds of management decisions in your own life. One of the ways you do that is to have clients and have people who work with you. You bring to the firm and that you have clients you enjoy and you have relationships with, which make your work more meaningful and gives you a little more autonomy and independence within the firm framework.
One thing women have trouble with and one of my mantras to women and men, is to always remember, “You are the boss of you who will decide further actions.” We’ve all been guilty of this. I wish I had listened to my advice years ago that I give now because we see ourselves defined by others rather than realizing we control what happens to us. This job does not define us as human beings and we get to choose the path we go forward on.
Sometimes you lose sight of that and it's very powerful if you remember that to look potentially for other opportunities if something is not working to figure out, “How can I make this better?” Maybe it is partly me. Maybe it is partly the external factors and internal factors, but how do I take all that recognizing some of this may be me and finding something that's better where I am the boss of me. No one is going to decide if I'm retiring, quitting or whether you become a partner or not. You make those choices and that's hard to realize you keep that control because it does not feel like it when you are a young lawyer.
No, it does not because you also feel like there are set expectations or there are certain things to achieve. That vision of what success looks like is a very clear check-off-the-box thing that people do, especially within a big firm environment. You have that concept even of thinking that, “I get to decide what success looks like for me. I'm not going to be different at different points in time.” It’s something that is almost revolutionary for some people who did not think that way.
It’s important to have that thought. Even in our time in practice, things have changed too, in terms of people are much more mobile and are starting to think that way independently for themselves. The firms need to know that in order to retain talent as well and be open to allowing people to have success in different ways that they might envision. It might look different for them, but you might want to foster that if you want to retain your talent.
People get surprised as I say, “My success and my career have not been a straight line.” A door may close and a window may open, but let's look at some of the most successful people, men and women in professions, law or business. If you look and read about them, their paths have not been straight. They have had sideways moves and then up and down. The year I was up for partner, I had my son back in 1988. I did not make partner that year. I could have sat around in another year or two, but I felt I deserved to be a partner. I left the firm I love and went to another firm who offered me a full partnership at that point in time.
That was my choice, but it was a setback and a terrible, painful disappointment, but I had to say, “I know what the path for me is,” and there's this other opportunity. It is painful and hard, but more of us have not had a straight path and I don't think you and I know many people who have had a straight path. You need to tell that story to the young men and women that it may not be a straight path, but that does not mean you are not going to be extremely successful and fulfilled in this profession.
One of the threads in the tapestry from this show has been very successful people who have done impactful things with their careers. There's either been failures that people need to overcome or there have been challenges you might not even know about for people. It is valuable to talk about those and to share those because everybody has them. As you said, it's not a straight path. It's a zig-zaggy path or something else.
Even more than that, you may think you know where the path is leading, but it leads somewhere else entirely because of all of your different experiences together. It might be the perfect end to that path that you didn’t see at the beginning, but only having gone through some of the challenges that where you come out to a different place and that turns out to be the highest and best use of all of your skills and your personality.
It’s probably where I developed my coping mechanism of not hearing bad things, but I think we need to talk about that more because it shocks me how many young people think successful people like you and others that you are talking to that it's been this rosy straight path to great success. I can't name three off the top of my head who have had a straight path without setbacks. That's one of the things I think is important to convey in this. Whether it's personal or professional, I don't like the word failure either. It’s disappointments or setbacks.
In the business world, there is, fail fast, fail often and move ahead. I don't know that failure necessarily either. That's a lot, especially for lawyers, to think of it that way, where we have to be so precise. Detours or other things, suffering leads to growth very often. I think that sometimes there are challenges that you overcome. In the course of that, you grow as a person and you gain a lot more.
Honestly, there are some things in my experience that I look at and go, “That was awful at the time,” but if that had not happened, I would not have gained that skill of not hearing when people do that.” Something that you realize like, “I got stronger from that and that also helped me accomplish things in the future because I was a stronger person.”
You and I know not making a partner in a big law firm for sure does not make you a failure. That is not a failure. That is governed by so many different factors that may have nothing to do with you. It may be the business need, it may be so many other things and making sure people know. It sure feels like a failure when it happens. There are so many reasons that might not happen and there are so many other opportunities out there.
There’s so much respect for people who see that and go, “This is what I want. I do want to be a partner. If that means, unfortunately, that I need to go somewhere else where someone will provide me with that opportunity, then that's what I will do instead of feeling sorry for yourself and waiting around for maybe next year or something like that at the firm that they are at.” I think of that in terms of you having to value yourself and value where you want to go and what you want to do. Sometimes that requires picking yourself up off the floor and looking around like, “Are there other places that I could do that at?”
I would have never imagined when I did that. If I had not done that, I would not be the trial I am now because I went to the small office of a big firm where I had much more opportunities to be the lead trial lawyer for thirteen years. I handled matters that would likely have been handled by someone more senior than me in the mothership office.
Serendipitously, it turned out if that had not happened, I would not have had the opportunity to try the cases and do what I did over that period because I was in a smaller place. Some people go to the US Attorney's Office to get that experience. You never know what that next opportunity is going to be that leads to growth. Keep moving forward. Maybe it's three steps backward and four steps forward, but you may hit rock bottom. What's the old country music song? “You have two ways to go sideways or straight up.”
Sometimes you can't see beyond the next step, but you so needed to take the next step and keep moving ahead. Sometimes you have these unexpected blessings from it, as you mentioned, “Being in this environment provided a number of other opportunities,” because of how that office was set up and that you were talking about more opportunities to get more trial chops, which is great.
It's hard, but we keep moving forward.
There's a clip-clop like you are on the horse and you clip-clop. Sometimes that's all you can do is think about the one step ahead and that's okay as long as you keep moving forward. Things will get better if they are tough now.
That's the difference between an appellate lawyer and a trial lawyer. I think of it as like a shark. You have got to keep moving to stay alive. You have a stepping horse and I think as a trial lawyer, I’ve said I'm like a shark. I keep moving to stay alive.
That is a difference between trial and appellate. I'm like, “Stay steady, keep going, be careful and all this stuff,” which reveals right there the difference between the trial and appellate lawyers. We both are our personalities. We found our right fit. You can tell. I remember when I decided to be an appellate lawyer was, I like the part in trials where you could talk to the judge, which was arguing motions and legal things. I then felt badly when people were cross-examined and they were shredded apart by great trial lawyers. I felt badly for them as a fellow human and I thought, “You are not a trial lawyer because that's a different perspective.” I could not do it. I could not cross-examine people because I felt badly for them. Good thing that I found appellate. That's a good fit.
I don't feel badly for them.
You have to feel that way. You couldn’t do your job.
Tell the truth as I say to associates prepping witnesses, “You make sure that this is in their head and they know what the facts are because they are going to be asked about it again. Be sure this is their story and they will be on a stand and we don't want our witnesses shredded on cross-examination.”
What tips do you have for lawyers who want to go into trial work and get experience, training, and things like that? What would be your top tips for that?
The biggest opportunity quickly is pro bono. It’s trying to find some good pro bono opportunities. We tried a case during COVID on a Hague convention child kidnapping case out of Venezuela and two young associates. I supervised, but they got to take depositions. They got to present the witnesses live at trial. They got to stand on their feet in front of the judge and that was all in a pro bono opportunity.
Unfortunately, the opportunities for standup trial work are few and far between, but working with your pro bono department about finding those opportunities in that way is critically important. You have great lawyers who step aside and go into the US Attorney's Office for a while to get some real immersion in that. You have to look for it. It will not come to you. My advice is back to be the boss of you.
To be intentional about what experiences you want or where do you think you need to fill the skill gap and how you can possibly do that. I'm a big promoter pro bono in general, but also for newer lawyers, it's a great opportunity. One of the things I love is teaching in law schools and teaching in clinics. The clinics are so widespread now that if students are even intentional in law school, they can graduate with some real-world advocacy experience. Especially in appellate, they could graduate saying, “I argued an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.” There are many practitioners who have never done that or have been practicing for years and have not had that opportunity.
It's such a great way to get experience in law school and also to make it frankly easier for the people you work with later to give you more opportunities. For example, if you can say to a client, this is not my first argument or my first trial. You are going to be in a better position to say, “This person has done this before. Maybe it was once before, but they have been there in the trenches and they can assist on certain things.” It gives you a leg up in opportunities in non-pro bono settings as well to say, “Here's my credit. Here's what I have done already.”
That's a great point and I'm making mental notes about making sure with summer clerks and all that you check on their clinic experience work. That is a great point.
It's good. It's a way to help yourself, as he said, “Be the boss of your career early.” It gives you a great experience. I am intentional about pro bono with associates. If they are already not, I will say, “These are some skills. At this point, you should be developing and we are going to have to find a way for you to do that and maybe a pro bono case is the way to do that. Also, you are doing good while you are doing it, so it's a win-win all around.”
We need to make it that way.
Instead of a challenge for some people, “Why are you doing this pro bono?” You have to recognize the value of that. Nothing many firms do in terms of training and especially as you mentioned during COVID, some places have been having trials to other places or have not been having trials and so there's this potential gap in development for associates.
There's a gap in big law anyway. We were all working on trying to fill that. You have trial lawyers behind us.
We both reached that spot where we are like, “We know we will be doing this for a while longer, but we want to think about what is the next group in our practice will look like? I want to make sure they are trained well and they are going to do a great job and be ready to take that up.”
Succession planning is critical and I find not enough people think about that, but succession planning is critically important and that it needs to be more intentional for the growth of those behind us, but you and I don't plan to go anywhere anytime soon. As I say, “Why would I retire? I have to clean my closets.” This is a lot more fun and I enjoy it, but we do need to think about the group behind us and make sure they are given the opportunities.
It's a long-term game in terms of making sure that happens. You can't turn around and do that in a year or two. You want to make sure that there's a good pipeline and that you have been paying attention to that over a long period of time.
Your clients and your firm appreciate it. They know you have lieutenants who can step in at a moment's notice and I appreciate that in case I decide I want to go away for a week or two when there's someone who can cover. It's going to work for everybody.
That's an important reminder for people, too, in terms of themselves. When you think about succession planning within the firm environment and the management environment, but also you can say, “In your practice group or in your team, you want to think about that too.” You served on the firm's executive committee and served in bar leadership positions. What do you think you have learned from those? Is there anything that you learned that maybe surprised you?
I'm going to start with the executive committee and what I have learned in leadership positions in our firm. I think that has made me a better listener, honestly. With all of the issues you deal with, the competing interests, the economics of the firm environment and the business world and listening to other people's views.
I have the advantage of being a senior woman to who I will speak out to. I think my fellow executive committee members know none of it's personal, but it can be controversial. On the bar activities, when you get down to the state level or the national level, you get a cross-section of people with very diverse views and interests and perspectives, getting outside the big firm ivory tower to see what's happening in the smaller firms and what's happening in the nonprofit arena? What are the struggles? What are the needs? That has been invaluable.
The bar associations, particularly the ABA, had provided me with a set of women friends who are all over the country and they are my safe place. It is my board of directors. We have served for a decade-plus all from different firms, different geographic regions to bounce things off of each other in a safe way. Compare notes on similar experiences and deal with how does one go ask for more money? How does one deal with this difficult client?
The bar activities have had truly been my personal board of directors. I even have a text group. We call ourselves the ABA Squad of women. We communicate almost daily on issues in this safe place of checking on each other, how we are doing and whether we can help each other on a personal and a professional basis. Having an external support group of people who understand has been invaluable for me too.
I have heard that from the ABA, too and there are a lot of connections like that from the time working with the ABA and having those kinds of connections. The other thing is what you mentioned, which is not only getting outside of the firm that you are in but being exposed to a number of different types of practice and practice settings and getting a much wider sense of what it means to practice law at this time and where the stresses are in different settings and where the positives are.
At least at the local level, in particular, you feel like, “I know a cross-section of the bar from our leadership instead of practicing civil litigation or even civil appeals. We see a certain group, but we are not going to see DAs, public defenders or necessarily, not nonprofits or even smaller firms or solo practitioners. It's good to have that, especially if you are in a leadership position for the bar. You want to have a good understanding of all of the members of the bar and what their needs might be.
You find with these groups, too, that you find particularly among the women, their paths mostly have not been straight paths. The big firms, small firms, in-house government work, their paths, and you see other people going for different opportunities. It makes you listen more to the different types of people coming from different geographic areas and political views to keep your mind open. We sit in our office tower in Houston, Texas, 24/7 and I see the same people all the time. I'm not growing and not understanding what the thoughts are, which is also important for me doing trial work and going before trials. I need to know what people are thinking up and down the political and personal spectrum. You need empathy.
When you were describing that, I was thinking, “That's particularly invaluable for trial work because you need to have that connection.”
Yes. I do and because the connection I like is the human connection. The appellate lawyers scare me. You all are so formal.
It may not be a straight path but that doesn’t mean you’re not going to be extremely successful and fulfilled in this profession.
A few of us could be friendly. That's a good skill for your litigation work as well. It gets back to that management of your life part too. You want to be open to other perspectives and other things because maybe there's something else that you might pursue, which you would not know about if you were in your ivory tower there. If you wanted to do a zig or zag in your career, you wouldn’t know whether that would be something that you might be interested in if you did not know anyone who had ever done that before or what was involved in that work.
Also, to see the actual success of it. That's what bar work has done for me. Surprisingly, I will be interested to know what my fellow executive committee members think when I tell them they have made me a better listener. I wonder if they will believe that.
It would be interesting to see. Everyone's perspective is different. You are like, “This is what I have learned. I have learned to be a better listener.” We will see what they think in terms of whether you have progressed enough on the listening part.
I'm not stretching it, but I am a better listener.
In everything we do, we get new skills and add them to our tray of options that we have. Sometimes there are unexpected things. That might not be expected, but someone would think to gain from that. Being a better listener is a great skill. It's a good skill to add to all of your other skills.
The hardest skill I had to learn and wish I had learned it years sooner was not taking it personally. That is the hardest thing I think as we talked about in whether it's for politics or whether it's a dispute in a case is not to take it personally and I don't take it personally anymore, but I know it took me a long time to reach the point of this is not personal.
How did you do that? First, you have to recognize, “This is not about me. It's not some personal thing. It's something else, but then how do you let that fall off your back in terms of not even getting to the point where you are like, “It's not personal.” It's almost like you don't even have to think that first anymore. How did you know that?
I don't know. I think it was a process of having good people I worked with and senior people who would say, “Those are just words. They don't define you as a human being. You know who you are.” Over time, you start believing that, particularly with more confidence. You don't get in your car at the end of the day still anguishing over some phone call you had with a jerk on the phone. It's se fue, as they say in Spanish. It's gone. You have rid yourself of that and retaining it does not serve any purpose. It took me a long time to do that.
I was asking because that is a hard thing. Women, in particular, hold onto stuff. If it's a group text or a phone call, “Can you believe this happened?” We share that to get it out, but I see my male colleagues will go have a beer like it happened and move on. They don't have to go through that, but we do. We tend to move through it and getting to a point where you don't do that, at least as much. For me, I feel like it was a moment where it happened, but it was built over many years.
I say I wear an imaginary bracelet that has the letters WWMD, What Would a Man Do? A man would not think a thing about it. It would be over. I'm free of it. It almost is you realize you have reached that point, but it took a long time to get there that this is not going to eat away at you, at 2:00 in the morning where you wake up reliving the conversation. You don't do that anymore. That is so freeing and takes away so much self-doubt, which women are inclined to anguish about it. “It must have been me and self-doubt,” but let it go and move on and get the job done at the next step.
It was like a moment where we were like, “I don't do that anymore.” It was nice to see that, but many years of working towards that and then it happened. I think about that, “What would a man do?” I used to do that when people would call and offer opportunities for things that maybe you had not exactly done. We are very good about checking off all the super qualified boxes to do that. I’m called for cases where I'm like, “I have done something like that, but not exactly.”
I remember one time when a CEO called me and wanted to hire me for something. I thought to myself, “What would a man do?” A man would say yes and then figure out all the steps and like the team, he needed in place to do it. I'm like, “That's what I'm going to do.” I said yes and then I would figure it out instead of like, “I could, but I would have to do that. No. Nobody wants to know about that. Can you get it done?” “Yes.” “If you are confident about that, say yes and move forward.”
That did not come naturally to you or to me. We had to train ourselves to do that. Fighting to say, “Yes. I can do that.” “Yes, you can do it.” I had my little imaginary bracelet and every now and then, we all needed to look down at think, “I can't do this.”
A couple of times where I remember having that flash where you are outside yourself and you are like, “What would a man do in response to this?” Do it. Don't guess. Don't say all the things that you need to have in place to make it happen. Do it later.
You are smart and you will figure it out.
Have that confidence that you will.
I have lots more confidence now than I did many years ago, but that's a good thing. I thought I was confident then, but I'm confident now.
There's inner confidence and strength that’s there all the time that comes from years of experience.
It’s survival.
I think of it as experience, but yes. You have been through some trials, some challenges and through the fire and you realize, “I am still here. I may not enjoy it, but I could do that again.”
You have raised a teenage boy and he turned out fine. Raising a teenage boy does teach you, “It's not all about you.” They are not thinking of you.
That's true. You get some good insights from that. You are like, “No.”
That man is not thinking about you after he insulted you on the phone. He is totally over it. That was also liberating instead that you did see how amazing the difference between male and female brains and watching teenage boys bring develop. I remember as teenage girls were all thinking they were thinking about us, they were intentionally ignoring us.
No, they are not. We are not even crossing their mind. They are not being mean. It's just that's not how it works. Learning to let it go for women is a learned behavior. It comes naturally to men and I don't know the reason for that. I don't know if it's science or social interactions, but it's true. I have learned it now and I give my son credit for helping me learn it. Let it go.
It's so interesting because, like you said, you saw it in action, in development. You are like, “He's moving on and not thinking about that.” There's something to learn from that too.
Yes. I give him all the credit for that.
It's good to be open to all kinds of learnings within your family, outside your family and all of that. Especially raising a teenage boy has its own set of challenges. I also think about a young girl to have physically testing everything. That's what I noticed with my godson and things like that. There will be all these stories about like he's up on the roof or he's doing various things at a very young age. I'm like, “What were you doing?” “I was checking it out.” I had to test everything physically because that's how I'm engaging with the world at this point. It’s so different from girls of the same age.
I have a granddaughter now. I will see how she turns out. If she's like me, who knows what she will be like.
Do they live near you so you are able to see your granddaughter?
They are over in Tennessee. I get over when I can, but they are little. I had a chance to make another imprint or ruin that. It’s one or the other.
I wanted to wrap up with a little lightning round of questions. I will ask you a few of those if you are ready. Which talent would you most like to have, but you don't?
I wish I played the piano very well. That's what I wish I did.
Do you play not very well?
I took lessons as a child and I was okay, but I wish I were a beautiful piano player. I would love to do that.
When I was young, I wanted to play the harp and my parents said, “Choose an instrument that can fit on the bus basically to go to school. The harp is not it.” It was the violin. I never have been into violin, but on my list still someday is the harp. I have added to that the drums, which I also am interested in playing. I would be in a rock band and some classical music concert someday. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself and then what's the trait you most deplore in others?
You just never know what that next opportunity is going to be that actually leads to growth so just keep moving forward.
The one in myself is impatience. I'm impatient to get things done and be done with it. In others, what I deplore is gossip and meanness. I don't like that. I call it my Southwest rule, no talking bad about each other. No gossiping. I hate that. I deplore it. Deplore is probably the better word, but I don't like gossip.
When they say, if you can say it to someone's face, say it, but if not, don't talk about it. Who are your favorite writers?
My favorite writer, I have to say, was my mother. She was a librarian and an English teacher and wrote articles. In fact, she wrote a book about her childhood for my son's high school graduation called Dear David, which is a series of essays about her life. My mother is my favorite writer.
What a nice gift.
She said he does not need anything, so she published a book of essays about her life growing up in a small cotton mill town in Northeast Alabama in the ‘20s and ‘30s with four brothers. She self-published it and gave it to him for his high school graduation.
That's also something that we don't ask people enough to share their family stories or personal history. That's such an awesome gift in that regard too. Who is your hero in real life?
Other than obviously my son, he is always my hero for surviving me as a mother. He made it through and did well. I would say my current hero is probably Hillary Clinton for her grit and surviving through what she has survived and staying true to herself. Whatever it may be, without concern about the judgment of others. That would be my hero. That is Sonia Sotomayor. I love her spunky opinions.
Given the choice of anyone in the world, who would you invite as a dinner guest?
Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton would be great and add Oprah to it. Would that be great for a conversation and to listen to that exchange?
That's a great combination. I like that inviting the dinner guests like not to be limited to one, but it's the collection of them that would be in itself interesting to have that and all of them.
I would want to see the dynamics to see the conversation. We know we would not have to lead the conversation. We could watch and listen.
That would be the great part. You are like, “I want to see you all and hear you all interact and watch this.” For what in life are you most grateful?
Probably my education. That's what I'm most grateful for. A debt-free education, as my father said, “No one is getting rich off my dang, but I will educate you all without debt.” Particularly, I see how invaluable that is and what opportunities it's given me.
It does. It changes things in terms of what your options are early in your career and where it goes from there. It is a gift to have that be the case. The last question is, what is your motto if you have one?
My motto, I think the associates would say, is, “I often start sentences with a mentoring moment where I will then give them a one-liner,” and my motto is usually, “In times of crisis, stay calm and eat the elephant one bite at a time.” I'm pretty well-known, and in fact, I have a book that when I left VE and came to Winston, a group of associates and staff did a book that's called Paula's Mentoring Moments. They sent me this book of saying I have had over the years, but staying calm and eating the elephant one bite at a time is critically important personally and professionally.
That solves a lot of issues. You can only work on one part of it at a time, so address that and move ahead. If you look at the whole issue, sometimes it's so big that you don't even get started.
You freeze and I'm a bad procrastinator. I have to think of it in small bites.
I was going to ask you about that, too, in terms of procrastination. That's also a good antidote to the procrastination question.
I'm a terrible procrastinator. I have to think about eating the elephant and bite at a time.
It's a good thing for more complex tasks, but also on the procrastination and it's helpful. It's so nice to know that you have the mentoring moment that people did read to that and that they collected your wisdom, and you are making a difference in that regard.
I went back and read it. My old secretary found it. She had a copy of it and sent it to me. I have it over here on my desk and I was going back and reading from all of these different people what their favorite mentoring moments were. I loved it. I thought, “Did I say that? Yes, I did.”
I was going to ask you if, in looking at it, whether you are like, “I said that? I don't know.”
Some of them, I did say that. Some of that I was pretty proud that I did say and others I'm like, “I wonder what that was in the context of.”
It's good to know that you have had an impact and will continue to have an impact, as we said on the people coming up and then the next crop of trial lawyers and litigators. Obviously, you are very warmly regarded for them to put together that book as well. That's must be gratifying to you.
It is and my last funny story is you have gone to the Texas Center for Women in Law event every other year. I had it before COVID and a young woman walked up to me and she said, “I don't know if you remember me. I was an associate of yours at Akin Gump and you gave me the best piece of advice.” She's with a big entertainment company in Los Angeles now. She said, “I never will forget your advice.” I'm thinking, “What was that?” She said, “You told me in a firm social event, any social event never had more than two glasses of wine and that has served me well ever since I met you.” I'm like, “If that's the one piece of advice I gave that helped a woman exceed and succeed in her goals, never have more than two glasses of wine at a social event.”
You are like, “I thought it was going to be some deep and insightful thing. It's very practical.”
I was so amused by that and wondered in what context I had given that advice several years ago.
“How did I come up with that?”
It’s probably good advice.
It sounds like you want to keep your wits about you. That sounds like a very good advice in that setting.
She had walked away and years later she's seeing me and that's what she wants to tell me the best piece of advice was. Go figure.
Just stay calm and eat the elephant one bite at a time.
You are having an impact even when you don't know you are in that regard. A lot of us are that way. I think about that in the mentoring space of a lot of people who have done very nice things, very kind things, for me and others in their careers. Probably most of the time, we don't even know that because they are there in the room where decisions are being made. They are saying positive things or providing opportunities for you when most of the time don't know it but can appreciate it in your career. Other times, you give very pragmatic advice but very helpful advice to others. It's nice to know that they use that to help them in their careers.
You asked, what am I most proud of other than my son? I will have to tell you that I got an award that I am the most proud of anything I have ever received. I was given the Texas Minority Council Program Lifetime Achievement Award for diversity support. I was blown away. In terms of all the things that you would consider, that is one that touched my heart. It came in the mail, but the event had to be canceled due to COVID. It is the award I'm most proud of and most shocked about, at this point, that organization would recognize me for a lifetime achievement in diversity. We keep fighting. We keep working forward.
Leading up to that, it's not entirely surprising, given the mentoring book that you recounted as well, that you are having an impact on a lot of individuals and a lot of the people you are mentoring are adding to the diversity of the profession as well.
Who knew and be careful about what you say, because it can come back to you.
Good things come back to you too. When you are sowing positive things, they come back to you. I think of that award as being one of those things that you have sown some very positive seats in that regard. It's nice to be recognized for that.
It’s a great honor. I was stunned but very pleased that I got it. I thought I should mention that because it is the award I'm most proud of.
Why are you most proud of that one, do you think?
I am a product of the Deep South. A White woman product of the Deep South and raised during the civil rights era with very liberal parents, but still, in the Deep South. To have this organization that focuses on diversity, not gender, but diversity, to recognize the work I believed I had done over the course of my life and profession in the sphere of diversity and that it added value.
It was surprising to me when so many people have done so much more. I guess I did more than I realized, but I don't know. I will find out, but it was a great honor. It's because that work is so important and I have such respect for that organization and the previous recipients. That's a side note, but somewhere somebody does notice over the course of decades.
Congratulations on that award and also being the cumulative impact of your work in that area.
We will keep at it but thank you for including me in this show. I love this show and this notion. Thank you for launching it and adding it to all the other things you do.
It's getting a life of its own at this point, which is nice to see. We will see where it goes from here, but thank you so much for joining the show and for being a part of it, Paula.
I enjoyed it and we will talk soon. I hope.
Thank you so much, Paula.