S2: Episode 13: Krutika Patil, BA, MSW, JD: Law & Motherhood

Krutika knew she wanted a career that would mean being helpful to others. What better choice than a career in law? Krutika’s journey included finding out what direction she did not want to go in this field. Interwoven with her career story, as a Child Protection Lawyer, are some of her discussions with her female friends who have gone into Big Law and what that’s like for them. Law as a career choice always seems to go head to head with the concept of work/life balance. For women in particular though, it appears that a career in law is still a very difficult choice when it comes to trying to have it all.

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Transcript

| 00:06 | Welcome to season two of Career Resilience, where we talk with people about their career path and their career journey and maybe we can all learn from each other. My name is Jann Danyluk, and I'm a human resources consultant sent in London, Ontario, Canada. I work with Ford Keast LLP, providing human resources advice and counsel to my business clients. I also support people through individual one on one coaching and helping with career development.

 | 00:32 | I hope you will enjoy our series where we talk with ordinary, extraordinary people. We get to hear about interesting journeys. We get to talk with people about failures, successes, advice and counsel to us as we develop our own careers. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk with these people, and I hope you will enjoy listening to it. And now for some logistics, please subscribe on YouTube. Or if you're a listener, please follow me wherever you get your podcast.

 | 01:01 | And if you have a chance, I hope you'll visit my website. Careerresilience.com. Welcome. My guest today is Krutika Patel. Krutika, welcome to Career Resilience. Thank you, Jann. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so excited you're here. I have so many questions for you and things to talk about.

 | 01:32 | I had to kind of pare it down a bit, actually. But we're going to talk about your career as a lawyer. We're going to talk about the fact that you're a lawyer, but not in a law firm, as people generally think of when they think of lawyers, your experience as a woman of color in your profession. And we're also going to talk about being a mom. So we have lots of really neat things to discuss today. So because this YouTube and podcast channel sort of wanders the globe, I like to sort of position where people are.

 | 02:03 | So where are you located? So I'm in Stony Creek, a small community essentially attached to Hamilton, Ontario. Okay. So near Hamilton Stony Creek. And at the same time, you've done a fair amount of traveling and you even lived other places. So I just thought, why don't we just start with that? Where have you lived or traveled that affected you for sure?
 
| 02:29 | So during my first year of undergrad, a speaker came and talked about something called Lars and Internia Canada. And they talked about how they take students and put them all over the world, working in all sorts of different nonprofit organizations. And I was like, okay, this sounds like something I could apply to and have a fun summer, learn something.

 | 02:57 | So essentially through that, I went to Ukraine and spent three months there, and I worked with adults with developmental disabilities. And it was absolutely transformative. I was super young. And the whole philosophy behind it wasn't that, oh, I'm there to volunteer, to help and to give, but it was just you're there to be with people to experience community fellowships.

 | 03:26 | And they call them enlarged core members. It's not that they're above or below you. You're all the same. You're all equal. And I think a lot of my life decisions going forward from that experience, it just impacted me in such a huge way. And I'm so thankful to have had that experience. And now, obviously, knowing what's going on in Ukraine right now, my heart breaks to think of the family that I live with. We stayed with the host family.

 | 03:56 | They're five children, the mom and dad. My heart just goes out for them, and I hope they're all safe and hopefully this ends very soon. But it's a beautiful country, beautiful people, and it was truly just a transformational experience for me. Yeah. It's sad to see what's going on in our world right now. And it's nice that you had that experience, that you saw it and lived it and enjoyed it.

 | 04:26 | What was your undergrad degree critique? So it was a combination of criminology and English. I really enjoyed the Crim aspect. And the English was I love reading. So I was really just like, I don't get a degree out of reading some great books. And so you went through to become a lawyer when you were growing up? Is that what you said you wanted to be? Not necessarily.

 | 04:55 | I think maybe in high school is about the time where I was like, oh, yeah, maybe this is something I'll do. But even in undergrad, I wasn't 100%. This is it, this is it, this is it. But I knew I wanted to help the world in some way. And eventually the goal, becoming a lawyer and doing international human rights law, that was the big dream. Okay, so that's where you thought you might want to direct yourself.
 
| 05:23 | Tell us about your career moves. What kind of jobs have you held as a lawyer? So during my time in law school, I applied to intern at the United Nations, the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda. And I got that position. And it was just absolutely astounding that I got the position and so thrilled to do it.

 | 05:49 | And again, I spent three months in Tanzania, and unfortunately, while I was there, I realized this isn't actually what I want to do for the rest of my life. And I think a lot of it wasn't so much the work but the personal aspect of it. At the time, I was in a relationship. That individual is now my husband. But thinking about what is the future of this lifestyle in terms of I knew I wanted to have children, the sort of real life, real world implications of all that.
 
| 06:21 | And also when I was there, I realized I'm an outsider from Canada coming to this African nation, and there are so many qualified, smart, passionate people already here to do this work. And they know their community way better than I do. So what this is a visit of mine to come in with my ideas as a Canadian, saying this is how you should do. And this is how you should recover from this and how justice should be administered.

 | 06:51 | So I think I knew, you know what? I need to go back home to Canada and whatever choice in terms of career that I make, it has to be local to my own community. And I think in terms of everyone, I think whatever job you're doing, it you're more impactful. If you know the people and the systems around you, you're better able to position yourself, make change.

 | 07:15 | How fantastic critique is that you have that experience sort of on the ground, as opposed to just sort of thinking theoretically this is what you want to do because you could have gone down quite a difficult path. No, you're totally right. So it was good to have that short opportunity and say, you know what? Actually, this isn't for me and reconsider what it is that I actually wanted to do. Yeah. And yet it formed you and helped you do what you do even better.
 
| 07:45 | That's what I always think about those things, those experiences, everything we do adds up to something that makes us the whole person totally right. So what did you end up doing? I was fortunate to get a position at the Supreme Court of justice in London, Ontario, where I worked with judges and I clerked. So instead of working at a law firm, I worked with the judges doing research, different memoranda’s on law.

 | 08:14 | And then also I had the opportunity to actually sit in the courtrooms. So an area of law that we hardly touched on in law school is child protection law. There's definitely a course on family law, but not so much of a focus on child protection law. And many people don't know this, but child protection law is a closed court. You're dealing with families and especially children. So if you're not directly involved in that matter, you're not allowed to be in that courtroom, even if you're a law student or what have you.
 
| 08:44 | So thankfully, the judges allowed me to be there in that role, and my eyes were opened up to something that I had never even really considered. So I got to see lawyers advocating for both the families and society, which is the children's a society and the Children's Aid society. Their clients were social workers. And while I did my law degree, I also did the Masters of Social Work.

 | 09:11 | And I thought, AHA, this is something that really matches my skill set. And in terms of the kind of law I wanted to do, I was always thinking criminal family, something where I'm in court on my feet, not necessarily business solicitor work where you're doing paperwork. So I said, okay, this is definitely something that I want to do. And I just fell in love with it. How did you fit in, getting your Masters, doing the role, getting your law degree?

 | 09:41 | How did you do all that and stay sane time management. And I think even in high school and growing up, we were always in a lot of extracurricular activities, busy, busy, original kids, like all that sort of thing. So I think it was the pace that I was used to, and time management is super important.
 
| 10:09 | But yeah, you're just in it and you're doing it, and it looks like a little bit of PTSD and you just blocked it out of your mind. You're like, well, it's done now. We've done it. Let's move forward. So when you were going through law school, does somebody sit down and talk about the different types of law there are and what you might consider going into? So for the most part, the University of Windsor was a bit different in that they did really advocate for social justice areas of practice.

 | 10:41 | And also they had the unique combined MSW program, which not a lot of universities offer. So from that standpoint, it was still I was exposed to those kinds of areas and career options. But the pressure to join big law firms is 100% there. So the big law firms would come.

 | 11:06 | They'd have events and speakers and the razzle dazzle of it all, and definitely 80, 90% of my peers, that's what they wanted to do, not necessarily what they wanted to do when they entered their first year of law school, but by the time they were in their second and third year, they had sort of shifted more towards choosing those avenues of long term career. Why do you think that is? I think the pressure is just astounding right.

 | 11:34 | It's just in your face, and this is what it is to be the best, and you've worked so hard, and this is the goal now. Right. Were you ever tempted? Oh, certainly 100%. Did I go to the event? I sure did. And I even interviewed at a few of the bigger law firms in London, Ontario, and I ended up getting the clerkship. So it wasn't something that I had to sort of consider in terms of if that's what I was going to do.
 
| 12:06 | I think law is a very interesting profession, very challenging profession, very grueling profession at times. What adjectives would you put around it as a profession? I'd agree with all of that. I think its very detail oriented. There's a lot of pressure. There's a lot of pressure, whether that's from the client or what. I mean, most lawyers, let's be honest, they were the school valedictorian.

 | 12:34 | They're used to getting a pluses all throughout. Right. So that sort of pressure that we unduly put on ourselves. Right. If it's coming from outside or ourselves, I think those are words for sure that I describe as definitely it's interesting you would say that. I remember talking to a lawyer who said when he started law school, the good speech from the welcome was look to the right of you and look to the left of you.

 | 13:04 | All three of you will be here at the end. And the challenge because people are so that go into law willing. And is it competitive? Would you say they're competitive type people? Oh, for sure. It's competitive just to get into law school. It's competitive just to finish it. And I think it's a culture that thrives on that competitiveness. Yeah. So where it's usually looked to the left and you look to the right of you, one of you will be gone.
 
| 13:36 | I like that all three of you will make it because of the type of people you are that are sitting in this room. But the thing is then to find out what your fit is, I think is the big challenge, right? Yes. So tell me what you do for a living now. So after my clerkship, I got married and moved to Hamilton, and I was unemployed because I was determined to get my dream job as a child protection lawyer for a child protection agency.
 
| 14:09 | I wanted it to be as close to Hamilton as possible. But of course, these jobs usually once they're filled, usually either the person retires or they become a judge. So once you have a job, generally you're in it for a long time. There isn't a whole lot of turnover.

 | 14:29 | So Thankfully, I was able to get a contract position first at Waterloo and then later on in Peel, and then I returned to Waterloo for another contract position, and I was covering at least, you'd see, so people who had gotten jobs and started to have families, and I was so thankful for that experience. And then locally in Hamilton, Ontario, someone became a judge and a permanent position opened up and I applied for it and I got it.

 | 14:59 | So what do you typically do on a day to day basis, or is there a typical day? For the most part, my clients are the social workers, so they'll come to me with questions on a variety of different topics. And if the family situation gets so serious that it does become court involved, then the legal process starts in court, whereby an application is brought before the court. And so the drafting of the legal documents and the affidavits needs to be reviewed.

 | 15:32 | And then depending on how contentious the family situation can be, sometimes you have to argue lengthy motions and trials before the judge to determine the ultimate outcome for that child. How do you separate emotion from it? Because these are kids. No. 100%. And I think that's where my social work background comes in handy, because in law school they don't really tell you about sort of the vicarious trauma that you'll experience.

 | 16:01 | And I'm thinking about even if, say, you're a Crown attorney and you're dealing with or even a defense attorney, a murder, some sort of traumatic event, how do you take care of yourself in terms of that? So those skills I really learned during my Masters and it comes down to the common things that we hear, taking breaks when you need it, having that support system, I'm able to talk to my husband.

 | 16:29 | So that's been huge all throughout. And I think it's important to have those people around you, even your colleagues, to talk to. But those skills, really, they were focused on the social work side of things, but definitely not in law. And I think that needs to change. Do you? Oh, certainly. I think there's this idea that definitely the social workers are in the home seeing the family face to face, and it's more of a direct impact.
 
| 16:59 | But the lawyers involved, it's the same set of facts that you're reviewing. And you do come across the families and the children, sometimes they do appear actually in court, and you're right there with it, living it. Right. So we want to make sure you're taking care of yourself so that you can be better advocate for your clients. We talked about big law, and I just wanted to make sure that we sort of defined what big law is.

 | 17:28 | And that is law firms that have a lot of lawyers probably have a huge diversity of clients and diversity of law practices within their firms. And then we have the more boutique, which is the more niche law firms, and then, of course, solo practitioners, where they sort of dabble in this and that for their clients. So surely you have talked with your friends who went in the different direction that you did.

 | 17:57 | And as you talk to each other, what do you say in terms of this isn't what I expected or this is what I expected for sure. So I'm a planner, so just thinking about what I want to do and how is that going to look with a husband and children and all of that? Right. So I've got female friends who went into law, and I don't think that they actively thought about, okay, fine.

 | 18:26 | Right now I'm a single woman. I've got all the time in the world. I can leap into my work and come home at midnight. And that's totally fine. Right. But I don't know if they really thought out the long term implications of that. So many of them did go to bigger cities in Toronto and are working at the big firms, bringing in the big paychecks and what have you. But now they're also starting to have families, and many of them are now with their experience and taking into account that work life balance, moving more into in house.
 
| 18:58 | So whether that's for major corporations or what have you. But the in house work takes away the pressure, especially working mom, of having to find clients to do the smoothing on the side. And a lot of that smoothing happens late at night on the weekend. That's also the time that you want to be with your children. Right. So it's hard and things are changing, but I think it hasn't totally shifted for sure.
 
| 19:29 | How do you see things changing Krutika. I think some of the bigger firms are taking into account. We do have more women here. And I know a coworker. She was the first one at her firm to get pregnant, and she was the one who had to create the Matley policy. And I thought, oh, my goodness, how shocking is that. This firm that's been around for so long, and even if they did have women, none of those women chose for whatever reason, didn't have children, didn't become mothers.
 
| 20:03 | And she was the first one to do that. The firm was receptive. They weren't saying, no, don't do that. They were open to it. And you hire young women, and you should assume some or all of them are probably going to go on to start families, and therefore, you should have this policy in place. But at the end of the day, she didn't return to that role. She ended up going in house. I wanted to switch to talking about the fact that you're a South Asian Canadian woman, a woman of color.
 
| 20:36 | Have you ever run into any prejudice or any bias or discrimination throughout your career? Nothing outright, nothing that is latent in your face? And then there's always that intersectionality of is it because I'm a woman? Is it because of my cultural background or what have you? Right. So my husband and I will go to meet with our accountant, and he automatically assumes that my husband is the lawyer. Right. Without even you're like, women can be lawyers now, too.
 
| 21:08 | I'm a lawyer. Right. And they're always very apologetic and almost embarrassed. But it's these things that we still see. And I talk about it with my female colleagues all the time that sexism is still very much prevalent. And if a man says something once, fine, the client believes it. But we have to say it two or three times and in different ways in order to be believed. But surprised. Yeah. No, it happens.
 
| 21:38 | I'm sure it's less frequent than before. And it's not as blatant. Right. It's not as blatant, but it's still happening. Yeah. Along with that, you come from a very patriarchal society. How do you think things have changed for your generation in that regard? I think for sure.

| 22:00 | Just again, speaking from my own experience and with friends who are on the same career trajectory, having families and all that, I think, too, a lot of our spouse’s credit, they really are stepping up in terms of the childcare. And it's not you're, the woman you're expected to do, clean the house and make the food and do the kids’ stuff. I'd say for my experience, my husband is 100% an equal partner and all that.

 | 22:29 | And I think at the end of the day, we're both equally exhausted, having full time jobs and taking care of our little ones and all that. So I think that is positive for sure. Are there still gains to be made? 100%. I love that you're both equally exhausted. Okay. So that's a nice segue to moving into the fact that you're a fairly recent mom.
 
| 22:59 | And here in Canada, we can take up to an 18 month Matt leave. Is that what you chose to do or how long was your mat leave? So my mat leave, thankfully, was the full year and a half. And I can say, being in my position, that my employer had no issues with that, I didn't have to even give it a second thought about, should I only do a year? Should I do nine months?

 | 23:28 | What have you? I can say that for colleagues in big law boutique firms, what have you, it's not the same situation. Definitely the pressure. If it's spoken outright, I'm not sure. But definitely, even if there's an unspoken pressure of, okay, you go have your baby and you come back as soon as you can. If that's six months, nine months, but as soon as you can, you need to come back.
 
| 23:57 | And a year, a year and a half, I think in those areas of law would be just laughable career limiting for sure. Yeah. What do you think of that? That sounds kind of discouraged. Yeah. Right. Like it's 2022 and that's where we're at. Right. So it's not fair. And it's more male dominated to write those areas of law. Right.

 | 24:26 | So if there are females, there are fewer of them, and even of those females, the ones choosing to have children or even fewer. And that's why you get often the women moving to other areas of law or leaving the profession altogether. But do you think, though, that women in law are really supportive to women in law? Oh, for sure. There's definitely a bond and a sister there and make your connections.
 
| 24:57 | So that's really good to hear. So you have a daughter, and I think that's lovely. So since we're going to be talking about motherhood, I think it's only fair to talk a little bit about her. What is her emerging personality? What are you seeing there? My husband jokes that she's just a mini me. She knows what she's lost. She's clear, she's articulate about it.

 | 25:26 | She's also too. So that could be a little bit of that, too. But now she's doing just phenomenal. That's lovely. What's unexpected to you about being a mom? What was it that you thought, wow, I didn't realize it was going to be like this. Everyone says that there's the love. You can't describe it and you can't describe it. There are no words. And I remember you saying to me, and it's true, there's the love and the worry.

 | 25:56 | Right. And they come at the same time. And just so much of it. Right. It truly is. Your heart is outside of your body and it's just, wow, that's amazing. Yes. Isn't that wonderful? So I have the three questions I wanted to ask you. The first one is what was the best career advice you received? One piece of advice, but it's all about relationship.

 | 26:25 | So whoever you're dealing with, always be respectful and kind. And even if there are disagreements or conflicts, just rise above it and your reputation is key. Right. So keeping that intact is so important noise doing the honorable thing, even when mistakes have been made to own up to them. And I think that speaks to your character.

 | 26:52 | And even if there's a case and you lose, it's not oh, that you lost its. How did you lose? Did you lose gracefully? Were you credible? Did you do your role in the most passionate way possible? Right. So I think that's really good advice for that. That is excellent. So second, is there a book that you've read that influenced you, your style or what comes to mind for that? So this book I got like I said, I'm a planner.

 | 27:22 | So I got this one. I got into law school, and it's called The Sexual Paradox, Extreme Men, Gifted Women, and the Real Gender Gap is by Susan Pinker. And it talks about not just law, but the gender gaps and divide between men and women. But it talks about even if you're in the classroom, you're in a math class, young girls are doing phenomenal in math. Naturally, they're just picking it up, listening to the teacher doing really well.

 | 27:54 | Then there's the boys who are horsing around like no good. But then you look at high school, University, who's in those math classes, maybe a few women, a few girls. But it's predominantly these rambunctious boys. But as a culture and as a society, how have we allowed that to happen when we have these bright, extraordinary women who are, for whatever reason, choosing not to go into the math, science, law, what have you professions.

 | 28:26 | Right. They're being discouraged in some way. And what's that all about. Right. And then the book also talks about the brain drain in law school and in women choosing careers in law and how they'll work five years or something, and then they'll leave altogether or shift focus or how that happens.
 
| 28:54 | Does it give some solutions to those challenges? It does, a little bit. But I think it's more just for you to think about and say, oh, are you aware what's happening out there? And you think about it. If you think about it from like a young child, there's nothing to say that girls or boys are better or worse than in math. Right.
 
| 29:21 | Or even there are statistics that say young girls are better at reading because of emotional intelligence and what have you been boys. But at the end of the day, who has the more prominent jobs, the more CEOs leadership roles, all that? Its men. Right. So why is that? And what can we do to make it less of a discrepancy? Yeah, that sounds like an interesting read. Thank You For that.

 | 29:50 | And Third, What Advice Would You Give Your Younger Self? Well, My Younger Self That Everything's Going To Be Okay, Not To Worry So Much. Was Your Younger Self A Warrior? Yeah, Warrior. And Just Nervous. You've Put So Much Effort Into Everything. And What If It Just Doesn't Pan Out?

 | 30:18 | For Whatever Reason, I've Always Said Yes To Opportunities And Done That Sort Of A Thing. But You Don't Know When You're Young, Right? And People Say That Even When You're Young, People Say That, Well, Everything's Going To Work Out, But When You're There, You're Just Like, You Don't Know that. Tell Me Young Yourself. It's All Going To Be okay. And I Should Finish Off By Saying You Were On Dragons Den Krutika

 | 30:50 | Oh, My Goodness. Yes. Was that Scary? Honestly, I Was So Young. I Was Just Like, Oh, Cool. Let's Go Pitch Our Dad's Famous Indian Spicy Tomato Soup, And It Was Like A Family Thing, And It Was Fun And We Had A Good Time, But, Yeah, It Was Great. I Think That's So Cool. I've Always Thought that. I Think That's What I Wanted To Ask You About.

 | 31:18 | Is There Anything That You Want To Say Before We Wrap Up? No. Just thank You So Much For This Opportunity, And I Think Anyone Listening, Just Have Faith In Yourself And Don't Give Up. Be Prepared. I Think That's A Good Way To End Off. So thank You So Much For Chatting With Me Today. It Means A Lot. So Two Reviewers And Listeners, Thank You For Joining Krutika And Me Today.

 | 31:50 | I've Known Krutika For Many Years. Since she Was A Kid, When She Was Being Told Everything Was Going To Be Fine. One Memory That I Wanted To Share With Everybody Is I Remember When Krutika And My Daughter KL And I Were Driving Back From Westmount Mall And We Were Singing Build Me Up Buttercup At The Top Of Our Lungs. And If You Don't Know That Song, It's Well Worth Looking Into, Because It's A Fun One To Sing.

 | 32:19 | And It Was A Happy Day, And I'm So Proud Of The Woman That You've Become And The Woman that KL Has Become. I'm Just So Proud Of You. And I Know Your Parents And Your Family Are So Proud Of You, And It's Just Been Delightful To Chat With Krutika Today, So Please Find Us Wherever You get Your podcast. Follow us on YouTube. Please subscribe If You Are So Inclined or Take A Look At My Website Careerresilience.com And Until We Meet Again.

 | 32:52 | Thanks.