Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
How elite lawyers make decisions.
Khurram Naik (00:00)
Okay. Tim, I am very excited to have you back on the podcast. Your podcast was definitely one of the most unusual ones that I've had. And I really love the worldview that you're building here and I'm looking forward to revisiting with some new lessons from the past couple years and explore what's top of mind for you.
Timothy Yoo (00:22)
Thanks for having me again, Horam. I really enjoyed our last discussion and I'm looking forward to part two.
Khurram Naik (00:28)
Part two. Okay, so in our last episode, I really loved the ways you talked about the role of performance. think the big picture takeaway I took away from that is...
Um, pass a certain point of, of skill as a litigator or a lawyer generally it's beyond the substance and the rules and transcends that into, uh, there's a dimension of, uh, performance. There's a dimension of persuasion. And that's really where you're starting to live beyond what does this case say? And, uh, you know, what's the proper way to get this admission or whatever.
So to build on that, I want to pick up on this concept that you recently shared. And it's this concept that performance doesn't start when you say good morning, your honor. you tell me about that?
Timothy Yoo (01:27)
Absolutely. So yeah, when we talk about performance, really, you know, I'm not suggesting that we be inauthentic or there's like some, you know, sort of false performative aspect of it. I'm really thinking about it in the sense of, let's say like a concert performance or somewhat topical now the Olympics are going on. So how are you going to perform in that moment? Whether it's like a figure skating routine or whether it's like a, snowboard half pipe, uh, performance literally like you need to do. Uh, what's called for in that situation and how are you preparing yourself?
for that moment. And the way I think about it is we really need to, especially as trial lawyers, I think we really should think about what are all the things that go into that moment, right before, like you mentioned, whether it's 9.30 a.m. or 10 a.m., you walk into the courtroom, you're sitting down at counsel's table, and the judge says, would you like to address the jury, Mr. I think if you back out,
sort of the weeks and the months before that, you really have to think about all of the things that you're doing to get ready for that moment. At least in my opinion, I think that's important. So the way I look at it is basic. The first thing I think about is how am I going to feel in that moment? What are the things that are going to be as a human being physiologically? What are you going to be feeling? There's going to be certain levels of.
cortisol, there's going to be adrenaline, there's going to be a lot of things that are just like coursing through your body in that moment. So I think it's important to think about those as well. So when I say the performance doesn't just start, you know, at go, it starts before that. I'm thinking about, you know, have I done the adequate ⁓ preparation in terms of obviously the substance of what you're going to say and then the evidence that you've prepared and are ready to present.
Those are obvious. These are things that you've already done, presumably. But I'm meaning more towards, have you really thought about how are you gonna say things? In what order? Where are you gonna put the inflections? How is that gonna come across? So I think a lot of that comes from, obviously for me, my process begins a few weeks out or a few months out, ⁓ but more practically speaking, probably a few weeks out when I know exactly, let's say, when I know the opening statement is going to occur.
Then I'll back out, let's say two weeks, and I will, in my living room, I'll have my wife, probably my oldest child there, sitting on the couch, watching me go through this process of just, at first it starts out as a riff of my opening statement, and then it'll get refined further and further as I approach the trial date. But for me, that's an important part of my process because I know that I want to be able to, at the very beginning,
I have an idea directionally where I'm headed with the things I want to say and how I want to say them and how I want to order them. And that just helps me do it ⁓ toward the trial date is having a set process of what I know I'm going to be doing every night in the lead up to that trial.
Khurram Naik (04:36)
Yeah, I think that's that's valuable because I think a lot of lawyers are thinking about they think about like you're saying they're thinking about, okay, what evidence do I need to get in, you know, so that that's that's trial. But I think, let's say in a recruiting context, I find in a number of times lawyers say, oh, I'll just, you know, I'll just negotiate with this firm, I okay, what are you gonna do?
What exactly are you going to say? When are going to say it? How are you going to frame it? And so I think there's any number or any number of times where you think, okay, well, I'll just approach a friend to go to this room, like, okay. And so thinking about the end game where, you you will accept only one offer and decline all others. What's it going to feel like to decline that offer?
to someone that you know, like how is that gonna feel? So there's ⁓ definitely an emotional dimension and then a tactical dimension to these moments that people aren't necessarily thinking through. And so what do you attribute that to? Why isn't people aren't thinking about the emotions they're gonna be feeling in a moment and working back to that?
Timothy Yoo (05:42)
Yeah, it's a good question because I I think to your point, if you put the more foresight that you put into something, the more that you plan out, hey, I'm going to have like this type of physiological reaction or I'm going to feel this way. And then you sort of try to almost take that aspect out of it. I think you're better served because you're right. You don't want to necessarily, especially in our profession, be prone to rash, emotional sort of reactive decisions. You want to be able to apply.
Proactivity to those and I think the only way you do that is really you sort of game it out, right? You sort of even have like a decision tree you sort of ⁓ I mean even in my examination outlines like this There's always trees in terms of witness responds this way the witness responds that way if it's a if it's a response that you haven't even likes, you know ⁓ Contemplated how are you gonna respond in that moment? So I think the more I guess it dovetails to what I just said about the preparation and planning for things to go sideways
the more you're able to apply your objectives in those scenarios. But I think what you said is interesting because I think people don't, I think people under ⁓ account for that in terms of how the emotion in the moment, how, you know, when you're feeling a certain way, when you're sort of in this like ⁓ parasympathetic state, this fight or flight sort of ⁓ emotion, like how you might respond then. So I think that's really,
the core principle of what I'm talking about now is try to essentially work that out of your process, work out sort of the emotion and the feelings that you'll have and try to be as systematic ⁓ as possible. So even something like an opening statement, I think the genesis of it was, ⁓ I don't know exactly genesis, but it kind of. ⁓
coincides with what I'm talking about, but I was watching a golf pro talking about how they hit certain iron shots. And then they said, well, on the practice range, I might hit that shot 160 yards, but in tournament conditions, I have to discount it by five yards because it's going to be a tournament. I'm going to be more tense naturally. So I'm only going to be able to hit it 155 yards. And I thought that was really interesting because it's this acknowledgement that even as an elite pro athlete, an elite performer,
They're acknowledging that they're going to feel a certain way in certain moments and they're not ignoring that and they're not discounting that. They're sort of leaning into it and saying, I need to take advantage of what the situation is going to be at the time and I'm to have to have a plan for that going in. So I think that's what I'm talking about.
Khurram Naik (08:25)
And so you referenced earlier the concept that credibility, the components are what you say, how you say those are the two aspects. do you have different situations called for different techniques? Is there some overarching principle that you are using? Is it something like,
I'm a big believer in the decision-makers agency, whether it's the fact finder or the judge, that I'm always exercising, I'm always showing them how to exercise agency and leaving room for that. What are the principle or technique you're using for the what you say and for the how you say it?
Timothy Yoo (09:12)
I think they're somewhat related, but I think they are distinct. I think the how you say something is what we're talking about now in a sense, because I'm assuming that what you say in terms of the, again, the substance of what you put together, the strength of your arguments, the best evidence that you put forward, that's sort of the what you say part of it, which I think is, I don't want to presume too much, but I would say that should be given in a sense. I think the how you say is almost,
if not more important in some situations, because the fact finder, whether that's the judge or the jury or your clients or opposing counsel, your co-counsel, your teams are looking into how you say certain things, how much conviction you're conveying, what lack of conviction you're conveying, what nuance you're conveying. And I think that all goes toward credibility and authenticity, which is the key pillars of what we do. So.
I what I'm talking about is, and I think this is reason why I find it so important to put in all those repetitions in front of the mirror, so to speak, or in front of, my living room, in front of my wife and my kids is I really like to really study how it's coming out, how the transitions are working, what are the high points emotionally or the points that I find myself emphasizing more naturally.
I think those are interesting and I like to study that. So I think that's where I find the value and the benefit in going through this process is really focusing on this notion of how you say things when you say them could be almost just as important as what you say.
Khurram Naik (10:57)
Can you track, I think there's a couple of recent matters that are particularly interesting. I mean, you're a patently here by training and IP litigator, but you've had some very interesting, ⁓ other kinds of matters you've taken on. ⁓ And so, one of them was a real estate dispute ⁓ involving defects and among other issues. And then another one was a personal injury defense matter. So really a neutral matters to take on for someone with your experience. ⁓ So in the context of say opening
or other positions that you took or presented, how did those change over time? What is it that you iterated? Can you give us a sense of the before and after?
Timothy Yoo (11:38)
Sure, think in those kinds of situations, I think you have to be mindful of the dynamics, like people coming in with certain notions. So I think there for me, in those particular two matters, was almost, and I don't want to discount the merits, but it was almost, I wanted to emphasize also like the vibes as well, like arguing vibes in a sense of, ⁓ this is something that, ⁓ whatever views you have, like my client is either,
trying to do the right thing. This is not something that's like deliberate or intentional. And you want to make sure that that gets across. At the same time, you want to make sure that, ⁓ you know, no one's trying to sort of skirt responsibility or trying to hide behind what happened. You sort of want to convey that this is something that, ⁓ you know, we're here to confront. We're here to let you as a jury decide what happened and trying to be
The way I view my role is to be a reliable tour guide or a reliable narrator in a sense is to sort of show them different pieces of evidence. And the way I kind of analogize it is, and maybe this is an artful way, is that if we're going out and opposing counsel is a tour guide saying like, Hey, look at this rock and look at that, that tree, look at that stream. ⁓ My role is really just to be the counterpoint of that is to say, Hey, look at the other side.
of that tree. Why don't you like sort of pick up the rock and look at the bottom of it and see what you see there and draw your own conclusions from that. And I'll even tell the jury this is that, I'm here to essentially play my role in the process, because if we don't all play our role, whether it's, you know, the council involved, the judges or the juries, then the system's not going to work the way it's supposed to work. And if it doesn't work the way it's supposed to work, then we've all lost something. So
you know, please view my role as just being the person to demonstrate that there's always a different side of every story.
Khurram Naik (13:43)
You you've referred to, I think it was in the previous episode, you referred to say in tennis that you, you've got these, uh, these elite tennis athletes and they really view, you know, these, like rivalries that, know, um, you know, I'm not very up to it in tennis. So like, you know, for me, it was like, say like Agassi and McEnroe.
And so, you have these rivalries where the opponents got better as a result. And so, you've talked before about this concept of viewing opposing counsel, not as some block to some outcome, but how can we play off each other, work off each other? When you talk about this concept of roles, it's really fascinating about showing people the different roles that everyone plays.
And it's particularly relevant to me because as recruiter, ⁓ lawyers historically have also been in this position. Anyone who is perceived to be a middleman can be in the position of trying to explain why they're even there to orbit ⁓ outcomes. And so ⁓ there's definitely a dimension of explaining the role to people. Say, here's what the role is. Here's what this account, by adding to the system, here's what the payoff is for everyone involved.
⁓ Have you found, let's say with opposing counsel, so you are defining this rule and explain the jury, the rules that everyone has. Have you found that opposing counsel has, ⁓ that's resonating with them, they've built on that, this has built a system of a ⁓ more effective way of getting to resolution? Like what's your experience for how opposing counsel has responded to this structure that you're proposing?
Timothy Yoo (15:30)
I've been pleasantly surprised, maybe not surprised, but I would say more often than not, I think people accept that. I think people accept that, look, we are all part of this inherently adversarial process. But I think that's ⁓ by design. That's not a bug. It's a feature of the process. The process was set up that way on purpose so that we can all arrive at what the truth is.
I think that if you view it from that construct and then speak and interact with opposing counsel within that framework, I blend, like I said, pleasantly surprised at the response where people are willing to engage in that way. Obviously there's, there's folks who might be outliers, who might view it even more personally. Again, I've never viewed it personally. I viewed it as you trying to be a zealous advocate for the
the client that you represent and the other side is the same way. So in a sense, they're your foil or your dance partner in what's going to happen. And I think that's been a much more productive way for everyone involved to have that level of being collaborative. And that's not to say that, look, just like a tennis match, just like Agassi and McEnroe, those guys, like once they were in between the lines, they're trying to beat each other's brains out within the context of the contest and the defined rules. And within those rules,
⁓ they're doing that because that's part of what they're supposed to do. Like the public expects nothing out less. The, the, the paying customer, ⁓ deserves nothing less than that. So I think that's a good way of thinking about it, but at end of the day, you're always shaking hands with your opponent at the, at the net. And that's sort of how I view it as well is that at end of this. Contest or interaction at some point.
we're going to look at each other or shake hands and say, well done. And I think that's a productive way to look at it.
Khurram Naik (17:35)
So I want to pick up on this idea of a role. I want to go back to the refinement you made in your maybe it's your opening argument. ⁓ To get a sense of, I think for any of these principles, I think it's helpful to understand.
to understand what the principle stands for, you want to understand what it doesn't stand for. So like what are all terms that another litigator would have chosen? So going back to the opening statement, the evolution you made there, can you describe the initial approach you took at some level of abstraction and then the final position of what changed that way? Because that would help us wrap our heads around, okay, like here's how you're honing in on what's most persuasive, how you're saying something.
Timothy Yoo (18:25)
Yeah, I think when you start out, you have this notion that, and perhaps it should be true that, you know, if you have the goods, that's really, that's really all that matters. And by goods, I mean, whether you have the evidence on your side or the law on your side, hopefully both, but, ⁓ and then you can just kind of get up and rely on whether you think it's your natural charisma or your natural public speaking ability or your natural innate ability to persuade people and get up and do that. And maybe some people can.
But I find that to be an outlier because I think in order to kind of order ⁓ the argument or the statement to be as persuasive as possible, you really have to start thinking about the structure of those. So I think when you start out, I had this notion that people might be, I don't know, naturally great and charismatic speakers and they're going to naturally give great closing arguments or opening statements, or people might be
these naturally brilliant examiners and be able to cross-examine ⁓ someone at trial and just be able to do that naturally. But I find that empirically not to be the case in the sense that I believe that taking a great examination, giving a great opening statement is a fully and directly proportionate to the level of preparation that goes into it. So I think that's really what kind of sparked it. And I think it's really, I guess,
to more directly address your question. me, was really, my approach when I would take depositions is I'd have an idea of where I wanted to go in certain topics and not be so granular sometimes. But then I realized that the more time that you sort of spend mechanically setting things up, working on your outlines, working on the contingencies, working on parts of your outline that you'll never even use, ⁓ that that is direct.
directly correlated to the quality of the examination. So I think that's really ⁓ why I started thinking about it this way. ⁓
Khurram Naik (20:26)
Is it?
you find?
Is it the quality examination proves there's more your comfort level than then does kind of revert back to vibes again. We're just like, Hey, like, I'm just so comfortable. my, my, my, my, you know, I don't have this like elevated, you know, adrenaline response, whatever, because I have these contingency maps. ⁓ you know, is it about the preparing for the contingencies, you know, as far as like knowing what to say, or is it more just the comfort level of knowing that you've done the work?
Timothy Yoo (20:56)
I think it's both. I think it's both of those things. I think the comfort level plays into it a lot because at least for me, you and I've been at trials where I'm seeing opposing counsel, very experienced counsel, and maybe it's natural, but you know, they're pacing back and forth. They're putting their hands in their pockets just as sort of these natural ticks of just being, you know, being nervous and having anxiety. And I'm not saying I don't feel that. I'm a person. So of course, of course I feel that. But I think
To be able to, to, to, to lean into that feeling, think for me personally, I feel way less nervous and way less anxiety, the more work I put in. So if I walk in knowing that I've done everything I can possibly to meet that moment, then I think the nerves, you know, go away in the sense that you have that level of comfort. ⁓ but I think it's also, you know, having those repetitions and being able to have that level of comfort where the, the playing field slows down, so to speak, you know, athletes talk about being in this flow state where.
you know, the pin in golf looks like a, you know, looks like a huge bucket, ⁓ you know, that the other side of the tennis court, you can't possibly miss it because you're just in this flow state. So I think the more, you know, repetition you have and the more that you condition yourself to be in that situation, I think you're feeling that, you know, that a bit. And I think also it is this unique thing about the law that it's both theoretical and
and practical in the sense that it's one thing to know all the theory and know all the right things to emphasize and know in a sense what you're supposed to do in a situation. That has to be married with having been in that situation multiple times, I think, to really kind of feel like you've you've begun to master a certain area. And to be clear, I think I'm far from that. But I think ⁓ the more repetitions and the more times that you have ⁓
opportunities and different experiences, it compounds. The more comfort you get, the more experience you get, the more effective these things become. It begats more comfort and hopefully more effectiveness as you go on.
Khurram Naik (23:10)
So I want to ask you some more about that because I think you're talking about this concept of flow. What it makes me think about is ⁓ what I'm sensing that you find so gratifying about, one of the things you find so gratifying about studying these elite performers, athletes, is this aspect of flow where they're just so connected with what they're doing. And I think that's important because ⁓
In the practice of law, it's really unusual compared to other disciplines in that, let's say in sales, like so my wife sold software. And in software, if you're just good at what you do, you can be the equivalent of, you've got people who are in business development roles, that's the entry level role, then you've got people who are account executives, and those are client facing, generating revenue.
And you can just move into an account executive role and functionally speaking, that's more like a partner than an associate. So like you can become a partner effectively in that world in a couple of years, if you're just really good at what you do. And there's nothing like that in law. Like even if you clerk at the Supreme court or whatever, you don't just like this, like, Hey, great. Like we're going to come on in, we're going to make you a partner and you'll argue at the Supreme court, you know, three months now, whatever. Like it's just, it's just a really long haul in every part of the profession, matter what your credentials are.
And I wonder if just, what I think what so many lawyers of course hunger for is that level of gratification from their work. And then for litigators, you know, so often, so few of them are getting into trial. And I think, you know, my first trial that I went to, you know, one of the partners said, hey, you know,
If you don't enjoy this experience, you should really think about moving to another processor because this is what it's all about. So this is the kind of thing to hone in on. And for me, just really enjoyed it. And it's definitely something that I knew that I wanted more of. ⁓
But so there's that gratification that we're looking for from work, you know because It's long hard hours for years Where it's so rare to get into a flow state and I wonder you know, I don't know if did you see the documentary? Jiro dreams of sushi
Timothy Yoo (25:27)
I did.
I did. love that documentary. And I think it's like sort of what you're talking about where like someone had to like train for 10 years just how to like, just, just, just how to like roll the rice just right. That took 10 years of apprenticeship to get to that level. And then you have to sort of graduate to different levels of mastery.
Khurram Naik (25:29)
I'm not surprised to hear that.
So now, I guess the two ways to look at that are as one is that's deranged because like how could that possibly like obviously the fun part would be to be zero there with the customers presenting, know, like making the judgment calls for what goes into a piece of sushi presenting to the customer, counseling the customer on.
Hey, here's, I'm guiding you on what this experience is. This isn't just a sensory experience. This is also, you need some context to understand what's special about this. That seems to be like, you know, trial lawyer in the courtroom and that's like the ultimate aspiration. So it seems like, hey, in that profession it's the same thing. Like you got to put in decades of work to really even get to be in the privileged position of doing that.
And I don't recall, you know, Giro has his sons who are in an apprenticeship and studying with him and just kind of, they're grown men themselves with children and like, I think in their fifties, I think, you know, kind of waiting for their turn to be, you know, like their father. And so I wonder how, you know, I'm thinking of for people who are not in the courtroom yet.
How can people find that flow in what is otherwise the drudgery of the sifting of the rice and the other kinds of tasks that seem menial in the kitchen? How is it that other people can find that flow earlier in their career?
Timothy Yoo (27:07)
You bring up this is a great issue you bring up, because I think just backing up, I'll address that point. But think backing up what you said about it's tough. think our profession is tough because it does take time to achieve a certain level of competence, some core competence. It just takes time and just doing it over and over. So I think that's a difficult aspect of it, because I agree with you that I think for anyone, and I think I read this article in HBS or whatever it was, the Harvard Business School Review, where
Couple of the key components to someone feeling a level of job satisfaction. One of them is the job has to align with your values in some sense. But another key component was that you have to feel as if you're good at your job. That's a big part of feeling a level of contentment. And I think the hard part of our job as lawyers is that it takes time to do that. Like I said a moment ago, it takes a lot of repetition.
to get to a certain level of mastery before you start feeling as if you're good at it. And when you start off, like you said, you're doing a lot of work that seems to be, know, trudgery. I certainly, speaking for myself, I spent weeks or months of my life doing things that like AI can probably do in a couple of minutes ⁓ now. And it just takes time to really get to a point where you then have this basic idea that you're...
you have an aptitude for what you're doing. So I think that's inherent in our job. I don't know if I have an elegant solution to that because I think I can't sit here and say there's some magic elixir or some potion to sort of like instantly jump to the front of the line and just have this level of mastery that you're gonna, just a couple of years out of law school. I think that's just sort of an aspect of what we do. To address your question about like, is it that you can, while you're...
figuratively figuring out how to roll the rice or to massage the, was it the squid, I guess, a certain way to make sure that it's palatable. And I hope this is not a cop-out answer, but I think it's sort of realizing that that in itself is part of the process, is that a lot of what you do, and again, speaking for myself personally in my first few years of practice, was really just to learn how to be a professional, period. Not even just a good lawyer, but just not be a knucklehead.
Khurram Naik (29:12)
⁓ I forgot about that, yeah.
Timothy Yoo (29:34)
to be a professional worker who's going to an office every day, showing up on time, getting assignments done, and just kind of going through that process and learning how to talk to people, how to meet expectations, whatever the assignment is, to sort of do that to a T. Because then once you sort of figure that out, you get the next assignment, you get the next sort of level of skills that you're asked to pursue. I think...
it's having the attitude that it's all sort of leading to something else. speaking for myself, I'm almost 20 years into practice and I still feel like I have to figure out what I want to do when I grow up. I still figure out like I haven't quite become a grownup in a sense of I'm looking at the next thing to master or the thing to tackle or try to get a hang of. And I think maybe all of that
If you want to collapse it down to a single concept is to have this growth mindset of what is this task going to be in service of? Like, how am I going to get better at what I do by doing this thing? ⁓ And not to tie everything back into sports, you know, everything that anyone who's ever had more than one conversation with me knows that that's what I'm wanting to do. But ⁓ like this past weekend, I observed one of the more
compelling sports comeback stories I've ever seen where this this golfer pro golfer Anthony Kim He took 12 years off the game because he you know, he had certain ⁓ Injuries some addictions demons personal demons that he's openly spoken about that he had to he had to struggle with and he got back on the tour that the live tour a couple years ago and His results have been very very poor
I was going to say middling, but they've been terrible. So he would finish last place or second to last place in the first few years back. ⁓ but I would follow him on social media and he would always sort of be out in the, out in the course, grinding training saying his whole mantra was. I just want to get 1 % better. Just want to get 1 % better today than I was yesterday. Cause he knew that that was going to compound over time. And you know, at the end of last year, he was actually relegated off the tour.
because his results weren't there. So he was kicked off the tour. He had to qualify again, just by sort of an open competition. They had a competition saying the people who finished in the top three of this tournament at the beginning of the year will qualify to play in our league this year. So he had to do that. He finished third by the skin of his teeth to get on and his results have gotten a little bit better. I saw an interview with him last week where he said, look, it's somewhat frustrating because I know all the work I'm putting in and I know I'm better than that.
But it's somewhat, it could be discouraging because you're not necessarily seeing all the results manifest on the field right away. But I know that of the work that I'm putting in and getting better. And this past weekend, he won the event at live Adelaide, which is the biggest tournament that they have. And he beat two former major champions, former number one player in the world. He was down by five shots going into the last round. He chased him down and won this event.
And it was very inspiring for me and really like resonated with me because I think his whole principle of, just want to put in the work and get 1 % better. And even though you're not seeing it manifest in a tournament in terms of the results quite yet, you know that he's banked that time and he's banked those experiences. And at some point it was going to pay off. what was really captivating to me is when they were talking to him at the pressers and afterwards, and it wasn't so much like
Hey, I can't believe this happened. my goodness. Like I would have never conceived that this happening. He really was just sort of, I knew this was going to happen. I knew that this was going to happen. The wild part to me is that it happened today. So it seems a little bit, it seems a little bit odd that, you know, I was so far behind going into today, but I knew that I put in the work and I believe in myself. So I knew that this was going to happen and it was a really inspiring.
Khurram Naik (33:44)
I think what's so interesting about your approach, in our first episode, I commented on, if you just look at your training, you're this Caltech math major, there's a level of raw, rational.
analytical power that comes with that. just any number of patent litigators, the stereotype is that that's what their expertise is, being tentacle people and not really focused on things like storytelling. And I've heard federal judges comment on this, like, hey, patent trail is kind of need a little more of the way of storytelling and just getting out of the weeds of just these endlessly boring expert battles that just everyone's eyes are glazing over, no one can make heads or tails out of what's happening here.
So,
you I think you really completely ⁓ inverted that by like, you're just like, I mean, this is a compliment. I wouldn't guess that you were this like Caltech math guy, right? So that itself, think I caught on the previous episode is that I think it's remarkable that you've kind of transcended that training. But I think another really interesting tension for you is this structure versus vibes and just like the kind of reciprocal nature of those two, because
It's kind of like that quote from, I think it was Balzac, I don't really know much about that sort of writing, but I think he said something about like being, I'm butchering the quote, but it's being structured, regiments in your life so you can be ferocious in your art or something. So it's just having this highly regimented approach. Stephen King's on writing, advocates of the same thing. Stephen King, kind of my big takeaway from reading his book.
is there's not some, I mean, he takes a posting view to this idea that there's some...
know, the Greeks had this idea that, you know, like inspiration was like literally a god, I think, that would just visit you. This is something I in King times, but I'm kind of editorializing. But it's like, there's not some magical, you know, fairy on your shoulder that's gonna inspire your art. It's from showing up and doing the hard work every day. It's just like grinding every single day. That's his, what's worked for him. That's what he advocates for.
Timothy Yoo (35:54)
Mm-hmm.
Khurram Naik (36:08)
And so, but it's interesting because like I'm sensing this interesting reciprocal nature between the goal is to get to this emotionally transcendent state, flow state. ⁓ It is the vibe and how you get there is by having a heavily structured process to get there. Like how do you think about the relationship between these two?
Timothy Yoo (36:31)
I think you just
hit the nail on the head right there. So when I say vibes, I do mean that, but I don't mean to suggest that it's in some kind of haphazard way. And it's going to be in a way that like how I feel at that moment, I'm just going to try to convey. I think when I try to convey a vibe, it takes a lot of work to get to that point. And like you said, like there has to be some kind of infrastructure behind it, like some kind of very strict organization, structure, preparation, all of those things, I think lead to being able to like convey a vibe.
And just as an example, just because you mentioned it, mean, at a recent trial I had, really was, you know, we parachuted into the trial a couple of weeks before. A lot of the liability issues had already been stipulated to, so there weren't a lot of ⁓ exhibits or evidence that was going to be at issue. ⁓ So I think, you know, in my statement, think my opening statement was maybe like 20 minutes. But in terms of the preparation that went into that.
you wouldn't you might maybe not have guessed that based on, you know, I guess how short it was in a sense where I don't want to be glib about it, but I like to joke that, you know, I had to or I had to argue vibes because I wasn't exactly sure like what the evidence was going to show. I mean, I joke about that, but I think you got to sort of create a structure that to allow you to like get to sort of like these emotional inflection points and really emphasize certain aspects.
⁓ to, a jury, ⁓ and in a lot of ways it's, it's, it's, it's a lot harder when, you know, when you don't have sort of these tent poles of, Hey, look at the contract, look at section three, ⁓ you know, section three of the contract where the other side agreed to this. And you can really just sort of pound on that. I think it takes, you know, discipline and, and, and effort and thought to really think about like, what are these, ⁓ you know, ⁓ the, high points or the low points that you want to emphasize or.
maybe even ⁓ dwell on ⁓ during your statement. I think like I said, you hit the nail on the head in terms of it's not just going out there and winging it. It's really there has to be some kind of structure behind that, even when you're arguing a certain ⁓ vibe or you want to sort of ⁓ imbue a certain emotional response in your audience.
Khurram Naik (38:56)
⁓ Can you tell me about how you've done so much in way of IP litigation by training this and I think I find really interesting is these departures from it just because you can't. Like you're just taking on just completely different other kinds of work. ⁓
because you can, how does that connect to this concept? Because I could, from first principles of someone's focusing on the structure, could say, well, Tim, shouldn't you be focusing on patent cases of a certain kind? Like maybe it's just like your niche into fran disputes or whatever. It's just a one space you're showing up in. And then that way, all that foundation is there that you know the architecture of the case. Actually, a great subject matter would be my former work, which was hash-washed litigation.
so regimented that there's local hatch wax rules that govern disclosures, know, there's minimal motion practice. And so like that would be maybe a space. If those matters went to trial a lot, that would be a space to kind of practice again and again, so you can hone in on. ⁓
Like you were saying, just that T becoming the side, whatever, just zooming in and telescoping in on the tennis court becomes a football field, whatever. So what role does the variety of work you're taking play in this pursuit that you're, this pursuit?
Timothy Yoo (40:24)
To address your question of how is it that, you know, pursuing sort of these various experiences, how is it, how is that going to service, ⁓ my pursuit of, let's say mastery and patent litigation? And my short answer to that is I view it as all in service of that. And in fact, I, I, I think I allow myself to be open to these opportunities because at end of the day, I'm tying it back to how it's going to serve me down the road.
So when I take on these other types of trials, it's not because, you know, those trials are interesting and they're challenging and I think they're worthwhile in their own right. But an aspect of that is also how am going to gain experience, which is valuable, gain skills that I'm thereby going to be able to leverage later? ⁓ I had a recent arbitration where one of my teammates was also a patent litigator ⁓ by trade.
And, ⁓ you know, was telling him, look, these skills that you're picking up now, think about it in terms of when you're going to use it next on your next big patent trial, in terms of your ability to, to craft an examination, to tell stories, to tell all different types of stories, to have that level of comfort when you're before an arbitrator or a jury. think those are things that, again, that me and him or anyone on our team are going to be able to bank and to be able to deploy later on.
So I don't view those pathways as separate in a way. I view it as part of a linear journey of these are the, I guess, the repetitions or the experiences that you're allowing yourself to have now, because at some point in the future, you're gonna be able to use those. And I guess to draw it back full circle, I I spoke a lot about the undertaker in our first session, but.
I was listening to him talk and they were asking him about the evolution of his character and his moveset and things like that. And a lot of what he said was similar to what we're talking about now, where he said, look, I mean, that move where I sort of walk on the tight rope, I saw someone when I was training in, you know, mid-south territory do that. And I made a mental note to myself that I'm going to steal that. And then we got to a different territory, got to Florida.
He saw someone do an inverted pile driver, which became his signature move. And he said, okay, I'm going to make a mental note and I'm to steal that. And the point is along the way, along this journey, when he wasn't in the main event of WrestleMania, he was performing in front of 50 people before the local armory in some real part of the world or something like that. He would pick up these different things that he was able to leverage later on. And that's in a way how I
view not only just my experience, but maybe how all lawyers, all associates should view their pathway as well, is that it's all gonna be in service of what their eventual goal is. Now, what their eventual goal is, they'll have to define for themselves. For me, it's this almost theoretical notion that there's gonna be some big platform or big stage, some big trial in some place. ⁓
uncertain that I'm going to have to be ready for and be ready to meet the moment. So I think in a way I've used that as an abstraction sort of to say that all of these skills, all of these experiences are going to serve me when eventually I have to main event WrestleMania.
Khurram Naik (44:05)
I love that because that's something that's emotional, and that's a driver because some abstraction of, I'll prevail in a case that has this much in controversy or with this large market cap of a client, just so abstract and like...
I think probably at any stage, even if you've accessed those clients, it's still very abstract. But I like the, ⁓ there's something that's more emotionally resonant about, and I imagine maybe there's more contours here giving that. For me, something tangible is, ⁓ say with my kids, physical performance for me is two things that are emotional. One is,
I want to build a path that minimizes injury and maximizes my ability to move with my kids as they get older, to be able to just continue to move and pick my kids up as long as they can. So that's something tangible. Then also, something else that's mostly resonant, the other version is if there's an emergency, if I need to grab my kids and run for a mile or whatever, can I do that? So those are tangibly the things I train for.
Um, that makes a lot of sense. And what you're saying also reminds me of, uh, I listened to a recent podcast with, uh, James clear on Andrew Huberman and James clear, you know, he did atomic habits, which, know, I'm sure almost everyone has in their bookshelf at this point. Um, and so James clear was making the observation, you know, he was, I don't know, he, he, he was working on a gym with other people and, uh, his trainers make some kind of, was kind of a crummy day with whether it was training, made some comment about, you know, how, um,
know, dips in those days. I if it was the trainer or James Clear that came to the conclusion that look, to gain an edge really only happens in moments like that when it's just there's little difficulty, there's some friction involved.
looking for small moments to gain edge. So sounds like the undertaker said, okay, like perform at these regional shows. Like that's a place I can gain an edge because the way that James Clear put it is like, look, everyone can work out when they're feeling good, when they feel like they've eaten enough, when they slept enough, when it's nice weathered out, they're in a good mood. like, you know, like draw the straight line through that. And then everyone's good for that. like where, where you gain an advantage is when any one of those is missing.
And so put another way, like it takes so little to get an edge. All you have to do is just be a little uncomfortable and a little creative in how you develop that. ⁓ I remember there's ⁓ Louis Tompros as a partner, Wilmer, maybe you worked with him, ⁓ So do you remember the story about his ⁓ first federal circuit argument? I think it was his first federal circuit argument.
Timothy Yoo (46:46)
I I worked with this.
I don't remember, but why don't you refresh.
Khurram Naik (46:59)
Well, I saw
the details are going to be a little abstract at this point, but basically he was just tracking for ⁓ individual inventors who are trying to get appeals through the PTO. This is before the PTAB.
and was just looking for issues around obviously, like just different doctrines that just weren't really tested yet. And so I can't remember what the issue was. There was something to do with something about the obviousness doctrine, but he basically, he was very entrepreneurial. I mean, he had great pedagogy, had clerked the Federal Circuit, you know, he was, you at this great firm. And so he could have been content to say, hey, I'm gonna get great experiences here and get trial experience, but he was very entrepreneurial in identifying, you know,
an opportunity where there was something that he could take and appeal himself and handle pro bono and then he did and you know that that ⁓ did something to change the law of offices has been some years I don't remember what it was and then helped ⁓ some inventor pro se on a pro bono basis so I mean it's I'm really struck with stories like that where people are looking for these small edges and gaining them.
Timothy Yoo (48:10)
Absolutely. I think that's, again, I think it dovetails a lot with what we've been talking about this morning, which is right. Just view every situation as an opportunity. Don't, and again, that's sort of easy to say, but I found in my career, my short career so far is that right. It's you sort of, take these and it's not immediately apparent how are you going to use it later, but those experiences that you have, you know, writing this type of
⁓ a motion in one case researching this issue that you don't think has any relevance to what you ultimately want to achieve from a practice perspective. I find that it's surprising that it always comes back. It always comes back where you're able to leverage a past experience. For example, past experiences I've had where I've been able to pitch clients on cases because I've had experiences with that opposing counsel.
or it's been this discrete issue that's an aspect of an IP case that's not necessarily obvious, but to be able to say, yeah, I've done that type of case, or I've appeared before that judge, because there's any number of metrics that people find important in terms of their decision making, but to be able to go back and have that ⁓ experience in the past that you can draw on, I found to be valuable in this profession.
where you can find your edges. I totally agree with that because it's sort of, you never know when you're going to need to utilize that. And I think having those like small edges obviously compounds a lot over time. I think about, I remember, I'm a big Roger Federer fan, big tennis player, Roger Federer fan. He gave the commencement speech at Dartmouth a couple of years ago. And I think
One of the parts of that speech that people remember a lot was him saying, Hey, you know, I've won 1400 matches in my career of those matches that I played 1400 matches in my career. I won more than 80 % of those matches. ⁓ guess how many, ⁓ you know, what proportion of all the points I ever played that I won. And I think the stat that he cited was I. I've only won 53 % of all the points I ever played. I think the point that he was trying to convey is that it's, it's, you know, it's roughly half.
It's just roughly half of the points I played. So it's really just sort of like at the margins. ⁓ and I think that's correct, but my takeaway from that was actually, it just shows you that like those small, seemingly small edges and those margins, they compound over time and have a huge effect because if you think about it, a 53 % edge is basically the house edge of any game that you can play in Las Vegas. Any casino is like the house edge is about 53 to ⁓ 47.
And they're able to leverage that into obviously big business and being able to pay for all those, the hotels and the casinos. Someone like Federer is able to leverage that small house edge into having arguably one of the greatest tennis careers ⁓ of all time. So I think that's a good way of thinking about it as well is sort of like, you can find those edges, be open to the opportunities of where they might occur. And then you'll be able to compound those and leverage those to great effect as you go on.
Khurram Naik (51:04)
You'll it after.
So how would you
define your edge?
Timothy Yoo (51:33)
I think if I have to define it as like, right, having an open mind, having an open mind to being open to opportunities, not foreclosing myself ⁓ just out of hand. That's not to say that you take every opportunity that's presented to you. I do want to make sure that you want to be selective ⁓ to a point, but I think at the outset, want to, as long as if for me, speaking for myself, when I...
presented with an opportunity, I asked myself that is sort of what is it that, you know, what is this opportunity going to offer in terms of ⁓ new experiences, new challenges, putting myself in situations I haven't been before to test my mettle, to give myself an opportunity to grow. I think that's one of the big drivers. So I think if nothing else, an edge would be right, having an open mind, not necessarily being
cabined into being a certain way, given, right, I went to Caltech, had a ⁓ tech background, so it might make sense naturally that I do nothing but tech-related litigation, but I've always viewed it as like, that's what I like to do, and maybe I have an aptitude for that, but I don't want to foreclose myself from other opportunities, because that's, at end of the day, what keeps everything fresh and interesting. And that's really ⁓ what I want to do, is I want to keep it fresh, I want to keep...
mentally challenged, motivated. ⁓ And that's really one of the things I really like about our profession is that every day can look differently. Even if it's the same type of dispute, it can have a different character, different posture, different types of things that are important. ⁓ And that's really dynamic, which makes it ⁓ challenging and interesting for me.
Khurram Naik (53:25)
So something I've observed is in any sphere, there's just different ways to win. And so you've identified the way that you are winning and want to win. But so what would a confidently talented peer, what's an alternative approach that they'll be taking? So you're proposing,
I would be, I'm open to a variety of I find this to be a malleable term because I any number of people say, oh, I'm open to, what's a way you can define your openness and opposition to some other kind of completely talented person who just has a different approach, strategy or value.
Timothy Yoo (54:00)
Perhaps it's an openness to challenges, openness to being uncomfortable in terms of leaning into a level of ⁓ an area of comfort and familiarity and just being content to just sort of try a certain, it's the same type of case or to litigate a certain type of dispute is maybe to really push myself to be challenged and to
put myself in situations that could be awkward, could be scary, ⁓ frankly, I think is one way I view that openness and flexibility.
Khurram Naik (54:45)
Does the word versatility resonate with you?
Timothy Yoo (54:49)
It does to a degree, because I think it's good to be right. like to think that there's a versatility to my practice and my mindset. mean, obviously I don't want to sort of. I don't know if it's even a word, like, so overextend that versatility, because you can't be sort of everything to everyone all at once. You want to pick your spots. So I think having a versatility and a flexibility to a degree.
is good, but then you also have to circumscribe that with, again, sort of like your larger principle of what is this at the end ⁓ in service of. And to me, it's always been, like I said, like sort of this abstraction that like, and it's really undefined in the sense that like, yeah, a certain, whatever it's a certain dispute with a certain amount of controversy on behalf of a certain client with a certain market cap. That's just, that's sort of my,
abstract notion of that's what I'm driving for. And I view everything else sort of in service of that. And if it's not aligned with that, then it's an easy call for me.
Khurram Naik (55:58)
Can you talk about how you position yourself broadly? How do you currently, so given you've got this patent-legation core wheelhouse, you're taking on other matters in service of that core wheelhouse. I think there's this concept of having a T-shaped set of expertise I think that's useful. ⁓ And both feed into each other where the depth of expertise.
It's something that builds the credibility for taking on other matters. Probably people are approaching you because if you have a death expertise, it's much more intense. Competition would be a commercial litigator. But then it's easier for people to find you in the context of, you're a pat-le-guer and by the way, do you do other things too? You're just known for something.
But so then the breath is also, the tea is also useful for, like you're saying, you get these different ideas that you feed into your depth of expertise. And so for how do you present yourself to the market? Like how is it that you want the public to know for you? What do you think you are known for?
Do you think the people, you think you're, what's your goal right now with how you are presenting yourself? Cause I think this is a key classic issue that every service provider goes through is what degree of specialization and how do I market is such an ugly word in our profession, but how do I position myself so that, what am I known for?
Timothy Yoo (57:34)
think foremost, first chair trial lawyer, period. I like to think that I can try almost any type of civil dispute. And I think developed a certain track record and experiences that support that. So I think that's the first way I like to market myself. And secondly is I have a ⁓ experience and competence in the IP disputes. That's what I have. ⁓ My own proclivity is that's what I like to do.
Those the types of disputes that I like to litigate, particularly patent disputes. So that's probably my, you know, in terms of subject matter, ⁓ interest and competence, that's probably my wheelhouse. But, but again, kind of going back toward what we were talking about, it could be any kind of breach of a legal duty somewhere. And I like to think that I'd be able to try that type of case because I think that is one overarching skill set is,
being able to talk to juries, talk to judges, arbitrators, and persuade them. And then the other part of it is having this aptitude of analyzing a technical issue, spotting non-imprisonment positions, or being able to do a deep dive into the technology, which I really like doing. ⁓ So that's sort of how I view myself.
Khurram Naik (58:56)
So when clients approach you, what do you communicate for what they can expect from working with you?
Timothy Yoo (59:05)
If nothing else, I would say level-headed judgment, maybe sometimes almost in a clinical sense of, I spoke about this a lot during our first session, which is I view the role of counsel as managing expectations. And I think that's what I try to do. And it's very iterative and it updates based on what happens in the case, but managing expectations means being very
forthright and direct about the aspects of the case and the representation and the risks involved. also don't mean, it doesn't mean that you need to be fatalistic about it. It just means to be realistic, to give people ⁓ a to assess those risks on their own and what might need to happen for those risks and that sensibility to change.
So I think if nothing else, I try to be upfront and ⁓ establish like a direct line of communication to be responsive, to ask a lot of questions, be there to be responsive to questions. But at end of the day, ⁓ it's not really to handhold. I don't think you're doing your clients a good service by just telling them what they want to hear. I really think is you really need to figure out what it is that they need to hear and
And not just give them an information dump about sort of, Hey, here's all the information that's possibly germane to the decision that you have to make. It's really, ⁓ a big part of ours. And I, I don't think, you know, outside council should have to advocate that responsibility of curating that to a degree as well. Like curating the information, distilling it down to the dimensions that matter, that move the needle in terms of a decision and then delivering it in that way. So I don't mean to suggest that there's no bedside manner.
involved. I think that's a big aspect of what we do. I think a big aspect of what we do is making sure that the things that are not important or productive to a disease making process are filtered out. ⁓ I think one thing I noticed is that, for instance, I think one thing that's probably not suggested is sometimes I see it as you get a ⁓
an email or an assygram or however you want to characterize it from the other side. then if you like sometimes the natural inclination might be to forward it to your client directly and say, look at all the things that are like they're saying about your case and how, you know, all the vulnerabilities and clients are going to react to that in a very visceral way more often than not, because they're not conditioned to speak. I suppose the language that that litigators speak. cause for me, when I see something like that, I'll just distill it down to what the, what the upshot is. Like what is it?
What position are they taking? Are they agreeing to my proposal? Are they offering a different proposal? ⁓ That's really the main points of communication during the litigation stage. So it's not always productive just to go ahead and forward that along to your client, because they're going to have an emotional response, and that's not necessarily the best place to be. I view my job as taking what the upshot is and then being able to curate that and then communicate that to the client, because then they can sort
take out sort of all the emotion out of it and make a rational decision.
Khurram Naik (1:02:39)
Yeah, that's really helpful. And I'll share with you how I'm thinking about this. And I'm curious to what degree this overlaps or maybe the structure is not really analogous. I guess this will... ⁓
I'll share kind of how I'm thinking about my client management. our, and this is, you know, these are things that I've, I'm talking about publicly. I want to continue to talk about publicly. And I guess I'll be really interested in your insights for how you're on the topic of it's not just what you say, but how you say it. guess we interested in ways to make this more resonant and more persuasive. I think a core premise that a core premise that I've hone in on is that every, every firm is a bundle of benefits and costs. So that's a core concept.
everyone has to get comfortable with. And I think that's a threshold reality that a lot of lawyers can't really accept. And so that helps sidestep a lot of therapy sessions into, look, the reality is, is that your firm is a bundle of benefits and costs and so is every other one. There's not a better firm. There's just one that has a different profile of benefits and costs. And so based on your stage and your goals, one might be a better platform than another. So you Tim, you describe some of your goals.
professionally about what we can accomplish. One firm is a better platform or another for the goals that you have. And for another litigator, maybe they have a different set of goals, another firm is a better fit. It's just that simple. So from that flow a number of different corollaries. ⁓ Or there's other things that intersect with that. So from that premise, ⁓
You need to identify what it is, is the key trade-off you want to make. And so ⁓ the thing that we have observed is that's not something you know, it's something you discover. And so in the course of gaining options, you get clarity, not so much on the firms, yes, you get that as well, but more fundamentally on what's the most important trade-off to you. What is the thing that is most important to you to trade off? And you really want to hone in on one because like,
There's so many variables that you could compare all these different opportunities and lawyers are researchers by profession. Just like you're saying, you're trying to curate experience and make this simple to get to a resolution and decision point. You're not trying to add complexity as a lawyer. That doesn't make you look seem clever or smart. What's helpful is, here, let's distill this out. So that's our view is we're still in this down to what is the one key trade off you're making. One thing that flows from that is then what you want in this process is an objective advisor.
⁓ in this process because if you have, ⁓ if every firm is a set of trade-offs, what's not helpful is someone pitching you on any one given firm. that's, there's a connection, there's a reciprocal relationship between our business model and this approach where like any number of other.
some recruiters might really be working with one firm primarily and they're pitching on that firm saying, we have really deep ties to blank firm and here's all the reasons why this firm is the best place to be doing patent litigation. It's a very different business model and kind of firm that we were saying before.
There's just different ways to succeed and add value in the marketplace. so ⁓ our approach is follow us from, okay, if everything is a bundle of benefits and costs, there's just tradeoffs among them.
And so you discover the trade-off in the course of this and that's this pleasant surprise you experience. So that's the space that we create for emotion. So we provide structure. So here's this like very analytical structure we provide. Every firm is a bundle of benefits and costs. And then there's a number of things that flow from that in terms of the structure of how you work with us, what role we play, because you talked the concept of role earlier.
And then you also talk about, well, shielding emotions so that that's filtering information to, guess, I haven't heard, maybe I missed it, but maybe talk about what emotional discovery is like for the client. ⁓ Or let's say for, in a jury context for the jury, what's the way you can steward and say, I don't know what your emotional reaction is going to be when you pick up that rock or look behind the tree, but I bet you'll experience something new. And then that itself,
Timothy Yoo (1:07:00)
Mm-hmm.
Khurram Naik (1:07:05)
is helpful and predictive. So I guess big picture is like, ⁓ your clients will come to you for authority and they'll come to you for credibility to tie back some of your time before and to help have lower variance outcomes. Like right at the beginning of litigation, very high variance, who knows what can happen.
My perception of a skilled litigator is to reduce that variance over time and ⁓ help a client get clarity around, okay, this is kind of how it's all settling out. So I guess I'm interested in hearing from you, like that interplay of, when it comes to counseling a client or if the analogy is there for how you approach your work in the courtroom.
of laying foundation analytically for credibility and leaving room for emotions because I think alternatively, approach another, let's say in my context, that a recruiter would use is, I'm gonna get you really excited about this firm. That's the space for emotions is, I have expertise and authority about this firm. I'm gonna get you excited about that. But it seems like no matter what, there's different approaches to take and each one of has some interplay between.
the analytical foundations of authority and the emotional ⁓ resonance. so, and whether that is something that you are curating or not, I think seems to be one of the variables. But I wonder if that resonates with you when it comes to client counseling or when comes to, you know, in the courtroom.
Timothy Yoo (1:08:39)
It does because...
It's hard to discount the emotion in terms of what your decision making process in for your client. Cause for your client, no matter what type of dispute it is, there's going to be some level of ⁓ emotional investment and it's going to be hard for them. This is taking up years of their, their time and their resources and their emotional capital.
going into this. there's definitely going to be, I think it's unrealistic to expect that there's going to be some type of clinical analysis to this where they apply the right coefficients and the quadratic formula spits out the right variables or the right answers to that. I think that's unrealistic. again, and maybe this is an approach that needs to be calibrated depending on the situation, but I do think that it is important to
try to the extent you can to quantify that as much as possible. A good analogy I got was, and this is not my area of expertise. don't do criminal defense, but I have colleagues that do. And I always ask them, how do you do that? When I'm advising my clients, I might say, I think I'm right. But if I'm wrong, by the way, this would be X amount of dollars the other way. And that's one thing. I always find it hard to quantify
I think I'm right, but if I'm wrong, this could be five years of your life or 10 years of your life. Like, how do you, how do you do that? Like, how do you, how do you sort of advise clients that way? And I think it's a similar approach where they say, look, you try to quantify in terms of like, well, how important is that? Like, do you want to roll the dice with, uh, you know, going, going forward? Do you want to take a plea? Think about like, do you, do you want to guarantee that you'll be there for your kids' high school graduation? Or do you want to sort of leave that up to chance?
And in a way, you're tying what the consequences of those decisions could be to an emotional event. And I view that as a helper rubric in the sense that my whole thing is I try to give people enough information and obviously show them the evidence and the law, my own experience and my thinking behind certain things. ⁓
Like my whole philosophy behind doing all these repetitions of and preparing for these performances is to really just try to, to try to really try to play for the 30th percentile outcome. So I know that if I've done, if I've practiced enough and I've gone and I can do it 10 times, I want to make sure that the 30th percentile level of performance is still very good. And sometimes I might hit the 70th percentile performance and, and, and, and really, really do well, but I don't want to.
I don't want to bank on that. So I want to make sure that for me, even a 30th percentile outcome is good. So in a similar way, I want to give the clients sort of, Hey, if this happens, this could be, this could go to your 30th percentile outcome. This would be your 70th percentile outcome. This could be like a 50th percentile outcome, sort of the middle of the road. But I sort of want to give them enough information to, to, evaluate that. And it's really up to them to figure out how much of the emotional component is going to play into it.
But I do try to quantify that as well, saying, look.
you know, vindicating a principle is one thing, but this is what you're going to be willing to do, to take on this much risk. And that risk can take many forms in the forms of additional fees, additional uncertainty in terms of what the exposure is, the time investment, the emotional investment. ⁓ And maybe, you know, maybe this is a wrongheaded way of thinking about it, but I find myself often telling clients like, look, you know,
I understand the right or wrong aspect of it, but right now it's really about risk allocation as opposed to right or wrong. mean, right or wrong is something that you have like a sort of a notion in terms of, know, morality and principles. But if we're talking about making a decision in the litigation context, you really should be thinking about it in terms of the allocation of burden. And maybe that's too much of a clinical way of thinking about it, but.
To your point, I do think that you need to give them a rubric of how they're going to quantify their emotions.
Khurram Naik (1:13:12)
And then, you know, a key part of this concert is when you experience the emotions. And so my premise is that you, the best place to experience emotions is later in the process in the form of a pleasant surprise. And I think that just resonates with different people to different reasons. think for some people, they don't want a pleasant surprise. want...
they'd rather trade off the pleasure for certainty ⁓ earlier in the process. so is there ⁓ some, I guess, in either in terms of sense of allocating when someone experiences emotion or to what this concept of being surprised at all or some analog to that.
Is there something that you're adding in the process there? part of it, because I think you're talking about this, you're talking about client agency and not abdicating ⁓ everything to the lawyer. I think that serves more than one purpose because also like you're not shouldering an unfair burden of being the person who can protect everything. And then there's a benefit to the client having skin in the game and being invested in the process and thinking through every step of the way and not just like. ⁓
again, advocating decision making to their agent, outside counsel. So I don't know if that resonates as part of this, is like to what degree, ⁓ it's surprise in some sense sounds like a negative thing for a client. ⁓ Maybe the contexts don't really match up. But I'm just curious if that is part of how you counsel your clients as well.
Timothy Yoo (1:14:48)
I don't think we're talking about different things. Maybe surprise is one thing, but maybe not depend on an uncertainty, a condition happening, right? A condition is something that's not certain to occur that could occur. I think you put conditionality into the advice that you give is that like, this could happen. ⁓ I handicap it as these are the things that would to occur before that, or like, this is the likelihood and allow them to make a decision on that. want to make it very clear that if it's a condition,
contingency that's not certain to happen, that they know that, that, you know, maybe their decision-making shouldn't be dependent on that happening. And therefore, if that condition arises, then to use your term, they can be pleasantly surprised about it. And maybe that, that will affect their decision-making. But, but, you know, I think it's important to be very upfront about the, what you're saying are the conditions and to be the flip side of that same coin is that don't, don't try to.
⁓ in a sense, ⁓ set their expectations too much because if it's realistic that it's likely to happen, you should let them know that too, right? You shouldn't just say, take a fatalistic approach and say, hey, that's not guaranteed. There's no way that the judge is going to interpret this contract this way. If you think that that's the only reasonable conclusion to reach, you should tell your client that.
Khurram Naik (1:16:13)
How do you relate to the concept of ambition? So you're talking about growth at this stage and before we start recording, we're talking a little about getting to a phase where you're comfortable and appreciating the rewards of hard work that got you there. Yeah, I'm curious about how you relate to the concept of ambition.
Timothy Yoo (1:16:35)
Ambition ⁓ as distinct from growth in terms of professional growth? Is that what you're talking about?
Khurram Naik (1:16:42)
Yeah, there's a connection between the two. And maybe a way to put it now is, you more or less about the same ambitious as you were five years ago?
Timothy Yoo (1:16:54)
I would say if nothing else, maybe about the same or even more, by just to be very specific about ambitious, but I'm talking about ambition in terms of like personal professional growth, in terms of being able to like select opportunities, pursue opportunities, put myself in positions to get more opportunities that speak to me. I think I'm very, I'm just as ambitious as I was when I started five years ago, whatever parameter you want to start. I think that to me, hopefully,
will be, will be, you know, never ending because you know, and I want to just be distinct about that in terms of ambition, terms of whatever, I guess, as a byproduct of having, you know, ⁓ goals of professional growth, whatever byproducts that might have that that's, that's one thing I don't necessarily fixate on that, but by that being, you know, the material rewards or outside recognition, whatever, whatever you want to call that it's really, I find it the pursuit of
of those opportunities and those growth opportunities, that's fulfilling in itself. And I think the other components of whatever comes with that, I think will take care of itself to a certain degree. But I think for me, it's always served me well to focus more on the growth itself as like a means or like as an end of itself.
Khurram Naik (1:18:16)
Do you think in terms of goals, like do you have some identifiable goals?
Timothy Yoo (1:18:22)
It's funny. Yes. I mean, I think you got to have goals because I think if you don't have something that you're striving toward and for me, goals are things that like are actionable things that you write down because ⁓ to me, it's not a goal until you write it down. So I definitely write it down. You know, I put together my vision board ⁓ recently about the things that I want to accomplish and drive towards. And it's funny, I was showing my
I actually, I work with like a performance coach or performance consultant or you want to talk about it. I was showing, she's my former law school classmate. ⁓ she was great. ⁓ I was showing her this vision board and her first comment was. It's not, it's not ambitious enough. You should actually like write down goals that are like more ambitious because of things that you wrote down and I'd wrote down things like, you try to be a more present father, be a more loving husband, try to, you know,
work on my craft, things like that. Those are almost like, those are things that like you're already doing. So she was saying that you should really write down ⁓ stretch goals of like, is sort of, this is the level of like the growth of your, like how big your practice is gonna be, like how many trials that you've achieved or things like that. I think she would really encourage me to write down and shoot for. So I think that's right. I mean, I think it doesn't sort of, you don't.
It doesn't manifest until like it's concrete and you see yourself, ⁓ know, striving toward that. Cause I think a big thing for me now is like, try to curate a lot of what I look at on a day-to-day basis, because obviously like what you see is what you desire. And I think it's very important, especially in the age of social media, you know, you can find yourself doom scrolling and then, you you can find yourself looking at things like exotic watches or vacation, locales and things like that.
convince yourself that this is something that you need to live a fulfilled life. And the minute that you sort of get those out of your eyeline and start looking at other things, then you really sort of go toward the things that you're looking at. So I find myself more than anything, like really trying to curate kind of what comes into my field of vision. Obviously it's hard to control all the time, but I think that's where writing down your goals, creating like a vision board of like what you prioritize ⁓ is very important.
Khurram Naik (1:20:45)
What's been the biggest takeaway from working with your performance coach?
Timothy Yoo (1:20:50)
Yeah, I think in terms of processes involved sort of being equipped with ⁓ how you think about things, the tools that you apply to it, just having someone to bounce ideas off of in terms of, ⁓ these are my goals, being able to like vocalize those and like put words and names on what your ambitions are and what your...
like desired outcomes are, I think have been very helpful. just to like have something that's like actionable, I think is, was, was important. Cause like for me, you know, I can work with like a swing coach for my golf swing or like a personal trainer for physical fitness or a dietitian for nutrition and things like that. So I think given that what we all do as lawyers is in a sense, like the whole theme of this, this discussion today is like, how do you optimize performance and put yourself in a position to.
to meet that moment and to be the best. And I think like having, know, maybe performance coaching isn't the right label for it. Like I kind of view it as like a consultant, a professional consultant. And I found that to be very, very helpful and productive for me.
Khurram Naik (1:22:04)
Yeah, and to your point about.
what you see influences you. I I think the people you associate with also influence you. And so ⁓ I admire you and I really love our conversations and how much you get me excited, get me ambitious. And one of the things I really admire about you is how you are very passionate about ⁓ performance. ⁓ Broadly speaking, you look for examples of it broadly and you're really relentless in pulling in ideas from that.
And so I'm glad that you do that. You inspire me to do more of that and cultivate. I want to dig into some Steve Jobs videos or whatever and kind of just curate some more for myself digging into what elite performance looks like. But yeah, really dig the conversation as always, Tim.
Timothy Yoo (1:22:59)
Likewise, I can speak to you for hours. I always enjoy the time. I feel like any day of the week, you can just give me a call. We can pick up the phone and just press record and hopefully it'd be worthwhile to listen. But I appreciate the opportunity to come on your podcast again. And I enjoyed the conversation immensely. So thank you.