Scope of Practice

On this episode of Scope of Practice, Ropes & Gray asset management associate, Yoni Levy, speaks with asset management associate, Chidi Oteh, about his hedge funds-focused practice and his career path to date, which includes leaving and returning to the firm as an associate, and then working as a secondee for a client.

What is Scope of Practice?

A Ropes & Gray podcast series for law students and recent graduates that provides an inside look into different practice groups and the lives of attorneys in those groups at the firm.

Yoni Levy: Welcome to Scope of Practice, a podcast that opens a window for an inside look at the different practice groups, and the lives of attorneys in those groups here at Ropes & Gray. I’m Yoni Levy, an associate in our asset management group, based in Boston. On this episode, I’m joined by Chidi Oteh, an associate in our asset management and sports groups, also based in Boston. Hi, Chidi—why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, where you fit in the practice group at Ropes & Gray, what your practice areas are, and how you came to those?

Chidi Oteh: Absolutely. I’m a rising sixth-year, and, as you said, in the asset management group in Boston. My mentors, as a summer associate, were asset management attorneys. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. My older brother was an M&A attorney at Simpson Thacher, but otherwise, not very many lawyers in our family. And so, I didn’t know what I wanted to do even after my summer at Ropes, which was a lot of fun. I just knew I wanted to work with that asset management group—I really wanted to work with those people. So, whatever they were doing was kind of my, “I'll do that—I’ll join that club.”

Yoni Levy: Who was your mentor, as a summer associate? Now, I’m just curious.

Chidi Oteh: One is still here and is a partner, Katie Waite. The other two, Mike Doore and Heather Smith, each went on to pretty prestigious jobs at Ropes & Gray clients—Mike Doore being at Fidelity, and Heather Smith being at Bracebridge.

Yoni Levy: I like all those people quite a lot. I was just curious. I always have a fun time interviewing folks from asset management in particular, because there’s such overlap in the people we work with, so that’s awesome. Katie’s one of my favorite people at the firm, so I can see why you would decide you want to keep working with her. And it’s interesting that you made a people-based decision, which I think ends up being what happens to a lot of people. You just click with certain people, and those people are attracted to the same work style that you are attracted to, so it’s a self-feeding cycle. You work with people whom you like working with, but also you like working with them because you all have very similar work styles, so that’s pretty interesting. Since you’ve made that decision, people-based, how have you found that worked out for you, in the big picture, so far?

Chidi Oteh: I’m pretty biased, but I think it’s been great. The advice that I got when I was choosing a firm, from my older brother and some of my mentors, was the same advice. I played college football, and I was choosing between schools for college football. One of my football mentors told me to, “Choose a school that you’d go to if you didn't play football. If football was out of the picture, where would you go?” So, I chose my school based on that. And then, the same sort of advice was, “If you could just go work in an organization, no matter what you were doing, whether it was law or anything, where would you go and whom would you work with?” That was how I based my thought process with Ropes, and I think it’s been borne out. I left Ropes after my third year for a really cool opportunity with the Oakland A’s to be their associate counsel, with a very high-profile title and organization. Even though the majority of the people, I would say, at the Oakland A’s were really amazing, the organization was great, the city was amazing, you sometimes take for granted the people that you get to work with. From top to bottom, the community-based approach that Ropes has, from the minute you walk in, to the clients that we have, I found it great—so great that I left and came back. Even when I was gone, I would still be interested in what people whom I was working with at Ropes were doing, came back to visit a lot, went to some sporting events with Katie (just to name-drop Katie again), but I found that the asset management group is particularly close.

Yoni Levy: I’m glad you mentioned the time you spent outside of Ropes—I think that’s a unique perspective that we have not had the fortune of having on the podcast before. I think I might have mentioned that there are plenty of people who leave and come back, and I think the recruiting people call them “returnees,” which is a little kitschy, but it’s quite common. I think people find when they leave that there’s something missing, or that they want to keep pursuing the opportunity at Ropes, so I think that you have a unique perspective as one of the people who did that. I’m not sure what Ropes’ relationship, if any, is with the Oakland A’s—I'm not sure if anyone you worked with outside, for the period that you were outside of Ropes, had a perception of what Ropes & Gray is like on the inside, but I’d be curious to hear, if you have a sense of what the external perception is of the firm?

Chidi Oteh: I applied to this position, to the Oakland A’s, where I was a few years underqualified, and one thing that the AGC mentioned, as part of her screening process, was that she knows that Ropes & Gray attorneys are really well-trained. And so, I guess it gave me a two-year boost in what they were looking for in their recruiting process.

Yoni Levy: You mentioned mentors a few times in your comments, so I'm wondering if we could talk a little bit more about what mentorship has been like at the firm, from both formal and informal perspectives. Maybe you could tell us which one is more important to you, and how you feel mentorship is up and down the chain?

Chidi Oteh: I think this is another unique point about asset management. When everything happened last summer around George Floyd, and organizations were focused on really concentrating their diversity efforts and trying to see what more they could do for their diverse employees, Ropes, similarly, took a look inside and surveyed diverse attorneys. One comment that came up was “being diligent about informal mentorship, review and feedback.” And so, there was a firmwide effort to formalize certain aspects of review, feedback and mentorship. For me, when that process came about, because they were formalizing things that were already happening in the asset management group, prior to the initiative, I already had hour blocks on my “formal mentors’” calendar every month. So, I think, both formally and informally, for the asset management group, when we were still the hedge funds group, we would get together in New York and we’d spend a little bit of time talking about hedge funds, the industry and things like that, but most of the time it would devolve into personal and family conversations. In the Boston group particularly, we would have karaoke in Katie’s basement (we called it “Katie-oke”), but it was times where you could really peel back the layers and get to know people and develop relationships. Often, mentors are invested in you and take pride in you when you succeed, but I feel like the mentors whom I’ve found not only are invested in my success, but sometimes feel ownership, or take ownership, if I’m not given the tools to succeed and somehow I fall short of what my potential expectations are. So, I think that that’s something that's been organic, but I also really appreciate the fact that it’s also a formal and tracked thing now, so it’s good on both sides. The informal part was already there, but for people who maybe aren’t as extroverted as I am, or don't have those types of relationships, there’s also that formal process now in place.

Yoni Levy: You mentioned a few things that I want to talk about a bit more. The first is Katie-oke, which is to say when the asset management groups merged together under the new umbrella group, I was pretty excited about the opportunity, as someone more on the closed-end side, to be more formally part of the same group as you all because I thought maybe I would get invited to Katie-oke, but then COVID got a bit in the way and I haven’t been invited yet, but I can’t wait for it to pick back up so I can come. The private investment funds group, which has also merged into asset management, which was the group I was in, also had one or two karaoke-related events, but not quite as fun as a regular thing in someone’s basement. It was at a bar here or there. I first just wanted to give a shout-out to that, that I hope to be included, so keep that in mind.

The second thing was the point you made about asset management being a leader within the firm on some of these firm initiatives. I hadn’t thought about that in particular, but I think you’re right. I recall also when the firm rolled out this new availability feedback system, where people self-report how much time they think they have, on a color scale—red: you’re slammed, you can't take any more work; yellow: you have a steady week; or green—I remember that was piloted in the asset management group well in advance of it being rolled out to the rest of the firm. I think it works really well, and that’s part of why it was rolled out to the rest of the firm. And so, I think you’re right that we are always part of that. I think that availability system, but also, as you said, the formalization of some of the mentorship approaches and those kinds of things are not only focused on introverted/extroverted distinctions, but also generally on diversity and inclusion, which has broadly been a big focus of the firm overall, doing trainings and the like to try and make us all sensitive to and aware of diversity and inclusion issues. But also, trying to make sure that, on top of the informal culture, we have the formal pieces in place, so that, if for some reason someone feels excluded from the informal piece, there’s always the formal piece as backup. I’m not sure if you’ve been involved at all in the diversity and inclusion efforts at the firm, or how you’ve found that, generally?

Chidi Oteh: That’s right—I have. One of the things I like a lot about my time at Ropes is that, even as I’ve been growing as a relatively junior associate, I’ve been able to participate in all manner of things. Around the same time, the firm brought together administrative staff, partners, policy committee members and associates for a race, equity and inclusion task force, and I was fortunate enough to be asked to be a part of it. A lot of the suggestions and the things we were pushing we had examples or foundations of them in the asset management group that we were able to build upon, curate and develop for some firmwide policies. I’m now on secondment. I've been on secondment since May, so I haven’t been involved in some of the more recent diversity, equity and inclusion programs. But for the better part of this year, before I went on secondment, I was intimately involved and was a member of the task force, and was very fortunate to see the enthusiasm with which the firm went after some of these issues that were gripping the country. They’re not unique to Ropes & Gray, but I think the way we solved them highlights the difference between Ropes and some other law firms and organizations in general.

Yoni Levy: I think that’s been my finding as well. You mentioned that you’re on “secondment.” Maybe we should just clarify for the listeners. I know I hadn’t heard that term before I joined the firm. Secondment is when you’re “on loan” to a client. It takes different forms, but, in short, rather than a client paying the firm for you to do work here and there, as it comes up at the firm, you’re more working within the client itself. You’re still employed by the firm, being Ropes, but you are working, on a day-to-day basis, for the client. Is that about right for your secondment?

Chidi Oteh: It’s 100% right. It also plays on a few things that we were talking about before. Through my informal mentorship, I let one of the partners for the client that I’m seconded to know that I’d be interested in a secondment. And then, as part of our diversity efforts, one of the initiatives was to make sure that we’re being more equitable in including diverse associates in secondment opportunities and pitch opportunities, client-interfacing, and things like that, so it all came together. I’m fortunate enough to be spending time at one of the firm’s top five, if not top three, clients, and getting a lot of experience and exposure in that way.

Yoni Levy: You mentioned that there was an effort to offer secondments more broadly as part of our diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. I think it’s an interesting point also to raise that the firm has moved pretty far from the rather rigid, typical law firm approach, where it’s up and out: “You're an associate—you make partner, or you leave.” The firm, in an effort to keep talent in-house as much as possible, recognizing that a partnership-track associate is not the right path for everyone, has tons of different roles and opportunities—obviously, secondment being one of them. Understanding that people leave and come back, as you have, is another. But also, just having career associates, off-site fund attorneys, people who all have different deals with the firm in terms of how many hours they work and what types of projects they work on. The firm made a point, over the last ten years or so, of offering increasing optionality to make sure that people can continue to do the type of work that they want to do, and, if they’re talented, keep them here at Ropes rather than have them go elsewhere.

Chidi Oteh: That’s exactly right. The paternity support that I received while at Ropes was amazing. While I didn’t take part in them, there are so many different options for parents, to your point, this flexibility in tracks. There’s also flexibility in capacity. There are some people who are on Flex programs that place them at 80% or 50%. There are some people who are able to engage in the Ropes GO program, which allows you to spend time at another office, if there are spouse or family member situations, or if there’s a practice group need that calls them to that office. So, just a myriad of flexible and great arrangements.

Yoni Levy: The recognition that we’re all different people, and being respectful of us each having different drivers and different motivating factors, and wanting to get the best work out of the best people without unnecessarily making life difficult for people, I think, has been a major driving factor at the firm.

Chidi Oteh: That’s exactly right.

Yoni Levy: We got sidetracked by a bunch of really interesting conversations about your secondment, and your leaving and returning, but I should probably ask a bit more about what it is that you do in asset management in particular, and sports law, and what your focus areas are in terms of the types of work that you do and what your day-to-day looks like?

Chidi Oteh: Being in-house with the Oakland A’s, and then being on secondment again as an asset manager, I really better understand what is required and what value associates can add. I think that it’s mostly just thinking about what issues and problems you can solve for the person immediately above you. So, you come in as a first-year associate—most likely you’re going to be interacting, for a majority of the time, with a third-year associate. As a rising sixth-year, for me, I’m looking at senior associates, counsel and partners, and trying to think about what questions they’ll have. And the questions that they’ll have are likely the questions that the client’s going to have, and so, I’m trying to make sure that I’m adding value to everyone I’m speaking with. From a secondment perspective, I’m looked at as the client because I’m separated from Ropes, and so, for me, trying to look down the line to see what projects are coming, how to manage those projects so I’m not bulldozing through on Friday at 3:00 p.m. with a bunch of assignments that need to be done by Monday. So, trying to manage the business teams internally here at the client so that I know better how the business works, when they’re expecting things, what’s required for them to be able to trade, and things like that. It’s a little bit of a shift from being an associate to being “the client,” but on a day-to-day basis, you’re really just trying to add value in whatever situation you’re in—and that comes from attention to detail, learning from people, finding good mentors, asking the questions that you think are stupid, and just being a sponge to all the experiences and the substantive knowledge as you can.

Yoni Levy: I think the point about “adding value” in whatever way you can is really a huge lesson that you have to learn as a junior associate. People join the firm and feel uncomfortable with the fact that they don’t know quite as much as everyone more senior than them, and that feeling persists because there will always be someone who knows a little more than you do. The point is just to make sure, “What can I do to facilitate this piece of it that’s on my plate and make it easier for the person who’s looking at it next, recognizing that it’s probably a bigger slice of my overall plate than it is of theirs? So, I have the time,” as you said, “to look through all the documents and summarize them,” or, “I have the time to make sure I’m attaching the documents to the email when I send it to them.” And that’s essentially what distinguishes a good junior associate, among other things, but it’s one of the big distinguishing factors between a good junior associate and a poor one. It’s not always substantive knowledge, but it’s just that attentiveness to the fact that your job is to help make other people’s review easier, or thinking about an issue easier, or providing the background they need. No one expects you to have the substantive answer on day one, to every single question. Over time, you build substantive knowledge and you can provide substantive value, but until then, your value is that you have time and attention, and you’re a good critical thinker, and you can work through issues and present them in a way that is helpful. So, that’s all interesting. I think that gives a good sense of generically what you do. Can you talk just a little more substantively about what your practice area is within the firm? I do private funds, fundraising work, and I do a bunch of transactional work, too, which I’ve talked about on the podcast before, but maybe you can give listeners a sense of what it is that you do at the firm?

Chidi Oteh: When I joined, I was in the hedge funds group, but for my first three years, I worked almost exclusively on closing credit funds, so I was really a private investment funds attorney. And then, coming back, I worked on a few open-end products—"open-end” being hedge funds—meaning that while private funds might not have liquidity for whatever the investment period is, whether it’s three, four, six, ten years, open-end funds have liquidity sometimes on 30, 45, 60 days. I work on a few open-end products, but, again, the majority being closed-end products, and then some family office work, and then my sports work. I think, substantively, as a mid-level to junior associate, I’ve been living in fund launches. If we’re looking at a follow-on fund, or another iteration of a previous fund, updating offering documents and organizational documents—the offering documents being a confidential, private offering or placement memorandum; the fund documents being the LPA (limited partnership agreement) or a limited liability company agreement; and then side letters, where investors are negotiating investor-specific changes that they want, or clarifications that they want, with respect to those organizational documents. So, I’ve really lived in offering-document-and-side-letter land for the majority of my career.

On the sports side, we represented both companies, individuals, teams and organizations in sponsorship agreements. So, if you’ve ever been to a sporting event, you see a big banner for Anheuser-Busch, Miller Lite or Kaiser Permanente health insurance—the licenses and rights associated with that advertising are pretty heavily negotiated items, and so, we’ve worked with them on that. We’ve worked with the NFL in helping them craft their diversity and inclusion policies, and some of their diversity hiring rules that they’ve been developing over the last couple of years.

Yoni Levy: So, what you’re doing in your secondment now—is that asset management-related?

Chidi Oteh: That’s right—all asset management-related.

Yoni Levy: Are you doing mostly fundraising work for open-ends or are you doing closed-end, too? Or what’s the make, overall?

Chidi Oteh: The good thing about it is that the group that I’m in is the alternative funds, so both open-end and private funds, and I’ve gotten a good mix of both, given my experience. ‘'m working on a closed-end real-estate-focused fund—it just had its first closing maybe a month and a half ago. And then, I’m also working on an open-end emerging market strategy fund of one—there’s one investor for about a billion dollars, and that’s set to close at the end of next month. So, a good mix of both, mirroring my experience at Ropes.

Yoni Levy: Are you working with people at Ropes on any of this?

Chidi Oteh: Yes, every day I’m working with the team at Ropes. I’m one of two secondees from Ropes who are currently in the department. A former asset management associate at Ropes, George Baxter, is now the client, so I work with a lot of Ropes folks on a daily basis. It’s really great.

Yoni Levy: What’s that experience like from the other side of the curtain? One of my closest friends from the firm left to go to a client and is now a client of mine. So, that’s a funny interaction for me, but what’s it like on the other side?

Chidi Oteh: It is definitely interesting. It’s sometimes tough asking a partner that you know is going to be able to give you some work to do an annoying project, once you’re on the client side. You have to ask this person to do something that you know is going to be pretty tough and time-consuming, so that’s a little awkward, when they’re usually the person who’s asking you to do the tough assignments. Everybody’s been great, and they understand the dynamics. When you’re doing work at Ropes, you’re really in the weeds and you’re looking for every punctuation and concept, and you’re giving everything a very comprehensive review. When I get something as an associate at Ropes & Gray, I own it, so I go through it with a fine-tooth comb. And, for the first couple of months, I was still doing that when I would get something from Ropes on the client side, and it just was a little inefficient because a Ropes attorney is a Ropes attorney, so they’ve already done that for you. You have to transition from being a law firm lawyer to being more of a facilitator and a business lawyer. George Baxter explained it to me as: “When you’re on the law firm side, you’re the executive chef, and so, you’re cooking the entire dish. And then, when you’re on the client side, you’re more of an expeditor. You’re making sure the food looks right and then giving it to the waiter to take to the table.” Which is the business team, so that’s the big difference—you’re not really cooking the documents or in the weeds there, but you’re more facilitating the legal process from the in-house side, and getting confirmations from business folks and things like that.

Yoni Levy: I’ve always thought of myself as more of an eater than anything else. I guess I’ll start telling people I’m a chef. What is it that you like about funds work in particular?

Chidi Oteh: Again, for me, a lot of it is the people, but the sophistication of it, and the different challenges every day, you never get bored. Once you feel like you’ve gotten a grip on a certain subject, or aspect of the law, there’s always more to uncover. The facts that you’re applying to the law are changing on a daily basis. The needs of the clients are changing. It’s just an ever-evolving space, and so, you never can really get bored. That’s probably my favorite piece of it.

Yoni Levy: That’s one of my favorite pieces also. I say that in general about being at a firm all the time, that the reason I like the firm model is it’s inherently built on you doing the peak most difficult thing you can do from a conceptual perspective—not that you have to push yourself physically. But the concept is always that you shouldn’t just be doing something that a first-year could easily be doing over and over again because that’s why there are first-years. The first-years are learning how to do sub-docs, subscription agreement intakes for the first time. You shouldn't be doing that as the mid-level or the senior associate on the project—you should have already moved on to being responsible for drafting the subscription agreements in all cases, or doing substantive negotiations. You’re always being pushed to grow to the next spot. And I think that you’re totally right, that’s been consistent with my experience within asset management.

Also is that, even on a substantive level, there are so many products. As you said, you’ve spent a large part of your career doing credit funds. I have not spent that much of my career doing credit funds—I’ve worked on a few, and I hope to work on some more, but there are other types of products. I’ve talked at length, in prior episodes, about how a large part of my career was focused on the investor side at the beginning, then on the fundraising side in the middle, and of late is split between the fundraising side and all these transactions that are bespoke deals for recapping investments into new vehicles from existing funds, or spinning out management teams from one company to another, or from one company to their own new entity—all these types of interesting transactions. As you said, even within just the general fundraising, there are always different considerations for each sponsor, in terms of the things that they’re focused on, in terms of how long the sponsor has been around. I work with tons of clients who are brand-new clients, and so, I get to be involved in day one, and figure out what the documents should look like, what their structure should look like, etc. And then, I have plenty of clients who have been around forever and know exactly what they’re doing. What I'm doing is providing them service on a totally different plane—I’m providing them more facilitating services, or helping coordination, or those types of things. There are always different focuses on the investment side, and those end up leading to differences on the legal side, as well. And so, there’s really such a broad world, where it’s not just lather, rinse, repeat over and over again.

Chidi Oteh: That’s right—that’s exactly right.

Yoni Levy: Did you have any background that led you into asset management? Had you done any asset management before? I know you mentioned no experience in the lawyer world before, but what about other backgrounds from college or otherwise, or that drove you to go into asset management?

Chidi Oteh: No. I knew I wanted to do corporate law—I’d done some accounting before going to law school, and my undergrad studies were in finance. And so, I knew I wanted to do something corporate, but it was really just the people in the asset management group, particularly the hedge funds group, who drew me in.

Yoni Levy: Wow, amazing. And you didn’t think about doing tax or something, with an accounting background?

Chidi Oteh: No. Our tax group, they’re on a different level intellectually than anybody I’ve ever met, so I’m not sure I could run with those people.

Yoni Levy: Fair point. What do you think the culture is, if you had to put a finger on it, of your group? You can comment on the culture at the firm generally, but since you were focused on picking asset management because of the culture, or hedge funds because of the culture, what do you think that culture’s like?

Chidi Oteh: I think it’s really just a group of normal people, even though they’re a group of people who have accomplished fairly a lot, by any other means or standards. But everybody’s really down-to-earth, everybody’s really nice—there aren’t any sharp elbows that I’ve experienced. Nobody really takes themselves too seriously—they could be working on the most complicated transaction, billions of dollars, and things like that, but everybody, at the end of the day, is just normal people with families, with issues, and they’re cognizant of that. Do you know what I mean? It’s just kind of hard to explain. Being in other places outside the firm and seeing how people react to issues and items that are sometimes less sophisticated than what we deal with at the firm, and do so with bad attitudes or sharp elbows, or with an air of superiority—it is always just a breath of fresh air to come to Ropes and be around really good people. I always joke that lawyers are like answering machines: You just press a button and they'll spit out the right answer because they’ve rehearsed it, but it’s not necessarily what they really mean or feel genuinely or organically. I feel like the culture of Ropes is to be a normal person, to be a good person, to be a caring person. They bring you into the firm because they assume that you’re smart enough to handle all the substantive stuff. So, they just want to make sure that you’re good, nice, and normal people—“normal” in the sense of “organic,” not in the sense of any type of cookie-cutter perception, framework or stereotype.

Yoni Levy: I had not heard this before, but we spoke to Young Yoon, and he described it as “smart but unassuming,” which I really liked as a descriptor.

Chidi Oteh: Young Yoon’s the man, so I’m not surprised that he would come up with the quote of the year. That’s exactly it, though.

Yoni Levy: Yes, exactly. I think “smart but unassuming” is a good description. So, you talked a little bit about what the social events were like in hedge funds—you mentioned the Katie-oke stuff. I don't know if you’ve been on secondment the whole time, but has there been any activity since COVID started, or any efforts to keep connected—what’s that been like?

Chidi Oteh: I think when those started, I was just going out on secondment. But even while on secondment, once everything was safe, everyone was vaccinated, I was able to get dinners and lunches with some of the partners that I have those informal mentorship relationships with, whether that’s Katie, Rob Roberts—we got to grab lunch, and Jeff Katz—I was able to grab a few lunches and a couple dinners with him, some coffees, too. Jeff is a really good friend and mentor of mine, whom I appreciate. And then, just bringing people together. We had a farewell for an associate who was moving to the San Francisco office. I know that the African American associates and summer associates were able to get together a little bit over the summer on an informal basis—I wasn’t able to participate in that because I was on secondment. But those are some of the things that I’ve heard of, and some that I was able to participate in, so it’s good to see that in-person community come back together. I also think that Ropes has done a great job of making the virtual feel less disjointed or separated, so that’s been good.

Yoni Levy: I think they’ve done everything they can without over-fatiguing everyone on Zoom, which I’ve found to be much more tiring than in-person interactions. And then, it sounds like maybe the answer to this question is, “spending lots of time with your family,” but can you tell us something you do in your spare time when you’re not at the computer console for the firm?

Chidi Oteh: Yes, I spend a lot of time with the kids, and the family. Honestly, I spend a lot of time with my friends and colleagues at work, so it’s not just like, “I know this person from work” and then I’ll only see them in the halls of Ropes & Gray. A couple weekends ago, somebody from my summer class had their bachelor party in Vegas, so I was in Vegas with a bunch of other former Ropes & Gray associates who are now at Ropes & Gray clients—these are guys I travel with and hang out with and, if I go to New York I’ll see them, if they come to Boston, we’ll hang out. I'm at the age, and I have enough kids, where Vegas is no longer fun, it’s more of an obligation, but it was good to go and see them. I convinced myself that it was good for client development to go and hang out with these guys who are now in-house at Ropes & Gray clients. But, no, I hang out with friends and family, and travel, and play pickup sports or go to the gym, and things like that—just things to break up the day, break up the week, break up the month, a little bit of everything. I love going to sporting events and things like that.

Yoni Levy: I feel you on the Vegas thing. I think if I went to Vegas without my kids, I would just sleep because I need to catch up on my sleep when my kids aren’t around, so I definitely feel you on that. Great, Chidi—thanks so much for joining me and sharing your insights into the asset management group, secondment, and your experience being a returning attorney at the firm. I especially thank you for taking time out while you’re on secondment right now to join us, so thank you for that. And thank you to our listeners, we hope you found this to be helpful. If there’s a specific practice group or area you’d like us to cover in a future episode, please reach out to me directly—I’d love to hear from you. If you’re a law student or recent graduate who’d like to learn more, please visit our website at ropesgrayrecruiting.com or check us out on Instagram at @ropesgray. You can subscribe to this series wherever you typically listen to podcasts, including on Apple, Google and Spotify. Please look out for future episodes, and share with your friends. Thanks again for listening, and see you on the next episode.