Leena Yousefi says she can prove that pay transparency and the 4-day workweek are effective

Leena Yousefi’s innovative radical approach to pay and workplace productivity has sparked unprecedented interest from our readers this year. For our CL Talk podcast, we spoke to her about how her approach is working at her firm YLaw   . She told listeners about the difference between pay transparency and uniformity, why the four-day workweek is not for lazy lawyers and how her firm has tripled in size and doubled its revenues.

Yousefi will also be speaking about "Innovations in accountability – the role of senior leadership in advancing diversity in law" at the upcoming Women in Law summit on April 17, 2024 in Toronto.

Listen to our full podcast episode here:

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Below is a transcript of the conversation, edited for length and clarity.

YLaw has grown quite a bit recently. How many lawyers do you have, and what services do you provide?

Right now, we have about 22 lawyers. It could be much more than that, but we have a physical space issue. Once we lease more space, hopefully, we’ll grow more. We are primarily focused on family law, but I realized there’s so much talent in other areas of law, which excites me. So, starting last year, we expanded into estate litigation, immigration law, strata, and all the fun stuff. And those departments have been doing well. So, the future is bright.

You describe yourself as the largest female-led law firm in Canada.

That’s because we are. There are a lot of women in managing partner and leadership roles in the legal community. But I haven’t seen many law firms where there’s a female founder and a female leader, and that woman completely leads, versus being a part of a committee or a bunch of managing partners and having equity stakes like that.

This is part of my career I’m most proud of because I feel like I’ve brought a different perspective into how law can be run. It’s been proven successful.

It’s not the only successful model, but it’s another model that can be considered. One of the reasons we’re growing is to legitimize that this works. It doesn’t have to be on a small scale; it can be on a large scale.

You spoke to us before about how you wanted to be the first law firm of its size in Canada to go completely transparent and uniform for your pay. Can you tell me about that journey and where you ended up?

We started with pay transparency six or seven months ago. This was because I get lawyers applying to me from other countries, and some of them say, “We don’t even want any pay; I just want to get my foot in the door.” Even though they’re super intelligent, dedicated, and experienced, they don’t get the attention some lawyers may get. Those educated in Canada may come from strong backgrounds or families with massive negotiation powers.

For pay, it’s not necessarily the level of intelligence, education, or experience; it’s negotiation power. Why would I pay somebody more, based on how loud they can yell versus paying somebody based on how appropriate they are for the job?

For gender and racial issues, or whatever’s happening in the world, we want equality. However, I find that usually, people of colour and women, minorities, and immigrants are the ones who are being discriminated against when it comes to pay. So, we said everybody with the same background, education level and experience level should be technically treated the same.

We will level that playing field because there is no real risk. Your people talk to each other and ask each other how much the other person is making. And if they perceive unfairness, they lose trust in you as an employer. Once the trust is lost, you’re going to lose talent.

They are also very curious about how much the partners make because most of these lawyers want to go on that partnership track. So, what stops us from telling them how much the partners are making if that will motivate them to get to that level? I don’t see any harm there.

The third element was I want them to know how much I’m making because some of them might say, “I want to be her,” or some may say, “She’s exploiting me; I’m only making this much as she’s making this much in return.” So, they need to know how much I’m making to ensure everything is level.

We did run into one problem, which I would like everybody to know. There is a difference between transparency and uniformity. I think transparency is much more important than uniformity. I’ve come to realize that it’s not a one-size-fits-all-all. When they start working here, some lawyers show a lot more initiative, loyalty, and excitement. So even though their education and experience are the same, the potential is more.

So, we have made a slight revision, not to hold everybody to the same formula, but to say this is the base and the standards from which we worked. If you think that you’re exceptional or deserve more, come and talk to us. We may negotiate something more, but the result of that negotiation is going to be reported to the rest of the team. So, we’re not going to hold that information back.

If you’re going to maintain uniformity, it’s better to keep it for junior lawyers. If you’re year one to three, all you’re trying to do is to learn the law and survive. So, you can do a set salary for those three years.

But after that, if somebody wants to be on a fee split or negotiate a higher raise because they billed or collected more, they should be given that opportunity because it could also disincentivize people from wanting to grow by thinking, “I’m getting the same pay as the next person who’s not doing as well as I am. So why should I try harder.”

You have also spoken to us about the four-day workweek. What have you learned implementing that?

The biggest thing I learned was that it’s not a fairy tale. The four-day workweek has become a trend. From an employer perspective, it scares off a lot of law firms.

I’ve been laughed at. People ask me, “What profession do you think you are in? We work seven days a week.”

I totally get it, but I am here speaking from facts and stats, and since we have implemented it, we’ve tripled our size, doubled our revenues, and almost doubled our profits. Our retention rates have skyrocketed because of the applications we get.

Most people who apply with us are not lazy; they don’t come to us because they’re happy to work one day less. They want a life and are determined to work harder during those four or five days.

They’re also aware, especially lawyers, that we are all bound by the Code of Professional Conduct that says if something is urgent, you must drop everything and work seven days a week, 24 hours. We all do that; we’re no exception.

But what differentiates us from the old model is that we have learned to be more efficient with our time.

Once every two months, a lawyer takes a sick day, and at least once or twice a month, they take a few hours here and there to go and attend a doctor’s appointment. These things add up. You may have to pick up your sick kid or need more vacation. I may be burnt out or need a personal day.

It is not that we’ve given them more time; we’ve just taken all the time that they take off and condensed it to one day a week, where they go and do all of that. They then come back for the rest of the week, and they can focus on their work.

It has generally been positive, but there have been challenges because it’s a new policy that can get messy.

Has this policy helped you attract younger lawyers?

I don’t think so. Lawyers and law students are already hard workers. I don’t hire a law student who comes from law school and says, “The reason I’ve applied to you is because I can get to work four days a week.” When you come out of law school, you better pay your dues, and you better work hard.

However, after five to 10 years, many lawyers are married and have kids. They’re still going to work hard, but they’re going to have limitations as to what those hours will be.

For lawyers who have worked more than 20-25 years, they have paid their dues, perfected their career, made a lot of money, and have a big name. The firm benefits from having those big names. They say, “I’m making the firm a lot of money, and my rate is twice the junior lawyer, but I want to relax a bit.” We’ve gotten those big names, prominent lawyers working at large firms, who no longer want to sign into that model. They want a little relaxation; they still work very hard, but not expected 1800-2000 hours.

That’s been the best thing because it has legitimized Ylaw, a relatively young firm compared to the bigger firms.

The second group we get are lawyers who are very experienced and very good at what they do, but they want flexibility. If they want to take that day off, they can. Wednesdays are our day off, but most of our lawyers do not take every Wednesday off. They will take a few hours here and there.

They all say it’s not the benefit of having one day off; the benefit comes from the psychological freedom and autonomy of knowing that they can take that day off if they want to.

These ideas are all quite innovative for law firms in Canada. What will it take for other firms to follow a similar journey?

The big firms set the stage for all the other firms because they’re so big. They have so many resources and are the best in the country.

No matter how much people may want to criticize the big firms, they did some things right to get to where they are. But unless those firms buy into these ideas, the other firms will be hesitant because lawyers are very risk averse.

The big firms are dedicating a lot of resources to hiring people to get on top of AI, but some of these innovative policies are not as measurable as AI. So, I aim to get as large as possible and show from a legitimate standpoint that this works and will benefit your business.

Once I get there, I think they will sign up. I have noticed a massive increase in the number of people and firms that contacted me and asked me for my opinion. They’re trying to test it out. I’ve had many firms say, “We are trying to implement this; how do we go about it?” I think it’s gaining traction, but it will take time.

Where do you think that’s going to happen? Is there something about family law that has made it easier for you to innovate?

Family law is one of the most challenging areas to implement the four-day workweek because of the amount of litigation, short or no notice, abductions, sexual abuse, and all sorts of stuff that is so urgent. It’s so unpredictable. I imagine it would be a lot easier for solicitors or corporate lawyers.

If we’ve done it, everybody else can. I get many more law firms, large and small, from the US reaching out and wanting to implement this because I think the Americans take more risks.

The billable hour and targets are holding the Canadian law firms back. How will you reach your 1800-to-2000-hour target working four days a week? My answer is it’s not that black and white. It just requires a lot more education and less fear. And it’s just going to take time.

There may be more interest in the US for pay transparency because Canadians tend to be more reserved and private.

Yes, but there are pay transparency laws now. There are rules about pay disclosure in BC and probably across Canada. Law firms have all their spreadsheets and know all the market stats; they know what every other competitor is offering their associates and their associates notice.

We have a significant problem with retaining lawyers, and turnover is massive. That’s only getting worse with all our societal changes.

Junior lawyers are no longer willing to put up with this. We must invest more in them; we can’t continue doing what we’ve been doing and expect them to stay. The more resistance we show, the more we lose. We must look at what they want and create a balance because I think he’s been one-sided for a long time. The power positions are shifting.

Family law is difficult emotionally, and you have spoken in the past about your mental health issues. How do you manage that balance in your practice?

Family law creates a lot of mental health issues. My heart goes out to those young lawyers who come out of law school and think they want to help people and realize the practice is entirely different from what they expect.

You must learn skills around client management, managing mental health issues and toxic relationships, power imbalances, etc.

I admire lawyers who detach themselves and say, “This is just the job; I’m trying to learn the law.” We have those lawyers at YLaw, but I could never be that lawyer.

The one thing that applies to family law, and probably every other area of law, is for associates, you must take them aside regularly and give them hope.

What caused me to reduce and stop practicing family law was that I was doing the same thing all day, every day, and I was not going anywhere; I was utterly stuck. Every firm must sit down with associates for one hour at the end of each year and say, “What are one or two things that worked for you, and what are the one or two things that didn’t work for you? And if by December of 2024, you want it to make your life 10 to 20 percent better, what would that look like? Is it doing a different type of law? Is it doing a different kind of case in family law? Is it doing community work? Is it dabbling into another area of law?”

You don’t have to fix family law or their career, but you must give them hope. And that’s called career pathing, which is something that I feel is missing in a lot of firms, where as soon as an associate comes in, there’s a target.

So, we’ve started doing that. It takes a lot of time and effort but pays back tenfold because it keeps the associate happy and hopeful.

You are very open about your personal story. Recently, you posted about getting together with Jewish friends and how the Middle East conflict is dividing people. You said that we should be more open and human. How has that open approach fit into your career?

I grew up in war myself. I’m from Iran. When I was six years old, we were getting bombed. Thankfully, nothing serious happened, although I was injured. I remember the trauma; it made a lifelong impact on me and my entire family.

I came to Canada in my teenage years, and I looked different. I felt isolated and rejected by my peers. Some of my Jewish friends are experiencing antisemitism for the first time. They never experienced it because they lived in Canada.

These experiences were the seeds of the depression and anxiety I experienced in my teenage years, and they extended until I was expelled from university at 19.

Eventually, I ended up back in law school and became a lawyer. But the fact that I went through that created empathy, not just for my clients, but for my people and peers.

So, when I see people who are in pain and experiencing what I experienced, I can only show them love and empathy and say that they’re not alone.

We have trained ourselves to act strong and hide all vulnerabilities. We are afraid of losing opportunities and people judging us, but I don’t have that fear. I don’t care what people think of me anymore; I’ve been rejected enough that I don’t care.

The more I reveal, the more good people come into my life. And those are the people that I want to surround myself with.

These experiences I had as a kid meant all I could do sometimes was go to bed, close my eyes, and imagine. These experiences helped me be creative in how I run my firm. I started developing creativity very young because it was the only way I could sustain and survive.

Is there anything more you want to say to lawyers across Canada?

As a profession, we need to lose our fears and take more risks. I hope all law firms at least give it a try or listen to new ideas and try to implement them because that’s the only way we can shift ourselves in the right direction.