Courtroom Theater: Early-Career Complex Litigation at a Large Firm

Katya Valasek:

We're joined today by Bola Adeniran, a fourth-year associate who does complex litigation at a large midwest law firm with a national presence. A lot of people go to law school without having met a lawyer, and there's a lot of reasons for that. Tell us about the first lawyer you met.

Bola Adeniran:

The first lawyer I met was actually not practicing at the time I met her. She was actually my health policy professor at WashU. I had done a master's program, and this was my first semester of my master's program. Ms. Franklin, during class, asked me to stay after class to talk. I'm scared, like, “oh my God, what does she have to say?” After class, she comes up to me and she says, have you ever thought about being an attorney?

Whoa, I mean, I had just done a presentation on Flint, Michigan. Being an attorney was just not anywhere part of the discussion we were having. And I said, “you know, I hadn't thought about it, but let's talk.” As an immigrant, I migrated to the U.S. when I was relatively young. In my culture, you only have really two options. You can be a doctor or an engineer, and anything outside of that is what we call failure. And not that that's actually the case. You know, my parents at times worked three jobs, you know, all day. There was a time my dad got in a car accident because he had worked two shifts before and then was going to another shift at another job to provide for us.

You know, when you kind of consider that kind of history and background, you're like, you know, I want to be bigger and better. But honestly, being a doctor wasn't for me. And I kind of had to come to that realization myself and to really talk with my parents about, look, this is what is realistic for me. She wasn't even practicing at the time I met her, and yet she had such a profound impact on my life. And she's the reason why I sit here today.

Katya Valasek:

What path did you start to see for yourself at the very beginning?

Bola Adeniran:

So I'm a big musical theater fan. And I don't know if you've watched Hamilton, but if you have, there is a scene in the musical where, you know, there's a song called The Room Where It Happens, right? And Aaron Burr is, you know, kind of miffed that he's not able to be in the room where it happens, where Hamilton is. And I totally understand him.

I want to be in the room where it happens. And I actually want to be one of the spearheaders of change. And look at all the wonderful lawyers that have done that in our history, in our past, and who continue to do that in our present and the ones that would do so in our future. And I want to be one of those future people that make those changes.

Katya Valasek:

I said in the intro that you do complex litigation. So what makes it complex?

Bola Adeniran:

Ooh, okay. It's usually the adding of different parties or, you know, different facts or counterclaims and cross claims. So the plaintiff is usually the one that brings the case to say, defendant X breached the contract. Where it can get a little complex is where defendant X is like, okay, I may have breached the contract, but it's because somebody else made me do it. And so then that defendant really becomes a plaintiff in terms of grabbing somebody else as the true defendant. And honestly, depending on what the facts are and depending on who is liable, you could have multiple kinds of that.

And it could be that, you know, maybe the plaintiff also didn't do everything they were supposed to. And so defendant now we're on, let's say, Z now sues the original plaintiff and it can get really complex and a little messy. And sometimes you do need a Venn diagram and sometimes you need arrows and you need to keep the facts straight and, you know, what each party is alleging.

But to me, that's the fun part. It's like playing three-dimensional chess with multiple players on the board and you're really trying to find out how to get their king. And each party is determining, you know, what is the best strategy to get their king. And for a litigator, that's like something to wake up to and super happy to dig in and figure out.

Katya Valasek:

So complex is actually an understatement in the types of work that you do. As you said, it can get very messy and very complicated. What are the different types of disputes that you mostly work on?

Bola Adeniran:

Part of why I went into this was health care. So I actually do some health care litigation work, which I truly enjoy. There's some labor and employment considerations with FTC and non-competes. Those become an issue even in health care. You may not think they're related, but they're very related, especially at the executive level.

I also do some construction litigation. Contractors, subcontractors, especially developers are involved, especially, you know, in construction, there's timelines and people have, you know, plans or, you know, they need to be collecting rent by this time in order to collect a return on their investments. And as we know, you know, anybody who's, you know, building a house or even remodeling, construction can get really messy and it can be delayed. And those delays sometimes have consequences.

I do some real estate litigation, particularly when it comes to leases, potentially some land use, a lot of breach of contract cases, which I truly enjoy, you know, foundation of law school. And you realize those breach of contract cases, while they may be simple in the law school exams, they become way more complicated in practice.

Katya Valasek:

Is that some of what you like about the litigation work that you do? You get a variety of different issues that cross your desk on any given day.

Bola Adeniran:

Yes. I will say that's one of the best things about litigation is that I can do a wide variety of things. I can explore the realms of what law provides. You are always a student. Even if you're a partner, you're always learning more because there are new areas being developed and you're never doing the same thing day in and day out. Our facts are always different. The people are always different, even if the law is the same. And also law changes, right? So, but assuming that the law is the same, all other things changed, changes the entire equation. And so it keeps it fun and interesting.

Katya Valasek:

What else do you love about litigation work?

Bola Adeniran:

I love that you can be adversarial in terms of defending or advocating for your client. And yet at the end of the day, you can shake opposing counsel's hand and say, great job. And you can sit across your opponent and look at the strategies and like I said, try to get their king. And at the end of the day, you have to respect the moves they made. As a connoisseur of the game, you respect those moves they made. And then you learn from them, right? You learn from the other side and you hope they also learn from you. And it's not antagonistic, but it is adversarial because you are advocating for your client.

Katya Valasek:

Did you have to learn how to walk confidently into those adversarial positions or was that a skill that you feel like you had even when you were in your master's of public health program?

Bola Adeniran:

I would say as a firstborn daughter of immigrants, you have to learn very quickly how to be able to deal with different people and how in essentially to know what the needs of different people are. And that comes into when you are, you know, talking to opposing counsel, you have to get a sense or a gauge of who opposing counsel is, what kind of person are they? And sometimes you just have to do your research, you know, you do some research, what is their background?

What kind of cases have they done? You never know, you may find something about that attorney that you're like, okay, this is kind of how I know how they are and I will treat them. I say always with respect, always with, we are colleagues, but you kind of know, you know, some people are a lot more adversarial than others.

And so you have to stand your ground and say, I understand that's how you think and how your client feels, except I'm also advocating for my client. And this is how we feel. And that is part of advocating. And that's the advocating side of litigation. It is not just, you know, drafting briefs, keep in mind, even in those briefs, you are advocating, you're advocating for position for a person for a stance. And ultimately you want the judge to be able to believe your brief, your, what I like to call story, your story that you're telling the judge, you want them to believe you or the jury to believe you over the other side.

Katya Valasek:

And you have a particular set of skills, right? That helps you with storytelling when you are writing a brief or you're in the courtroom. Tell us a little about that.

Bola Adeniran:

I am a theater kid. I think, you know, from the Hamilton references, I grew up from sixth grade Miss Berrity's classroom doing theater. And I never realized how much theater would impact my life later on, you know, unbeknownst to me, the, all the times I was doing one musical or the next Annie to Les Miserables or Aida, I was learning public speaking. I was learning how to work with others. And so when I stand in front of the judge at a hearing with maybe or jury or opposing counsel, I am on a stage, you know, all the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players. And that's kind of how I see it.

And so, you know, the judge is, but my audience, you know, and so when I talk to my audience, what am I trying to portray? You really have to work strategically to craft and tell your story. And I feel like theater has given me the confidence, the ability to, you know, not only to talk, but to improvise on the spot. Things don't always go the way you planned. And one thing they'll teach you in theater is improv, right? What do you do? And, you know, something happens and you have to pick it up and keep going. And that's the same thing with litigation.

So I still believe in, in doing theater. I did the color purple last year as an associate. And a lot of people from my firm came to watch it, you know, just a wonderful outlet as a hobby, but also for me skills to continue to develop.

Katya Valasek:

One of the big differences between being a law student and being in practice is, in law school, you're often asked to discuss the different sides of an issue. But when you're in practice, you have to ultimately make a recommendation. Was that transition hard?

Bola Adeniran:

Oh my God. You don't know how hard you go from being in deference to people. Okay. They know better to now they expect you to know better. And if you're anything like me, where, you know, you didn't come in knowing attorneys and, you know, you met some of your first attorneys at the law firm or wherever you summered and you're coming in now and they're like, okay, “we trust your opinion.” You're like, “my opinion? What do I have to say?” But you have a lot to say you do your experiences in law school. Sometimes even your lived experiences will equip you to provide adequate recommendations.

Now, I'm not going to say it's sometimes easy to make those recommendations. It may come from, you know, inside of you, but always let your voice be heard. You can, and maybe to the partner, “Hey, you know, this is what I recommend based on what I've researched.” Cause rest assured you are likely the expert. If they've asked you to research something and you know, you're coming back, Hey, I've, I've spent, you know, so-and-so hours or whatever time looking at this topic. This is what I recommend based on what I've read, because you are the material, you know, the material best. So at this point in practice, they want to know based on what you've read, what do you recommend? And that's a very powerful thing. You have a voice to be able to affect the change in your case. It could be a statutes of limitation issue. It could be whatever, but let your voice be heard. So at the end of the day, you've put it all on the table and people can take it from there.

Katya Valasek:

And I think that's such a good point because I think some people have this impression that early on in your career as an associate, you aren't doing much more than researching, but your point that as the person who has worked with the issues in the case most closely to have that opportunity and frankly, the responsibility to go to the managing attorney or the partner or whomever you're working with to say, this is important to the matter that we're handling. I think that's often underlooked at how important that is in the potential outcome of the case.

Bola Adeniran:

Yeah. And it doesn't need to be a huge, you know, big, oh my God, this is what I found. But even in the memo recommendation based on the research that I've provided, this is what I would recommend. And all your job is to do is to provide that recommendation, especially earlier in your practice, it's up to the partner then to say, okay, that's a good recommendation. And we're going to, you know, bring it to the case or Hey, this is why, even though that's a good recommendation, why it may not work in this case. Cause remember you're still learning.

There's some things you just haven't encountered that while you may recommend people who have experience will say, based on what we know happens, this may not be exactly how it happens, but there's no way you're going to learn about that. If you don't put yourself out there to actually do it.

Katya Valasek:

Another thing that people know early associates do is doc review. So I want you to think back to when you were your first year associate, second year associate early on in your career. What does doc review entail?

Bola Adeniran:

Ooh, well, it can be different for different projects and in the discovery portion of litigation. Usually there's an exchange of information between the parties as well as an exchange of documents. Now it's an electronic exchange of information. Well, you do need to break down that data and nobody's going to tell you from the other side, what they gave you. They're just going to give you documents and you're going to have to look through every single document they gave you in order to sort categorize. Is this information helpful for us?

Is it not helpful for us? You know, are there privilege considerations? Are there work product considerations?

All of this is based around the context of the case. And so doc review often, especially for first, second, third year associates are usually great because it allows you to kind of to see, especially in the discovery period, how are documents important? Why are they important? And why is it important that we look through them? Or even if we're, for example, if we are providing documents to the other side, we also need a doc review to know what documents are we providing. We need to identify, are there any harmful documents we're providing to the other side? Are there any documents that actually will be helpful to us that they will see? And they'll say, okay, we're going to drop the case.

Katya Valasek:

How much prep do you need to do before you start doc review? I feel like it can sometimes be, well, let me fess up. When I think doc review, I think of the movie Clueless. And I think of poor Cher Horowitz, who didn't actually know what she was looking for when she was sitting, you know, with her father going through all the documents and highlighting. So what happens if you're doing doc review for an area of the law where you maybe don't fully understand what may be relevant?

Bola Adeniran:

Usually when you join a doc review team, which means just that, you know, you're reviewing the same sort of documents or the documents for this client, oftentimes a managing attorney will say, hey, this is what we're looking for. This is what the case is about. These are the parties involved in the case.

These are the people that you're going to see. This is what you're going to see. This is what you're going to look for. And oftentimes they'll give you what is called a document protocol, doc review protocol, which will lay out in written format, everything you're looking for. Sometimes, you know, you may have a privileged person. You don't want to send that information out to the other side.

So you need to identify those. Obviously, if you don't understand something, always ask. I always say the circle of trust is the people that you're working with. So definitely go and ask another person. Maybe you don't feel comfortable with a partner. Definitely go ask another colleague, “hey, I was looking at this quite, didn't understand this. How do you understand it to be?”

Katya Valasek:

Now that a lot of it is electronic, is it collaborative all in one space or are you often at home or in your own office going through the documents when you're doing a doc review?

Bola Adeniran:

Especially after COVID, it has created a world where you can almost work anywhere now and be to work collaboratively and with other people. So usually now with the doc review, as you mentioned, it used to be, you know, physical paper in an office, everybody had to go and review the paper. It doesn't work like that anymore. Now they input all the documents into a system and everybody's able to go into the system almost anywhere in the world, really. And so now you don't have to sit in the same office physically, but you're all mentally present in the same space.

Katya Valasek:

So now that you're four years in, how much doc review are you still doing?

Bola Adeniran:

Because now I'm at health managed cases and we go through the life of the case, I do doc reviews for every case that I'm on. Now, some of those doc reviews are as small as 120 pages. And then some of them can be as large as 250,000 pages. I also do volunteer sometimes for teams that perhaps have over a million pages to review and need help from associates, especially maybe fourth year associates up who can do a little more, you know, is this a privilege call or, you know, maybe quality check type of help.

Katya Valasek:

So this is not the case for everyone, but you have been lucky to have some early in court experience. What is the typical role you play in a court proceeding?

Bola Adeniran:

I have had the wonderful opportunity to represent a few clients in small claim courts by myself as an associate, even in my first year, as well as be able to represent clients in hearings. So I will kind of differentiate the two. Small claims court is usually, we'd like to say the wild, wild west of the court system.

Small claims is usually for disputes under $10,000. There are a lot of disputes under $10,000. And the rules are not necessarily the same as they would be in district court. For example, deadlines are different. You know, appeal times are different. And in litigation, deadlines are everything. You know, you live and die by the calendar as a litigator, because if you don't appeal something on time, it's not appealable anymore. And so you can't, you know, you're not able to get relief on the other side. You know, you have to keep on top of those. And so doing small claims litigation allows you to essentially do a small trial in a few hours. You have to do witness prep, you're crossing. And so it does give you the opportunity to really just kind of do opening statement, closing. You're able to talk to the judge directly. Usually there's no juries involved in small claims. So you are the lead attorney.

On the other side, hearings potentially are, for example, status conferences, or there may be a motion for summary judgment on the table. And so you have to argue that motion for summary judgment in front of the judge at a hearing. And so I've had the opportunity to do that as well. And in that case, it's a little different because the case is still ongoing. You're hoping that this hearing essentially stops the litigation and it may, or it may not, you know, sometimes the court may say, look, there's enough material issues of genuine fact that we will have to then go to trial, but every opportunity to get in front of a judge, to be able to talk, to be able to explain your argument, to be able to storytell is an opportunity to be better. And ultimately my goal is to be one of the best litigators.

So I love going to, you know, working with different litigators because people have different styles, you know, of how they go to hearings or how they handle trials or small claims. And traditionally, especially at law firms, it's really unheard of for a lot of associates to be doing anything by themselves, especially hearing or small claims. So I'm really grateful to Husch Blackwell that they do allow their associates that in-court experience.

Attorneys will send you, “hey, you got this hearing, you can do it.” And I'm like, “can I?” Yes, I can. I can do that. You know why? Because when they ask who the lawyer is in the room, it is me. I am the attorney in the room. I occupy the space in front of the judge to be able to talk to the judge and other people can't do that. So I recognize a power and privilege I hold in my voice. So any opportunity I get to use it, I'm so grateful.

Katya Valasek:

If you get asked to go to a hearing, but you haven't done a lot of work on the case at the research level, how do you prepare? How do you how do you walk in knowing that you have everything you need in front of you to make those split second decisions when you're in front of the judge?

Bola Adeniran:

Yeah, I mean, it depends on, you know, the circumstances. If I've been given a few days notice, hey, I'm caught up with something else. Can you help? Can you cover this hearing? Usually they'll give you kind of the client matter number, a rundown of the case. So you know what this hearing is about.

It's preferable if people give you at least 24 hours head notice. So you can dive into the case. What are the issues here? What do I need to consider? What is the been the timeline of the case? What has happened in this case? And so once you kind of get to know that information, you can more prepare. Can you be overprepared? Probably not.

Maybe when it comes to talking and how you deliver the information, but it's never bad to be overly prepared up here in your brain. It's never bad to know too much because then you can just filter out what you don't need for this moment or what the judge asked you. Sometimes, honestly, it's like improv. Again, why I love theater. You got to go by the skin of your teeth. The judge may ask you something that totally goes over your head and you have to know how to deal with that.

And you have to know to be able to tell the judge, hey, your honor, I don't really know that information, but if you, if you can take somebody else, I can get you that information right after the next party goes. And the judge often judge will say, okay, thank you, counselor. Why don't we put this on recess? We'll get the next person in and then you can provide me your answer or go talk to counsel outside, you know, deal with it and then come back and tell me. And so you have to be able to, to do that and work on the fly.

Katya Valasek:

And then after you're done at a hearing, you've stepped in for someone gone to the hearing. What is your responsibility afterwards to then read in the rest of the team to what happened at that hearing?

Bola Adeniran:

The first thing you have to do is you must inform your partner, whoever you're working with, what happened at the status conference. And sometimes it's simple as we won, you know, initially, or hey, this happened, but then always go back to give them a handwritten or written short memo of what actually happened just so that they know that this was the result. Sometimes they want to know immediately.

So a quick call, Hey, good news. We won or, Hey, this is actually what the court said based on the circumstances that we find ourselves in. And so usually they'll go from there, but at least they know, and they're not wondering what happened at the hearing. And I usually like to do it really quickly after the hearing, and then maybe do a follow-up less, you know, within 24 hours, just in terms of providing them a physical copy, or it may be that they need to tell the client. So, you know, it, sometimes it has to go fast because client needs to know what their next steps are.

Katya Valasek:

You've talked a little bit about this, but I want to, I want to hear more from you about work-life balance. This can be particularly challenging at a big firm, and it can be even more challenging when you've moved to a new exciting city with so many food or theater options. Do you feel like you're able to experience all that Dallas has to offer?

Bola Adeniran:

You know, I think that as a individual in big law, it can be hard. Work-life balance comes, I like to say it ebbs and flows. There'll be times where you have all the time in the world, and sometimes maybe litigation is a little slower in that period. And so then I can take the opportunity to explore a little bit more about Dallas. There are other times, like in the summer for litigation, where it's very busy. And so work-life balance becomes more work, less life. And sometimes it's more life than work, right? It's all about that balance. Do I have it perfectly? No, I can't say I do. I don't think I've met anybody that's been able to do it perfectly. If you know anybody, please let me know. I would love to talk to them.

But I think it's always about the season. And I think we need to be cognizant about the seasons that we're in, the season of busyness and the seasons of rest. And when those seasons of rest come, I think we really need to take them. I think sometimes what happens is that in our season of rest, we become restless because we're so used to doing more that we're not accustomed to doing less. And because we're not accustomed to doing less, we then want to do more, but you're not supposed to. And that's where we lose the work-life balance.

We lose the balance because in an effort to try to do more or assuage our guiltiness of doing less, we end up throwing ourselves out of whack and out of balance. So especially if you want to stay in this industry long-term, I do recommend that when opportunities come for you to rest, take them. When a vacation comes around, take it. Don't work, and take it. Take it if you can. Completely remove yourself from those environments, center yourself again, and be able to come back fresh, renewed, and able to take on more of the stuff that's going to come your way.

Katya Valasek:

What has your experience been with finding people who can help you progress professionally?

Bola Adeniran:

Yeah, I think I will say as someone who did not grow up with attorneys in her circle, I am surrounded by attorneys now. What do you know if somebody doesn't tell you? You know, ignorance can be harmful. Even if you didn't know, it could still harm you. And so being able to have people around you, even if they're not physically there.

I have a lot of mentors that are not in Dallas. They're outside of Dallas and that's okay. And sometimes we'll catch up 30 minutes on Teams or on Zoom. Hey, how's it going? How's life? Are you okay? How's the work going? How's work-life balance going for you? Sometimes you need mentors in different areas of your life, right? Hey, if I want to be a partner, I need a partner mentor because that's where I want to be. Or if I want to be better at writing, this is the mentor I need for writing. Or if I want to be a better litigator, who are the litigators that I need as mentors that I can learn from? There's nobody saying that you must put a cap on how many mentors you can have. There's no cap.

Katya Valasek:

And what are some of the ways the people you turn to for mentorship have helped you in the trajectory of your career?

Bola Adeniran:

Yeah, so I think they've helped me sometimes know how to navigate my career, know which opportunities are better for me, or they've pointed me to certain opportunities that they think would be in my best interest. Or they give me sound advice. Hey, this is where you're messing up.

I just want to let you know. Sometimes you need those mentors who could say, hey, this is where you're messing up. How do I know I'm messing up? I don't know. I just got here. I'm trying to survive. But it's really up to them to bring me up to where they think I can be. And they do that because they believe in me.

I will say that there is a difference between mentors and sponsors. And I think sometimes people conflate the two, but they're very different things. I think mentors are people who can usually advise you. Sponsors actually help you get there. Sponsors will say, hey, I know you're not in the room where it happens, but I am. And I'm going to use my power in the room where it happens to lift you up, to put your name in that room so that one day, hopefully, very soon, you can walk into that room as well with me. That is the difference between mentors and sponsors.

And sometimes we think we have a sponsor when we really have a mentor. And we need to know the difference because a mentor may not get you where you need to go. The sponsor may not even mentor you. They may just see, oh my gosh, this person is doing what they need to do. I see myself in that person. I see where that person is, where I once was.

And I know that they can be better. And I want to invest in that person to be better because I want to leave a legacy behind. And that person is my legacy. That is a sponsor. And so as an attorney, especially as a young associate, you need mentors, but you also need sponsors, especially as you continue to try to climb the, quote, corporate ladder and or get higher in your career. Those sponsors become very, very important, especially when you're looking for sponsors potentially who may not look like you, right?

Because part of the things about sponsorship is you're sponsoring somebody you believe is like you. Maybe a corporate or firm life where you don't look like everybody. You must do the work in order to get a sponsor who sees themselves in you, regardless of color, national origin, ethnicity, whatever. They see your soul and they're like, I want to uplift you.