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‘Empathy and compassion’ can be used to drive client success
Leveraging your skills, as well as your own characteristic traits, can help you thrive in the legal industry, according to this 30 Under 30 Awards winner.
Lauren Croft
Christopher Aaron Yong is a corporate and technology lawyer at Lander & Rogers and was the Financial Services category winner of the 2021 Lawyers Weekly 30 Under 30 Awards. He’s also listed as a finalist in the Australian Law Awards in two categories.
“In this profession, we are faced with challenges on an almost daily basis. These challenges can be technical (which require a technical legal solution) or adaptive (which require us to learn new skills to overcome),” he said.
“In my experience, I have found that these moments of immense difficulty are opportunities for us to show ourselves – and our colleagues, clients and peers – the fortitude of our character.
“In these moments of difficulty, I take time to centre myself and prioritise. It is these small moments for reflection or introspection, which can help us identify the most effective and efficient solution to the problems at hand.”
One of Mr Yong’s career highlights so far has included assisting Australia’s largest bank to successfully divest one of Australia’s largest trade executions, as well as providing advice regarding settlement and clearing service providers to financial institutions.
“I was required to understand the technical mechanisms behind each technical solution – which includes mapping data flows, accounting for IP implications pre-and-post divestment and developing contractual and operational controls,” he said.
“I was also required to liaise with local and international legal counsels, and work through cultural negotiating barriers.”
One of the key lessons Mr Yong has learnt so far, in addition to negotiating through cultural and other barriers, is “to actively listen and, where possible, empathise with internal and external stakeholders.”
“In my experience across industries, I have found that I am able to achieve the best results where I take the time to understand an individual or an organisation’s pain-points, needs and objectives,” he said.
“The profession of law is one which requires a great deal of empathy and compassion, which when used correctly can help drive teams towards incredible commercial and technical outcomes.
“For instance, in addition to the technical support I provided during the divestment, I took it upon myself to facilitate and support discussions between the business, external resources and legal stakeholders. This was no easy feat. The composition of the team was incredibly diverse, which often resulted in personality clashes and conflict.
“Leveraging my values (and some skills I had attained while managing fundraising campaigns at UTS), I helped several work streams work towards a common goal, align workflow processes, and increase compassion and accountability within the organisation.”
In addition to his thriving law career, Mr Yong is also the co-founder of the UTS young alumni committee and the research team leader for the ISO/Standards Australia Smart Contracts Working Group. In turn, he advised younger lawyers to find a community or social initiative outside of their regular work to participate in and support.
“I would also encourage my peers in the legal profession to look within their existing practice and processes to identify aspects which can be improved; and then leverage the strength of your team members to identify ways in which these practices or processes could be innovated from within,” he added.
For example, Mr Yong created a prototype bot that automated the company secretary interaction process. The bot can enable employees to draft and submit a query to the company secretary in under three minutes within one single application, rather than sending through emails that would clog the secretary’s system without sorting by subject matter or urgency.
“If organisations do not have the capacity to undertake these initiatives internally, there are opportunities to collaborate with external stakeholders to drive similar results. For instance, the Lander & Rogers and YBF Ventures ‘LawTech Hub’ is an exceptional program which helps domestic and international scale-ups design and build transformative legal technology solutions,” he said.
“I was lucky enough to be selected as a Panellist for the 2021 Cohort Showcase, and had the opportunity to explore how my firm could help support and accelerate the growth of these exceptional companies.”
Lauren Croft
Lauren is a journalist at Lawyers Weekly and graduated with a Bachelor of Journalism from Macleay College. Prior to joining Lawyers Weekly, she worked as a trade journalist for media and travel industry publications and Travel Weekly. Originally born in England, Lauren enjoys trying new bars and restaurants, attending music festivals and travelling. She is also a keen snowboarder and pre-pandemic, spent a season living in a French ski resort.
