September Routines
Launching a new immigration law firm, with founding partner Warda Shazadi Meighen
September is always the season for new routines, but it’s especially so for me this year. After eight months of constant sabbatical travel, the rhythms of work and home feel like a whitespace. It’s a rare opportunity to create a whole new structure to the days and weeks.
It’s been especially hard to establish new routines for the kids. In eight months on the road, they built so much independence and confidence about the wider world. But they also lost a lot of self-sufficiency at home. We were living out of suitcases. No two days were the same. We were always low-key worried about them breaking something in an Airbnb. The end result was we just did most things for them: here are your clothes, here is your toothbrush, here let me take those dishes, figure out what the garbage rules are in this city, and scrape your plate.
Arriving home was a chance for a reset. We made them a chore chart, so they take turns emptying the dishwasher, setting the table, tidying the shoes, sweeping the floor. We listed out their morning and evening responsibilities1 so they could be accountable for themselves.
And they have resisted every step of the way.
I understand. Their do-for-themselves skills have eroded while we’ve been away. They’ve not had a formal school day since December, and they feel the loss of unstructured, unscheduled time really acutely. Having home responsibilities on top of that feels like adding insult to injury. And then, just objectively: doing what you want to do is fun. Doing a bunch of dumb, boring chores is not.
As parents, it’s difficult to hold the line. I could empty that dishwasher myself in three drama-free minutes. Or, I can spend 10 minutes cajoling a truculent five-year-old, another ten minutes coaching the dishwasher-emptying process, and then, as thanks for my efforts, be informed, “Mom, you’re being too tell-y.”
Of course, we are playing the long game. We want independent, self-sufficient young adults 15 years from now. So, most of the time, we choose to have a 20-minute pitched battle over dishwasher-emptying, even though it makes things harder right now. It helps that we’re already starting to see glimmers of progress. They’re spending (marginally) less time complaining about the chores, and are (marginally) better at doing them. Some days are worse than others, but we do have a sense of new routines being built, of things getting easier day-by-day.
Somehow, it feels harder to bring that same kind of long-term thinking to re-establishing my own personal routines. Re-entering real-life after sabbatical, I want to prioritize fitness, rest, and time to explore ideas, because I know they are the elements that make me happy in the long run. And like my children, I’ve got my chore chart (er, goal app), and I’m working with a personal trainer so there’s even someone to be “tell-y” with me at least as far as fitness is concerned. But on any given day, it’s easier to skip the gym, to stay up too late, to fill my day with email, meetings, admin. In some ways, I can be as resistant as my children. I guess I miss the unstructured, unscheduled time just as much as they do.
A Conversation with Warda Shazadi Meighen
Throughout 2023, this newsletter is featuring discussions with women business owners. This month’s interview is with Warda Shazadi Meighen, one of three founding partners at Landings LLP. Landings assists individuals and their families when problems arise with their immigration status. The firm also challenges unjust laws and government actions through constitutional litigation. The firm is often involved in high-profile cases and regularly appears before the Immigration and Refugee Board and all levels of Court, including the Supreme Court of Canada.
Warda and I belong to the same book club, and I first heard about her launching her own firm when it was still in the idea and planning stages. I really enjoyed learning about all the nuances of her legal practice, and how they have shaped her business.
SB: Let’s start with the thought process behind launching your own firm. Why was that something you wanted to do?
WSM: In refugee and immigration law, most of the legal work in the private sector is done through boutique practice. I met my current business partners through my previous law firm, which was also a boutique law firm. I liked the work, my colleagues and my former boss – I was quite happy at my previous law firm but there was the question of long-term.
We all had a range of experiences prior to practicing immigration and refugee law but we had a similar way of approaching practice. Once we began talking about the future, it became clear that we had a similar idea of what we wanted a law practice to look like in the long term. Forming Landings was an organic process — a series of conversations over a year or two.
Most importantly, our visions aligned: we enjoyed working with people on their individual cases, but we wanted to go beyond that and challenge unjust laws and systemic unfairness. There is a great deal of inequity within immigration and refugee law; the area is wanting for excellent advocacy. We see highly vulnerable migrants who are not always well-served, or even in a position to assess if they are being properly served by counsel.
Our plans unfolded one decision at a time and we realized that we each bring different skillsets to the business. The more the three of us discussed together, the more comfortable we felt that this was the right direction to take.
SB: People talk about working in the business and working on the business. I'm curious about the extent to which you discussed your approach to lawyering versus your philosophies of operating a business.
WSM: We did both. We started with the big picture because we wanted to make sure we were all on the same page about our values. Next, it was very important for us to make sure that we wanted to operate businesses in a similar manner, so we sought legal counsel to guide us right from the outset — not surprising as lawyers ourselves. We went through the nitty-gritty of most eventualities with external counsel before we launched.
We had very detailed discussions about the partnership right at the beginning — this has been important for the health of our firm. We looked at the points of frequent tension in co-owned businesses and law firms in particular, and tried to minimize the sources of potential tensions.
SB: What has been surprising about that role of business owner?
WSM: I suppose three things. One, it's a lot of administrative work. Oh my God. We have excellent administrative support, but even managing administrative systems is itself a lot of work. We have now hired someone exceptional to manage that side of the business and that has been very helpful.
Second, there’s a lot of thought which goes into the question of strategic growth of the firm. Our product is our calibre of lawyers; a law firm is only as good as its people. This raises questions for us. Do we grow when an exceptional candidate is available? Or do we wait until there’s a business need? Which goes first? We find ourselves revisiting these types of strategic decisions often. They require care, energy and time — we want to be responsible employers, business partners and lawyers. The three of us make all strategic decisions together.
A third thing that surprised me is how little business development we needed to do if we just did the work right and communicated with our clients. I remember when we first launched, I had a business development plan which went out the window very quickly because we just did the work and then the clients referred more work. Our legal community and alumni networks have also been very supportive of us. We feel fortunate.
SB: The work begets more work, when you do it well.
You’ve only done it this one way, but how do you think having partners has changed the way that it feels to operate a business?
WSM: I would not have done this without partners. I personally could not have done it without partners. Given what I know now about the amount of work required to lay the infrastructure of a well-run firm, and given how much I enjoy the actual practice of law, I wouldn't have enjoyed running a firm on my own.
I also very much appreciate what my partners bring to the table. I respect their legal and business acumen. I like being able to go to them for their opinions. I value their insights and we laugh a lot. I think it also helped that we were in a similar life stage with young families.
SB: Is there a road map for medium to long-term trajectory in terms of size and ambition of the firm?
WSM: We’re a team of about 16 now and that feels comfortable. When we look at our role models in the field — people who have made a massive difference in this area of law — they’re not huge firms. We want to do very good work. We have high standards in terms of the calibre of work; growth beyond a certain point can make it difficult to maintain quality control.
SB: Excellence is both hard and slow to scale, in my experience. Your firm was conceived of before COVID, but then actually launched in the teeth of the pandemic. How did things change for you because of the circumstances for the world at large? Even immigration almost stopped in that period.
WSM: You're right in that we conceived of it before COVID, but the pandemic provided an opportunity on several fronts. The nature of our work shifted because there was a lot of uncertainty around borders and immigration. There were many new programs and a great deal of apprehension from clients. A new crop of business developed as a result of the pandemic, which was a surprise to us. While there was a period of time when immigration came to a standstill, it was very short-lived.
An unexpected benefit of beginning during COVID was that it required us to first launch as a fully virtual firm. We have a physical office as all of our employees are hybrid. We work with some very vulnerable people, so we are fully set up for them to come to the office in-person and have face-to-face contact where it makes sense. But in those early days, every system was developed with the knowledge there could be a lockdown at any time. As a result, everything that clients need to access is electronic, backed-up, and secure. Launching during COVID has expanded our reach considerably and made it easy for clients to access our services. For instance, a client might be a security guard doing shift work and living in Brampton. In the past, he may have taken an entire day off work, driven downtown, paid $32 for parking — all for a 45-minute meeting to review and sign a simple statement. Now, clients can just login during their lunch break to finalize documents.
SB: I know the legal work is your passion, but when you think about building the non-legal aspects of the business, are there things that stick out in your mind as having been particularly interesting or challenging or surprising?
WSM: My natural tendency in the past has been to focus on files. To me, there’s nothing more satisfying than putting my head down and absorbing the details of a file and devising strategy. But running a healthy firm requires more than that; it is important to have a culture where everyone feels supported. During the pandemic, one of my partners spearheaded weekly social meetings. Every week, we would have a check-in and just get to know each other. In the moment, it can feel important to get that file off the desk rather than attend a purely social meeting. But understanding each other as humans is invaluable. It improves intangibles about the firm’s culture which is important for well-being, but it also makes the work product better because our team fits and works well.
I credit my partners with a lot of that vision. They both push the firm’s culture in that direction. Landings is a serious place, but with a lot of camaraderie.
SB: You mentioned earlier that all three of you had young families, so I'm curious about the role of mother, the role of business owner, how you've thought about those things intersecting.
WSM: Having a young family has made me more efficient and task-oriented – there is very little dead time. I have to just prioritize and get stuff done without much faffing about. There are actually similar skills required of the different roles I find myself in: a business owner, a child of aging parents, a parent of young kids, and a lawyer to many highly vulnerable clients. Each role benefits from clarity of thought, compassion and deliberate action.
Having kids helps me counterbalance my practice. Legal work in this area is heavy. There’s a dire underbelly of the world we see that is difficult to process — it’s such a nice reprieve to come home to kids living in a different orbit. They’re so funny! It’s a great sense of release to talk to them about things removed from the hardship I see in my files. I also find it easy to live in the moment – when I’m with them, I’m with them and can shut out work. When I’m at work, I’m at work and can shut out everything else. I’m told it’s my super power!
SB: You've talked a lot about the relationships with your co-founders, you've mentioned the mentors you look up to at other law firms, you've talked about the relationships with your clients and the hard stuff they go through. But you’re also a self-described introvert. How do you think about the interplay between all those relationships?
WSM: Practicing law in this area requires a lot of meetings, phone calls, team work and coordinating with other counsel. Law is also – fortunately — a profession where colleagues become friends, and friends become colleagues. Like many jobs, it can be all-encompassing. Being a parent to young children can also take up a lot of time. And then it’s natural to become friends with the parents of your kids’ friends. I enjoy these communities. There is a strong pull.
But it’s equally important to do things for myself that are completely outside the orbit of law or family.
Our book club is an example. I also play tennis and run several times a week. Every weekend, for a small window, my husband takes the kids to activities and I sit in silence with the paper and a coffee. I then relieve him and take the kids so he can have his own time. We currently have an amazing au pair whose help we especially cherish when we are running on empty. Prior to that, we had an incredible nanny for five years. These wonderful women have allowed us to carve time for ourselves and together as a couple while allowing us to do work for our clients. We owe them a great debt but we also make sure that we put in the work and really get to know and be there for our children. We are doing drop offs, pick ups, bed time and weekends as default. We sleep-trained them very early and tend to go out when they are asleep – we have an entire life they know very little about. We are also always tweaking the systems when we notice issues and, as you know, sometimes, I miss book club.
SB: Knowing what you know now, do you wish you had launched your own firm sooner, or was the timing just right?
WSM: The timing was just right. I needed to develop my skills first. I feel lucky to have had excellent legal training. I had a generous boss prior to this role who gave me challenging files and a lot of responsibility; by the time Landings launched, I knew what to do with the files that came across my desk. The volume and years of practice I had prior to Landings was invaluable.
There’s also a perspective that comes with age, and having competing demands on time which forces a person to be deliberate and manage client needs. The very long hours I put in early in my career now allow me to be more effective when I’m working with competing demands.
SB: What does success look like for Warda, in a professional context?
WSM: There are many several meanings of success for me professionally.
First, there's a divergence between laws for most Canadians and then laws for refugees and migrants. Much of this stems from early constitutional cases rendered decades ago — I want our firm to be part of changing this.
Second, I want our team to help people feel human when they're going through the legal process. I want us to be able to get good results for them. If we can help some people feel OK about a very difficult process that they're going through, and get them a good outcome, that looks like success to me. I try to ensure my team only takes on as many high-needs files as we can adequately serve.
Third, I enjoy developing our team. Landings is lucky to have exceptionally bright individuals who have their own strengths, goals, and career trajectories. They will do great things. It’s important that they are supported so they can do their best work at Landings and find meaning in the work our firm takes on.
Finally, I have financial goals tied to the success of the firm. Practicing in this area of law is a passion, but it’s also my job and the way we make a living. We constantly calibrate the types of work our team takes on to ensure that this balance is right.
Warda is the kind of person who emanates so much empathy, competence, and pragmatism. I think you can really see those qualities in how she thinks about her legal practice, building the culture of her firm, balancing her family, her work, her self. A life as busy as hers is full of so many difficult trade-offs, and I admire how deftly she navigates them.
Workomics Staff Picks
Workomics is a twelve-person team these days(!!). In September, we took a couple of days off from our regular client work to spend time together, eat a lot of great food, do some deep squats, and think about the future2. One decision we made was to broaden this section of the newsletter, to share some of the thinking and ideas from the whole Workomics team. So here are a few of the thoughts and ideas we’ve been bouncing around over the last month:
We loved this TED talk about how language shapes the way we think. There’s a great example about an Australian Aboriginal community where they don’t have any words for ‘left’ or ‘right’; instead, they describe everything in terms of cardinal directions (north, south, east, west). , and it has some really interesting implications for how they think about the world.
We’re getting into some more work on diversity, equity, and inclusion in clinical trials. Most organizations are mainly focused on racial diversity, but this article got us thinking more broadly about making trials more accessible to people with disabilities.
We saw this recent Globe and Mail article and were standing and clapping for the authors’ advice for senior leaders in organizations: “They should be asking: How do your people collaborate? How do you build high-functioning teams? How do you create trust and a felt sense of candour? How do you plan work and set strategy? In short, how does work really get done?”
It’s been an absolute joy to be back working with all my wonderful Workomics colleagues this past month, and I’m excited to share more of their thoughts and ideas in the months ahead.
In comradeship,
S.
…put dishes in dishwasher, get dressed, brush teeth, wash face, pack/unpack school bag, tidy bedroom, do homework
Maybe someday we’ll even have a proper website.