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Episode Notes

Transcript

Tony Sipp:

And welcome back to the Paralegal Voice. My name is Tony Sipp, I’m here with Huascar Matos. He’s the president elect of the International Management for Practice Assistant Watson. Welcome to the program.

Huascar Matos:

Thank you, Tony for the warm welcome. Excited to be here.

Tony Sipp:

Excellent. So tell me a little about yourself. A lot of people don’t know what the association is. Sometimes they mess it up and others are proud to be, in fact, many of the people that were elected this term, we both know we have a lot of friends in common and they put us together actually. So I think that’s fantastic. What’s great about the legal community is that it’s huge, but it’s small. So we get to know a lot of people well rather quickly that are inspirational, that are part of the industry. So if you could, can you tell us what inspired you to pursue a career as a paralegal and how did you start in the legal field and end up as a director of paralegals?

Huascar Matos:

It’s a funny story, Tony, how I came out into the legal field. My background’s primarily in fashion and in art. My sister’s actually the one who was a paralegal supervisor. She got her start over at Poll Weiss in New York, and I moved back to the city. I was kind of dabbling in considering a career in law enforcement, which my brother, most of my family is a part of in New York. And while kind of buying some time, my sister suggested that I could make some money being a paralegal at one of the big firms in New York. And that’s how I made my segue had really, it was in many ways, I guess accidental how I started, but I did gravitate to the allure of working one of the most prestigious firms in the country, if not the world, when I joined Sullivan Cromwell back in 2003, 2002.

Tony Sipp:

Wow, that’s amazing. I remember you telling me when we had a brief moment to talk on the weekend, you had the support of, I think it was your manager who helped, really helped develop your skillset that’s necessary beyond being a paralegal, but into the business side of law.

Huascar Matos:

Yeah, well we did that jump and there’s been, I think I would credit that, I mean on the business side, definitely I think my was really able to hone that aspect of the work, the business operations side of working at a law firm. I kind of really honed those skills in my second kind of job opportunity. And then more so when I joined Nelson Mullins back in 2018 at SNC, that really set the foundation of how to set up a proper program structure following best practices. I kind of developed all, all those pieces of it and I got an introduction into being more involved with working with accounting and rates at my second stop at Cohen and Gresser. But that really kind of all came together when I assumed the role as firm-wide paralegal manager at Nelson Mullins back in 2018 and really took it to the stratosphere in terms of being able to deploy all my skills and then even further honing in on some of those even further. The business side of it is definitely one, and that was under the tutelage of my then director Kathy Bode, who’d been with Nelson Mullins for 35 plus years.

Tony Sipp:

Absolutely amazing. And now that you’re president elect, what plans do you have during your tenure there?

Huascar Matos:

I’m a firm believer. I think I don’t buy into the need of having to change for the sake of change. So there’s a lot to be said for continuity and the value in it. With that said, there’s a number of initiatives that were taken on by my predecessor, Tracy Chu, that I’d like to kind of continue. The organization as a whole has built up significant momentum, not just on our membership, but our DEI efforts, introducing new awards in the DEI space, being involved more with our community as well as really kind of expanding our presence right now, primarily the IPMA, which has gone through a name change. I mean, initially when we started out, we were known as lama Legal Assistant Management Association. Right. Since then, we’ve changed our name now to the International Practice Management Association to kind of really reflect where the legal industry is today. I do have goals to not just expand nationally and in Canada where we already have a presence, but we are looking at global opportunities as well. A number of our AM law 100 firms who we have many members are part of the IPMA. They are dealing with management issues globally. They’re international firms. They’re not just domestic. I think we’ll be doing ourselves and our membership a disservice if we were not to consider broadening our horizons, if you will.

Tony Sipp:

Yeah, I absolutely agree. In fact, we had Tara Eberhart past president as well on the program. She laid down the foundation, she told us what she was going to do. It looks like Tracy picked it up and now you’re picking it up and running with it. I love it. I’d love to see that continuity happening. What do you see as one of the biggest challenges that paralegals are facing today moving into the future, and how does International Practice Management Association intend to help address them?

Huascar Matos:

I think a very prevalent, I guess hot topic or trend, if you will, is artificial intelligence, right? Kind of like the elephant in the room, for lack of a better word. I do think though the paralegal profession as a whole is going to go through some evolve, but I mean, we went through the industrial revolution. There’s been a number of changes in the workforce and across professional industries throughout in our glorious history as a country. I think with the introduction of AI and some of the efficiencies that come with it, there will be a need for the paralegal role to evolve. But that’s no different than the introduction of a smartphone as a tool. It’s no different than the shift that law firms and paralegals went through with the moving from paper productions into the electronic discovery phase of things, if you would. That’s a perfect example where we saw a number of paralegals make that transition from the paralegal role into the eDiscovery project management space.

And a lot of the project managers who really excelled at the eDiscovery space were all former paralegals. When you actually looked at the ones who were only technical, they struggled with making the connection. So the paralegal was again, the bridge. One thing I would say about paralegals as a whole, it is perhaps the most creative and resourceful group of professionals I’ve ever come across. So there’s no doubt in my mind that paralegals will be here for many, many more years and they will adapt and incorporate the skill sets around AI to bring value to their respective positions going forward.

Tony Sipp:

Good point. And a lot of people talk about AI in generative ai, and the fear is, if you can talk about this, the fear is it’s going to take my job. The other fear is I don’t have the skillset to do that for the young people. What do you say about that? Is it just for the young people? Is that something you can learn? I mean, we know that it’s not going away. What can people do that are kind of afraid and kind of timid about learning a little bit more about eDiscovery and applying it at work?

Huascar Matos:

If you have the opportunity to have conversations with some of your respective eDiscovery folks at your organizations, I would encourage you to do so. Even getting familiar with some of the terms. I think anything that’s unfamiliar to any one of us can seem daunting and scary. I don’t see AI as anything that we need to fear. It is something that we just need to be comfortable with and become familiar with. So one of the things that I kind of did when there was being rolled out was how can I incorporate some of these new efficient, best practices that are coming and taking a hold in the business world? And one of the things that I worked with with my chief information officer was the early stages of chat, GPT, getting an understanding of how LLMs work. More specifically, how to build out chat bots within chat GPT.

And one of the things that we kind of played around was with creating a resume reviewer. Well, we never fully deployed it because there’s a number of confidential things that are tied to it. We built it a pretty quick useful tool that allowed to ingesting our resumes and kind of just spit out weaknesses, strengths, a series of questions to ask candidates, as well as something that a manager would have to routinely go through. And I have to sift through a resume and kind of dot the i’s and t’s with respect to employment gaps. I can shoot this into this tool and I can get that in a matter of seconds. It’ll take anyone at least half hour to go ahead and skimm through that and put the necessary facts or points together before they could address that with the candidate. And that’s just one kind of tip of the iceberg.

So what I would say to anyone that is fearful, let’s just get familiar with it, play around with the tool, start getting an understanding of what these terms are. And I think a lot of that fear you will be dispelled if you do so. I don’t think that anyone needs to be fear that their jobs are going to be gone from one day to the next. While we will continue to make advancements in that area, we’re not anywhere near close to having some robot walk into the office and do what you and I can do.

Tony Sipp:

I just had a vision of that movie from that Will Smith was and the iRobot.

Huascar Matos:

The iRobot.

Tony Sipp:

I was like, okay, that’s scary. So this is a great chance for a commercial break if we will beret back and welcome back to the Paralegal Voice. My name is Tony Sipp. I’m here with Huascar Matos, the president-elect for IPMA. Can you tell us a little bit about what other organizations are you collaborating with now that you’re president and legal organizations that help advocate for the paralegal profession?

Huascar Matos:

One that quickly comes to mind is Nala. That’s one of the field organizations that we’re associated with, and we partner up on some initiatives. DEI is one that we kind of partnered up and had some nice discussions around how both organizations can kind of help propel and move that issue forward. And then more on the local level, we do encourage our chapters to have those immediate contacts with the local paralegal associations. I know in our respective roles, one of the things that we immediately do when it comes to recruiting is tap into those paralegal schools and local paralegal organizations when we’re looking to bring in new talent. Something that we recently did when we held our conference in Atlanta was partnering up with gap, the Georgia Paralegal Association out there. Whenever we have the opportunity to partner up with one of our local paralegal groups and associations,

Tony Sipp:

We love it. So out here we have G-L-A-A-L-A. We are doing that and partner up with them, but more importantly, my co-host, Jill Francisco and I, and our term as president, created the first DEI program for our associations, hers Nala. Mine’s Lapa. So minor but important. And I wish you were here today because you two would just click. It would be great. I mean, this is Rhett Elli and one of our friends, I’m going to name Drop Sybil. Congratulations Sybil, by the way, getting the DEI award. It’s fantastic. You’re doing such great work and gosh, you’re in charge. The president of so many talented people. You have the dream team on there. Cheryl used to be my boss.

Huascar Matos:

Yeah, it’s an amazing group of peers. And I guess a little secret that I’ll let you in on, and Tony is I always surround yourself with people who are much smarter than you are. And that’s what I’ve tended to do my entire career. So again, fortunate enough to be surrounded by folks who I admire personally and have the amount respect for Civil Tara Tracy. I mean, the list goes on and on with number of leaders, the strong leaders that we have at the IPMA

Tony Sipp:

Before preparing the questions for the podcast, I was just thinking I’m surrounded by people who are killing it. They’re excellent at what they do. I’m surrounded by overachievers. You guys are just amazing. And I like that. I like being in that bubble and I like to bring people into that bubble and out of the bubble and go past that. It’s just to me, I just found it. Take a moment to embrace that and accept that that’s my life. Yeah, I think it’s great. What advice would you give to aspiring paralegals looking to advance in their careers? You had a very interesting way that you got into the profession. I mean, you started from a different field really.

Huascar Matos:

Yeah, early on, I think when I remember just as a baby paralegal, walking through the doors at 1 25 Broad, my first day at Sullivan Cromwell, and just kind of being in awe by its presence and dear lore of being at this prestigious establishment and well-renowned firm and being blown away with that. I was like, I really want to be a part of this. But the opportunity just came from really, I don’t want to go ahead, and just the cliche of believing in yourself. It was more like just really saying, alright, I’m interested in this particular area. And at that time I was considering going in the management direction and what I needed to do with that. And I approached my then manager and said, Hey, I want to get involved with this. I want to do what you do. I mean, I pretty much told her, I want, your job might not be here, but I want your job.

Tony Sipp:

How’d that go?

Huascar Matos:

It actually went well. Her and I had a very good relationship and she said, well, if you’re really interested, she said, you’re naturally a people person. There’s a good bit of it is involved is just managing people as well as the issues that come with working at these major firms. But she gave me that opportunity to say, okay, well I’ll let you get involved with some of the initial interviews. And then I started with first round interviews and then moved up to second run interviews. And then it ultimately became into being part of the mentoring program as well as covering the department whenever she would go on vacation or be out of the office. So that was kind of my introductory into just dealing with and fielding questions from partners on a number of things at a major firm. And then that kind of just opened it up to the next opportunity when I randomly got a cold call from a firm, a mid-size boutique that was in need of someone who’d been at a big firm and could bring in structure and build out a program for them. Luckily for me, I was one of the top firms in the world. I’d firsthand witnessed what is needed to build out a solid foundation and a really strong paralegal program.

Tony Sipp:

That’s such an inspiring story. Let’s take a quick break and we’ll be right back and welcome back to the Paralegal Voice. My name is Tony Sipp. I’m here with Huascar Matos, president-elect of the International Practice Management Association. Now, if you didn’t know it, part of a legacy during your presidency here, and I already heard you share some of your goals and what you want do as the president elect.

Huascar Matos:

Oh, I’m the president now, Tony.

Tony Sipp:

Oh, I’m sorry. You’re the president. I keep saying elect. My apologies was the president. I was like seeing that the whole time, folks. My bad. That’s on me. He is the president. What is one thing president about you that most people, most members don’t know about you?

Huascar Matos:

My first degree. My first initial bachelor’s degree. It’s in fashion, illustration and design.

Tony Sipp:

FIT?

Huascar Matos:

Yeah, FIT. Nothing to do with actual legal. And before that, I was at the High School of Art Design in New York. So most of my educational background was spent in

Tony Sipp:

Folks. If you just heard what he said and you think that you can’t be a paralegal coming from a wide variety of wherever people come from, he was in fashion. FIT is a huge school. I don’t know if people outside of New York understand what FIT is, but it’s massive. I had a friend that went there and stayed in pa. It’s really a high ranking school. So come as you are with the skillset that you have, bring it with you. It will apply. I mean, this is proof positive that it works. It works. So

Huascar Matos:

Absolutely, Tony. And one of the things that we kind of touched on earlier where I think I shared with you that I have the greatest confidence in the paralegal profession in being as creative and as resource wise it is. Which is why I think there’s just not anything that any paralegal cannot do if given the opportunity. So bring that creativity, bring your quirkiness, bring your attention to detail, take it all. It all plays a role into being not only a great paralegal, but pretty much anything you want to do in life, I think we can all learn from and bring our various experiences into.

Tony Sipp:

Agreed, completely agreed. If you can implement one bold, unconventional change to benefit paralegals, what would it be?

Huascar Matos:

If I can kind just blow things up, if you will, and I dunno how many of us can really, yeah, I don’t know how many of us can really do that at our respective organizations. But if I could, one of the biggest things that I hear from paralegals, and that’s part of why we have in some firms, we’ve structured tiers and different kind of professional levels that one can aspire to reach that growth and trajectory as a professional. And regardless of what field you’re in, it’s at the core need for most of us. We all want to feel like we’re growing and moving on and making progress as professionals. The one kind of thing that I always hear from paralegals that they struggled with is that they feel they’ve been put into a box. All I do is this particular practice area, and I wish I could touch on this or that. Some people in litigations, all I do is litigation. I wish I could kind of delve into corporate. You hear that from a number of people in the other practice group. Now you might be an individual who it’s perfectly okay with doing the same practice area forever.

I think though it’s a disservice, not allowing more fluidity across the various groups and looking that as an opportunity to also kind of scratch that itch that must of us have. Not just necessarily like, oh, now I am a paralegal too, or I’m now a senior paralegal, but I am a multiverse paralegal. I am a journalist. I work on corporate, I work on litigation, I work on whatever. I touch on everything. Again, it’s untapped potential. But what I’ve seen throughout my career is that the most successful paralegals, for one, they’re chameleons. They can take on anything that you throw at them. And in many ways, as I always used to joke around back in my paralegal days, is we perform miracles every day because people come to us with the craziest challenges and craziest deadlines, and we take it on and somehow make it happen, if you will. And they’ll probably reveal my agents saying this, but we’re the MacGyvers,

Tony Sipp:

MacGyver. Look it up, Google

Huascar Matos:

It. Yeah, give us a matchbox and we’ll put together the next ABOs.

Tony Sipp:

Man, it has been such a pleasure speaking with you. I’m so glad we had this opportunity to finally get together and talk. Where can people reach out and get in contact with you if they want to ask further questions?

Huascar Matos:

I am on LinkedIn. So for those who are on the platform, please reach Huascar Matos is spelled H-U-A-S-C-A-R. Last name is Matos, M-A-T-O-S. Please look me up on LinkedIn as the president of the International Practice Management Association. And in my current day job as the director of paralegals at Foley and Larner,

Tony Sipp:

What’s a message? What’s some piece of advice you would like to give our listeners before you go

Huascar Matos:

Shed the fear. I think whenever we operate from a position of fear, nothing good is going to really come from it. I think the greatest success that any one of us or any one of us who’s come before us, who’s breaking through the heart or what people at one point deemed impossible, all dispelled that sense of fear. Whether you look at the Wright Brothers or first in flight to Nicholas Tesla and so many others who pioneer respective areas in their professional space, none of them were fearful. I think when we fear failure, there’s no way we can succeed. I embrace it. Go head on and take advantage of the opportunities that come your way. Every path or thing that gets put before you, it’s an opportunity and it’s all about the perspective on what you look at a situation from. So if we can all change that, that’s definitely one way to go.

Tony Sipp:

And with that, this concludes this session of the Paralegal Voice. We’ll see you next time. Have a great day.