‘It Does What It Says on The Tin’: A Lesson in Simplicity for Business and Life with Clarissa Rayward (ep 59)

Today I’m joined by a very special guest, my friend and mentor, Clarissa Rayward in a refreshingly unfiltered conversation about her law firm, her ‘side hustle’ and The Retreat, the world’s best legal conference that she runs annually.   Clarissa has been in family law since forever and has been running her own law firm, the Brisbane Family Law Centre, since 2008. Clarissa is also something of a guardian angel for 130-odd lawyers, businesses owners and professionals around Australia (of which I am one) who all hang out in the online space that she created: Happy Lawyer Happy Life ‘The Club’.   There is so much to learn from Clarissa and the truly amazing thing about her is that she’s more than willing to share her ideas with anyone who’s willing to listen. Doing so, she says, feeds her fundamental desire to help people (that’s why she’s a lawyer). She doesn’t care about being secretive about her creative process because even when people steal her ideas, she’s already moved onto the next one. In fact, sitting on business secrets out of fear is a big part of the general unhappiness that haunts our industry.  When she got started in family law, Clarissa didn’t agree with the way things were being done:   “I was observing it to be delivered in a way that didn’t enable people to move forward, be friends and productively do things in a way that supports their children into the future.”   Now, when working with people going through divorce and separation, she describes it as ‘looking for amicable solutions’ which ultimately means helping couples remain friends well after the divorce process.   Divorce, which Clarissa talks about as ‘heartbreak’, is a human, emotional issue, not a legal issue. As such, the Brisbane Family Law Centre has actively developed strong relationships with psychologists, financial planners and accountants in order to allow clients to get the professional advice they need in a one-stop-shop sort of way. This minimises stress for the client and prevents lawyers from ticking a box by simply mentioning to a client that they need to find an accountant. As Clarissa says, ‘other professionals have real value in the space of estate planning and divorce’.  So, Clarissa conducts her business in a very holistic way. In the episode, she talks us through how she organises her team, uses social media to boost her message and attract more clients and turns ten-page long advice letters into nifty one-page infographics. A lot of that extraordinary work was enabled by her team target concept whereby her entire staff focuses on a weekly, collaborative goal. I love this because it removes all the hierarchical nonsense from the firm and makes it so that no one is more valuable than anyone else, it’s just a case of:  “What’s the thing that needs to be done? Who has the skillset to do it? And we just get on with it.”  I can’t end these show notes without mentioning The Retreat which is the annual physical manifestation of Clarissa’s online club. Last year, there were giant inflatable flamingos, tinsel walls and even a flash mob, intermingled of course with a series of high-quality, high-energy and high-performance presentations conducted by speakers from a wide array of professions. This year The Retreat will take place virtually, thanks to COVID-19, but having heard some of Clarissa’s ideas for the weekend, I’m excited and confident that it’ll be nothing less than an extravaganza. Tickets are on sale at www.happylawyerhappylife.com/theretreat.  Listen for an enlightening discussion of all things law and business,