Episode 05 | Rethinking the Path to Partnership with Milad Juma of PRD Legal

Dicky Abraham (00:09.368)

G’day everyone, welcome to another episode of Spurling Insights. My name is Dicky Abraham, Principal Lawyer and Director at Spurling Legal. And today we’ve only got one host. Dania is in Malaysia at the moment. Her grandmother is turning 100 this week, so her and some of her close family have flown over to celebrate that. And fair enough, 100, not a lot of people make it to 100, so that’s a fair innings. So a shout out to grandma for getting there.

But in order to make up for Dania missing the show, I’ve got a very special guest today. I’ve got Milad Juma, Principal Lawyer and Partner at PRD Legal joining me. PRD Legal is a thriving personal injury practice based in Victoria. Milad, thank you for coming on, mate.

Milad Juma (00:56.152)

Thank you, thank you, Dicky. Thanks for having me and happy birthday to Dania’s grandma. Wow, what a beautiful achievement to have as well.

Dicky Abraham (01:02.946)

Yeah, like I said, not a lot of people make it to 100, so it’s a fair innings. But yes, look, I’ve wanted to get you on the show for a while. Your story is very different, I think, compared to some of the other partners and lawyers that are around. So I’m pretty sure our listeners will be very keen to explore that. It’s not linear.

You didn’t necessarily start at a traditional firm, know, boutique, mid-tier or top-tier, work your way through the various different positions, get up to partner after 20 or 25 years. You took some risks and it’s paid off big time, but it’s something that I suspect our listeners will be keen to explore. But before we get to all of that, let’s start at the very beginning, Law, what attracted you to law? Was it something that…

you always wanted to do or was it something that happened organically?

Milad Juma (02:02.222)

I think being a migrant to Australia, I should say actually thank you for that beautiful compliments really, but being a migrant to Australia, I was always interested with the cross section between politics, economics and law, economics, jobs are few and far between as we all know and politics, my family comes from a political background but in Iraq, not in Australia. So the doors weren’t necessarily opening in a political

for me and I couldn’t see myself stepping into that world. So law was the obvious next step in terms of doing a degree. It was always that kind of flagship degree that if you do a law degree and I did economics side by side with that, then I would come out with a skill set which is employable in any industry that’s commercially based. And then by a couple of years into law school, I was lucky enough to have a mentor who…

I guess?

made it apparent to me, which I didn’t already understand or accept, that I actually had the skill set to be a lawyer. I think up until about halfway through my law degree, I probably didn’t believe in myself as much as I could have or should have. And it took some support from a mentor to say, no, you probably have the skills, go off and do some experience and really just test your skill set and cut your teeth a little bit. And at that point, I realised, okay, yeah, I think I do have the skills.

And yeah, the journey is from there, you can see.

Dicky Abraham (03:36.046)

That’s very good to hear because that sense of self-belief is really important in law. A lot of people, probably don’t get there until they start practicing and you’re four or five years in because I still go through it. I can probably say that for the first few years I didn’t necessarily believe I had the skills to be a lawyer. I was still building it. But I also didn’t necessarily have a mentor at law school. I sort of buzzed through law school, didn’t really engage with law school as much as I perhaps should

have. When you finished law school, you got into personal injury, is that right? did that, again, same question, did that happen organically or is that something that you’re always passionate about? That’s a practice area.

Milad Juma (04:17.805)

like a lot of law students, really interested in human rights and the change the world type of attitude or ethics that a lot of law students have early on.

I realised that practising in human rights would be an area that you would predominantly only be able to do in New York or in some countries of Europe. So then I looked at what areas of our legal system domestically interacted with human rights and employment law was the thing that stuck out to me as saying standing up for workers’ rights, know, working conditions and other areas which are synonymous with human rights but in domestic law.

And I did do some internships at the unions and I was lucky enough to get a job at Maurice Blackburn and I worked across their personal injury and in their employment law team. But when it came to becoming a lawyer, it was the very start of COVID and Maurice Blackburn had done a freeze on employing anyone. And it just so happened that I found a job with PRD Legal and Personal Injury and that’s where I landed.

But I was already interested in it. And once I got into it, I was very, very happy to be working in personal injury law.

Dicky Abraham (05:29.24)

So did you try out any other areas of law throughout law school or, know, clerk at any other areas or clerk at any other firms that did other sort of areas in law or did you always focus on employment law and just follow that passion through?

Milad Juma (05:46.357)

I did do a, look, I think I knew that I wanted to work a 40 hour week, say 50 hours from time to time, and I was never the type of person to flourish in a corporate environment, climbing the ladder, because to my mind, that’s not my skill. That’s not the skills I possess. So I was never looking at transactional law at a top tier firm. It was just something that I wasn’t applying for clerkships at KPMG or MinterEllison. It was just never gonna be me.

and it wasn’t who I wanted to be as well. And then I did intern at Victoria Legal Aid and I did some criminal law and I didn’t love the substance of the law that I was interacting with. And then after that, I did do some internships at the unions. I got into employment law and interacted with personal injury and the plaintiff side of that. And once I had seen that in my horizon, it was pretty clear that it was going to be either employment law

or personal injury or a mixture of both.

Dicky Abraham (06:48.86)

That’s very interesting you say that because…

You sound like someone who sort of knew which areas you did not want to practice at law school. You absolutely knew that you didn’t want to necessarily be a transaction lawyer. You knew which areas you did not want to go into. And then you channelled the energy into the areas that you perhaps were open to and completely excluded. It sounds like that’s what’s happened. Is that the advice that you would give young law students or young lawyers to sort of work through? Because I get a lot of

law students and young lawyers coming to me and telling me that they’re not necessarily sure of the area they want to practice. They want to practice perhaps in transactional law, but they’re not getting the opportunities, so they want to sort of work in whatever they get and then transition into that area hopefully. And again, I’ve always told them, look, focus on areas that you perhaps don’t want to practice and exclude them and then work your way through areas that you sort of do want to practice because otherwise,

If you keep yourself narrow-minded and you only want to work in one area, perhaps that might not be realistic. So, is your advice to young lawyers to sort of keep their mind open but at the same time make sure you know the areas you perhaps you don’t want to practice in no matter what happens in your life?

Milad Juma (08:08.713)

I think.

like so deduction theory in a way to say these are the areas that I don’t want to work in at all or don’t want to progress in is the first thing you should do. I think trying to pick what area you want to work in is quite counterintuitive and impossible to do because the substance of any area of law, like I remember thinking in law school, I don’t want to work in contracts, but everything we do across most things in law is contracts. Regardless of the area you work in, contracts are involved the whole way through.

reduce the or exclude the ones that you don’t want to do and then go from there but I think you should be open as well because you just don’t know what the substance of an area of law is. At law school it’s quite technical you know you learn the substance of the act or the legislation and the case law but then you get into doing intellectual property for example and I’ve had a few intellectual property matters come to me and I think

This is really, really exciting, real life work. And it’s nothing like what I did in law school when I did IP. So definitely exclude the things that you don’t like, but then be open to also dipping your toes into areas under the right mentorship and guidance from supervising solicitors and whatnot. You should definitely say yes to the rest for sure.

Dicky Abraham (09:24.59)

And tell me about personal injury law, Having practised it in that particular area pretty much your whole career, have you ever felt like you don’t want to practise in that area anymore, or is the passion still burning? Is this the area that you’re going to continue to practise in and going to stay there?

Milad Juma (09:41.688)

Yes, at work I wear two hats or I wear a few different hats on any given day. When I am wearing the hat of a solicitor, personal injury is the thing that excites me and I’m interested in. It has a technical aspect to it which is case by case and exciting when it comes to negligence and medicine. But when it comes to wearing the hat of a partner and principal solicitor at PRD Legal, we are looking into expanding our horizons into other areas of law which includes at the moment

family law and conveyancing and potentially estate disputes. That is probably a little bit that we’ll delve into I’m sure later in our discussions. think insurance is a bit of a dangerous area to be in at the moment for a boutique practice. There was a recent study by the Insurance Council of Australia which said that insurance in Victoria is untenable and as a personal injury solicitor who works only in PI, that’s a little bit alarm bell moment.

We’ve been essentially preparing for a doomsday if it did happen, but I work on a day-to-day basis in personal injury, and that includes work cover, TAC, superannuation, public liability, and some ancillary claims, which from time to time includes employment law and other related insurance claims.

And I really do find that interesting in terms of what I like to do. It suits my skill set. It has a very big human element to it. And it’s something that I’m not looking at working in anything else myself for the time being,

Dicky Abraham (11:19.31)

Okay, and in your opinion, tell me about a personal injury, what’s unique about it compared to say some other areas of law, at least in your experience?

Milad Juma (11:30.062)

So, especially on the plaintiff’s side, personal injury is an incredibly human area of law. When someone comes to you after a personal injury, their entire world has stopped as they know it. And for example, if it’s a male who was the sole earner of a family of two young kids and a wife,

The first actual interaction you have with them is not as a lawyer at all. It’s more as a psychologist. And it’s something that really stays with you. And the human element of what we do and seeing the resolution in someone’s eyes and you can feel the weight being taken away from their shoulders as you provide your service, that for me, steps out of my position as a lawyer and into what I actually wanted to do in my life, which is to be a good human and pass that on to people.

but then I get to use my legal intricate skills which are technical and provide expert legal services. And funnily enough, I always hated medicine in high school and in law school. I never did biology or chemistry or I don’t enjoy anatomy. So it’s quite ironic that now I’m working in an area of law which focuses very, very heavily on human biology anatomy. But…

We use doctors, we use experts, we have people that we rely upon to do that and you ask the right questions. And then likewise, we work closely with counsel because it’s such a highly litigious area of law. You you study case theory at university, but in personal injury, case theory is everything and strategically devising how you’re going to interact with the defendant is everything in our case in a way. you know, that is very, very exciting from a legal hat perspective. Yeah.

Dicky Abraham (13:22.446)

Speaking of the human element, is there a particular matter or case that sticks with you in so far?

Milad Juma (13:30.082)

Yeah, there are, there are a few, there are a few. what I always say to my clients is that in Victoria, we are blessed and we have one of the best insurance schemes in the world, but it still doesn’t go as far as it probably should. And there are times when insurance being inherently money saving entities, they have made decisions which are inhumane and not founded in law and overturning those decisions take

months or sometimes years. And I had this one young fellow who had quite a horrific injury to his hand and it was so obvious that he couldn’t work. And he was the sole earner for him and his wife and his child. And the insurer cut him off weekly payments on the basis that he could work.

and we made complaints to the ombudsman to work safe and to the local minister as well actually. But it took me nine months and that was as quickly as I could do it to overturn that decision. And in the last three months he was sleeping in his car outside of my office and as I walked in with my coffee every morning he’d be checking, hey my lad is there an update? So he was literally going to the swimming pool to give his kid a bath and

The pictures are still stuck with me. It’s something that really resonates in a deep way that you probably can’t explain in words, but the world isn’t perfect and the pendulum swings. And my choice is to be on the side of the pendulum that swings in the right direction. Sometimes it’s over swing, definitely, but I would rather be on the side of the pendulum that is doing good work for people who deserve it for sure.

Dicky Abraham (15:21.194)

It sounds like.

There’s the personal injury, sounds like. It’s a really difficult area of law. Not difficult necessarily in the sense that technical, difficult in the sense that you have to deal with the human element, but there’s immense satisfaction at the end of a case, which is not necessarily true for an area that I practice in, commercial litigation, because it’s a lot transactional. dealing with businesses. We sort of settle, or if we go to a trial, we win, and then we still try and settle it and parties move on.

It sounds like there’s immense satisfaction that you could probably get from the personal injury space, especially compared to, especially a case that you described. Something like that I would never have, I don’t think I’ll ever experience in my career because it’s not that sort of, how shall I say, that sort of pressures my clients probably don’t face. So it sounds like there’s immense.

joy that you might be able to get from a matter. While the challenges are steep, it’s still quite satisfying.

Milad Juma (16:28.782)

I think the word I would use is more like vindication or I wouldn’t say it’s very rare. would say 10 % of my clients when I finish their claim are genuinely overjoyed or really happy with the result. Most of them will look at any outcome and say I would have made more over those four years if I continued working and had a healthy back or a healthy shoulder.

Vindication when the system has wronged Definitely as a solicitor, I feel it I don’t think that feeling is shared with the client and I don’t blame them for not feeling that because Even if I put X amount of dollars into their pocket They will still be carrying an injury and a trauma which might live with them for a long time so I wouldn’t say there’s joy in a sense of Excitement as if you bought a new house or getting married or having a child or something like that

your life which is so positive. But I would say a sense of relief and vindication and also being able to pay the bills and keep food on the table is probably another aspect of it.

Dicky Abraham (17:42.998)

And just circling back, you mentioned that you work with a lot of doctors and you work sort of in that medical legal field. Having come from a background where you absolutely didn’t want anything to do with medicine, do you find that challenging now? Is that something you sort of have embraced and look forward to?

Milad Juma (18:03.742)

Look, I know that we might talk in any discussion nowadays about AI, the real powers and prowess of AI, and I’m not going to lie, in the first two or three years, my stomach would churn when I had to compare two orthopedic surgeon’s reports and I had to decipher what they’re saying about the shoulder or what someone’s prognosis is based on this treatment or other…

otherwise. But now with the power of AI and allowing it to interpret documents for you and then extrapolate and support your thinking, it’s incredibly powerful.

and you end up learning the terms. It’s a process of osmosis really whereby you end up learning the commonality of the terms being used. And I will say just to answer your question, if you’re going to go into any area of law or be a successful lawyer and you don’t have the confidence or eagerness to do something that’s new and unfamiliar to you, you won’t succeed because that’s even county court judges get it wrong and then they get appealed and it gets overturned and then the high court makes a final ruling.

are getting it wrong, who are we to say that we’re going to get things right all the time? So you just, you need to have the attitude where no two days are the same, you have to keep learning new things.

Dicky Abraham (19:26.126)

That’s great advice because you’re quite right.

This job is all about being comfortable with the uncomfortable. At least in my first five years, I found that I didn’t really know anything and every day I was learning something new. And having come from, was essentially, I didn’t do an office job before I finished my law degree. So I sort of worked in warehouses where it’s the same routines, you know what you’re doing to coming to an office and learning something new every day is challenging. But having that open mind,

is very important. So that’s great advice, Mulad. Now let’s move on to PRD Legal. So you finished law school just around when COVID started, is that right?

Milad Juma (20:11.798)

You know it all starts to blur together at some point, Dicky. I think I finished, where’s my degrees behind me, somewhere there, 2019 and I might have kept one subject either in 2019 or 2020 just so I could then apply for Clerkships again but yeah thereabouts. Before COVID I was done and I had finished my degree before COVID.

Dicky Abraham (20:36.942)

And was PRD Legal your first law job as a lawyer or did you work at another law firm prior to PRD Legal?

Milad Juma (20:47.63)

Well, I was at Maurice Blackburn immediately prior to PRD Legal and I had clerked there and I was pretty confident that I was going to be offered a graduate position, which I would have taken and rejected PRD Legal, which, you know, God blesses you in different ways, I imagine. But PRD Legal was my first employed position as a solicitor, yes.

Dicky Abraham (21:08.78)

Yes. And what was your experience in those first few years? you didn’t, when did you become a partner or buy into that? Was that a few years after or was that pretty much straight away or you saw the value in the firm and you went for it straight away?

Milad Juma (21:22.958)

It was definitely, I think, three years ago. So 2023 or three years after I started working. Look, I think there’s a…

There’s a balance of every skill, every moment of your life that makes you either ready or not ready to take on a situation. And I think the migrant background, the army father who wasn’t able to be an engineer in a country, and then probably a lot of other experiences.

When I got to PRD Legal, the instructions that I got, and it’s not uncommon or dissimilar to what other people here in boutique firms, it’s get it done. Here’s the memo, here’s the file note, get it done.

That worked and that was enough for me to go off and mentor myself or look at LexisNexis or rely on counsel or go and read the law and go and have a crack at it and go and do your best. That was enough for me to say, you know what, there is nothing in my way from here to partnership at a firm like this. If I can just put my head down and do my best job and prove myself, then there might be something on the table.

Dicky Abraham (22:37.75)

When did that decision sort of crystallize in your mind that, okay, I’m going to buy into this or I’m going to take that step forward? Because it sounds like you’ve done that very early in your career and that’s a big risk. A lot of lawyers won’t have the courage to do that and to step out. They will simply work their way through the process, is graduate associate, senior associate, try and build a client base while you’re doing that, perhaps get to special counsel and then eventually consider partnership.

taken that step very early in your career. And to me, I couldn’t imagine doing something like that, because for me, I look at it myself and go, man, that scares me. But you’ve decided to take that big risk, and it’s paid off in a big way, because I can see PRT legal. It’s a thriving practice in Victoria now. And you’ve got quite a bit of staff, and you’re growing. So was there a point in time where that decision crystallized in your mind? And did that, and.

I suspect a lot of things went into that, things like what the firm is doing, what your strengths are, can you grow this firm, can you buy into it, be part of it and grow it in the way you want, is there scope for expanding into different areas? So was there a particular point in time where you said, I know the risks, I think I can make this work and I think I can go, I can do…

what a partner needs to do or what a partner is required to do even though I’m only what four or five years PQE. Was there a point in time where you said, yep, I can do this. I don’t need to follow the traditional model and wait till 20 years to get there. I’m gonna take this right back myself and I’m gonna get it done.

Milad Juma (24:20.302)

It’s a good question and I think it’s a question that I want to answer differently depending on how I’m feeling at any given day. I think there was one basic element that allowed partnership to be even available to me and that was the technological advancements that were happening because of COVID.

Because of COVID, everything was going away from hard copy files and into soft copy files. And the partner, my business partner now, Patrick, he was, he’s a technical expert and great at the law. But when it comes to scaling in an organization and managing so many different variables and file management, it was something that he wasn’t able to fully adapt to in a way that would be able to continue progressing the firm.

So I knew that there was, a point that I could prove or a place that I could play myself in or a role I had. That was number one. Number two was the systems around us were all developing so quickly. Like I’m going to give a plug to Smokeball, who’s our CRM that we use. And they should, if they, if they do listen to this, they should sponsor the Spurling Insights show because they, Smokeball has allowed us to operate like a big firm.

So we don’t need a half a million dollar CRM or software to be able to properly client manage. Two things and then number three I realized how much you do not recreate the, you don’t reinvent the wheel and personal injury. You apply situational facts to law and concepts which are very readily available and you’ve got counsel available to you to rely upon and work with and get mentorship from. And then number five, my skillset is the soft skills. I’ve always worked in retail. I’ve been employed since I was 14 years old working in hospitality or retail.

Milad Juma (26:26.192)

and it was probably the skill that I had that I could kind of take anywhere with me and be confident in it is my client management. And I think with personal injury, that was the most important skill that I needed and I had it. So there was definitely a few moments where I realized the role that I was playing at PRD was more than just an employed solicitor. I realized that Patrick would be open to discussing partnership in a way that other solicitors or firms wouldn’t. And I realized that leaving here and going to another firm would just put me back in a place where… I’m in a room of 10 people at weekly meetings and my ideas are, you know, fourth in line or fifth in line. And I was, I was given a platform by Patrick, which said, here’s the ball kid run. And I loved that. And it’s, it’s, it’s that kind of, and it’s probably a very big appreciation to him for saying you’ve got some skills and ideas and vision. Go for it. Go for it. yeah.

Dicky Abraham (27:34.742)

Fantastic. I want to, there’s a couple of interesting points you raised there and I’ll get to that. The first one, the fact that you turned COVID into an opportunity. All right. A lot of people use, see COVID as essentially something that perhaps set their career back, but you use that as an opportunity. You looked at it and went, okay, here’s an opportunity I can perhaps benefit from or perhaps use to advance my career.

And then secondly, the soft skills. Would you rate that as just as important as perhaps say the legal knowledge as well? In commercial litigation, the soft skills are really important because you’re dealing with big business and you need to manage directors’ expectations and things like that. I suspect it’s similar in personal injury, but there’s a bit more of a human element to it.

Would you rate that as highly as legal and technical knowledge if you want to build a practice and if you want to become a partner or a director in this particular space?

Milad Juma (28:42.446)

I think I would put it above the technical aspect of it because we can listen to Ted Talks or we can go through all the different speeches by any famous person and they all will say, people buy from people. That’s one of the most common concepts in the world that people buy from people and they buy from people that they like, from people they feel safe with, people that they feel empathised by or heard by, they build rapport with, they feel can explain things.

In a way that they understand and feel genuine about that relationship. That is the area of law we work in because you know, Dickie, as you very well know, every area of law has a risk. Nothing is, what we do is not a pure science and there never will be a pure science. Any lawyer who tells their client, guarantee you this outcome is not a good lawyer because we do not work in guarantees. We work in risk and probabilities and maybes and factors and different

So the law will always continue to move around us, but how we manage our clients and interact with them is the reason that when shit hits the fan, they’re ready to take an offer or you know, and all the different variables that are at play there. think not only in your job as a lawyer, but also when it comes to growing a team and then also working within a team, your communication with your team is, I think, the most important thing because everyone can learn everything now and especially with the rise of AI, you know, clients come to us with the right answer half the time. Now they say, I think I’m entitled to this, that and the other. say, yeah, okay, you’re right. I’ll add one or two things, but you’re generally on the right page here.

So what else is there that we offer? It’s client management and that service that’s in the background.

Dicky Abraham (30:32.408)

Fantastic. you mentioned that you’re a people person and it sounds like it sort of came to you organically. You’re naturally a people person and you’ve just expanded on that or you’ve just extrapolated that to try and develop your practice. Me, not so much. That’s a skill that I had to sort of learn as I started practicing. I tell the story to a lot of junior lawyers. When I started, it was my second day and my senior associate told me to ring a superannuation fund to get some details. And I hadn’t really worked in an office before.

So I didn’t necessarily have the file and all the details open. I just assumed it’s going to be like me ringing superannuation, and they’ll ask me for details, and I’ll get the details.

So I opened the file and looked at it for a brief second, rang the superannuation company, and the lady immediately asked me about the details of the person, numbers, everything. And I panicked, and I just hung the phone up.

And then looked at the file again and then going back and told her I’m not entirely sure what happened. It just the line fell through. But it’s a skill that I had to learn. So for junior practitioners and especially law students, those who don’t have that people skills to begin with or are necessarily not very skilled at it.

What’s your advice there? is, there’s certain things that you recommend they engage in or they start developing as early as university to try and develop that so by the time they get to a graduate role or, you know, one or two year PQE, they’re in a position where perhaps they can do what you do and try and take that next step to becoming a partner of a law firm at that very… with that very limited experience and just backing themselves and pushing on.

Milad Juma (32:26.292)

A few things that I would say with that. So firstly, you know, it’s commonly understood that there’s different types of learning styles. And I would say, if you’re not an expert communicator in certain areas, and look, I definitely wasn’t when it came to, you know, I became a partner quite young. And when I would pick up a phone call and call a seasoned partner at a, you know, a big firm, they would try and make a mockery out of me because they’d say, who are you to call us and try and, you know, who you are or represent yourself as such a person.

So I would actually observe the way they interacted and observe their footage and the way they spoke and then try and replicate that in the in so far as I enjoyed what they did and then in so far as what I thought they did was demeaning or otherwise I didn’t enjoy I would say okay

I picked up that part of their style and I’m gonna refuse that part of their style. So pick people around you who you idolise or otherwise look up to in terms of their style and try and just observe and just ask them, can I sit here on your phone call? Can I listen to how you work your or navigate your way through that phone call or the words you use to explain something to a client as opposed to someone who’s more upper market.

That’s number one is just observing and really trying to take note of the context, relativeness and then the language being used. And then the second thing I would do, I would say is with a soft skill like that, fake it till you make it.

You know, everyone’s nervous out there. No one is purely perfect and no one ever will be. And anyone who holds themselves out to be perfect is lying. And then maybe they’re more insecure than everyone else. So they’re actually putting that up as a front. Fake it till you make it. Or actually do your best until you think you are the best. So just do your best.

I think the worst thing you can do is just roll over and not try. It’s just, just have a go, you know? And if someone bashes you for it, then I hope you have people around you who come in and support you. And that’s an important thing is that when you do try your best and someone tries to bully you or bash you for doing something that’s less so, then you need people around you who stick up for you as well.

And having those people in your corner gives you the confidence. And someone like Patrick was that for me, that gave me the confidence to say, you know what, let’s go for it.

Dicky Abraham (34:53.922)

Fantastic. That’s really great advice. It sounds like, you know, I maintain a mantra that indecision is the worst decision. You always have to have a go. Indecision is the worst decision. know, back yourself, have a go. If you fail, then at least you know you’ve attempted it and you’ve given it a red hot crack. So that’s great advice. Now, let’s move on to PRD Legal, mate, because I know my listeners will be keen on hearing that. The process of becoming a partner. What was that like?

Because you’re not just buying into a firm and the profits it generates, you’re buying into the liabilities, you’re buying into all the risk. So what was that like for young practitioners who perhaps aspire to get to where you are and don’t want to follow that traditional model? Can you outline that process and give us an insight into what that is like?

Because I can’t imagine a lot of young practitioners buying into a firm at your sort of experience and then building it to the point where it is an incredible practice that’s growing and that’s thriving. if you can give us a short insight into that process, I think that would be really beneficial.

Milad Juma (36:03.662)

Look, I definitely had a clear habit in me as a person growing up that I preferred to work in a team than I did alone. That was a part of me. So I knew that working with Patrick and absorbing his working style, which was an ingrained style, and the liabilities associated with, you know, debt to the ATO or debt to a funder or bad cases that were around us was kind of just a deadweight lost in any kind of economic decision.

There’s always going to be something you give up to get something else, an opportunity cost. And I was generally okay with that. If you’re, you know, at the age I was looking to buy into a firm, if you’re not willing to absorb the risk and have the confidence to say, effort, I’m going to take that risk and run with it, then you’re probably not thinking about partnership anyway. And then it actually happened quite naturally where

I was, and I think journaling is an important aspect or writing down what you’re doing. So I realised that not only was I bringing in clients and then settling clients work, but I was also helping with the firm’s systems and growth, finances, marketing and other operational things. And it occurred to me that, hang on.

I’m actually contributing to the entire existence of the firm here. So, and look, it just depends on who you’re dealing with. And luckily enough for me, I was dealing with Patrick who is very honest. And funnily enough, when I brought the conversation up to him, he said, I know, he said, I know, he was essentially anticipating the conversation. It didn’t come up as a surprise to him that I would one day come up to him and say, hey, by the way,

I’m probably ready for discussions about what pathway the partnership looks like. He was open to that and there was obviously a fight between the old and the new in a way of styles of doing it and also what would be time spent building a career. And that took time, but if there’s a common vision in mind, then people should be able to come to terms and we were and it took six to twelve months for us to come to those terms and in that time we had disagreements and there was probably a few you know times where one or both of us thought this might not actually work out but I think in business

And in law, compromise is everything. Compromise is what we do. And context and relativity, there’s always something you give up to get something else. So yeah, that’s probably the process that I could say we followed.

Dicky Abraham (39:01.103)

It sounds like it all started from a good working relationship. That’s the base that you need to have to begin with, with your senior partners and perhaps management. Because, and I’ll use this example, when I did the practice management course, I was speaking to a special counsel at a much larger firm who was doing it because she was going to be appointed as partner in the coming financial year. And it’s interesting, the practice management course teaches us that you need to do your financials. You need to make sure you do it properly so you can see the forecast, your PPAP essentially, your profit per equity partner, you need to work out what it is. And she was saying how it’s interesting we need to do all of this. And for any client, if they’re buying into a business, the first thing you do is due diligence.

You look at it and go, all right, send me all the books, send me your books, send me the accounts, let’s have a look at it and do our due diligence. Whereas when you buy into the partnership at say some of these bigger firms, the PPEP is a closely guarded secret, so very little information was provided to her to begin with, and she had to make a lot of assumptions. Now, obviously, that doesn’t sound like that was the case in your particular scenario. It sounds like you and Patrick had a great working relationship, and you both trusted each other, and you knew exactly what you were buying into, and you saw the potential. Is that a fair assessment?

Milad Juma (40:28.206)

Yeah, definitely, definitely. think if there was no need from his end for a young operator like me to come in and advance the firm in a way that he couldn’t, there would never have been a door open for me to do that. I was, guess, right place, right time, and right mindset from my end as well for the opportunity to present itself as a starting point.

And then number two, in terms of a working relationship, incredibly transparent with one another. He was a transparent operator in terms of the way he operated the firm and in terms of seeing the numbers and understanding what was going on around. Definitely, definitely agree. And I actually just wrote, I forgot about that concept as well. Do you say profit per equity partner? that?

Dicky Abraham (41:15.934)

PEP. Yeah, PEP. Profit per equity payment.

Milad Juma (41:19.106)

Wrote that down because I forgot that I’ve just I’ll take that back and adopt it back

Dicky Abraham (41:23.95)

It’s something that every lawyer or every partner has that calculation because that tells you exactly what the profit is going to be per equity for that particular partner and that takes into account how many associates you have and it’s a really simple calculation in terms of how you work it out because it’s a process of adding your expenses, liabilities and then working out what’s left over. But it is something that’s when you come to becoming a partner. Now, let’s move on.

You’ve bought into PRD Legal. You’re a partner now. What’s changed from when you started to perhaps where you are now? I know that you’ve done a few innovative things, which I will get to, but if you want to elaborate on what’s changed from, when you started and you bought in to where it is now, I think our listeners will find that quite beneficial.

Milad Juma (42:19.832)

You know, there was times over the last couple of years where I thought it would remain a bit of a job in terms of an occupation, even though I might be a partner. I was quite content with the firm operating as two solicitors with files and off you go. But as time went on, the scalability of the practice has organically allowed us to make investment choices and decisions about that strategic plan.

12, 2 and 5 years away. And what’s changed is that we are looking into the future and being able to come back and make decisions now. look, any business without cash, you we’ve all played Monopoly before. If you run out of cash, it’s game over. So three years ago, we were still in that world where, you know, operating like a pure boutique practice where you’re looking at month to month and just trying to make sure that the months are captured by the profitable months for example but now we’re at a point where our going concern looks relatively well and we’re set up with with other sort of financial systems around us and we can go okay we’re doing well enough now and let’s then plan into the future and we’re looking at those things and for example and I know you’re going to go into us starting the conveyancing practice so that was an idea that we had because property is all it’s a horrible time to be running a conveyancing practice or starting one, but sometimes you just need to run with it and we’ve run with it and we’re sticking with it because we’ve invested in it.

And likewise, family law, these are two practice areas which are not impacted by the times like insurance can be. And another area which I’m sure you’ve heard of, Dickie and people are thinking of is estates and estate disputes. it’s in the next 10, 20 years, people who have 10 or $20 million estate

States are going to unfortunately be passing away. So that’s an area that we’re looking at. And because of the last couple of years of just hard work and really just going to work to be a lawyer, we can now start to think about, well, where do we go from here?

And those having those kinds of creative discussions about scaling the organization, training the staff, making it a mature organization so that you have subject matter experts in different parts of your organization as well. So thinking longevity, but also thinking aspirationally of where the firm might go.

Dicky Abraham (44:59.554)

You mentioned cash, and in personal injury, a lot of matters are run on no win, fee. So you’re essentially, you don’t necessarily have any cash flow. And I raised this because before I started my own practice, I spoke to a couple of lawyers who had started their practice about five years ago, probably 10 years ago, and they didn’t necessarily have an area that they chose. They just decided to do anything and everything.

So they started doing criminal and wills and estates. And they had built up the practice to a certain stage and they decided to go into personal injury. And this particular lawyer told me they probably expanded a bit too quickly because personal injury, a lot of work was done on no win no fee.

So they knew the funds were coming, but they didn’t have the liquidity, the cash flow. And he had to sort of draw on his mortgage to try and pay at one point the salaries of their lawyers and things like that. And now it’s thriving. Now that practice has gone from strength to strength. But there were points he said where if I had to do it all over again, I would not expand into the personal injury as quickly as I did because it was immensely stressful. So how do you guys manage that cashflow aspect of it? Because it’s no win no fee. So you’re incurring all these disbursements, which is essentially costs that you have to pay to other third party vendors, doctors, experts. How do you manage that?

Milad Juma (46:26.412)

Yeah, look, we’re lucky enough to have a legal funder. most personal injury firms have a legal funder which they use as a disbursement funder. We have a disbursement funder and we’ve also got an overdraft account. So we’ve got two or three different methods.

We’ve got a couple of credit cards sitting there ready to go if we need. We’ve got cash in the bank. We’ve got an overdraft and we’ve got a legal funder. And from time to time, we’ll use whichever one is most convenient for us. we definitely have that also.

Dicky Abraham (46:59.118)

Was that stressful when you bought into the practice? Because up until that point you are an employee and you draw a salary every week. Once you buy into the practice you’re looking at these bank accounts going okay, yep there’s funds coming probably at the end of this year but I’ve got to sort of meet these disbursements and things in the interim. Is that stressful or is that something sort of you sort of learn to live with?

Milad Juma (47:23.15)

I think I’ve learnt to live with it now because where the ebbs and the flows of the business are in a realm or range which I can palette. But at the earlier stages, it was incredibly stressful, incredibly stressful because in personal injury, if we don’t settle the matter which is running or set for mediation next week, then all of a sudden that $50,000 or $60,000 that we were gonna charge for three years worth of work has now gone away for a year.

And we have to continue carrying the $15,000 in disbursements for another year. And for a boutique practice, that’s, yeah, I can’t say that it wasn’t an incredibly stressful time. And there are still times now where

There are matters which might blow up for any given reason. And then you go, shit, what is that going to do to our bottom line and whatnot? Yeah. But that’s, that’s, look, I think that’s, that’s, that’s a, part of partnership in a law practice. You know, you have to be able to ride those waves. And I think that’s where having people in your life, which are in your team, like having a business partner for me has been an incredible thing because sometimes you can just look at each other and have a little bit of a wry smile on your face going, hey, we might be screwed here, but if the ship sinks, at least we’re sinking together, yeah? Which does make you feel a little bit less doomsday about it all.

Dicky Abraham (48:59.854)

I suppose it’s your appetite for risk, isn’t it? And you sound like someone who always backed yourself. And you’ve always calculated that appetite for risk based on your circumstances, what you can. And it’s all about making sure you don’t overstretch. So before I let you go, Milad, one of the things I wanted to touch on as well is in terms of innovation, how innovative PRD Legal is. You’ve employed legal support staff overseas to assist you with the admin side of things.

Up until, before PRD Legal, I hadn’t really come across a firm other than some of the top tier firms, say, Herbert Smith Freehills, who’ve got support staff in Ireland, who do discovery and things like that, who’ve sort of looked into that, a boutique firm who’s looked into that. And having spoken to you before, it sounds like it’s working really well. Can you elaborate on that a bit and just where the idea came from, how it’s going?

And is it everything that you expected? Is it more? And I also know that legal support staff overseas, they’re still people. So you have a duty to look after them properly. And you do that really well. You’ve mentioned that you’ve flown them into Australia. They come to all your events. They’re essentially part of the firm. They feel like they’re part of the fabric. It’s not a center or somewhere or support staff that are based somewhere else that don’t necessarily feel part of the firm. They’re part of the fabric. So can you elaborate on that?

Milad Juma (50:34.774)

Yeah, definitely. thankfully it was a venture which Patrick had already embarked upon prior to me commencing with PRD Legal. But when I started, it was only ever one legal assistant or support staff in the Philippines. And it was incredibly difficult to maintain that.

One of the things that I did take from Maurice Blackburn, which was really, really helpful for me is process manuals. Process manuals, was no discretion based decision making platforms and systems and flow charts and ones and zeros, which in litigation, filing documents or setting up briefs, there’s a multitude of tasks which discretion can be removed from.

and staff can do that. And if you look at actually your team in Melbourne or anywhere in Australia, it’s much the same. It’s not too much different.

But you might give people who have legal training or a lot more legal experience the the discretion to move away from that from time to time so The decision we made was to actually we kept having one at a time But then I said look that’s not going to work because if that one leaves Then I’ve spent six months training them and I need to spend another six Yeah so let’s double down and make it two or three straight away and because then if one leaves it doesn’t matter and I know that

costs us more, but at least we have a brain’s trust in in so doing. And when we did that, one of those team members appeared as a bit of a team leader and had the skill set to then hone my skills and hone my systems to say, here’s a few other better ways to keep improving this.

Milad Juma (52:30.41)

And based on that, actually, I’m very proud to announce we have 10 staff members overseas at the moment working for us, which is an incredible feat for us. And it means that our clients pay less in costs. We look after our staff members whereby they work from home, which in outsourcing countries like the Philippines is a very rare and sought after thing to do. We help their local communities with orphanages, schools, homelessness and other services as well.

So we don’t just take from them, we also give back to their community and we pay them really, really well for what they do and we ensure we nurture them as if they are a part of our fabric because the reality is they are a part of our fabric. I interact with my team members there just as much as I interact with my team members here. So there is no difference between them there and us here. And I think that’s a management style where we give our team the strength to be able to criticize us as well.

Like I enjoy being criticized because that means there’s something I can improve upon. So I can’t say it was all, you know, you know.

easy and happy days all the time. There have been times where things go wrong and that’s with any staff or any scaling of an organisation. But in terms of their work and their work ethic and they’re part of our team, it’s as if they work in our office here in Melbourne and they work just as well as our colleagues here in Melbourne do. So it’s an incredible feat for us to have and yeah, it’s really good.

Dicky Abraham (54:11.298)

Well, that’s ever worth it, nothing that’s ever worth something comes easy. So it’s great to hear a boutique firm exploring these sort of ideas, innovating and working to provide a better outcome for clients. Because you hear these stories with top tier firms who have offices or they’ve engaged staff in Ireland to do the discovery. But it’s great to hear that it’s possible for boutique firms like yourself to do that as well and still provide the client a great outcome and still manage to, you know…

keep things going fluidly without any interruption. So that’s great to hear. Look, I’ll let you go, but thank you for coming on the show today. I think you’ve been incredible in the sense that you’ve provided a great insight into a career that’s not traditional. So far, it sounds like you’ve stepped outside the box and you’ve pursued something

that you think it’s worth it and you’ve backed yourself and it’s paid off dividends. So it’s great to hear that story. Before I let you go, PRD Legal, if clients or various stakeholders wants to get in touch with you or one of your staff members, what’s the best way to go about it? Is it your website and your details that they might?

Milad Juma (55:26.926)

Look, there’s any form of the social media will come to me, as you know, Dicky, with a boutique practice, if someone makes an inquiry on LinkedIn or Instagram or messages me directly on LinkedIn or comes to our website, I’ll no doubt hear about it. And it’ll come directly to me as well. So any of those methods will be fine. If it’s someone who wants to reach me on LinkedIn, I’m quite active on my LinkedIn so they can reach me there as well.

Dicky Abraham (55:53.666)

Well, there you go viewers, you’ve heard it from the man himself. So if you have any queries or issues regarding personal injury, please get in touch with PRD Legal. They’re wonderful firm, they do some great work and you’ve heard what they were all about here. So I can’t recommend them highly. Milad, thank you again for joining me, mate. That was really good.

And I think that’s it for this episode of Spurling Insights. My name is Dicky Abraham, Principal Lawyer and Director at Spurling Legal. Until next time, goodbye.