#131: Rachael Bosch – Professional Development Expert for Lawyers

Welcome back to another episode of the How I Lawyer Podcast, where Professor Jonah Perlin interviews lawyers about what they do, why they do it, and how they do it well.  Today’s guest is Rachael Bosch, the CEO and Founder of Fringe Professional Development (a leading professional development provider for lawyers and executives) and Candorly (an online tool to make gathering upward feedback easy and efficient).  Before becoming a legal tech Founder, Rachael worked in recruiting and development at top law firms, including Paul Hastings and Skadden, and before that, she was a professional actress and singer. In this episode, Rachael shares valuable insights about the legal profession including: 🎭⚖️ How her professional journey – from working as an actress to the legal profession – showed her that skills are transferrable between different jobs [2:04] 📈🌟 How there is a trend toward law firms becoming much more serious about investing in professional development, coaching, recruitment, and leadership [9:18] 🧠📚 How Rachael finds fulfillment in working with summer associates because lawyers’ brains are like sponges at that early stage in their careers [15:48] 👍👎 How many lawyers don’t understand that some of the characteristics that make you a good lawyer can simultaneously make you a subpar leader [19:19] 🌍💡 How Gen Z is entering the workforce and is starting to influence the profession’s culture [22:55] 🙋‍♂️❓ How it is senior lawyers’ obligation to answer questions about culture posed by younger lawyers [26:05] 🚦📉 How law firm leaders make choices about culture that have real consequences for their firm [33:55] 🎯🚨 How to prepare for legal interviews by understanding what you value and by asking targeted questions designed to see whether law firms share your values [40:23] 💬🤕 How to ask for and receive better feedback, even when it is uncomfortable [46:40] This episode is sponsored, edited, and engineered by ⁠LawPods, a professional podcast production company for busy attorneys⁠. Please take two minutes to support the How I Lawyer Podcast! Leave a ⁠Review⁠ Subscribe on ⁠Spotify⁠ or ⁠iTunes⁠ Share on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ or ⁠Twitter