Rick Petry - The Culturally Intelligent Lawyer

Trisha: 00:00:00

I would like to acknowledge the Tharawal people, the Aboriginal people of Australia, whose country I live and work on. I would like to pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging and thank them for sharing their cultural knowledge and awareness with us.

Trisha: 00:00:39

Hi there everyone. I'm Trisha Carter, an organizational psychologist and an explorer of cultural intelligence. I'm on a quest to discover what enables us to see things from different perspectives, especially different cultural perspectives. And why. Sometimes it's easier than others to experience those moments of awareness. The shifts in our thinking, as those of you who have listened to some of the earlier episodes will be aware, cultural intelligence CQ the capability to be effective in situations of diversity is made up of four areas.

Trisha: 00:01:14

There's motivational, the drive, cognitive, the knowledge, metacognitive, the strategy, and behavioural the action. And all four of these capabilities can help us operate effectively in situations of diversity. In this podcast, we're focusing on the metacognitive aspect, thinking about our thinking. And it's called CQ strategy. I met today's guest in a mastermind group in our year of being inaugural CQ fellows.

Trisha: 00:01:45

Rick and I and 16 other wonderful people were diving deep into how we could help people to increase their CQ, and I think it was actually Rick who named this podcast in our mastermind group, perhaps with some help from the other mastermind thinkers. It's great to have this time to talk more deeply. Welcome to Rick Petry.

Rick: 00:02:07

Thank you. Trisha, it's nice to be here.

Trisha: 00:02:08

It's great to have you. Let me tell the viewers, the listeners a little bit more about you. Rick is a lawyer. He has worked for 17 years in criminal defence, personal injury, commercial litigation and real estate matters. As a former trial attorney. He's run his own law firm, and now he's an adjunct affiliated professor and the director of diversity, equity and inclusion at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA.

Trisha: 00:02:40

So Rick knows lawyers. He knows the pressures and challenges they face. He's also an author and an expert in human performance excellence, leadership development, and cultural intelligence. So he knows how lawyers could be better. Today, I'm curious to learn more about the way lawyers think and how cultural intelligence might help them, shift in their perspectives about their work and the people they are working with.

Trisha: 00:03:08

So, Rick, welcome. Thank you for being here. Is there anything you wanted to add to that introduction about you.

Rick: 00:03:15

No, I I'm I'm actually blown away. I never really think of myself in those terms. I just do what I do.

Trisha: 00:03:22

Yeah, absolutely. You do. Well, I want to ask you the questions we ask all of our guests. What is a culture other than the culture that you grew up in, that you have learned to love and appreciate?

Rick: 00:03:34

I think one of the cultures that I've really learned to love and appreciate is the Mexican culture. I've travelled to Mexico several times, visited various parts of the country. and I've just really learned to love, so many things about their culture. I love their food. I love their the sort of the way they think about relationships.

Rick: 00:04:00

I love a number of the spiritual principles that they adhere to, and I just love traveling down there. It's just always like Cabo San Lucas is one of my favourite places on the planet. Can't wait to get back down there again.

Trisha: 00:04:14

I have never visited Mexico, and you've now made me want to.

Rick: 00:04:18

Good, good. I think you'll like it.

Trisha: 00:04:20

Yeah. Can you tell me about a time, Rick, when you have experienced the shift, you know, when you suddenly became aware of a new perspective?

Rick: 00:04:28

Yeah. you know, with my legal training, we as lawyers are taught to look at things sort of through a series of boxes, if you will. Legally, we call them elements and the elements of a piece of law where you take the law and you break it into smaller pieces, and you look at it through through those perspectives.

Rick: 00:04:51

My practice focused primarily on litigation matters. And oftentimes when you're looking at something through these boxes and you're involved in a piece of litigation, which is sort of a formal way to say a fight, right? It's a dispute between two parties.

Trisha: 00:05:09

Yeah.

Rick: 00:05:10

Really what it is. And, you know, you have these rules and the rules because you're in this dispute or this fight, in theory, are designed to give both sides an opportunity to learn everything that they can about the case. But the reality of it is that it really doesn't happen that way because everybody's trying to protect themselves. And so they're really not disclosing things.

Rick: 00:05:34

And oftentimes before you land in a trial in a civil case here in the states, the judge will mandate that you participate in mediation or some sort of an arbitration. And so many times have landed in mediation, and both parties thought the fight was about something in particular, only to find out during this mediation process when things become more relaxed, that it's not about that at all, and it's about something else.

Rick: 00:06:06

And everybody says, oh my gosh, if I would've known it was about that, we could have resolved this dispute a long time ago. Yeah. So I've experienced that shift so many times that eventually I got to the point where even though in the context of the litigation, I would think it would be about this, but I would still at the same time run this dual narrative to be open minded, because it could be about something totally different.

Trisha: 00:06:33

Are there some times more than others that you become aware of that, like I'm wondering what is what happens to create that environment that that makes that shift easy in that situation?

Rick: 00:06:46

Yeah. What are the conditions that usually allowed for that type of a shift to occur Would be a relaxation of this posturing, people not being so defensive because given the nature of the way these disputes, first of all, the way that they arise, something happens between the parties. They can't get along. And eventually it just turns, it evolves into a fight, and they can't resolve it among themselves.

Rick: 00:07:16

So both sides will run out and retain the lawyer. The lawyers, you know, they there's this thinking that if you're going to be a trial attorney, you have to be like a junkyard dog. You got to be aggressive and mean and hard and right, all this kind of stuff. And so you can't show any vulnerability. So and you're telling your client, right, because you're trying to protect them.

Rick: 00:07:39

For example, in a deposition where the the goal is to bring someone in, ask them a bunch of questions so you can learn about their side of the case. Well, before that, the lawyer would tell the the opponent or the witness who could be a party. It could be a nonparty. Now listen carefully to the questions and just answer the question.

Rick: 00:07:59

Don't say anything else. So, you know, everybody's guarded in litigation, and if you're guarded, then you're not going to open up and share much, right? Because you're you're afraid. You're trying to protect yourself. But if you have a good neutral, a mediator, or maybe it's even a judge that's working to help the parties resolve the matter, that gets people to be a little bit more relaxed.

Rick: 00:08:24

And in it's to set that stage. They say at the beginning, this is everything that you don't want me to tell the other party, tell me it's confidential and I won't tell them, but you can still tell me. You can share with me. And so that gives the person in the middle a lot more information. And if they can build.

Rick: 00:08:42

I call these layers of trust. with both sides. Then the two parties might not like each other and they might not trust each other, but they trust the person in the middle. And then they'll say, well, okay, well, what if I just share this piece of information with them? Because I think that would help us get this resolved.

Rick: 00:09:00

And then they say, okay, that's fine. So it's it's getting that trust to open up. And then that's when those kinds of shifts can happen. But as long as everybody's guarded and not sharing information, it's very difficult to get to that.

Trisha: 00:09:14

It’s interesting because I've talked to a lot of people about shifts, but we've never talked about the opposite. You know what impedes a shift? And obviously that guarded to that, that, you know, putting putting up walls and barriers, which so often happens in our everyday lives because we might not want to relate well to somebody. So we do put up walls and barriers.

Trisha: 00:09:37

Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah. I, I'm thinking about lawyers and the training they receive. and the way they need to think to be successful. Do you think lawyers are told to think between these two ways of operating, you know, the guarded versus the open? Tell me a little bit about, you know, the way that they are trained and the way that they think.

Rick: 00:10:02

The training leans far more toward being guarded. and that's why sometimes as a matter of, personal well-being, lawyers oftentimes wind up being isolated, depressed, lonely, all those types of things because they become pessimists. They're all they're trained to look for. Where are the problems? And then how do we either exploit the problem to our advantage, or how do we protect ourselves from the problem?

Rick: 00:10:30

So I'm always on the lookout for a problem. And if you're doing that, then this is just occurred to me as you were asking the question. There are a number of cognitive biases that can show up to negativity bias, confirmation bias, all those, you know, biases can show up as well. And and the problem is we don't know that we have them if we're never taught about those biases.

Rick: 00:10:55

And we think that what we're perceiving is true. So if you're trained your formal training teaches you to be on the lookout for problems. and then you develop that sort of a mindset. You're always looking for problems and then the biases kick in. Now you got sort of a multiplier effect and everything's a problem. Right. And so yeah, I think that and I don't think there's, I don't think there's enough emphasis on the other side of it, you know, especially becoming aware if you in my work, if you talk about bias, people oftentimes interpret that to mean it's a sideways, approach to calling me a racist.

Rick: 00:11:35

But the reality of it is, if you're a human being, you have biases. We all do. Last count, I think there's 187 or 189 known biases, and they're just neurological shortcuts. That's really all they are.

Rick: 00:11:49

But you know people get hung up on those types of things. But I think becoming aware of those biases and then being sort of mindful that they can pop up is very good because now especially as a lawyer, if you get too, too much tunnel vision, you're in trouble because you're not going to anticipate what's going on on the other side of the case, you're going to miss perspectives that you should have taken into consideration.

Rick: 00:12:16

You're going to miss the subtle nuances involved in something, and you're just going to see things one way. That's that's the recipe for disaster. So short answer is, yeah, they're they're trained with a, slant far more to look out for the problems.

Trisha: 00:12:30

Right. And you can see the impact that has, as you say, on well-being, as well as just success in terms of, you know, the outcomes that they were hoping for. I'm wondering how you see the the mental shifts that lawyers can benefit from. And I know that alongside cultural intelligence, you've also done a lot of work in emotional intelligence and in leadership and really effective performance from a from a people perspective.

Trisha: 00:12:59

So I'm wondering where do you think the greatest needs sit? And in your experience, you know, tell us a little bit about how you saw people perhaps not making those shifts.

Rick: 00:13:11

Yeah, I think there's there's three primary areas. One is the world has changed, right. The, the old world that some people are still trying to go back and recreate it simply no longer exist. That's a reality. Now, you might like it. You may not like it. You may want to go. I wish things would go back to the way they used to be, but that's not going to happen.

Rick: 00:13:36

And so in the old world, and depending on how far back we want to go, you know, it was it was fine if you could just exist and figure out how to get along with people in your community. And if you could do that, really, that's all you had to do, because you just weren't exposed to other people all the time.

Rick: 00:13:58

And so you could figure that out as long as you could do that. It was good. And most of the time everybody kind of had the same values, the same norms, the same ways of doing things sort of the same ways of thinking. And there wasn't too much variation from that in today's world, you have to learn how to figure out how do I get along in my own community, and how do I get along with all these other people that I'm now coming in contact with?

Rick: 00:14:24

Because the world is so well connected and because people travel around the world all the time, demographics are change. And so I think that one coming to grips with this new reality. And then, of course, we could throw in all these technological advances, throw some AI into the mix. All this disruption that's happening and this is like a holy night.

Rick: 00:14:49

How am I supposed to do all of these things? And I just want it to be the way it used to be. Well, you have to sort of embrace this new reality and start educating yourself. And how do you do this? How do we how do I get along with people who, on the surface may look different than me, may sound different than me, that I may assume have different core values, and I have to do things differently that think differently.

Rick: 00:15:17

And because oftentimes it's so easy for us to say, well, my way is right and you're always wrong. So what's wrong with you? Right? What? What the heck? Why are you doing that? Why are you saying that? Why do you behave in that way? And it could be that we place these assumptions on why they're doing it. And those assumptions are absolutely wrong.

Rick: 00:15:35

And we know this from our work working in CQ that, you know, that oftentimes happens. So that's the first thing is it's just coming to grips with this new reality. Along with that, new reality means if you're going to have a sustainable career, then it's no longer an option to try to figure this thing out. It's mandatory. If you don't, then you're going to be out of business.

Rick: 00:16:00

I mean, this is no different than, you know, the sort of the classic story is Kodak, the Kodak film company. And then they had the employee that discovered the digital camera and they said, no, we got to get rid of that hide it. And then the next thing you know, they're God, you know. And so I view this really in the same way.

Rick: 00:16:19

And I understand why sometimes people are struggling with this because it is when you talk about a shift. It's a huge shift. it is impacting and people sometimes think it's a zero sum game, but there's all these other people, then they're going to take some stuff away from me and then my status, my situation, my finances are going to be jacked up because of these other folks.

Rick: 00:16:40

But that's really not true. I mean, the data is pretty clear on that. So that's part of it. And then the other part of it is let's assume that you struggle with those first two, right? You really don't want to acknowledge that this shift has happened in the world, and you don't want to figure out how do I navigate my way through that.

Rick: 00:17:01

And so then as a result, you stay in this mindset that I'm just going to hunker down until things get back to the way that they used to be. When the environment that you're working in has totally changed. And so now you're struggling, you're bumping up against all these things that you don't know how to deal with, and that internally is going to cause a lot of problems.

Rick: 00:17:23

It's going to lead to chronic stress and all the other mental health problems that lawyers are experiencing. So there needs to be a shift there as well.

Trisha: 00:17:30

I think that is a is a picture of what is happening, you know, across the board in a lot of parts of society. And it's not I mean, you know, you're you're in America, and I'm in Australia, but we see the same things happening here. And just, you know, in the recent days, we've had discussions around the housing market and how difficult it is both to find a place to rent and to buy and so the finger is being pointed at immigrants.

Trisha: 00:17:56

And so it's very easy, you know, when, when something goes wrong to then point the finger of blame at the other, that other group, and instead of trying to fix the problem itself. So if we think about, lawyers themselves, when they think about, you know, diversity and cultural differences. I guess I'm thinking a little bit what you described is, is, the older perhaps generation, and I'm wondering if the younger generation coming through the law schools are seeing things differently.

Trisha: 00:18:33

Is it easier for them to make those shifts, do you think are they more open to, racial and cultural diversity?

Rick: 00:18:41

I think to a certain extent, the answer to that is yes. I think part of it is because of the way that they grew up, right? They grew up around other people that look different, like my children, are mixed race, and they grew up around all kinds of kids. Some of their friends look like every everything in the rainbow.

Rick: 00:19:03

And they never really get too hung up on on the race thing or, you know, what's your nationality or what's your religion, just like, hey, this is my friend. That's my friend. We're this all friends. And so, you know, that I think is really neat. And then when they get to law school, like our law school that I think is somewhat unique in that we have students from all over the country, the youngest students are 20, 21 years old, and then they go all the way up to in their 60s.

Trisha: 00:19:33

Wow.

Rick: 00:19:33

or a second and third career folks with medical doctors, police officers, business owners, you name it. Some are straight out of college. So we have all of this diversity in so many forms. Age, diversity.

Trisha: 00:19:45

That's amazing.

Rick: 00:19:47

Yeah. And they're all in the classroom together. With all these different types of beliefs. And we talk about this right at the start of school. You're going to be in a class with people that have different ideas than you have. That's fine. In fact, it's good. The goal is how can you be in the classroom with these folks, have conversations oftentimes about, emotionally charged issues in ways that are productive so that you do what my grandfather used to talk about, which is keep the main thing, the main thing, in the law school context, that means you're here to get a legal education.

Rick: 00:20:23

And part of that means having these difficult conversations in productive ways versus destructive ways where all of a sudden everybody's fighting with each other and you got an amygdala hijack going on and nobody's learning anything.

Trisha: 00:20:37

Yeah, yeah.

Rick: 00:20:38

And so, you know, we talk about that. And so they have done, I think, a pretty good job of figuring out how do we navigate our way through this. And you know, there's always somebody who says, I don't care about any of this stuff. I just want to do my own thing. Okay, fine. That's you know, we're not going to make you do anything.

Rick: 00:20:57

You're you're an adult. You're here. but if you want to learn, you want to get the most out of this. And here's an opportunity to do that.

Trisha: 00:21:05

So in your role, you, the director, diversity, equity and inclusion at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law. and, you know, what you're describing is a great way of bringing people in. And I imagine you had some part in sort of setting up that, curriculum focus and that ways of thinking. The last couple of years in, in the US have been a bit of a stretch in time, I imagine, to be in this role.

Trisha: 00:21:33

Can you tell us about some of the challenges that you've been facing?

Rick: 00:21:36

Yeah. with the war happening in the Middle East, really been challenging times. We have, Jewish students, we have Palestinian students, we have people that practice practicing Jewish religion, people that practice the Muslim religion. And so much going on, like, you know, the killings on October 7th, and all those people that were slaughtered, killed, murdered, raped, kidnaped, held still, some still being held hostage on one side and on the other side, all these people being killed, many innocent people, civilians, children.

Rick: 00:22:22

now there's concern about whether or not a humanitarian aid can even get into the folks in Gaza. And we have students, you know, on all sides of that situation. And I was asked to step in the middle of it. And to be honest with you, I didn't really know a lot about it, like the history and the background.

Rick: 00:22:46

And, you know, earlier I talked about various perspectives and nuance, and I knew none of that. but I said yes, that I would, but I was also very open and honest and vulnerable in acknowledging that I don't know a lot about it. I'm willing to help or try to learn as much as I can, but I don't know a lot about it.

Rick: 00:23:09

And we had outside forces who wanted the school to make various statements and take various positions and do all of that type of thing. and it seemed like at the beginning there, you know, you, you the school is being asked to sort of choose sides and, I would I wouldn't do that because I didn't know enough about it was one reason.

Rick: 00:23:34

But to me, it seemed like a very complex situation. And from a humanitarian position, it seemed like there were some really bad things happening to a whole bunch of people. Since that time, I've learned a lot more, and I think I've figured out a way that I can stand in the middle of this very complex, very challenging, very sensitive situation and do what my job is, and that is to protect all of our students, and to provide them all with an equal opportunity to get a legal education and, to be, you know, really honest.

Rick: 00:24:18

It's been, challenging. It's been a scary situation to be in, if I'm being honest. I've learned that there are I call them machines or mechanisms or apparatuses out there that you could easily find yourself caught up in and targets placed on you. There's probably heard that all these, protests and sit ins and this type of thing happening in college campuses around the country.

Rick: 00:24:45

so far we've been able to avoid that, which is I think it's good. You know, the First Amendment provides that you can protest and exercise your free speech rights, but there are boundaries to that. So we haven't run into that. We haven't had any violence. So that's good. the so far, it's it's been, you know, better than some other places, but it's challenging.

Rick: 00:25:11

And that challenge is not gone. it's still there.

Trisha: 00:25:15

Yeah.

Rick: 00:25:16

Still there. So, you know, I've been trying to make some new friends, develop some, and nurture some relationships, try to figure out how do how can I bring people together.

Rick: 00:25:29

and discover some common values that we all want. And we and so that's the way that I've been approaching it so far. so far that's been working pretty good. We haven't had anything really bad happen, but, I don't take that for granted.

Trisha: 00:25:50

No, I imagine it's an ongoing challenge. And you just drawing on all of the experiences in your life so far as well as your, you know, cultural intelligence and your emotional intelligence.

Rick: 00:26:01

Yeah, absolutely. You know, and in terms of the DEI perspective, there there's even been folks who allege that DEI is the cause of some of these problems. And, you know, I've, I've done some research, done a lot of reading, had a lot of conversations with some people and I've listened to the positions that they're taking and some of them just aren't, aren't based in reality.

Rick: 00:26:29

some would say it becomes the battle of the oppressed, who's who's the oppressed and who's the oppressor. And that DEI tees that type of thinking up but I don't approach it in that way. I'm trying to figure out, how can we do this in a way that works well for everyone. And frankly, this coupled with some of the other things that we talked about earlier, were make me really concerned about the sustainability of the human species, because if we don't figure this out and instead we stay divided, we've got all these fights going on.

Rick: 00:27:07

Everybody hates everybody. Everybody's trying to kill everybody. At the end of the day, that's not going to be a sustainable way for us to live as human beings that I know of. We got one planet to live on and that's this one. And it's getting smaller every day. with all of the connectivity. And so we have to figure this out.

Trisha: 00:27:27

Yeah. And I think we absolutely need to figure it out for the sake of the planet as well. Because we need to work together to, to fix what's happening there. I'm thinking of you as a lawyer, and your experience is probably, you know, over the years that you’ve had and and how that shapes, I guess, the hopes and the dreams and the mission that you have for working with lawyers and and the changes that you want to see there.

Trisha: 00:27:55

And I know that was part of what you came on board with CQ fellows to, to work on. So can you tell us a little bit about, you know, your thinking there and where your heart is? in that work.

Rick: 00:28:07

Yeah. You know, to me, one of the things that really bothers me more than anything else is to see people needlessly suffer. and there are a lot of lawyers around the country. Well, not just in the U.S.. I taught last year in London. I've been part of a number of international legal communities, and there are a lot of lawyers that are that are struggling.

Rick: 00:28:30

and that to me is not okay. You know, they're people are lawyers. That's what they do for their profession. But they're human beings practicing law. They're not some sort of, I don't know, something other than a human. They're a human being. That that's your job, right?

Trisha: 00:28:50

Yes.

Rick: 00:28:51

And so I, I really want to provide, sort of take what I've learned along the way. I have a lot of what I call T.O.P time on the planet. and I've had a lot of experiences, some really good, some absolutely horrible. but some way I've been able to navigate my way through, I'm still here.

Rick: 00:29:15

And I want to share what I've learned so that people don't need to needlessly suffer. They don't have to do that anymore. And so, you know, becoming more culturally intelligent, becoming more emotionally intelligent, learning how to understand my own emotions, how to better self-regulate. Lawyers oftentimes see themselves as gladiators. Right. And even within the industry, you know, what we were talking about earlier, where you got to be aggressive, you got to be tough.

Rick: 00:29:44

You got to be all these things. And if you're not, then some would say, well, then you shouldn't be a lawyer. You're not strong enough. You're not tough enough to be a lawyer.

Trisha: 00:29:52

Right.

Rick: 00:29:52

I disagree with that. I really do that. And you don't have to be the meanest person in the world in order to be successful as a lawyer. You don't. And if you try to do that, it's just a matter of time before it's going to catch up with you. All that stress and all that other stuff is going to get to you.

Rick: 00:30:11

And so, you know, I'm writing a book now called The Culturally Intelligent Lawyer to help lawyer lawyers learn how to navigate through some of these situations. And it's going to be a combination of CQ plus Peak Performance, the human performance, excellent type stuff, and a lot of it's rooted in neuroscience, positive psychology, epigenetics, the whole thing. So that lawyers can learn how to do this in a way that's actually sustainable.

Rick: 00:30:38

You know to that I'm in the flow science. And so, you know, how do you perform your best and feel your best at the same time so that you can have a long and sustainable career? The other thing that I think about, I think about the students that I teaching here at the school, am I setting them up for failure?

Rick: 00:30:57

Am I feeding them to the lion's den because if that's what it is, I don't want any part of it right. But if I can equip them along with other lawyers with tools and tips and all this stuff and some of it is sort of cutting edge, right? Because all these developments coming out of neuroscience are relatively new. So if I can tell them about that and share that with them, then my hope is that I can save some lives.

Rick: 00:31:22

Literally. And I can help lawyers live better, more sustainable lives, not only for themselves, but for their families as well.

Trisha: 00:31:29

Fantastic. That is. That's a wonderful goal. And I know you've working on the book. I know that current events have perhaps interrupted the, the timing and the plan for that, but, we will we'll check back in when you've written it so that we can share it with the people who are listening as well.

Rick: 00:31:49

That would be great.

Trisha: 00:31:51

How would you like people to connect with you? Would you like shall I put up your LinkedIn connection? Is that the best way?

Rick: 00:31:57

Yeah. That's great.

Trisha: 00:31:59

Fantastic. So people other lawyers I mentioned who might be interested in following you and and connecting with you can do so that way.

Rick: 00:32:07

That would be awesome. Thank you so much.

Trisha: 00:32:09

Excellent. Thank you. And Rick, thank you so much for sharing today. A little bit of your thoughts and what's been happening for you most recently. And, just your hopes and dreams for the future for, for the legal profession and for the individuals involved in it. That's really encouraging. And yeah, I'll be right there behind you Cheering all the way.

Rick: 00:32:32

Thank you so much. It's always a pleasure to spend time with you.

Trisha: 00:32:35

Thanks, Rick. And to all of our listeners, thank you for listening and we hope that you will join us again next week to the next episode of The Shift.