Rachael Bosch:
I am this person who does not have a JD and is watching all of you, exceptionally smart people, tripping over yourselves on communication. And coming to me over and over again and they'd say, "I have this issue with so-and-so on work." And then, we'd tear it down a couple levels. It was never really about the work.
Sonya Palmer:
An Axios HQ report estimates that miscommunication costs US companies over 15,000 per employee per year. That's about seven and a half hours lost every week to crossed wires, unclear feedback, duplicated work. Nationwide, that's nearly 2 trillion a year. Rachel Bosch is the founder of Fringe Personal Development, a leadership development firm serving some of the top performing law firms in the country. She's tackling the trillion dollar communication problem with neuroscience.
Rachael Bosch:
When I go up to managing partner X at massive law firm Y and I say to them like, "Hey, let's talk about what you're feeling and why you're doing that." They will look at me like I have seven heads. But if I take that same sentiment and go up to them and say, "Hey, let's talk about how your amygdala and your hippocampus are reacting in this moment of threat that you're experiencing." They're like, "Oh." I'm saying the exact same thing, but I knew that I was going to need a real, grounded perspective.
Sonya Palmer:
How do you get high-powered attorneys to rethink communication? You don't talk about feelings, you talk about the amygdala. And once their brains are on board, that's when Rachel does something totally unexpected. She makes it fun.
Rachael Bosch:
The first way that we use neuroscience to design our programs is we have fun. But as it turns out, all of the research will tell you that when you are having fun, when you are enjoying yourself, when you are laughing, when you engage in collective laughter, your brain is actually... Think about it like a little gate. That gate is open for learning. We're like, "Okay. Let's take it on." As soon as you get defensive, as soon as you feel like you're being told what to do, that gate closes.
Sonya Palmer:
Rachel helps legal professionals understand how the brain reacts under pressure and how that affects everything from giving feedback to building trust across teams. For her, the path to better communication, more effective leadership begins with cognitive science because when you understand the brain, you can communicate with intention, clarity, and influence. That perspective turned out to be exactly what elite law firms needed. Inside these high-powered, high-pressured teams where five generations now work side by side, she saw a breakdown unfolding in real time. Same meeting, same email, same slack thread, completely different interpretations. Five generations, one crisis, communication.
Rachael Bosch:
We're having two separate conversations. We leave with two separate perspectives.
Sonya Palmer:
And when communication fails at that level, the impact goes far beyond a joke told at the water cooler that didn't land.
Rachael Bosch:
We often times do two separate things and then there's all the follow on challenge from that. If we were just at a networking reception and we were talking past each other, okay, maybe that's disappointing and we didn't make a connection with somebody we could have. But unfortunately, this is happening when we're delegating work, when we're trying to develop people, when we're giving them feedback, when we're making compensation decisions. In these really pivotal moments for people in their careers, we are not engaging with people in a way that we are actually locked in with each other.
Sonya Palmer:
Today, the hidden communication crisis inside America's highest performing legal teams and what it's costing us. I am Sanya Palmer. This is LawHer, powered by Rankings.io. Each week we hear how women in the legal industry can own power faster and keep it longer. In order to understand how to be better communicators, we first must understand the problem on the macro and the micro level.
Rachael Bosch:
The macro challenge is that it's always changing. And so, the minute you have it figured out, something shifts. I feel like everyone got super comfortable with everything dealing around millennials. Oh, my God. How are we going to communicate with the millennials? And they're so different. As it turns out, not really. And so, everyone got comfortable with that. And then, we had a pandemic. And then, we started going back into the office after the pandemic. And all of a sudden, Gen Z was here and they actually are functionally different. We can talk about that. And so, every time you settle, communication trends change, language changes, these are all evolving aspects of our communal experience.
Sonya Palmer:
The macro challenge is that communication itself is a moving target. But on the micro level, we need to look at the inexperience that comes in the form of novelty, a glut of new platforms. Slack, Discord, ClickUp, Zoom, Teams. The list goes on and on.
Rachael Bosch:
One that I'm hearing a lot recently is there are just too many platforms. We can't keep track of it all. And now we're adding more generational angst to that.
Sonya Palmer:
She points out that even when firms adjust to one shift, like using Slack instead of email as the primary means of communication, another micro disruption hit, a new technology, a new platform, like teams that are hybrid or in office and remote.
Rachael Bosch:
And so, those pieces combined create an environment where we're just talking past each other.
Sonya Palmer:
All of this comes down to what happens in one-on-one moments, a red line with no explanation, feedback that feels vague or too sharp, delegation that leaves someone confused, silence that gets misinterpreted. These are the tiny fractures that weaken team trust, slow development and harm businesses. To complicate matters further, technology has evolved to create an entirely new lived experience for the newest generation to enter the workforce, Gen Z.
Rachael Bosch:
All of a sudden, Gen Z was here and they actually are functionally different.
Sonya Palmer:
Generational shifts are playing an even larger role than before.
Rachael Bosch:
Four generations is kind of actually the norm. The difference that we are seeing is that we thought these were such dramatic communication and behavioral shifts, but they were completely predictable and fairly fluid. The difference between the lived experience that I had going into a firm with even the most senior baby boomer partner who worked at that firm, I had a couple more channels on the TV. I said above the fold two years ago to some summer associates, and they looked at me dead in their eyes. And it was very clear that they weren't checked out, they didn't know what it meant.
Sonya Palmer:
That phrase didn't mean anything to them. They weren't wrong, they were just speaking a different language.
Rachael Bosch:
And so, the lived experience is very different now. The way that those new associates were joining firms actually lived their life is different. The way that they communicated was different. They didn't really ever have to call and say, "Hi, Mrs. Bosch. Can I please speak to..." That never was a pattern that they had to engage in. The tools that they use are very different. We're talking about massive shifts. And the above the fold is a really good example, because what most people do in that moment is they say, "Oh. Yeah, like a newspaper." The Gen Z person, who does not know what above the fold means, does not know any more what above the fold means because you said a newspaper.
So, in that moment... And I had to real time do this. I'm standing there in front of 75 summer associates and I'm like, "Okay. How do I unpack this real time? This is what I tell people they need to do. I got to do it." And so, I literally said, "Okay. Newspapers would be printed, folded in half, folded in half again. So, in quarters. They would usually be stacked on the ground from the ground up. So, if you walked by a stack of newspapers, all you saw..." And they all got it immediately, they were like, "All you saw was what was above the fold." Exactly. So, that's why you use that.
And then, I needed to connect real time again in the moment to them, and I said, "This is the equivalent of the preview pane now." They needed it to relate to something that they also experienced. And this is the challenge, right? I'm talking about keep your shit above the fold, right? That's an easy thing. Now, when you talk about a partner passing off a red line to somebody and putting shorthand comments in that they don't realize the person on the other side of it have absolutely no context to understand. Now it's a bigger issue than just me trying to connect in a training program and getting them to understand how to communicate effectively.
Sonya Palmer:
Coming up, how Rachel is teaching lawyers to navigate the challenges of miscommunication. And it might just be the most important tool in your firm. In a world driven by excellence and urgency, fun isn't the word you expect to hear in a training roo. But Rachel Bosch has made it central to how high-performing lawyers can learn effectively.
Rachael Bosch:
All of the research will tell you that when you are having fun, when you are enjoying yourself, when you are laughing, your brain is actually... Think about it like a little gate, that gate is open for learning.
Sonya Palmer:
Fun isn't a gimmick, it's a neurological strategy. When people feel safe enough to laugh together, they stop defending and start absorbing.
Rachael Bosch:
As soon as you get defensive, as soon as you feel like you're being told what to do, that gate closes.
Sonya Palmer:
So, how do you use this insight in a room full of attorneys? You start with the Spice Girls lyric, or a Bravo reference, maybe even both to creates shared moment.
Rachael Bosch:
I remember early on going into a firm and showing a firm some of our content expectation setting as manager and leader training for manager and leader training. And we had an expectation slide that said, "Tell me what you want, what you really, really want." And I remember them thinking... A firm person actually said to me, "We might need to change that because there are going to be partners there." And I was like, "Do you think the partners don't know the Spice Girls? Because they do. They do, and they will have fun." And we left it. And actually, what ended up happening was I said, "Tell me what you want." And the whole room actually said, "What you really, really want." And so, that is such a small way that we incorporate neuroscience.
Sonya Palmer:
The lesson is simple, but subversive. To make big ideas stick, make them delightful. For many law firms, small tech adaptations can be a lever, a way to scale humanity and organizations that are often too busy to pause.
Rachael Bosch:
We are spending a ton of time at Fringe thinking about, what is the intersection between human services and technology support?
Sonya Palmer:
Take something as ordinary as feedback. Rachel realized that asking people to give it face-to-face or even by email was creating friction. So, she redesigned the experience around ease.
Rachael Bosch:
We used to do feedback collection in the old-fashioned way. We would do it even interview style. But that is just such a barrier to entry to getting feedback and structuring the user design of a platform such that it is not scary, such that you understand that it is a protected place, that it's anonymous. The answer was confetti. Yes, confetti. And a pre-made digital form. When you complete a feedback form, the page fills with confetti. That is the smallest thing, but it goes back to fun, right? Right, I'm enjoying myself.
Sonya Palmer:
That philosophy, low effort, high work, runs through everything Fringe builds. Like a custom platform that visualizes how people see themselves compared to how their colleagues see them.
Rachael Bosch:
We have a core model that we use a lot of in our training programs around self-awareness. This is something called the Johari Window. How do you perceive me? What are words that you think of to describe me? And then, how does that play in with my self-perception? And what we found was that those conversations could be hard and they didn't have as many people they go to conversationally. So, we created a really easy platform that lets them go in, choose their own words from a database of adjectives, then send a link out to their colleagues. And they get a Venn diagram back. What did they say? What did the other people say? And what did they both say?
It took it from a concept that we talked about in a workshop to something that was implemented by, I mean, thousands more people than would have been conversationally. They do think that in learning and development and organizational development, one of the biggest places technology can help is removing barriers to entry and getting people engaged.
Sonya Palmer:
Inside law firms time is everything. Billable hours, back-to-back meetings, a partner's calendar often booked down to the minute. Even when time feels short, feedback is still essential.
Rachael Bosch:
We have a really hard line that a lot of people don't love, but it is a red line isn't feedback on its own. If you're going to have a conversation with somebody, now it's feedback.
Sonya Palmer:
So, when Rachel Bosch suggests slowing down for better communication, the answer is usually the same.
Rachael Bosch:
I don't have time for that. I don't have time to read thought bubbles. I don't have time to sit and walk through every red line with you.
Sonya Palmer:
She gets it. But what if you didn't need more time, just a different tool?
Rachael Bosch:
And you don't need this tool. You can do it in whatever you have. I will get on Loom and I will just record myself making the edits and just narrate out loud and then just send that with the red line. And that is really useful for people because they can see where my cursor's at, they hear the context, and it took me no additional time.
Sonya Palmer:
Suddenly, the red line becomes more than a markup, it becomes a message with tone, intent and guidance.
Rachael Bosch:
Months later, I start hearing that this has now become practice for a bunch of partners of that firm, and they're just using Teams and recording themselves in a solo meeting. But it does the same thing. And that's a good example of... That isn't even building something. That's just using an existing tool in a new way to create a better experience.
Sonya Palmer:
This is how Rachel uses technology to make feedback what it was always meant to be, conversation. Flexible, reusable, scalable, human. It's a small habit with big returns, especially in firms where generations collide and context often gets lost in translation. Because what's obvious to a partner might be a total mystery to a first year, and they're not going to ask because they don't want to look inexperienced. But if they hear it, if they hear the why behind the edit, they learn something. They build trust.
Rachael Bosch:
Confidence and competence do not always go together. In many cases, they do not go together.
Sonya Palmer:
We often think of power as a title or seniority. But inside the law firm, power lives in communication. And for women especially, how we speak can shape how we're seen.
Rachael Bosch:
We have a cute catchphrase for this, which is, if you know, you know, then say so. And I really listen to myself and, am I justifying anything? Am I qualifying anything?
Sonya Palmer:
It sounds simple, but the reality for many women is more complex.
Rachael Bosch:
I have watched so many women and men, I will say, but more women than men, know exactly what they're talking about and caveat it and qualify it and soften it and make it smaller.
Sonya Palmer:
Meanwhile, others speak with confidence whether or not they know what they're talking about.
Rachael Bosch:
And I have conversely watched, in the opposite direction, certainly some women, but more men, just speak so confidently about things that they have no clue about.
Sonya Palmer:
The gap between confidence and competence, Rachel sees it everywhere. But her answer isn't louder speech, it's sharper focus.
Rachael Bosch:
What helps me is when I know I am 100% right. That is not an easy thing to come by. But I will say when I have that confidence, I act with so much more precision. In the back of our heads is always like, "This is going to get picked apart. This is going to get torn apart by this person. Or somebody's going to come in and ask more questions." And so, whenever I can put myself in a position to feel as concrete as possible, and a lot of times that means, actually, on things that are not in my area of expertise, going and getting an expert opinion, going and getting somebody who will say to me, "100%, this is the thing that needs to happen. This is why. Go do it." That I find to be very, very helpful.
Sonya Palmer:
This is where communication stops being a soft skill and becomes a power tool. So much of what we call power is really about practice. The practice of speaking clearly, of claiming what you know, not making yourself smaller. In an industry built on precision, Rachel Bosch is teaching lawyers that words shape worlds and the way we communicate with one another truly matters. Strong communication builds trust, creates alignment, and they shape the kind of power that both command the room and bring others into it. She's not asking firms to slow down, she's asking them to tune in. Because when communication works, people don't just perform better, they stay longer, lead better, and maybe even enjoy the work a little more.
Thank you to Rachel Bosch for reminding us that even in the most high pressure environments, there's room for clarity, curiosity, and yes, joy. This is LawHer from Rankings.io. I am Sonya Palmer. If this episode made you think differently about communication or your own power, we would love for you to share it with someone else. And don't forget to subscribe for more conversations with the women reshaping what power looks like in the legal industry.
