Bibi Fell
When I look at the women who have really made it to the top of the field, the ones who are, getting the biggest verdicts they're women who went through struggle, but they're women who kept getting up.
Sonya Palmer
As women, we tend to internalize our struggles. But we must learn to reach out in order to succeed. Once the top is reached, look around for others who need help.
Bibi Fell
So it's our job, to open our eyes, to recognize it's happening, to call people out and to hold opportunities out to both sexes on an equal basis, to actually say, okay, who deserves an opportunity who really is the best person for this case?
Sonya Palmer
In 2021, women made up over half of all summer associates - for the fourth year in a row. Yet equity partners in multi-tier law firms continue to be disproportionately white men. Only 22.0% of equity partners are women. We would like to see that change. Hello, and welcome to LawHER, the show where we celebrate the trailblazing attorneys and entrepreneurs who are changing the game for women in the legal field. Be inspired by their stories. Learn from their mistakes. Build community. And look forward to the future they're helping build for the next generation of women in law. I'm Sonya Palmer, your host and VP of Operations at Rankings. The SEO agency of choice for Personal Injury lawyers. This is LawHER. Bibi Fell is founder of Fell Law, Adjunct Professor at the University of San Diego School of Law and partner at AtheaTrial Lawyers. She is a member of The National Trial Lawyers: Top 100 Trial Lawyers, the Daily Journal’s Top 100 Women Lawyers, and has recovered over 200 Million for her clients. She did not get to where she is on her own and looks to bring others with her as she rises. We discuss what can be done to help close the gap between women and men and why being yourself is a superpower. We also get into what it takes to build a kickass group of female trial lawyers. When looking to build a better table, before reaching out to others, ask yourself - what do you bring? What are you best at? Then sing it from the roof tops! Let's dive in.
Bibi Fell
So my father is a lawyer. My two uncles are lawyers. My grandfather is a lawyer and my great grandfather is a lawyer. So that makes me the fourth generation. I grew up around the law. at four years old. What could you possibly know about what it means to be a lawyer? And when I think back about that early influence in my life what really stands out to me is just the way I felt about my father. I loved him to pieces. I adored him. I wanted to be exactly like him. And he woke up in the morning. He put on his work clothes, he left and did something really important that impacted our community. And that gave him a lot of respect. And so I wanted to do something really important that would impact the people in my community.
Sonya Palmer
If I heard correctly, first female lawyer.
Bibi Fell
Yes. So my generation is the first generation to have any female lawyers and my generation is comprised entirely of female lawyers. So it's myself. And then my cousin.
Sonya Palmer
Nice. Very nice. You're clearly very creative and a very hard worker. What keeps you motivated?
Bibi Fell
I think my motivation comes from two places. Number one, I see the impact of what I do. I am lucky enough to work for people who allow me. To make a big difference in their life. So most of my clients have just gone through something horrific, a catastrophic accident or the loss of a loved one. And I see my role as trying to help them pick up the pieces and create some semblance of a future that is not going to be what it should have been, but it's going to be a little bit better. So I get to change. The life of a child, the life of a family, I get to provide the kind of resources that can take care of somebody who's been catastrophically injured, who used to provide for their house. So that is very motivating for me. I feel like that is very important work. And also I feel. It's just fun. I have a lot of fun doing what I do and I'm very lucky in that respect that my work is enjoyable and interesting to me.
Sonya Palmer
You look at jobs and careers, if you are excellent at something, no matter what it is fixing cars or spreadsheets or personal injury lawyer it can be fun. And we say this often. But personal injury attorneys. You're often seeing people on the worst day of their lives or like in the worst period of their lives. And so it's so important to recognize how special and important you are to them. And I think you do.
Bibi Fell
Yeah, it, I really feel that it's an honor, they come to you in their most vulnerable time. They allow you to hold their hand through that time and let you into every corner of their family. So it's really a special relationship.
Sonya Palmer
It definitely is of all the accolades and awards you have received over the years, which among them are you most proud of?
Bibi Fell
The one I'm most proud of is one that I got recently. It was given to me by the Society of Women Trial Lawyers. It's the first year of the award. And the award was a Woman of the Year. It was designed to go to someone who showed grace perseverance strength, both in trial and in the trials of life. And so that was a very meaningful award to me.
Sonya Palmer
A well deserved. Congratulations.
Bibi Fell
Thank you.
Sonya Palmer
And I recently read that you are an adjunct professor at University of San Diego School of Law since 2011. What is it about teaching that kind of keeps you going back every year?
Bibi Fell
Yeah. So when I first started teaching, it was really to scratch an itch. I wanted to be a trial lawyer. I really like the adrenaline rush of being in the courtroom, but it is a young lawyer. It's very hard to get that experience. If I wanted any trial ex. Experience. I was basically taking my Dona, my vacation and donating my time to a case just to get the experience. And so I wasn't getting in the courtroom enough to feel like I was having fun and fulfilling my purpose. So I started teaching and teaching, scratch that itch to, to be in the courtroom in a way. And then over time I really developed some nice relationships with students. Mentoring relationships. And so now it's that mentorship that keeps me going.
Sonya Palmer
So as someone who went to law school, student learning law as a lawyer, practicing law and then as a professor teaching it is there a difference, did you, or each of those things different, did you learn something different about law and all of those.
Bibi Fell
Yeah they're all so very different. Law school does not teach you how to be a lawyer you get into the law and it's holy smokes. What are all these codes and these motions. And it's you don't learn any of the nuts and bolts in law school. What you learn is how to think. And so law school for me was really fun. I enjoyed the exercise of thinking. I enjoyed putting the puzzles together. I enjoyed issue spotting and it seemed really easy. And so then when I got into the law I realized how much I had to learn. And there is this very steep learning curve. I worked incredibly hard, slept, very little, tried to juggle a young family.
Sonya Palmer
Oh, gosh.
Bibi Fell
And all of that theory is then real. Now, it's not just having fun, pontificating about something. It's wait a minute, I could lose this. I could lose this and lose my client. At the time I was doing business litigation, I could lose them a lot of money. And so the gravity of what I was doing, the responsibility of what I was doing really set in to the practice now that I've been practicing for a long time. It's a lot of fun. As far as being a professor, we're back to fun. We're back in law school. We're having fun again.
Sonya Palmer
You're right. The stakes are significantly higher when you're actually practicing law versus learning it or teaching it. We know that more women in the field does not necessarily mean there will be more female partners. What do you think can be done to close the gap between women and men? At partner level. So there's a lot of women in the legal fields, but few of them as partners or owners, how do we close the gap?
Bibi Fell
There is a huge gap and we do need to close it. That gap gets even wider. When you look at women who are more like five to seven years of practice I think what we need to do is we need to have more women mentoring women. When I was a young lawyer, I didn't have anybody to look up to and say, okay, this is what my life can be like. This is what my career can be like, because I was looking at men who were in very different circumstances than me. The other thing we can do is women is support each other through the hard times. There are so many women who think that in order to compete in this male dominated profession, we need to be perfect. We need to have perfect lives. We need to have lives that just give us a clear path to doing our job and only our job. And that's just not reality. When I look at the women who have really made it to the top of the field, the ones who have been practicing and are, up there in the highest organizations, getting the biggest verdicts they're women who went through struggle, but they're women who kept getting up. And I think that needs to be the message to young women, whatever you're facing, whether it's issues with kids, divorce in fidelity illness, there is a path through if you want to keep going in this profession.
Sonya Palmer
I do think to prepare women. And I think maybe this is something that men understand. It's not going to be easy, but it will be worth it. And what you said at the beginning, I do feel like women often take the burden on themselves. I can do it myself. I don't need help. And so they don't look for help from other women. And then it's not then as instinctual to then reach out to other people. , so I do think that relying on others. Other women can impact that. Is there another role that you think that like community can play?
Bibi Fell
I think, our community tends to have this impression that it's not happening. There are so many people who have made it, who I respect and because it doesn't impact them in their circle, they don't see it. So I think as a community, we really need to open our eyes to the fact that, yes, it still exists. Why aren't we hearing about it? Because women aren't complaining about it. Why are women complaining about it because women get punished for complaining about it. So it's our job, especially the, those of us male and female who have made it to the tops of our profession to open our eyes, to recognize it's happening, to call people out and to hold opportunities out to both sexes on an equal basis, not just that group of friends that you go to the bar with all the time, that happens to be the same gender as you, but to actually say, okay, stepping outside of my small circle, which is so biased because I like the people who are like me, who deserves an opportunity who really is the best person for this case?
Sonya Palmer
Yes. A lot of the reason we started this podcast was because women were not getting the same amount of sort of attention opportunity recognition that their male counterparts were. But then when I started booking guests and started looking around, there was no shortage, very successful, powerful, prominent women who are just at the absolute top of their field. They're not being as paid attention to I think you're that first thing that you said just about paying attention and looking around and seeing the people who are already doing it. Yes. What lessons do you wish all female lawyers knew right now, or young lawyers entering into the field?
Bibi Fell
Yeah, I think the number one lesson I wish I could teach everyone is be yourself. You are worthy of being in this profession. You are worthy of representing that client. You are worthy of taking that high profile case. Don't question that. Step in there and be yourself, your worthy self. You don't have to pretend to be somebody that you wanna emulate. You don't have to pretend to be male in the courtroom. That authenticity is so much more persuasive than any tool you could learn from any seminar.
Sonya Palmer
I love that I have said, and I've heard other people say it on this podcast, fake it until you make it. And I do think that has been a tactic that has worked, but your insight right there, I think is just as valuable. Sometimes you don't have to fake it sometimes just be who you are. And that is enough.
Bibi Fell
Yeah. And where I think fake it until you make it comes from, I think it comes from our insecurity. It in our own questioning whether we can do something. So whether we should raise our hand. So my message would not necessarily be fake it until you make it, but to take some positivity from that and say, look, be yourself, but raise your hand. Say yes. You may not feel like, you know how to do it, but guess what? You're gonna put the work in. And by the time that thing comes, that was so scary. You're gonna kill it because you're nervous about it. And there's no motivator quite like the fear of public speaking. And , if it's a talk, if it's a case, if it's an argument, whatever it is, if it's an opportunity for growth, say yes, and then figure it.
Sonya Palmer
A hundred percent. Are you really faking it or are you just proving to yourself that you were already capable of doing it? That, that this is who you are.
Bibi Fell
Exactly.
Sonya Palmer
I love that. Can you dig into what you cover when teaching advanced trial advocacy?
Bibi Fell
Yeah. So advanced trial advocacy is really a nuts and bolts class where we are teaching the students. Okay. This is what an opening statement is, and here's what you're allowed to say in opening. And here's what you're not allowed to say in opening. Here's how you ask an open ended question on direct here's how you ask a closed ended question on cross and in closing argument. This is what the jury needs to know in order to fill out that verdict form the way you want them to fill it out. So that's what the class was designed to be is to bridge that gap between theoretical knowledge and actual practical use. So to take these students and ideally going through that class, they could walk into a courtroom the next day and they could try a simple case. So it's bridging that gap. I try to take it one step further. Not just, how do you do the fundamentals, but what does it mean to persuade? And so we really do explore who are you? Who are you in the courtroom? What works take risks. And not only that, but who are you in your community? Because so much of our reputation comes from every day life. And not just those moments that we are in the courtroom and that reputation will carry you even in the courtroom. When you're in front of a judge, who's only heard about you and never seen you in oral argument before.
Sonya Palmer
Yes. I have heard that, like this generation of students are getting a more practical education on how to practice law, that it's gotten better between those generations and what you're describing. Sounds like they're actually, you're actually preparing them to be lawyers and to practice law.
Bibi Fell
On the academic side, we are hearing what people need. We are hearing from students that they wanna learn how to do their job. And we are hearing from employers that they want students who come in with a law degree and can actually do something instead of having to learn from scratch.
Sonya Palmer
It is so important to bring others with you as your career advances. Over the past 15 years, I wondered what ways of lifting one another up has had the most impact?
Bibi Fell
I recently started a firm with my, with five of my partners. I think they're the most prominent female trial attorneys in the country. And it's called Athea Trial Lawyers. It started in the pandemic. We used to travel around and speak together at conferences and we all would watch each other in awe wanting to learn from each other and wanting to, spend time with each other and get to know each other. And so one of our partners, Debbie Chang had this idea she's. We have so much respect for each other. We wanna learn from each other well, what better way than to do it with cases. So let's try cases together. That was hugely impactful for me on both ends. Number one, I'm the baby of the group. So these are my shes. These are my mentors. And it gave me an opportunity to really get to know them on a deeper level and to learn from them in a way that was never possible in a conference setting. The other thing is one of our purposes, one of our focuses is on lifting up younger women. So working with them on cases in a way where we're not just taking the case, taking the referral, trying the case and putting our name out there. No we're bringing them along with us. We're giving them aglimpse into how we prepare cases and how we get the verdicts that we get. So that formation of that entity was so impactful on both sides, both for me as the mentee and as the mentor. And I think it's been really life changing for a lot of the women that we've worked with.
Sonya Palmer
I believe that I am ashamed to say I have never heard the term shero
Bibi Fell
Isn't it great.
Sonya Palmer
I am taking that So how do you collaborate as a team to get the best possible outcomes?
Bibi Fell
One of the things that we do is we have brainstorming sessions, which I just love. It's an opportunity to get together and to sit back and talk, just talk about a case about what moves you about this client's story? What upsets you about what the defendant did in this case? And, here are the tough issues. How are we gonna get around it? And as a female owner of my own firm, just like all of my partners, that's something that. We often miss out on when we're at the top of our little silo, is that ability to run things by another person. I had always before starting my firm been at other firms where I had colleagues that I could talk about these issues with. And so I did find that owning my own firm being at the top, it was lonely and I didn't have as many people to bounce ideas off of. So when we get together and we do. We are better lawyers and our cases are better for it.
Sonya Palmer
I think that's true of most CEOs business owners. It's very, it's a very lonely job in any industry. So to have that group of women, like you said, just to bounce ideas off of what do you think about this and be invaluable?
Bibi Fell
Yep.
Sonya Palmer
Is there a criteria to the types of cases you guys take?
Bibi Fell
We take very few cases in Athea. It is really designed for those cases that are going to have a big impact on women or cases where we think as a group, we can go out and get a big verdict to show the country that girls get big verdicts too.
Sonya Palmer
love that.
Bibi Fell
Or thirdly, if we find a case or a woman, a young woman, who's just starting their firm, we like to get involved and try to help them along with, a big case that they have in more of a mentorship and case funding role as well to give opportunities that they might not otherwise have.
Sonya Palmer
Help them get their first big case.
Bibi Fell
Right.
Sonya Palmer
And then for women who are interested in following in your footsteps and creating a collective of kick ass women lawyers, What does it take? What are some of the first steps?
Bibi Fell
First step to creating a collection of kick ass women. Lawyers is be a kick ass woman, lawyer. Bring something to the table, be the person that the other women you're contacting, want to gravitate towards and learn from, have something to offer. And, with young people I often find myself telling them, what do you bring. You wanna go and you wanna ask other people to do X, Y, or Z for you to help you along in these ways. What are you offering them first? Because I've found that I've gotten so much more when I've given my time to something or to someone in return than I ever could have given. And so when you help somebody, even if it's just taking the phone call, when there's something going on in their life, you make a forever impact on them. So you will be the person that they remember when that next big case comes in.
Sonya Palmer
Absolutely. And it's not necessarily from a selfish place. I think a lot of people don't know. So just asking them, what do you bring to the table? What can you offer often? Can prompt like a moment of reflection. Oh, I can do this. And then spurs that on.
Bibi Fell
And it also focuses them. What is the thing that you're really good at? Because that's the thing you should work on being even better. That's your strength?
Sonya Palmer
yes. A hundred percent. What are some of the most valuable lessons that you've learned in starting this and then also your own firm?
Bibi Fell
Its relationships are so critical that you could be a great lawyer and not have referral sources, right? And you can be a mediocre lawyer and have a ton of referral sources and make a lot of money, but not make an impact on your clients. So I think you don't wanna be either you wanna be a great lawyer and you want people to know about it. So it's having those relationships. It's sharing your victories. It's sharing other people's struggles. It's being real with people and focusing on doing a good job every time you're entrusted to do something big.
Sonya Palmer
I love that it relationships big umbrella, be good to your clients. and then be a good colleague. Like it goes both of those directions to develop those Attorneys are filled with a lot of ambition and a ton of drive and everyone is giving it their all. I imagine the stress of the profession is one shared by most attorneys in one of your blog posts, you mentioned burning the candle at both ends and that your body shut down. Can you take us back to that time? What was going on and how did you get out of it?
Bibi Fell
Yeah. So I had just started working at big law and I had a new baby. So I was trying to, be a mother wake up in the middle of the night. With my child and be there early in the morning, be there late at night, but also trying to make an impact at my new job going in really early in the morning, working very long days, working all day on the weekend. And what, what happened is I don't notice. But I got to the point where I was sleeping. So little, having so much caffeine under such high stress for such a long period of my time that my body said, look, sister, if you're not gonna stop, we're gonna stop you. And I, I started fainting. I started fainting at work. There were probably four or five different occasions that I got taken away from work in an ambulance
Sonya Palmer
Wow.
Bibi Fell
out. Yeah.
Sonya Palmer
Your body really did tell you to slow down.
Bibi Fell
It did it did, cuz I wasn't gonna do it. otherwise. And the way I got out of that was, healthier habits making sure that I did find time for myself to get a little workout in making sure that I was getting sleep was really the biggest thing. And having to say, no, I, the reality was I was doing 150% of what was expected of me. And when I dialed it back to 125, Nobody noticed, but me and my family.
Sonya Palmer
That's incredible. But that makes sense what we put ourselves through and I do think that sleep is something that's often like first sacrificed and is truthfully maybe the most important. Yeah.
Bibi Fell
So now when I go to trial I go to bed at eight o'clock every night. Doesn't matter what I have to do for the next. The only thing that changes is the time I wake up. Do I wake up at 1:00 AM? Do I wake up at 3:00 AM? Do I wake up at 5:00 AM? Because I have figured myself out. If I try to force myself to stay up at night to work because I'm stressed out, it's gonna take me three times as long, but if I get an okay night sleep and wake up really early in the morning, I'm up, I'm fresh, I'm fast, I'm efficient. And you. That last half hour has never won or lost a case. So
Sonya Palmer
I believe you, it's what your body wants. It wants to sleep. Let it sleep, wants to wake up, let it wake up. And I'm similar. I don't ever feel mental stress. I start making mistakes and that's what I'm like. Okay it's sitting with same thing with sleep. I might not feel tired, but you're less on, you're less able to do your job. And then in that post, you repeat the comforting words of this "too shall pass". And you mentioned the great recession of 2008 completely pulling the rug out from you for women interested in striking out on their. What financial advice do you have for weathering those down times?
Bibi Fell
Yeah. So for weathering the down times, I think it's really important that when the times are good, you're putting money away. You have to weather the down times by expecting the down times to come. Whether that's. Making your lifestyle smaller, whether that's finding partnerships with other people. There are people out there who will fund your cases. If you need it. There are people out there who will help you, who will lend an associate and collect money at the end of the case if you need it. Weathering the down times is number one expecting them tocome . And doing what you can to be prepared for them. Number two, being willing to reach out to colleagues and to family for help, if you need it. And then number three is hit the freaking pavement when work goes away, it's those relationships that I was talking about earlier that are gonna bring new cases in and expand that business, go out to lunches, go out to meetings network with other similar people.
Sonya Palmer
Yes. Excellent advice. Sometimes just being prepared. For what can happen expecting it and we'll make it easier to get through.
Bibi Fell
I think the biggest mistake that I've seen young women do is they go out into the world and they get this great job making a ton of money, and then they build their life to that income. You're trapped. If you do that, you're trapped in big law. You're trapped in that firm. You're trapped in that particular type of practice. You're trapped in that location. And so if you all can have the discipline in those first five to seven years of your practice to not grow to that income, what you're building, what you're saving for yourself is the opportunity to change and build the life that you want instead of the life that you have to sustain.
Sonya Palmer
Yes. And when you work for those firms that's, you're getting paid by that firm hourly. It's like you put the time in, you get money out. If you start a firm that business can work with or without you , and you can create the passive income and earned. So that even in those down times, you're not having to, it's not that, equal input output. What are some bright points that you are optimistic about?
Bibi Fell
I am very optimistic about the future right now. My firm Fell Law is two and a half years old. It's still a very young firm. We've had the best year I've had in my entire career. This year. I feel like we are making a big impact in the community speaking teaching with big cases as well. So I'm really optimistic about my firm. I'm optimistic about my young associate. She just got done trying her first case. She did, like I did, she took her vacation, donated her time, just got in there to get into trial. She's got a very bright future. And so I'm looking forward to helping to build her the career that she wants.
Sonya Palmer
I love that. And I got one more for you. If you weren't a lawyer, what would you be?
Bibi Fell
I think I'd be a therapist.
Sonya Palmer
Oh,
Bibi Fell
yeah. I.
Sonya Palmer
You'd be good at that. Yeah.
Bibi Fell
Yeah, I think that's why I love the particular area of the law that I'm in. There is an area of the law that is right for every personality. And so it's really important to find that early on, I see lawyers who have been practicing in the wrong area for 30 years and they're so run down and they don't love their job, but when you get it right. Like this beautiful thing. So for me, I love that my clients call me and tell me what's upsetting them and elicit my input to work through problems with them. I love being that person that they lean on. And so I think if I wasn't a lawyer, I would find that in the therapy setting.
Sonya Palmer
I think you just made a connection for me where I think a lot of lawyers are already a therapist because of what you've just described. But you get to advocate for them in a different way.
Bibi Fell
Yeah. And it's important to recognize that too, so that we can stay healthy. Because we witness so much trauma. And even though we are not the one that's going through the trauma by witnessing it, it is affecting us. And so we need to make sure we're doing what we need to do to keep ourselves mentally healthy, to talk to a professional. If we need to talk to a professional to take that downtime, to meditate, do yoga exercise because it's a heavy load that we help carry.
Sonya Palmer
What are some things. You just mentioned talking to a therapist, what are some other things that people can do to make bearing that burden a little easier?
Bibi Fell
Yeah. So I think meditation is really important having that quiet time, even if it's not very long and it doesn't have to be formal meditation. Sometimes it's just, it's going for a walk by yourself. Give your mind the opportunity to process what it just went through. Going for that walk, bringing up those images. Some of this is from therapy because I think therapy's really important and I have my own therapist and there's a particular type of therapy called EMDR, which helps process unprocessed traumatic memories. It doesn't have to be formal though, going for a walk and facing that memory, calling up that disturbing image, allowing your mind to think its way through it, instead of boxing it up and trying to put it away because it never goes away is it's important to give ourselves time to do that, to heal.
Sonya Palmer
We are graduating 50% women in law school, but only 22% of all equity partners are women. The work still needs to be done. To help close the gap we must see women lawyers as complete people who struggle, lean on others, and get through the tough times together. A big thank you to Bibi Fell for sharing her story and unbelievable insights with us today. You’ve been listening to LawHER with, me, Sonya Palmer. If you found this content insightful, inspiring, or just made you smile, please share this episode with the trailblazer in your life. For more about Bibi check out our show notes. While you're there, please leave us a review or a five-star rating. It really goes a long way for others to discover the show. I'll see you next week on LawHER where we'll shed light on how another of the brightest and boldest women in the legal industry climbed to the top of her field.
