KEREN BARRIOS
And to me it's a benefit. It's a blessing to be a woman and Latina in this field for sure.
SONYA PALMER
You might not be able to control how others see you, but you do control how you react.
KEREN BARRIOS
I'm a double minority in this career, right? Man, I don't let that stop me at all. That's just how they view it. That's not how I see it, right? I'm just killing it, reaching my goals.
SONYA PALMER
In 2021 women made up over half of 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% of equity partners are women. We'd like to see that change. Hello and welcome to Lahar, the show where we celebrate the trailblazing attorneys and entrepreneurs who are changing the game for women in the legal fields. 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 am Sonya Palmer, your host, and VP of operations at rankings, the SEO agency of choice for personal injury lawyers. This is LawHer. Every day, Keren Barrios fulfills the promise she made to herself to help change and improve the lives of others. As an immigration and personal injury attorney, Keren's clients trust her firm with their lives and she loves making such a large impact on her community. Over the past decade, the managing and founding partner of Barrios & Virguez have grown her firm to over 30 staff members and has helped countless families in Georgia. Keren explains how she sees her double minority status as a woman and Latina as an advantage and how she's healing from extreme trauma. We discussed working through the mess to find yourself and growing a wildly successful firm in the process. Let's dive in.
KEREN BARRIOS
I think it really gave me an amazing perspective on life, growing up in a third-world country and becoming an immigrant to another country. I really think that it shapes how you view life and you start appreciating even the smaller things in life when you grow up in different places in the world, to be honest with you. So I'm very grateful honestly, to have had that experience and to be where I'm at now. And I teach my kids that all the time. I'm like, "You're lucky. You live here in the US. You're lucky you have all every luxury some people don't have." So it feels like a blessing, to be honest with you.
SONYA PALMER
And I read that you made a promise to yourself. The quote is, "As long as I could have the strength, I was going to help the most helpless." And that became your motivation to study law. How did that start?
KEREN BARRIOS
So a lot of people get a little bit shocked when I tell a little bit of my story, but I was actually kidnapped when I was 10 for 13 days in Guatemala City. Back in the day in Guatemala, it was organized crime for money. That's truly what it was for. There was kidnappings every day, which was really sad, especially children. So I get kidnapped and miraculously, honestly, someone called during the 10th day, while I was being held hostage, that the house that I was being held in looked very suspicious and I was actually kept in a very residential area. It wasn't like a remote area, it was very residential. And the lady called and said, "Look, I've seen men come in and out of that home with guns." And I miraculously actually got rescued by the cops in my country, by the government and they were able to apprehend eight of the people. And so after getting rescued and being reunited with my family, I actually had to go back to trial. At that point I was 11, because it was like a year later. And that was a very tough moment in my life, to be honest with you. I didn't want to go back. I was only 11 years old and I honestly remember how impactful the prosecutor was in my life. He flew all the way down to Georgia to get my statement, because he knew I didn't want to go back. And he asked my dad, "Can I have some alone time with her?" And he's like, "Yeah, sure." And he talked to me, he goes, "Keren, I'm going to ask you to be brave one more time." And I said, "I can't." He goes like, "What do you want anybody? Go through what you went through?" And I was like, "No."And he's like, "That's why we have to go back." And I went back, I went through the trial, it was about three weeks, which was really tough. And that's when I decided how much of an impact an attorney can have in somebody's life when you do it with a passion. Because the prosecutor in my case, I mean I think he viewed me as his daughter and he really fought with everything he had for my case. And justice was served, they're serving life in prison. And it's crazy, because actually four years ago it was my anniversary, I was kidnapped September 4th.
SONYA PALMER
Wow.
KEREN BARRIOS
Yeah. So it's a good reminder. It's tough to be honest sometimes to think about, man, somebody's in prison because of what they did. And then you think, and I'm like, how are they? Sometimes I do think about all those things, but every day I get up with that same passion of how can I make an impact? How can I help somebody today with what I do?
SONYA PALMER
I really appreciate you sharing that. We say a lot of times on this podcast that lawyers, attorneys, they see people on their worst days. You're getting kind of a window of the worst time of their life and you have such an amazing impact. So I love hearing that sort of other side of it, where you can confirm that. It was the most traumatic, painful part of your life and there was this person that was able to help you. It's that confirmation I think for our audience particular that will really, really appreciate hearing that story. So you decided to be a lawyer. What was law school? Was it what you expected?
KEREN BARRIOS
Oh man. Law school is tough. I always tell people you have to have a very strong reason why you want to go to law school, because it's not easy. Your first year they really make it on purpose to break people and deter people from setting law. But I was very young, Sonya, I was like 21 when I got into law.
SONYA PALMER
You were very young.
KEREN BARRIOS
I graduated high school when I was 16, so I went straight to law school. So I was very young and I think it sounds so weird, but to me going to law school was like therapy, because I really focused all my energy into something that I really wanted to achieve. It was really tough, I'll be honest with you personally, because it was then when I truly needed help to really talk about my trauma. Because I always tell people, once you've been in a very traumatic situation, you have to work at it constantly and different seasons of your life bring up different symptoms, different problems. And I still go to therapy. So every time I need it, I go back. And my first year of law school was really tough. I think I went through depression, through anxiety, through everything. And then my second year of law school, I made it at priority to go to therapy and that's when I found my amazing therapist. She still is my therapist to the day. And she really focuses on hardcore trauma. That's her main focus. Every patient she sees is really on trauma. And she really helped me just walk through how intense the trauma was. But it was super tough, because I was like, if I could be a lawyer, I could help others. And I feel that that is the best way you can heal trauma, is helping others. So yeah, that was law school for me. So it was a little tough but I made it.
SONYA PALMER
Over the last few years, particularly with the pandemic, there has been a much larger focus on mental health, mental illness, trauma, recovering from those things. And one of the things that I always see that resonates is this sort of making a promise to yourself, make a small promise and then do it. They see it in things like make your bed first in the morning. And so I can see why something like law school, making a promise to yourself, I'm going to complete law school and then just the simple things, I'm going to go to class, I'm going to take this test, I'm going to do this. And being able to check those off, would be very healing. So I love that you've had your therapist your whole life. What is that like?
KEREN BARRIOS
It's crazy. She's awesome. And talking about mental health. So I think that this is so important, especially in such a high stress career and which is being a lawyer, I mean it's tough. You have so much pressure to help others, you have to reach goals, you have to win. And if you don't win, it was kind of your fault. So it's a lot of stuff going on emotionally when you're a lawyer. And having somebody like my therapist throughout my whole life pretty much, she really gets where I'm coming from every time I meet with her. It was tough finding her though. I went through one other therapist and I don't think she intentionally did anything to harm me, but she didn't have the resources to really treat the type of trauma I had. So I went with her for about three months and I got actually retraumatized and it was very dangerous because I started getting depressed, I had extreme anxiety and that's when I made a decision to look for somebody else and that's how I found her. But she does rapid eye movement to help your brain walk through the trauma. I mean there's different techniques, so I love it. So mental health, I think everybody's a therapist and I'm very vocal about it.
SONYA PALMER
I do think that sometimes people equate therapy with talk therapy and that's all that it is, sitting in a room talking about your feelings. And that's a large part of it, but what you just talked about, that is a very specific type of therapy, like neurofeedback, where it's so much more than just talking. Especially with trauma like you said, because sometimes that talk therapy can actually be bad for someone who's experienced trauma and they need more advanced tools, like you suggested. So I'm really, really happy that you were able to find someone and that they have been a good help to you. And you are a lawyer, but you are also a firm owner, which adds a whole other element. So you mentioned in a recent Instagram post that for women looking to get into law school, they have to know their why. What is your why and how has that evolved?
KEREN BARRIOS
Sonya, I'm really big about how you show up every day and the why you show up. And to me, honestly, it took a while. I'm not going to lie and say day one anymore purpose and my why. It's been a process, really finding out who I am, what do I enjoy, how do I find satisfaction? And it clicked for me about three years ago. I said, "This profession is pretty tough, but if you know your why, the bigger why, then it makes all sense, right?" It's worth it. And to me it's truly impacting people's lives through amazing service and how you treat people. So we have a team above 30 people now. I do all my interviews to hire the people in our law firm, because I'm really big about who they are. And you have to have a heart to help others. You just have to. In the legal industry, if you don't have that, you do get burnt out. But when I'm getting burnt out, Sonya, which it happens, sometimes I get tired, frustrated, I'm like, "No, I'm making such a big impact. We're making such a big impact in our community, by how we're serving people." And so truly my why is to change and improve people's life through the legal industry. Which how we said at the beginning, it has such a big impact in somebody's life at that moment. So when I meet with people, that to me is big, because I'm like, they chose us over so many law firms out there and they're trusting us with their lives. And that's what I teach our team. I'm like the person that signs our contract is telling us, "I trust you with this accident, with this green card application." And to me that's a big privilege. So remembering that every day, I think it's what really makes this career meaningful.
SONYA PALMER
Burnout may not necessarily be about the amount of work or the stress of the work, but just have you briefly lost the reason why you are doing the work? So that if you can keep the why intact, the burnout is less likely even with the same amount of stress and busyness. And you, you're talking about impact, you have a lot of opportunities for that. You are an attorney, we've discussed, you're helping people. But then now you're a business owner with a team of people that you can directly mentor and grow and lead. And then of course you're also a mom.
KEREN BARRIOS
Yeah. Let's just add that into the mix.
SONYA PALMER
Yeah, let's just add it in there. So you obviously have a ton of passion for this and we've acknowledged that it is a very tough profession. How do you keep going when it gets hard?
KEREN BARRIOS
Our society, Sonya, teaches us to do, do, do, results, results, results. And sometimes we forget about taking care of the most important part, which is ourselves. And as women on top of that, we are really caring, which is one of our best traits. When I'm really just getting tired, burnt out, I do take few hours of a day and say, "Hey, let me just stay back home." I mean it's so practical. I'm like, "I'm going to work from home and I'm by myself." And when I'm frustrated, burnt out, it's so fast to make a decision of, how do I see this? How do I see my life right now? And being grateful, gratitude is really big for me. That changes my perspective really quickly. If it's physical, you're exhausted, you definitely need to sleep more and you need to eat better. I've been trying this year to really take care of just my whole being, because yeah, I'm taking care of my mental health, but sometimes we don't take care of what we're eating and how we're being active, it's a whole formula. So to me, taking a moment to really find that gratitude in my life, really changes things if it's mental burnt out. And it is so important how you're taking care of your body, especially when you're in your middle 30s, you're still feeling different. Your 20s, supplements, drinking water. And it sounds so basic, but that really takes care of who you are and how you're showing up. So for me this year it's been more physical, taking care of how I feel physically and just resetting your mindset. I think that's big.
SONYA PALMER
I completely believe that things like sleep, hydration, nutrition, it's not necessarily about dieting, but did I eat a vegetable today? That can then set you up to be able to cope with very difficult things. It's not going to make it go away, but it can lessen the degree in which it impacts you. And I do think that women, particularly based on what you just said, that's often what they neglect. Life gets busy, they don't get enough sleep and they're living off of coffee, they're eating goldfish in their kids' lunch boxes and it's not taking care of themselves sort of the first thing to go and it works against them. So yes, supplements. All of that stuff I think is incredibly important. And if we prioritized it would make things a lot better. So all of your hard work is paid off. You are the managing partner at your firm. A title held by very few women. Did you open the firm or work your way to partner?
KEREN BARRIOS
Oh, so that's just an awesome story. So I met my husband during our second year of law school. He literally became my best friend. He's the one that actually helped me find my therapist. He's cool. He's a pretty cool guy. We ended up being friends, ended up dating, ended up studying for the bar together and in 2013 we passed the bar and we literally opened the firm December, 2014.
SONYA PALMER
Wow.
KEREN BARRIOS
We've been going at it for eight years. And like I said, I mean it's so cool. I honestly, it's been tough, Sonya, I'm not going to lie, it's tough. But looking back at everything we've lived and everything we've built at everything that we've been able to accomplish, the people we've been able to help, that just gives me so much more fuel to keep going.
SONYA PALMER
You have a lot to be proud of.
KEREN BARRIOS
And just doing it the right way. I think having the right intentions. When I think we have so much powers as an attorneys, that really knowing like we're talking, you're why, why you're doing this. And being able to work with my husband is actually amazing, which not a lot of people can say. But we've learned so much those past eight years, his strengths, my strengths, his weaknesses, my weaknesses. And we really focus on that and we really work together and we're a great team.
SONYA PALMER
How do the two of you divide responsibilities?
KEREN BARRIOS
We've gone through so much coaching, business learning. I always tell lawyers, the one thing that they don't teach in law school, it's how to run a business. Actually, they've done studies. The attorneys are the worst business owners, because we are trained to avoid risk. That's what we're trained. We're like, "Oh don't do this, because if you do this, this could happen." We're trained that way. And so Jorge and I, my husband and I really made a priority to say, "Okay, we want to run this well. Let's learn about business." So we're really big about coaching, learning, and throughout this time we've really focused on our strengths. So my husband is super type A, right? Super structure, super system oriented. He kind of brings the order and I'm more visionary. I bring the ideas, I bring the energy, I talk to our team. I try to mentor, coach. So we really focus on our strengths and I truly understand that, that's his strength. He's being organized and I respect that. Right? And I follow what he says, because I get it. He's good at that and he respects that I'm good at networking. I'm good at meeting with people. And so we really work off of our strengths, not our weaknesses.
SONYA PALMER
I think most successful partnerships, whether marriage or business or anything else, if you can work to bring out each other's strengths and then at the same time work to mitigate each other's flaws, because there are flaws, there are going to be weaknesses, but sort of block and tackle in that same way. So how would you describe the culture of the firm?
KEREN BARRIOS
I feel like there's a lot of toxicity in the legal industry when it comes to employment. And I do job interviews literally daily nowadays, in a sense that we're hiring for another nine positions for the next quarter. And so literally interviewing has become one of my biggest time consuming activities in the firm. And one of the things I noticed, Sonya, is that a lot of law firms, a lot of owners, attorneys, don't focus on people. And to me, people's everything, clients, team. If I'm not serving my clients, well I'm not doing a good job. If my team is not happy or feels satisfied or feels appreciated, then they're not going to do a good job to serve the people that need help. One of our biggest focus is people. Hiring the right people based off our core values, who we are, do they meet those core values? And truly our core values, Sonya are very either you have it or you don't. Their character traits. Do you have a heart to help others? Are you honest is one of our biggest one? And I can't teach that either you have it or you don't, right? And so our culture has been, I think it evolves constantly, because the law firm evolves, we evolve. And so we've actually been able to capture 30 amazing people that really want to do their best in how they do what we do. And I feel like I'm really big about every Monday meeting I'm like, "Dude, guys remember why we do this? I know it's tough. It's not an easy job." And I really tell them that. I live that with them. I'm like, "It's a lot of pressure. But remember why we do this. Remember we're changing people's lives." I mean it's so cool. So we have something called the wind wall. And one of my things is in the legal industry there's a lot of bad news. It's a lot of fires, a lot of, "Oh my gosh, they called, they're upset." So I created a movement called the win wall. That every time something good happens, we write it and we bring a bell. And so anybody can go up there and say, "We got a green card." And they ring the bell and everybody claps. And so I'm really big about focusing on the good instead of the bad. And I try to bring that into our culture, just because I want people to be happy with what they do. So it's a little bit of better culture.
SONYA PALMER
That happiness is contagious, that positive outlook is contagious when you're dealing with people in very tough situations. Just being able to work with an individual that's bright, that alone can go a long way. And I love what you mentioned about evolving, because I think that's so important for businesses today. Where stagnation, leaving things the way they are is actually more risky than trying to change. So what does your intake process look like? You guys do it in house?
KEREN BARRIOS
I'm really big about trying to create the feel of who we are. Because truly, it is the feeling. It is how somebody made you feel. That's why you choose service. So we do our intake, we have a department that takes the calls, then it goes to scheduling, then one of the attorneys meets with the potential clients. And we're really big about that. A lot of law firms forget that you have to actually speak to an attorney when they hire a firm. And so we do have a rule that within 24 hours, they have to speak with one of our attorneys and we have to do the welcome. We have to explain to them the legal process. We have to make them feel like they make the right decision by choosing us.
SONYA PALMER
People are at the heart of everything Keren does. She explains how that passion shows up in her service to the Spanish speaking community.
KEREN BARRIOS
I think I have a passion to teach, to educate. I feel that, that's what truly makes a difference in somebody's life, it's the knowledge, the power. So I'm really big about helping my community become better. I learned this from a coach and he says, "You have to be the J effect in your generation." I was like, what is the J effect? And he goes, "All your generations did a straight line. But you have to make that curve to go up to a different direction." And to me that's big. I try to do that with even my children. What I didn't see my parents doing, I want to do it, because I want them to have a different perspective in life. So one of the biggest things for me, it's really motivating, educating my community on the rights, on even mental health, what we talked about. In our culture that's a very taboo, "Oh, you're not crazy. I don't need to go to a therapist." That's really bad in our culture. And to me, if I'm used for that, to propel the change to somebody go to therapy, to somebody to feel better, to somebody to talk about their trauma, man, that's all worth it for me. So for me, education's really big. Serving my community in that sense. I do a lot of conferences in churches, in Hispanic events. And I go up there and I tell the young generation, "Dude, I was not even born here. I came when I was 10. I didn't even speak English when I was 10." I was an ESL student and I made it through. And my parents, they don't even speak while English. So no one really held me to get there. I had to fight through applications, how to do this, how to apply to law school. And I tell them, I'm like, "If I could do it, anybody can do it." You just have to make a decision. And so to me, if we can impact that younger generation to become what they wish to be, man, that's awesome.
SONYA PALMER
According to a survey at the American Bar Association, the vast majority of equity partners, which is 81 to 93% depending on the firm size are white attorneys. What are some of the barriers of entry that you see for Hispanic women entering the legal field?
KEREN BARRIOS
That's a really good one. So I actually lived this. We ended up representing a family for wrongful death and it was a pretty big case here in Georgia. And I walked in, it was a very intense mediation. And I walk in and the court reporter comes up and says, "Oh, family's not allowed." And I said, "No, I'm not family." And she's like, "So what are you doing here?" And I said, "I'm actually one of the lawyers." And she's like, "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry." And that's when it dawn on me that, that's still happening. I think it has to do a lot with your mindset, because I feel like if you let that be an obstacle, it will be an obstacle for you. Literally, it's a decision. Yeah. Am I going to face it? Yeah. But how do I respond to it? And that has been my life lesson. You don't choose what happens to you, but you choose how to respond to it. And so to me it's, yes, I'm Hispanic. Yes, I'm a woman. I'm a double minority in this career. I don't let that stop me at all. That's just how they view it, that's not how I see it. I'm just killing it, reaching my goals and I'm not going to let that affect me. But I see this when people like, "Oh, I'm a minority, they're going to treat me differently. This is going to stop me." Then it definitely will stop you. But it is a choice. And I am grateful for my dad, Sonya, because my dad is a very strong alpha male and he ended up having four daughters.
SONYA PALMER
I'm one of two daughters.
KEREN BARRIOS
Poor dads. But he had four and I'm the youngest. And he raised me not to think that I'm different because I'm a woman. And I love that about how he raised me. He was like, "You can do whatever. You got this. You want to be a lawyer, you can do it." He never taught me to view myself as a minority just because I'm a woman. And so I am grateful for my dad to do that, because I truly don't see that as an obstacle. I actually see that as a benefit. I'm a woman, I can do it all. I truly understand how people feel. Men sometimes are tough to really pick up energy and oh man, this and that. So I use that as my advantage. And Latina, I speak English and Spanish, I can double serve my community. So it is truly how you see it. And to me it's a benefit. It's a blessing to be a woman and Latina in this field for sure.
SONYA PALMER
A statistic that is staggering, but you cannot control how other people are going to view you. You can control and take action in your response. That's what you can adjust. And you've clearly done a very good job. You're making me appreciate my dad too, because I feel we were, there was never like, "Oh, what am I going to do with these girls?" It was treated very much the same. So I love that. For women who want to follow in your footsteps, what is one of the best lessons you have learned in this process?
KEREN BARRIOS
I think it's to get to know who you are. I feel like because of this career some people lose themselves and they don't even know their why, what they enjoy. And to me it's getting to know who I am. How can I improve? How can I get better? How can I do my job better and truly, it sounds so repetitive, but knowing the why you do what you do. And that doesn't come up in one day, that's a process. You got to look back, if you're writing this career and say, why did I become a lawyer? Or if you're going to start this process is why do I want to be a lawyer? I always tell people, if you just want it for the status or "Oh, I am a [inaudible 00:30:49] doctorate, it's tough." People get burnt out because you don't have a passion. I think we're one of the professions that have the most alcohol abuse and drug problems. Why? Because some people don't understand their why. And I would say the biggest lesson I've learned throughout this eight years, is knowing what you do things makes it a lot better if you're doing it with the right reasons. And for the first few years of my career was really tough. I became a new mom right away. I literally passed the bar October, 2013 and I was pregnant September, 2014. So not only did I open a business, I had gone just married. So we got married in August, 2014. Ended up getting pregnant a month after getting married and I was running a law firm. And so those years were tough. I'm not going to lie, I probably didn't know my why very clearly. Even though I had such a big reason why I went to law school. My trauma went crazy, because I just become a mom. I had really bad PTSD when my son was born. I had really bad OCD, postpartum depression. Those are real things we need to talk about as women being professionals. And you still have to show up and that's tough. The pressure that we get and so for me, it was all about figuring out who I am. It took a while. I had to go back to therapy, intensive therapy when my son was eight months old, because I literally went a little crazy. And so I had to work through that. And that's messy. And a lot of people don't want to do that. And what I encourage people listening to this podcast is work through the mess, because that is what going to ... it's going to get you through the other side and it's going to make you such a better human being, a better mom, a better lawyer, a better sister, a better wife. Just because you work through the mess that it's holding you back. So for me, if I can say what's the one lesson is find yourself through the mess, through the messy work that you have to do in order to become better. And it's going to shape your whole life, being a lawyer, being a wife, being whatever it is. So I guess that's my number one lesson that I've learned through this eight years.
SONYA PALMER
That's a very important lesson. What you said, go a little crazy. I think that I've always kind of referred to those as a nervous breakdown, where it's just the feelings, the emotions are, it cracks. But when I look back at my own experience, those granted me empathy in a way that nothing else could have. When you're sort of in that rock bottom place, it's hard not to have empathy and feel for other people who are going through something similar. And it does build resilience, because if we can do that, we can do anything. It does make you stronger.
KEREN BARRIOS
And one thing I've learned it's that emotions are actually good. Sometimes we want to run away from emotions, because they're hard to feel them. They're tough. Let them feel what truly you're feeling. But if you don't work through your emotions, then what that does is you're just repressing them and they're going to come out sooner or later, through maybe an autoimmune. That happens a lot, maybe through whatever it is. And so for me it's letting people know, work through those emotions. That's what really, and what you just said, I learned that my first year of counseling. I was very hardcore, like no emotions. You don't mess with me. I was nothing like I am now. But that was the pain that I didn't want to feel. And until I felt the pain, until I went through therapy, until I worked through all my trauma, it's exactly what you said, then I could feel empathy for others until I felt my own pain, which is very backwards. And if you want to be a kick ass lawyer, you got to know how to feel for people. You got to put yourself in people's shoes. You got to say, "What if that was my mom? What if that was my sister? What if that was my family member? How would I act, how I would defend them? How would I represent them?" And that to me is my daily job, which can get crazy with emotions, but it's just learning how to navigate through that and doing things the right way.
SONYA PALMER
That is very interesting. I've never looked at it that way. And this is probably where a good therapist would come in, would be very important in helping someone navigate this. But the inability to understand our own feelings or emotions, until we can see and identify them and other people, to feel their pain first. And then that helps us feel our own. And I bet that's probably true of more than pain, but all of the other emotions. But I did want to talk about what your community building efforts look like from a professional and community standpoint. What does that look like for you?
KEREN BARRIOS
So being a business owner, it's a balance, learning how to build your business and keep it going. But at some point, the hope is that this business is going to produce enough to help where you want to help. So this year we're really big about initiating, like I said, education workshops. I've done this my whole career, since I literally started day one. I would tell churches, because I feel like churches are a good place where people congregate and you can teach people. I do free workshops. I don't care how big I am and how big our law firm gets, I'm still going to do this, because for me, that's what makes a difference. Me going out there and teach people the rights, what not to do, what to do, how to improve your situation in a legal perspective. But I also teach a lot what I'm teaching. Be the J effect. I tell people So for me, education's number one. But also we did a pretty big scholarship this year for a Latino high schooler that wants to go pro in baseball. That's because my husband played in college. So he's really big about that. He's really big about sports and teaching young kids to focus their energy in that instead of other things. So we actually did a pretty big scholarship this year with [inaudible 00:37:31], which is a TV station here locally. And we partner up, I want to do more for women. Women who want to go to law school maybe or they want to go to college. Especially our community, our culture, we are still seeing moms telling young Latina girls, "Why are you going to school? That's dumb. Why are you going to do that? You should go get a job, entry level, you should get married, right?" We still see that and I kind of want to be maybe a motivator to change that. So for me, doing that in our community would be amazing.
SONYA PALMER
I think you can be for sure. I like what you said also about build a healthy business, be healthy and then give back. Sort of set yourself up for success and then figure out where you want to put, because that is sort of the goal. But it's hard to give and have an impact when your own business is not healthy yet. If you weren't a lawyer, what would you be?
KEREN BARRIOS
I always think about this actually. I think my personality doesn't fit a lot of other careers, but I would love to be a public speaker or a motivator. Just teaching people you know how to change their mindset. I truly would love that. Which I can still do that, right? But if I wasn't a lawyer, I probably something with speaking engagements or public speaking. I love that. I love being able to change somebody's perspective by just what you say and how you've lived your life or what you've learned. So I love that.
SONYA PALMER
Find yourself through the mess and discover your why along the way. Knowing your larger why can help you through the darkest moments. It can also help you navigate the most challenging pressures that come with transforming a firm into a thriving practice. Figuring it out can and should take time. But as Keren says, start where you are and keep working at it. Hey, big thank you to Keren Barrios for sharing her story and unbelievable insights with us today. You have been listening to Lahar 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 Keren, check out our show notes. And while you're there, please leave us a review or five star rating. It really goes a long way for others to discover the show. And I will see you next week on LawHer where we explore and how the brightest and boldest women in the legal industry climbed to the top of her field.
