Shownotes
My guest today is Mel Nebhrajani, Director General - Litigation with Justice and Security in the Government Legal Department. The episode delves into Mel's unconventional journey into law, starting from her study of English to a brief stint in publishing, and eventually practising as a barrister before joining the Government Legal Department. Mel shares her experiences and insights on the challenges and rewards of working within the Government Legal Department, including as the senior legal Director at the Department of Health during the COVID-19 response, which presented a myriad of challenging legal and legislative issues not previously encountered or anticipated. The discussion covers the importance of adaptability, risk-taking, and aligning professional roles with personal values. Mel offers advice for lawyers contemplating a career in Government and reflects on leadership, dealing with high-pressure scenarios, and maintaining work-life balance. The conversation aims to highlight the unique aspects of work within the Government Legal Department and inspire listeners to consider diverse paths in their legal careers.
00:00 Introduction to the Government Legal Department and Special Guest Mel Nebhrajani
01:37 Mel's Unique Journey to Law and Government Legal
04:11 The Leap of Faith: Transitioning Careers and Embracing Change
05:17 The Impact of Early Career Decisions and Building Self-Confidence
06:25 From the Chancery Bar to Government Legal: A Path of Service
11:20 Exploring the Varied Landscape of Government Legal Work
12:48 The Fascination and Challenges of Working in the Government Legal Department
15:22 Dealing with Politicians: Respect and Understanding
16:51 Navigating Risks and Decision-Making in Government Legal Work
17:31 The Art of Identifying and Communicating Risks
19:44 Rapid Response and Decision-Making Under Pressure
20:34 The COVID-19 Challenge: Adapting to Unprecedented Times
24:02 Building Resilience and Supporting Teams During Crisis
26:15 Embracing Emotional Intelligence in Leadership
28:32 Reflections on Career Challenges and the Value of Experience
30:16 Final 3 Pieces of Advice
Links to The Women’s Room – Legal Division:
- YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@Womens-Room-Legal-Division
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Contact Me https://www.ericahandling.com/contact-me/
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https://feeds.captivate.fm/womens-room-legal-division/
Transcripts
Today I am really excited to be joined by Mel Nebhrajani, who is Director General
of Litigation with Justice and Security in the Government Legal Department, working
for our
Government.
Government Legal is actually an organization that is very
close to my heart, as I was privileged enough to sit on their Board for five years,
and it's a really amazing organisation
doing fascinating work.
And for any lawyer listening who doesn't already work there, keep listening because there may be a whole new avenue to your career that you hadn't
ever thought of before
that could open up to you as an idea
once you've listened to this podcast.
so as well as being really excited about being able
to do a bit of a sales pitch for Government League or more of which
later, I'm really delighted
to have Mel join me.
If I were a senior
politician in government, dealing with all the pressures that we know that brings, Mel is absolutely the person that I'd want to have by my side. Not just because of
the wise
and experienced counsel that she brings, but also, as you will discover, because of her wonderfully supportive, considered and calm approach to the knottiest of problems,
even when delivering messages that
perhaps some ministers are not always keen to hear.
So she's absolutely the person
I'd want there
supporting me. And it's a delight to welcome you to this podcast, Mel.
[:Erica, what a great
introduction. Thank you so much.
[:people listening should listen to
your manner about how you, how you
respond to things. There's something very special
about the way Yeah, about your whole manner, your whole, yeah, your whole
ambiance that you bring. So,
so can I just ask you, maybe you could tell us a bit about yourself, your background,
what brought you into the law, how
you ended up at Government
legal.
yeah, it'd be a
great, great to hear a bit of your background.
[:So I had quite a
meandering journey, shall we say, to the law. and I'd recommend that, we may go into that in a little more, detail at some point about what I learned from having that journey.
So I didn't come to law from
reading law at university or indeed straight to law from the university.
I read English.
And I often say to people, if you want to be a lawyer, read
something other than law
first. And if you don't want to be a lawyer, a law degree is a great degree to have as a foundation for business or whatever else you want to do. So having read
English, I decided to go into publishing for a couple of years.
And I ought to
say that I do come from quite a long line
of lawyers on my mother's side of the family. So, I have a long line of, barristers in particular who trained over
here, but practiced in India. But
I think I probably
did that good thing that all teenagers should do, which was
to really
set my face against
doing anything that my family
members had done.
So I absolutely
graduated with my English degree, fully intending to do anything but law. And
I went
into publishing and
it happened to
be that I graduated into a recession and the first job I got was in
legal.
[:[00:03:02] Mel: So I think the universe had a plan
for me, Erica,
I would
[:[00:03:07] Mel: found myself being much,
much more interested in the law than in the business of publishing.
And I had a choice a couple of years after being in
that. publishing world for, for a while, to think, do I go down the generalist publishing routes, or do I perhaps scratch that itch that had always been in my background?
So I decided
to scratch the itch and train as a
lawyer,
and I intended fully to be a barrister.
And in
fact that is
what I did. So I worked in chambers as a chancellery barrister for about four years. It wasn't a particularly happy prospect. again, Erica, I can say a little bit more about that. I really felt that my values didn't quite fit, that it wasn't work that I really wanted to do.
And I found myself really drawn to,
the government legal profession because of that public service.
And I have to say from the
minute, my first foot
in the door, I found myself
really
to come home. It felt like coming home. I can put it as clearly as that.
[:And obviously it's quite a big step if you'd started work, started earning, I
presume, to then decide to go back and retrain.
What was that like as a
[:[00:04:21] Mel: Gosh, it was a hard decision, I have to say,
because even two years
out of education slightly makes you feel a little bit de skilled about whether you're able to sit in
a classroom
again and learn and do exams. But you know what? I really felt
that publishing wasn't for me,
that I had to
take that leap of faith.
There is that
sense in sometimes, you know,
what can go wrong if you just
take that step. You have to have faith in yourself, I
[:[00:04:53] Mel: Actually, you'll make anything that you do, any step you take, you will make succeed for yourself if you've got sufficient determination.
So although it was
quite a risk
and it felt a bit
scary,
I probably used that
quite a lot in my career to give myself confidence that I can take that less expected step and that it
will work out really well.
[:can we just stop there? Because I do
think, you know, I've been reading up a
lot about the difference between men and women and self confidence comes into
that a lot.
And nearly all of the literature and research on self confidence talks about failure and action, like you have to take
action to build confidence.
You have to have enough self
esteem to think.
That you have the
capability to deal with something difficult
if it comes up, but you've got to, you've got to fail. The more you fail,
the more you'll succeed. And there's a
great Nike advert with Michael Jordan talking about how often he failed,
you know, obviously to be incredibly successful,
but it is really interesting that the fact that you did that early on in your career and you thought, well,
what's the worst that can happen.
So,
yeah, tell me a bit about how that's played out. Has that, have you gone back to that
thought, you
know, again, and thought, well, actually, I'm going
to do something here that is a bit out of my comfort zone, but
I know I did that thing earlier in my career, so, you know, why not
[:[00:06:11] Mel: So, Erica, I would absolutely
say that first experience of
feeling
Discomfort
in a situation
and being willing to change it has absolutely been the foundation of a lot of the steps I've taken. So, when I was at the Chancery Bar, I was pretty miserable. Just wasn't for me. As I say, my values didn't really allow me to change.
I'm just doing lots of work, you know, making people homeless, day in, day out, you know, for a year, I was the acceptable face of mortgage repossession and it was awful. But
of course, when you've trained
for as long as I had to get to the chance to go when there weren't many Asian people, and certainly not many Asian women, have a chance to value.
You feel that you're giving up a big prize,
that you're going to regret this step. And lots of people told me that I would regret that step. But the fact that
I had made a
change and pivoted before was
the thing
that I used as a springboard to enable me to pivot again when it wasn't right for me in chambers.
And I would say to anyone,
you
know, really trust your instinct. You know yourself. You know what's important to you. and if your work
doesn't align with your own personal values, you know what the problem is.
then
you absolutely have to make that change, and you know
what? I
don't know anyone
who
has made that change who has regretted it.
everybody I've spoken to.
And again, you can learn from other
people, you know, in terms of building self confidence, you can
learn from other
people's experience and see how that has shaped their future and take a bit of confidence from that
[:mean, just out of interest, because I, I know very little about the Bar. Like, so what were you doing at the Bar when you were
making people
homeless? What
were you
doing at the chance?
[:[00:07:54] Mel: Chancery Bar is a mix of, contentious work and non
contentious work.
So you're
sometimes in court, but not always in court, but at the
bottom end of the Bar, you're often
in court and
[:[00:08:04] Mel: things like
landlord and tenant possession actions or mortgage possession actions,
[:[00:08:09] Mel: because it was you know, really big brief to be, you know, be hired by one of the very big, building societies to do all of their mortgage possession
work, there's a lot of money in it.
And so my clerk was very much think about the fee. about, you know, the money that you're going to learn. And when I said to him, I'm afraid the money is not
enough, he said, well, I'll get you more money. And I'm like, no, the money is not enough
because it's not the
money is the thing that is going to spur me on.
And when I look back
at my sort of family history, you know, I talk about having these barristers who, my great grandfather, my grandfather in particular, they were people who trained over here, but were really, you know, giving back to the public. So they were part of the Indian independence movement.
They were friends with Nehru and Gandhi and Jinnah and others in that independence movement.
So I have in that hinterland,
I guess, a sense in which, you know, as individuals we're all
powerful. We can make really positive change in the
world. You've got a
choice to make
about how you're
going to spend your time.
And I found myself thinking, I did not
Spent all those years training it to
be a barrister,
all the money
that it costs,
all the effort
to go and just make endless people homeless. It just was not for me.
[:did you, like, how
did you make the leap?
Was it straight to government legal from being at the Chancery Bar?
[:term appointment for a
year at the charity commission.
So I've done a lot
of charity work as a barrister in chambers. So it was something that I knew. So again, talking about taking risks. Sometimes you can
take managed risk
by going into the office.
something, but it was an offshoot of what we've done before. And as I say, you know, literally from my first day, I felt like I had really come home. So I absolutely love my time at the charity commission, but it was only a year's
contract. so I had a decision to make whether to stay at the Charity Commission, or whether to move
to the wider
government legal profession.
And the thing for me is that I've
always been fascinated by politics. I come from a political family, so those barristers that I've talked about, were politicians and where my grandfather was intending to be one of the
[:[00:10:34] Mel: government in the new India.
He
died literally weeks before, Indian independence. And so it was my grandmother who took on his mantle, became the MP. I and visit her in her
MP's quarters
in Delhi. She was a junior minister at one point as well.
So I'd always had in this land, I guess, law and politics and policy, but just really interesting and astounding.
As soon as
I had the opportunity to go and work for the government legal department where those three were absolutely, you know, intersecting, jumped at the
chance. And so I moved
to the department for education and had a brilliant time there as a junior lawyer.
[:move around to lots of different
departments.
So is that the
same with you? Did you travel around many different
areas?
[:And that is one of the great joys. Now we're large enough that if people want to specialize, we can absolutely accommodate that. But one
of the
best things I think about the government legal profession is that you
perfect your art
by seeing it in a range of different So I spent the majority of my career
below
the senior civil service in the cabinet office and number 10.
And then the majority of my career in the senior civil service is a deputy director. Back at the Department of Education,
but I also did a stint at transport, which was amazing, a really good counterpoint to the work that I've done the social policy work that I've done education.
And then as a director,
I spent the majority of my career.
at the Department for Health and Social Care, where I led
on the COVID
response, as you'll remember, Erika.
So I've moved around a lot of different departments, and I think what that really enables you to do, as I say,
is to develop your
understanding, particularly of public law, that's mostly what we do, but we do also have employment lawyers and commercial lawyers, but really understanding that in a variety of different sectors, so it sharpens your skill set, I'd say.
[:do you think
it is, I mean, I've got my own view, but what do you
think it is
that makes
it so interesting being
a lawyer working
for the government?
[:really novel,
You
know, there's nothing like it in the rest of the profession. So we're often having to think creatively from first principles, about things that have just not been done before. I mean, COVID is a really good example.
My goodness, we have never
locked down a country before.
We have
no experience of that at all.
e. How is that we had, in the:a pandemic or
other outbreak
of disease
And We really have
to test the boundaries.
[:[00:13:27] Mel: And as soon as
we were making the law
in that space, we were challenged in the
courts. So as we were
making policy, as we were implementing that policy, we were being challenged. So
again, there's very few areas.
of any kind of legal practice where that would be happening to you.
So I would say that it's the
creativity.
of what we do, the fact that we're working from first principles, but also the scrutiny that we get from the courts, from the media, and from parliament that bring a really unique dimension to everything that we do in government law.
[:yeah. And actually, I mean, it's probably worth saying because I mean, I certainly didn't know about government legal until I became involved with government legal.
And I used to think if people ever
said to me, would you ever go and work in government?
I
thought
I would be drafting legislation. I
thought that was the only thing
that could be going on. And I guess for anyone who doesn't know, there are 3, 000 or more lawyers that have now
been brought together in a single department, servicing
all of
the departments, and other arm's length bodies. So it's, it's an amazing organization to, to be part of. And as you say, the work is so interesting and all this challenge in the courts that people
probably don't think about. But also for me, I think the fact that you are
dealing with real life.
every day, it's a bit like for me, like a doctor who's, they're
dealing, if you
talk to a doctor, they're always
interesting because they're dealing with something that you can identify with. If you talk to me as a derivatives and structures finance
lawyer, you're not going to find anything very interesting in there to talk about. But I always remember
talking to someone quite junior.
I guess
at Defra
and they were the litter expert and they were so excited that they were the expert on litter and they were like, if it's over the size of a bin bag, that's fly
tipping, that's not me. But I can
tell you everything there is to know about
litter because it, it's
part of our, it's part of our daily life. So it, yeah, that's, I think
that's one of the reasons it's so fascinating. I mean, it'd be interesting.
I mean, what do you think about
dealing with politicians? I mean, it's
hard for the general public
to I guess sympathize with the pressure
that they're under.
it's very easy to criticize
them, but they are under
huge scrutiny and pressure
and, and they're often not very experienced in the area.
they're suddenly, you know, plopped into.
But yeah, how, how, what's
your approach to dealing with ministers and politicians?
[:I have a huge amount of respect for politicians. I think it is such a tough job being a minister.
And I think understanding that
means that my approach to them is one of treating them as people, first of all, people doing a really difficult job. Second of all, and people
doing a job
where often, you know, you can't win because,
you know, you're making really, really hard decisions that an appreciable part of the population is just not going to agree with.
And when I think about our female politicians, in particular, the amount of challenge that they get, the threats that they live under, you couldn't but admire people for putting that public service
first. So I always think about
What I would feel like if I was having to make that decision, I would want the very best legal advice.
I would want precision. I would wanna understand exactly what risk I was taking on
and what would
happen if that risk was to eventuate. And I think that's the thing that we often miss as lawyers. You know, we
talk about risk pretty comfortably.
I.
[:[00:16:52] Mel: ministers or other clients about what the impact of
that risk going the wrong way for you might be. And that is often the thing that helps ministers make the difficult decisions that they have to make.
But my
experience is that most of them.
firstly, I think they're incredibly bright. They are really bright, really committed people who've gone into the world they've gone into because they genuinely want to make a positive
difference.
So I absolutely
treat them with respect and I'm very pleased that they're doing their job rather than me
doing my
[:[00:17:26] Erica: come back to that because I want to ask you about politics, given, given the family connection. I mean, I do think that point about risk is really interesting because I think, particularly early on in
your career, you're trying to
get the law right, to get, you know, whatever you, you know, transaction right, drafting right.
And, and, and if
you're talking, you're trying
to identify what the risks are, but sometimes there might be a big risk, but actually its impact could be very little. And, you know, as someone who's a transactional, we spent hours and hours on words in
contracts. And sometimes if you
really look at a contract, you're like, is
someone really going to sue on this?
Is
it really going to
be important?
And
sometimes the answer is yes,
but often it's not. And I presume you've
come across situations where it feels
high risk. But actually the
impact could be pretty low.
[:sometimes when
even a small
risk is intolerable for whatever reason,
you know, particularly on the national security side, for example, you know, we might be much, much less likely to take this, we might do in a commercial setting.
[:[00:18:29] Mel: you have to understand what the risk
appetite is of the minister
or other client that you're dealing with.
You absolutely have
to understand what the broader landscape is, you know, how likely it is that someone will challenge or not, and that obviously feeds into the consideration as well. I think
there's also a tendency when you're a
new
lawyer to sort of try and uncover every single risk.
that's something
that I think, you know, I'd caution against because, again, to be
credible with the
person that you're advising, you know,
the risk
has to be an appreciable risk, really, for them to take account of it, I'd
[:[00:19:07] Erica: so what's your advice for dropping, like, so you, you've identified all these risks, they all feel quite important,
You can see
some are worse than others, like, it's quite hard, isn't it, when you're learning to go, I'm not even going to tell them about this
risk.
[:so I think
what you can do is, is talk
about other
risks, which are less important that you've excluded because they don't, you don't think that they are going to be determinative of the issue. So you can, you know, put that
sort of, you can, you can, mention that there are other risks, but explain why you're not going to be focusing on them.
And often we are in that space. So, very often, particularly at my level, we're having to advise at real speed with very little knowledge. You might not really understand what the issues are, but still you've got to give advice that is actionable.
And
I
think
that's the thing to always remember.
[:[00:20:02] Mel: What advice are you giving that enables somebody to take a decision and act upon that advice?
So if it's simply
theoretical. Or it's academic or it's
sitting on the fence, you know, that's impossibly hard for people.
so I
think, you know, if you can put yourself in the position of the decision maker, I think that often helps you
to craft
your advice in such a
way
[:[00:20:27] Erica: Amazing. Thank you.
and I, I'm sure people
listening would love to
hear a bit about like what
the COVID experience was
like, I guess, from the beginning of realizing
this was something going into
lockdown. I mean, well, and I
guess you were
having to go in all the time during lockdown. So can you
just talk
us through what it was
like?
[:[00:20:48] Mel: fact, we didn't go
in during lockdown. We were working from home, and thank heavens we
were
because we did not have enough hours of the day to also commute, as well as work.
[:[00:20:59] Mel: it was
really evident from about, Late January, early February that this was something that was really going to impact us in a way
that we probably actually couldn't even foresee.
So we knew we were taking a step into the unknown
And we dusted off our powers.
We knew that we have these powers that we would need to rely on where there are pandemic.
We looked at work
that had been done previously, to
[:[00:21:30] Mel: identify how those powers could be exercised in the past, but they have never been exercised.
So we were doing all the good
things that lawyers should do, which is anticipate what's coming down the line,
dust off work that had been done previously, start to think about how we might have to react.
And the very
first set of regs that we made,this is such the instruments, the very first that we made over a weekend early in February, and that was to deal with, the people who had come back from Wuhan and actually quarantine them to see whether or not they had, the infection.
that
was the first
time that we've done anything like locking down a group of people or quarantine.
and the advice
that we had to give to ministers, we have very little time to give it and very little time to make. the regulations, because we knew that. People were coming back and they would simply disperse into the community.
So
there was a bit of
fear. I think it's
fair to say there was a
bit of fear about how we were going to do this and do this well.
There was that sense
in which, you know, if we
were litigated
and found to have exceeded our powers, that would stop us dead in our tracks for anything that came down the line.
And
I remember when we made that
first set of regulations, In the early on the Monday morning, we'd made them literally over the weekend,
[:[00:22:53] Mel: the minister
would
sign them first thing in the morning.
The commentators, the legal
commentators started off by saying that we had exceeded our powers.
And then within a couple of
hours.
They had all pretty much retreated from that. So, although
there was grumbling. We thought to
ourselves, okay, we've, we've, we've done this well. We're on the right side of the line and we weren't challenged on those regulations. They then became the foundation for everything that followed.
And it was
working night and day.
I mean, you know, sometimes we were working 18,
as a
day, sometimes more, as I say, we didn't have time to commute. And we used to say to one another, thank heavens, we are
able to
work from home, because literally we'd fall out of bed, do the job that needs to be done, fall into bed, and then start again the next day.
It was a 7 day a week job, so I had lawyers who worked around the clock, And we tried to
do all sorts of things like bring shift working, bring in relief teams so that people could have time off. we, You know,
really encourage
people to have as much downtime as they could. But we did know, and I felt very guilty, Erica, that I was putting pressure on the lawyers to deliver because there was no choice but to do that.
There was no cavalry coming to help us out. We
had to do it ourselves, we had to take as much recruitment
as we could. We had to bring in people,
borrow,
lawyers where we could. But fundamentally, it was going to be us.
Doing the heavy lifting on that task,
[:[00:24:29] Mel: and it
was really hard. And when I would see people, you know, literally falling over sometimes, but it's certainly metaphorically falling over physically and emotionally
that sense of guilt was
really immense as a
[:Yeah, I
mean, it was really interesting. I mean, it probably says something interesting about
government legal because I
was talking to people, you know, I had a sort of clinic where people could call
me up
and if they
were feeling stressed, like, just someone to offload on, a night, you
know, if
I had
any tips, I'd give it to
him. but often the people I was with were really worried about their boss, so they'd be really worried about you, and there's you worrying about them, but they'd also be worrying about you, but I, but I guess you're never
going to find a greater sort
of,
committed purpose to all draw together on. So there was a real sense of purpose, I guess, behind it, that you are literally doing whatever you could to save the country.
[:one of the things that bound us together.
But to be honest with you, even that can
only take you so far
when you are working for six months, a year or two years at that pitch. So I only did the first
year of that.
and that probably was the hardest year, but some of my colleagues did it for two years.
And in fact, we've learned quite a lot of
lessons from that. So we now have
a rapid
response team that we can deploy to help support teams that are going through that sort of pressure
We did an awful lot
as an organization. So I was
The the champion for the parents network. It's a new network at that stage So I have four children and you know trying to
balance, you
know homeschooling
[:[00:26:00] Mel: and all the rest alongside that work was really hard
but we got to know
one another better.
We got to know one another's pressure points and challenges
that bit
better. And I think it's an organization we've kept.
And I also think there is
something as a leader,
you know, It can be very
tempting when you are facing that, you know, huge challenge to lead from the front and be there. Hero
leader.
And actually, it was more important. I wish I kind of focused on this earlier. It was more important for me to show people that I was finding it hard
[:[00:26:37] Mel: and that
I
was struggling as
much as they were
struggling. And that was part of what kept people going, in a sense, because they knew that you were finding it hard too, and they didn't feel quite so bad that they were fine.
[:[00:26:48] Erica: No, that's interesting. When,
when did you come to that realization?
[:was probably
the summer. So I would say the June or July. So we'd already
been going about five
or six months by that point. And we've had a really difficult time during May. You know, that was when we were having to make a lot of really difficult decisions about
[:[00:27:08] Mel: So we'd work
like
crazy during that period. And, you
know, I felt it was my job to be really positive and optimistic and keep people going. And yes, there is that. Definitely a role for a leader in doing that, giving people the hope and understanding, celebrating the success and the understanding of what they've achieved.
But it was really apparent by June when I was kind of on my knees that I needed to show people that I was on my knees. And I had a
very wise
non executive director at the department. he said to me, take lead and be really ostentatious. About the fact that you are going on leave. And I felt, you know, that would
be a bit awful.
That'd
be like rubbing people's noses in it. But she was absolutely right.
Because if I wasn't showing
that I was thinking of myself and taking time out, they wouldn't do that.
And I also remember
Erica,
you came and spoke
to us in the summer we had an away
day
where made time to talk about and think about how we were feeling.
[:[00:28:12] Mel: We don't often do that emotion and law piece, but I think it's really important that we do. And you came and did a
barnstorming,keynote
for us and really talked to people about the need to look after themselves. And that, all of that really helped.
[:that, I mean, that clearly
was a pretty pivotal experience, I assume, in
your career.
Are there, are there other moments that, where you found things like very challenging or that
have
been really pivotal and you've learned
something from them?
[:I have had so many things in my career that are a bit difficult. So one of the
really big
things that I
did in my career was a corporate role
of going over
to DFT as the second in command to bring them into GLD. So you mentioned earlier that we brought all the lawyers. together, so that we were one big department of lawyers rather than having lawyers, within departments serving that department.
Now
that was a really
huge cultural as well as a structural change for us. And I think
I learned there about, again, emotion. Emotion has a really important part to play in all of this and I think as
rational lawyers,
we think if we just explain the rationality and we show the facts and the figures and we evidence all the good stuff that that will be enough.
I have absolutely
learned that that's Never enough.
Really
understanding what makes people tick, what motivates people, what their fears are, what their hopes are,
what they might lose as well as what
they might gain, is just a really important
dimension
of leading people and particularly leading cultural change.
[:[00:29:52] Erica: yeah, you're so right like we focus on the black letter of the law and not the
emotion and the story
behind it
So that is a great piece of advice. Yeah. Okay. And and cultural
change is
probably I mean any behavior for coaching
and coaching behavioral change is
the hardest thing and the cultural
change is incredibly hard.
It's incredibly hard to shift a culture. Yeah.
[:[00:30:15] Erica: Good. And, and then can I ask you, like, in the future, would you ever
consider going into politics?
[:politics. I absolutely love politics,
but I probably love politics as
an outsider
to politics
in some respects, or at least having a
connection to it, but not one that's right at the centre. I do have politics in my family. I absolutely
[:[00:30:43] Mel: admire politicians. I would love to be a constituent, constituency MP.
I think there is something so fulfilling about representing people in that work. I absolutely see it.
But I think I'm probably not enough of a party animal in one sense. I don't
mean that in the celebratory sense. I mean that
in the towing the party line.
So I think ministers
often have a really, really difficult job sometimes of towing
the party
line they don't agree with.
And I think I'm an independent thinker. I think a lot of lawyers are, a lot of government lawyers are.
So I think probably our future in politics doesn't lie,for me, down the path, but I would always admire anybody who goes into it, because my goodness, it's not easy.
[:You never know.
And can I ask you so I always end with like
three pieces
of advice to your younger self Like what what are your
three pieces of advice to your
younger self?
Do
you think?
[:first bit of advice is trust your judgment. I think particularly when you're starting out,
Everyone
has a view.
Everyone will tell you what to
think, but you know yourself really well. You know what your values are. You know what your interests are. You know what you
get out of bed for.
And I think you should trust your judgment in that.
An ally to that is that if it's not working for you, change it. So I'm really pleased that, you know, I changed things when they weren't working for me. So have the confidence to change things.
And sometimes
that does mean taking risks. And it can be managed
risk, but it does
sometimes involve taking risks.
So trust your judgment, take a few
risks. And maybe the last thing I'd say is that, you know, Nothing is wasted, or maybe, if I were to
put it in a more positive way,
everything matters.
Because each one of
us comes with our collection
of experience. And that
is what most organizations need. They need us
to bring all of
ourselves into the organization.
So if you've
taken the meandering path that
I have taken, or if you come from a background that's a little less represented in the law, value that, because what you bring is valuable.
is what organizations want and nothing is wasted.
[:thank you
so much for taking this time to talk to us. It's been amazing.
And for anyone listening, go and find out about Government Legal. It's an amazing organization. I wish I'd worked there properly, not just on the board. if I could dial back my career, I would absolutely apply. So go and have a look at it and think about it. And Mel, thank
you so much.
[:[00:33:25] Mel N video1328769358: Lots of pleasure. Thanks, Erica
