Welcome to the Mind Over Law podcast where we break the traditional rules of practicing law. Our focus is helping you first to become a better, happier person, which in turn will make you a better, happier lawyer both in and out of the courtroom. We will combine mindset and energy practices grounded in ancient wisdom along with cutting edge neuroscience give you those skills. Plus I'll have deep conversations with some of the most thoughtful leaders that will share their life stories, their leadership journeys and their legal practice wisdom.
I'm Lexlee Overton and my promise is that each episode will offer practical insights and strategies to empower your law practice, your leadership skills, and most of all, your personal well being. Join me and I promise you'll become a better you lawyer and leader. Welcome back to the Mind Over Law podcast. I'm Lexlee Overton and I'm so excited today that we're really diving into purposeful leadership, resilience and what true success means.
I'm joined today by a remarkable guest, Twila White. Her journey is one of courage and conviction. She began her career in engineering at usc, really thriving in a male dominated field before making the bold leap into law. She went on to open her own firm and has since become a tenacious trial lawyer, a civil rights advocate and a consultant, fighting for fairness and amplifying the voices of those who've been silenced by discrimination and harassment.
What I admire most about Twila is how she leads by example. She shows us that real success isn't just about winning cases, but about embracing authenticity and prioritizing well being and creating balance in both law and life. Whether she's standing up in court, guiding fellow troll lawyers or even roller skating by the beach, Twila really embodies the power of living with purpose. Twila, it's such a pleasure to have you here.
Welcome.
Thank you, I appreciate it.
And I just want to dive right into that in talking about purpose because I have so many lawyers that come to me and often it's because they're tired and maybe I shouldn't be doing law, maybe I should be doing something else. And I always say we shouldn't be making big decisions in life about from a drained place. So let's just slow that down. But what is it for you, Leon?
I look at your background and you're coming from engineering, you can tell the audience a little bit about that. And then you came into law and now you're even shifting that some. So talk a little bit about finding purpose and maybe passion and mission for you. What has your story been around that.
Originally, you know, I chose a very challenging field which, which was with the School of Engineering. I graduated from usc, University of Southern California. And at that time it was not a lot of women in the School of Engineering program. It probably hasn't changed to this date.
It's not a very exciting profession. But I always loved math and I loved science at that time. And I didn't see myself teaching math. So I say it wouldn't be bad to be an engineer.
So I ended up taking that trajectory and landed a consulting job at the largest transportation engineering company at the time. And we were working on Intelligent Vehicle Highway Systems is what they call them. And so I was working for entities in Orange county that were a collaboration of about 17 or 18 cities down there that were installing these toll road projects. So I was a systems engineer on those projects for the, the company.
And it was interesting journey, to say the least. We had a small group at that time on the project, but still, like law, it was very much male dominated. I think it was more male dominated than law. It was just that scarce as far as women were concerned.
And I always said, I'm going to, if I'm going to work, I can't just do it for the money. I have to actually enjoy what I'm doing and I have to be passionate about it. And so I had a project manager at the time who stayed on my case. He said, look kid, you better go find out what you really want to do with your life.
Go enjoy it. You got this job now. Go figure it out. And that's what I did.
And I thought I would be a patent attorney, but that was like more of a stuck place. Like, why am I leaving this job here to go to law school to do more techy stuff. That just didn't seem to be very sexy to me. And I started doing all these different internships, externships or whatever you call it.
And I really liked the one I had at the Department of Fair Employment and Housing. And it resonated with me. And once I graduated, I started, became licensed, opened up my own shingle, which was another story in and of itself. And I just started taking.
I was. What do they call it? A toaster lawyer. Anything that popped up, I was working on it.
And I started just really refining things. And I remember having coffee with a good friend of mine, he's deceased now. And I said, at the beginning of the year, I'm going to start handling sexual harassment cases. And I bought this book at the bookstore.
And about two, three weeks Later I get this call from a systems engineer at competing engineering companies that I applied for. They didn't hire me at the time. I'm sorry. She was a process engineer and she was going through it.
It wasn't a sexual harassment case, it was a race discrimination case, a wrongful case. And that was like the test, the universe testing me saying, okay, you said you were going to do this, now what? And after that there was no turning back. That was my introduction into handling employment cases.
Handling that one process engineer's female case.
What I love about this is that you said you should be doing something you love and you have passion for. And oftentimes people I think we go to school and we got to figure out something to go in. So you're like, I don't want to teach math or science, I'm going to go into engineering. So it's got to figure out something.
But so much we get stuck in a box of just, oh, this is where I am, so this is where I have to be. And what you're showing us is that if it's something that you love and you have a passion for, it's really following your heart instead of your head.
Yeah, it really and truly is. Because the evolution was such that I think maybe I chose engineering because I perhaps wasn't in touch with my feelings. I wanted to do things that avoided writing. And what better thing to do is to crunch numbers all day to solve differential equations or to do a circuits problem or a physics question or a math question.
What better thing to do to be non emotional that. So I always say that it wasn't until becoming a lawyer that I became a way better writer.
Yes. And let's talk about that for a moment because I think one of the rules of law that when I started practicing 30 years ago and in southern Louisiana 30 years ago, there weren't a whole lot of other women in the trial in the courtroom with me. Right. There were women in law, but not a lot of trial lawyers.
And I was just lucky that I had a dad to practice with, but I had to figure out on my own because he was a very over the top aggressive lawyer. And that was not my style, but one of the rules of law that like this traditional way of being was that you didn't show your emotion. Right. And that you put on a mask and you definitely didn't show your fear.
And I know you and I have similar paths with being able to go to trial lawyers college. And I'd love to hear your story about what that did to change your life. But I know for me, all of a sudden, it gave me permission. Like, if I'm going to really connect with a jury, and if I'm going to connect, I have to be in touch with who I am.
And I also have to be really open to emotions, because this is part of how we actually connect with one another. And so you got to break that rule. Talk about that in your experience of that.
Like you, I was always afraid of really showing my emotions. And one of my biggest fears, and we know public speaking is probably the greatest fear there is, statistics have shown. But aside from public speaking, one of my biggest fears was getting emotional in front of people that I don't know. And one of the things that Jerry Spence taught us at the ranch was is that it's okay to have emotion as long as it's real, as long as it's authentic.
Because if you're just standing up in front of people and you're putting on a show, you're bawling your eyes out, but it's not authentic, then they're going to sniff out a charlatan and somebody that's being fake. So that, to me, is the key to it, because people resonate with sorrow and pain and nervousness. And so what I try to do is lean into it, and I try to own it. And the more I lean into it and the more I own it, the more I connect with people.
And I have stood up in front of juries and said, I'm really nervous right now, very nervous, because this is an important day for me and Ms. Smith, and she's waited a long time. And I've worked on this case for several years, and I'm a bit nervous. And when I say that jurors have smiled and they've given nods and, like, body language they understand, and that they're approving, not disapproving, but I'm okay with this lawyer. So I find that being my true, authentic self, it helps me better, but it also helps other people to get to know me better.
And it's that whole, if you're vulnerable, then it gives me permission to do the same in connection in that way and the opposite of what I'm always looking at. And I think as a young lawyer, it's probably part of what I experienced was because I was trying to live up it a certain way and be a certain way. That takes a lot of energy, and that becomes exhausting. It is so much more energetic and fueling to be able to permission to be yourself.
It really and truly is. Because you were at the Women in Trial Travel Summit in Mexico.
Yes.
And after my talk, which I did on selecting a jury without a script, someone came up to me and said, that's all I have to do. I could just be me. I'm like, yeah, you could just be you and actually win. And that's one of the hugest gifts that I got from going to Jerry Spence's trial program.
I could just be me. I didn't have to have these big giant hands like Jerry and this rough voice and be 6ft tall. I'm 5 4. I'm not a white man.
I'm a black woman. And no one may look like me in the courtroom, but that's okay too, because feelings transcend what we look like on the outside.
Yes. And we pick up on all that anyway. Just what you said, it's like there's an energy that happens that unconsciously we're all reading. And so if you are standing before me and acting a certain way but you really believe something else.
I know that. Which then makes me not trust you. It's all very important when it comes into connection. We were talking about being women trial lawyers and I know that one of the things I hear a lot from women is the balance of it all.
And I don't think there is. I think there is an awareness and there are times that there's more that is called of us. That and then knowing how to recover from those times when we're all in. So I think about trial being a huge exhaust exhaustion of energy and then knowing or having practices even before a trial that you're doing as a part of your daily life and then things that you can do afterwards that help you to recover and to be resilient.
How do you manage that? Because you know, you're a trial lawyer and there's just not anyone who's a trial lawyer that's going to tell you it's easy and that it's not exhausting, because it is. So what are your tips or the things that you've learned that would helps women and men male trial lawyers.
In a perfect world, I would say the tips would be to get help where needed.
Yeah.
To what I love is trying cases with close friends who've had similar or the same training that I've had that's helped immensely with being in trial. And then I have fun things planned. That's what's going to help me. I've had to cultivate hobbies outside of law because when I reach Burnout.
Because right now I'm winding down to take a sabbatical. I'm not taking any cases at the moment so that I could take a sabbatical. But just allowing myself that space to step away is really crucial. And I know a lot of people aren't in a position financially to be able to do so.
I would also say save for a rainy day, because when you're winning big, don't spend it all. Took some of it away. And to have a financial planner and somebody that helps you map out the future. And so if you do need to step away and take a sabbatical, take a year off, take two years off, whatever.
You're okay. You're. The world doesn't just stop. Your world or in the luxuries and your quality of life doesn't just come to a halt just because you've got to take some time away.
Yes, that's a really great advice. And I think time away doesn't have to be a year sabbatical. So many people find that even not working on the weekends is like somehow, like the worst thing ever. That we wear this badge of honor that I'm pushing hard.
And I was just talking to. And I made a client promise me last weekend that she was not going to work. You have to understand that taking two days off will help you to recover, that you come back on Monday, you'll be able to do so much more because you took a break. So learning to find a place to pause and create space just in the actual given week.
Yeah, yeah. Because then you're pushing so hard all the time. Right?
Yeah. Yeah. I was just telling a friend the other day that I forgot where I was. Oh, we were.
We went to a. Watch a baseball game on Sunday. And I was saying, in a lot of ways, I'm making up for lost time. Because when I first started my practice, I think I worked every single weekend.
I know for the first five years, maybe more. And I recall looking out the window because I had an office in the marina, and I'd see people riding their bikes on the bike path. And here I am cooped up in this office on a beautiful Saturday or Sunday afternoon. I'm like, this is not the life.
And so I made a point to shift whatever I needed to so that I didn't have to work every single weekend because it was a drag. And what's the point of making a good living if you don't have time to enjoy it? Which was the question that I kept asking myself. I said, something has to give.
This is not deal at all. So I just started just not doing it anymore.
Yeah. And building those spaces for the hobbies, for the time off. It really does help you to be more powerful in the time when you're on the system. Your brain, your heart, it all needs a break from the pressure.
And when you allow yourself that and see, I think it should be a prescription, not something that's oh, I have to ask myself permission to do this. It actually should be required. And if it was, we'd just see less people burnout. We'd see less people getting sick.
Is when you're in an energy drain. You eventually don't have energy to fuel your immune system.
Yeah.
So if you're pushing all the time, then you find yourself sick. Hello. That's your body's wake up call. That is just too much.
I agree.
And so recognizing that those spaces. Spaces are so important to be even in a daily way. Right. If you could build in time.
But to be able to add back to what we're talking about. Connection is you have to connect with yourself. Who are you intending to be today? Right.
You have to build space for that. So it's not always the reaction of what the world is. How do you do that in your day? I know you're building, you've built some space in your life recently.
But when you are on how do you build? What do you do in your day that helps you to stay connected with yourself?
I in those earlier years, what I used to do is I would leave work, I'd go take off my suit, change, throw on my shorts and my flip flops and I'd walk to the pier and I'd go to my favorite restaurants and I'd watch the sunset, have a nice cocktail, have an appetizer or just take a walk around the neighborhood. That was my daily ritual back then. Now not so much. I'm not working as much as I used to, thank goodness.
But I just spend more time with friends. I'm a bowler, I've got my balls. We owe me. At the bowling alley.
I go roller skating quite a bit. I'm into my gardening. My lemon tree is doing really good. So I do things like that.
I went through a spurt where I was like a chef or whatever. I'm like, okay, I'm cooking something new every day. But I just try to do something that's not law related. And even when I go to social activities, I like the professional associations, but I find that I can really enjoy non lawyer events.
The diversity of People like when I started roller skating and getting into it, the person that I brought my custom skates from, she designs her day job is she designs bedding for yachts. Her fun job is she's got this skate store and studio that allows her to have a ball. But in the meantime she's signing non disclosure agreements with some of the wealthiest of the wealthiest in our world betting for their yachts, which I find that exciting too. But it just goes to show that we all need to have an escape or break from our knitting, so to speak.
Yeah.
Do on a daily basis.
Yeah. So tell us something that I always ask three questions at the end of our guest something that you're excited about creating right now.
What I've been working on creating is a consulting practice. I no longer am doing nuts and bolts handling a case from A to Z. That's just not where my focus is. It's more on helping other lawyers with prepare for their trials or maybe if they need my assistance with joining the trial team to join it.
But that's my focus is more big picture now and and in my spare time that's what I'm building out. And then also I'll probably look to get certified in psychodrama. I've done so much of it to where I'm like what am I going to do with all these hours? Because it was never the goal initially for me to be doing it for purposes of being certified, but it has morphed to a place where I'm like, you know what?
This is something that I have the space to make happen.
Yeah. That's awesome. Wonderful. So what.
And maybe we've already answered this question. The one rule that you would tell lawyers to break and that might be not to wear the mask but to be more authentic. Or is there another answer that you have?
It's hard for to some degree the way our system is set up and I don't know if you want me to get on that soapbox, but I have been disenfranchised with the justice system sometimes. And I wondered is it even real or is it just a construct? Is what someone once told me because for the most part the rule of law works really well. But then there's some bad apples out there and I have experienced some really bad judges and one so much so there was harassing and following me to my trials.
Wow.
It became very harassing space where I have nowhere to turn. I don't know who to go to. He's so well connected, so powerful and just feeling of just Helplessness, powerlessness of where do I go? This person has the resources and the access to really sabotage my cases for both me and my clients.
And this just feeling of where do I go to? So with that in mind, a new lawyer cannot just take off the mask, if you will, in a flawed system. But they have to show up as much as they possibly can and navigate through all of the rules, if you will, the written rules that are legal, and then the intangibles of navigating certain relationships. And so they have to be very careful in that regard.
And that's something that I wasn't fortunate enough to have. A parent or a family member that's been down the road before I did to tell me and sit me down, hey, you know what? This bad apple over here can make it miserable for you, can retaliate against you and just make earning a living very challenging. I didn't have that.
Yeah, yeah, Great advice. One practice that makes you a healthier, happier person. Roller skating, probably.
And just the more I'm away from work lately, the traveling, I really enjoy that. Taking small trips. There are places in California that I've. And so I've just been going to check out some of those spots and seeing different towns and stuff.
That really energizes me. Lately it's been my birthday party. I'm having a cowboy western theme. Oh, I love it.
And I've been putting in a lot of time into that. And I have been working on creating the space of where I am going to host experiential therapists. As I move into creating a safe space for people to train in psychodrama, I want the safe space for experiential therapists to hold trainings. So those are some projects that I've been working on.
That's amazing. Okay, so we're going to link all of your contact information. What's your website?
I have two. One of them is termination lawyer.com and my other one is it doesn't roll off the tongue so easily because I. It's new.
That's okay. It's a trial lawyer consultant, tech consultant dot com. And we'll link that, but that's where we can follow along. And what you're creating and doing, that's very exciting.
The world needs that medicine from you, Twilight. I'm glad that you're doing it.
Yes, thank you. As well as you. And I'm glad that you're doing what you do. And you're an inspiration because you found your purpose and you weren't afraid to lean into it and walk that path which a lot of times it's a very lost feeling.
I know that as I wind down to take a sabbatical and to develop and grow my next chapters, it is a scary feeling to move away from the More nuts and bolts. This is what I've always been doing for 25 years to okay, this is where I'm growing it and this is evolving to. It's a bit of fear attached to it.
There's fear. And it does take courage. It takes courage to follow the heart.
It really and truly does. It really, truly does. But I always said that when I don't enjoy it anymore, I won't do it. And fortunately I've been successful enough doing it the right way and the honest way.
No case is being fixed for me. I've practiced law the honest way and I feel proud of that, that I managed to accomplish what I have been to accomplish. Being honest and not having someone set up a case for me or rig the case or to fix it. It's been on my own accord and skill set and I wish that the system would focus on that more.
Yeah, yeah. So true. I do too. This has been amazing.
There's so much more that we could talk about. Thank you so much for spending the time with us and I can't wait to see what you're doing next.
Thank you. And I'm happy to come back if you ever want to chat more. I'm talking to you and I'm so excited. We finally connected.
Oh my God.
I know. Me too. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to today's episode of Mind Over Law.
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