Trust Your Gut, Find Your Path: Kate Reder Sheikh's Brave Career Journey
Jen Porter (00:00)
Hey, Lioness, welcome to the show, Lioness Conversations, where we help women be brave, to lead with confidence and joy, and to find your path to the most meaningful work of your life. I'm your host, Jen Porter, leadership and empowerment coach for ambitious and heart-centered women who are on a mission to change the world. If you want to learn more about how to lead like a lioness, you can find out more at jenportercoach.com
Today's guest is Kate Reder Sheikh a former litigator turned partner at the world's largest legal search firm. Kate is fiercely committed to diversifying the legal profession, elevating lawyer moms into leadership and helping professionals align their careers with their deepest values. A proud mom of two, Kate calls San Francisco home. And she's here to share her bold journey of purpose, power, and impact. Kate, welcome to the show.
Kate Reder Sheikh (00:57)
Thanks so much for having me.
Jen Porter (00:59)
So tell us what you're working on right now. What's going on in your world?
Kate Reder Sheikh (01:05)
Well, it's a very turbulent time for law firms and my job is the basics of my job are that I help lawyers find new jobs. Lawyers at law firms to move to other law firms that will hopefully better align with their values, provide them the work-life balance they're looking for or the substantive work that may be lacking at their current job. And in this moment where the presidential administration is
striking deals with some law firms and in litigation with others, it's a very strange time to be sitting where I sit and also for my candidates. ⁓ So it's been an extraordinarily busy Q1 with a lot of people moving around because suddenly their firm doesn't feel like home to them anymore.
Jen Porter (01:55)
Wow, okay. And how are you helping them navigate that?
Kate Reder Sheikh (02:00)
It's always bespoke. There's no one size fits all approach to recruiting. When it's done well, it's matchmaking. So ⁓ I'm still placing people at all the same firms. It's just they may be making a values driven decision that's different than it would have been six months ago. And all I can do is what I consider the core of my job, which is I'm their sports agent, poorly trained therapist.
advocate, hype woman, ⁓ and that's sort of my job summed up. So I do that for everybody and people are just making different choices than they might have made before. Or for some people, political situation is sort of a non-factor and it's business as usual.
Jen Porter (02:47)
Mm-hmm. And you've called yourself a matchmaker. How does that work?
Kate Reder Sheikh (02:50)
Yes.
So I always say there's a lid for every pot. So firm A may very much not be for you. You may be seeking better balance. You may be seeking different substantive work than is available at firm A, but it might be just the right thing for your law school classmate. So for me, when I'm approached by somebody who's a little bit more formal, likes being in the office, ⁓ is focused on prestige, then there's a certain subsect of firms that's going to be
the right firms to be on a short list for that person. Whereas when somebody approaches me and said, I just had my second baby, I can't keep doing this at this pace. I want to be somewhere where there's community and people care about each other on a different level. And where work is not the only thing, there's a totally different list of firms for that person. And then we try to boil it down to what's the best fit.
Jen Porter (03:51)
So how many firms do you work with?
Kate Reder Sheikh (03:54)
my goodness. The number is large. ⁓ So law firms are ranked by the American lawyers. They're AmLaw rankings. I work with all of the AmLaw 200 firms that are in my region, which are in the Bay Area and then Denver and Boulder. ⁓ But I also work with a ton of tiny boutiques because that's what a lot of people want. So I work with boutiques down to like four people.
Jen Porter (04:21)
Wow. And so what are those boutiques offering that the big firms don't?
Kate Reder Sheikh (04:28)
One of the major things they're offering is a reduced billable hours requirement. So billable hours are sort of the building blocks of the law, frankly, and how people are compensated and how they're viewed internally. There are billable hour requirements at most firms and in big law, which are sort of the top top firms, the billable hour requirements generally range between
1900 and 2050, whereas at a boutique, they may be as low as 1600. So it can completely change the way somebody's days go, what goal they're shooting for.
Jen Porter (05:12)
That seems like it would be a game changer for somebody who doesn't feel like being in that industry is even sustainable, especially when they want to start a family. And now there are more options for those individuals.
Kate Reder Sheikh (05:25)
There are, they're gonna take a pay cut. ⁓ So that's a conversation we always have up front. I don't want somebody to fall in love with a firm and then realize they can't pay their mortgage or their kids' school fees or whatever the case may be. But that is sort of the cost benefit that they have to weigh. But I'm here with them every step of the way.
Jen Porter (05:27)
Yeah.
her.
And that's where the values conversation comes in.
Kate Reder Sheikh (05:51)
For sure, one of them. I think values come up all different times. A lot of people want to work at firms where there are more female partners or where there are more partners who look like them ⁓ or partners who are part of the queer community. So there's all different places where people's values are major drivers.
Jen Porter (06:13)
Yeah, and you used to be, I think you say you're a recovering litigator? Fully recovered. What did you have to recover from?
Kate Reder Sheikh (06:18)
Fully recovered. ⁓
You know, the kind of litigation I did. So I was a family lawyer for the LGBT community before the Obergefell decision legalizing gay marriage. And it was the wild, wild west. there were judges to whom I had to explain that it was legal for two women or two men to be in a romantic relationship. ⁓ I actually bought a book for a judge at one point, which was, I can't remember the name.
So and so has two mommies, Heather has two mommies because it was a parentage case determining legal parents of a child. And his questions had suggested strongly that he did not understand that that was sort of a concept that existed. So it was wild and it was very, very personal and opposing counsel behaved as it was personal.
Jen Porter (07:09)
Okay.
Kate Reder Sheikh (07:22)
Some of these questions were whether or not you had raised a child who was not genetically related to you from zero to 10 and suddenly the other parent is saying, this was just my roommate. You may end up never seeing that child again. So the stakes were sky high and it was misunderstood. So there was a lot of fighting.
Jen Porter (07:40)
Wow.
Okay.
Kate Reder Sheikh (07:49)
and I was good at it, but it was not good for me.
Jen Porter (07:53)
What kind of an impact did it have on you?
Kate Reder Sheikh (07:56)
I mean, ultimately the thing that drove me out of the law, besides the fact that my husband and I relocated internationally was that I got a call from a mandated reporter telling me that a former opposing party had ideations of running me over with his car and had gone so far as to figure out where I lived. And, you know, my husband, then my fiance and I kind of looked at each other and we're like, is this, this is not it. This is.
Jen Porter (08:16)
⁓ wow.
⁓
God.
Kate Reder Sheikh (08:25)
This is
not where we should be, it just, I am not built to fight with people all the time. It was ultimately very wearing on me to have clients crying in my office on a regular basis. Again, I'm not trained as a therapist and that's what was really required in a lot of these cases.
Jen Porter (08:37)
Mm-hmm.
Wow, wow. It sounds really stressful and like wild, wild west and ⁓ just very complex issues that you're dealing with.
Kate Reder Sheikh (08:59)
I'm really proud that I did it and I feel like it was a really important time for people to be stepping in and frankly, unfortunately, I might have gotten more respect from judges because I'm not a part of the community and therefore was sort of an outsider. But I had multiple clients commit suicide over my nine year career. It was just very worrying.
Jen Porter (09:01)
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Kate Reder Sheikh (09:24)
But obviously, the bigger deal was for their families and their friends. It didn't primarily impact me, but by golly, it did impact me. Yeah.
Jen Porter (09:29)
Of course.
That's a lot, that's a lot.
So you were already considering making a transition out of the legal industry in a sense, and then your fiancee husband got a job overseas. So what was that transition like?
Kate Reder Sheikh (09:42)
That's correct.
It was wild. So I moved to Singapore having never been there before. And I remember the first night we got there, we, my husband's baggage hadn't arrived and so he didn't have any shorts. And so we were kind of in one of the main shopping areas of Singapore and it was probably 98 degrees and it was like 9pm. And
humid as all get out and we were walking across the street and I was like, what was that? I was thinking like maybe a car exhaust had just hit me and it was literally just hot wind that I had never felt before. ⁓ I'm not built for it. I'm a San Francisco girl born and raised. So it was a very hot and sweaty year. It was a real adjustment for me to suddenly not.
Jen Porter (10:37)
Okay.
Kate Reder Sheikh (10:42)
really be working. I was working remotely as counsel for my firm, but the time difference is galling. ⁓
Jen Porter (10:51)
So you were still with
your firm when you moved to Singapore?
Kate Reder Sheikh (10:54)
I was part-time with my firm and I was waking up at like four o'clock in the morning to do a couple hours work that would overlap with the West Coast and then going back to sleep. And it was super unsustainable. So at some point I parted ways while we were in Singapore, but as a trailing spouse, I wasn't able to get, I hate that term, but it's what I technically was. ⁓ I wasn't able to get a work visa in Singapore.
Jen Porter (10:56)
Okay.
⁓
Kate Reder Sheikh (11:23)
And that's sort of by design in Singapore. They would prefer that the wife or the female partner not be working, at least at the time that was the case.
Jen Porter (11:32)
I see. Yeah.
And what was your husband doing?
Kate Reder Sheikh (11:37)
So my husband was working in sustainability, climate related sustainability.
Jen Porter (11:43)
Okay, so you two were just there for a year. And what was that year like for you? So, climate's completely different. You're not working suddenly. Well, okay, you're working part-time, you're transitioning out. And so suddenly, I'm sure you're a pretty career-driven woman. And so, to not be working, what was that like for you? And then what was life like? What were your days like in Singapore?
Kate Reder Sheikh (12:02)
Yes, ma'am.
I was bored out of my gourd. I really was. I did get into the best shape of my life. I was playing tennis once or twice a day and hitting the gym. My husband came home to multi-course dinners every night, and that is a fine choice for a lot of spouses, male or female, right? But not me, I'm not built that way. I mean, I read a lot of books.
Jen Porter (12:15)
Ha ha ha!
Well...
Yeah.
Kate Reder Sheikh (12:40)
But
I'm not built to have that much free time. I have a little too much of the professional fire in me. I think you can have all different kinds of fire in you and maybe raising your kids and being a stay at home parent is the thing that fires you up. For me, I really enjoy having purpose at work.
Jen Porter (13:02)
And so, yeah, I would imagine it was disorienting not to have that specific kind of purpose during your time there.
Kate Reder Sheikh (13:12)
It was, and it was also strange to suddenly be completely financially reliant on my fiance. It was pretty uncomfortable for me. ⁓
Jen Porter (13:18)
Really uncomfortable, isn't it?
What did you
discover about yourself during that time? Because it was so probably atypical for your life.
Kate Reder Sheikh (13:30)
It was totally crazy and we got married right after we left Singapore. I will tell you everything at my wedding was handmade because I had nothing but time. So the streamers, I made a sign that said Mr. And Mrs. Shake. ⁓ Our wedding was kind of book themed. I'm a really big reader. And so our wedding tables were a book. The wedding table was, you know.
Jen Porter (13:55)
Hmm.
Kate Reder Sheikh (13:59)
The interestings and so all of my college friends were the people who I considered the interesting thing, the interestings, which is a book that I love. And so every place card had a bookmark that was hand stamped with their full name. And I not only made the bookmarks attached ribbons to them and I hand stamped the names of our 150 guests. I was trying to find purpose.
Jen Porter (14:22)
You had time.
Kate Reder Sheikh (14:28)
But I couldn't be politically active there either, because that would have endangered my husband's work visa. It was at that time, and I think still is, illegal for, for instance, the same sex couple to hold hands on the street. ⁓ I would have loved to have been working on that as somebody for whom queer rights have always been deeply important, but that was not available to me. So I hand stamped those place cards.
Jen Porter (14:39)
Okay.
And so what else did you learn about yourself during that time?
Kate Reder Sheikh (14:56)
I definitely learned I'm not somebody who wishes to be a stay at home spouse or parent. And that was really valuable.
Jen Porter (15:02)
Yeah.
Jen Porter (15:04)
okay, we had a little technical difficulty there, but we're back online. So you were telling me that things that you've learned in Singapore is one, you had all this time on your hands and you were looking for purpose, which you typically find in the professional realm. And you realized that you personally don't want to be a stay at home mom. And that was really valuable to learn that. What else were you discovering about yourself during that really unique time of your life?
Kate Reder Sheikh (15:30)
I'm an extremely political person. so being somewhere where I could not be politically active was really challenging for me. ⁓ I'm somebody who's knocking on doors. I wrote 500 vote forward postcards to voters, ⁓ this election cycle, I do phone banking. ⁓ So being somewhere where there were political things that I did not care for and did not
think were equitable and not being able to do anything was really frustrating because that's a really core part of my identity is I'm extraordinarily political.
Jen Porter (16:06)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. What year were you in Singapore?
Kate Reder Sheikh (16:15)
2014.
Jen Porter (16:16)
Okay. And so did that have an impact on you? Like physically, emotionally, relationally?
Kate Reder Sheikh (16:25)
I just felt a little rudderless the whole time between not being able to work and then suddenly doing like kind of tradwife things. Like suddenly, ⁓ you know, hand stamping name cards and nobody in my family's gluten-free, but suddenly I was finding the best gluten-free cookie recipes because I just literally needed something to do.
Jen Porter (16:27)
No.
and and her.
Yeah.
Kate Reder Sheikh (16:51)
needing to fill time with such a foreign feeling to me and it was definitely not peak mental health, I'll tell you that much.
Jen Porter (16:58)
Okay,
and then what was it like not to be ⁓ lawyering?
Kate Reder Sheikh (17:05)
I ultimately found it was a huge relief. And so that was a real come to Jesus moment ⁓ of, gosh, you know, I had sort of thought I would just, you know, when we're, especially when you go to grad school, in my case, law school, and you spend so much time devoted to educating yourself to do this one job, it doesn't even really occur to you to stop. You know, I thought what
Jen Porter (17:07)
It was a relief.
Kate Reder Sheikh (17:34)
What other marketable skills do I have? This is what I've trained for my whole life, you know? And so that also contributed to feeling rudderless, but ultimately it was one of the best things, certainly the best thing professionally that's ever happened to me.
Jen Porter (17:50)
It's one of those things I would imagine that in the middle of it, it sucks. It's so painful, it's so disorienting, it's scary. And yet it's the thing that's required in order to make the big change. And are you happier on the other side of that?
Kate Reder Sheikh (17:57)
Mm-hmm.
Truly.
my God, I love my job. I love my job. I could have never imagined loving a job as much as I do. ⁓ I genuinely feel like I help people. If I'm ever having a bad day, I have a hundred reviews on LinkedIn of people saying how much I help them and change their lives. I'll go back and read those because they put the pep back in my step. ⁓
Jen Porter (18:16)
Wow.
Kate Reder Sheikh (18:32)
It would have never occurred to me to have this level of career satisfaction and it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been unable to work and I had to pick my head up and go, oh yeah, this isn't for me anymore.
Jen Porter (18:45)
It's so interesting that you're the way that that happened for you was really unique. Usually it happens because someone gets laid off or fired or they make a decision, but you know, or they take time off. But honestly, the people that actually take the time off intentionally are so rare because we're so stuck in our boxes of this is what we're supposed to do. And so it takes a severing of something.
Kate Reder Sheikh (19:05)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Jen Porter (19:15)
in order to make a real transition, unless I call them very brave steps. Like if somebody takes a sabbatical or takes some time off, to me that is incredibly brave and that is a very grounded person that has the confidence to do that because most people won't.
Kate Reder Sheikh (19:15)
That's right.
Mm-hmm.
I think that's right. And actually my husband took a sabbatical a couple of years ago and it was really surprising because he has always been sort of as driven as I am, if not more, by his career. But there was some family stuff going on that required it. And he found he was delighted by it. And I would have never expected that. He's this like very hard, hard charging MBA, but I think it's proof of concept.
Jen Porter (19:48)
Yeah.
Kate Reder Sheikh (19:59)
that it can be the best possible thing for you.
Jen Porter (20:02)
So I want
to hear more about that, but let's follow the timeline. So Singapore, did you know you were going to be there for only a year?
Kate Reder Sheikh (20:05)
Mm-hmm.
My husband would have liked to stay longer. I was just so tired of being sweaty.
Jen Porter (20:14)
So you decided, hey, we need to do something different.
Kate Reder Sheikh (20:17)
Well, he received, so he was running APAC for his company out of Singapore, Asia Pacific. And then he was promoted to EMEA. So basically ⁓ everything. And that ran out of London. So he received that promotion offer. I had lived in London when I was in college. It's my favorite city on earth. I did a semester at LSE.
Jen Porter (20:23)
Asia Pacific, right? Asia Pacific.
Europe, Middle East, Africa
Okay.
Really?
Kate Reder Sheikh (20:47)
London School of Economics. And so I, well, I took classes there. It's a little more complicated than that, but I was so fired up about going back to London. So I was thrilled when that became available to us and he had not spent that much time in London. He also had a job offer in Berlin.
Jen Porter (21:00)
I bet.
Kate Reder Sheikh (21:14)
I don't speak German. I didn't see how I was going to be able to get back to work in a German speaking country. He's a German citizen. So that would have made a lot of sense too. But we decided to go to London and it was one of the best decisions we've ever made.
Jen Porter (21:30)
How long were you there?
Kate Reder Sheikh (21:32)
Two and a half years.
Jen Porter (21:33)
and you were able to work there, what was different for you?
Kate Reder Sheikh (21:37)
Yes. So I was able to work there as part of his visa, which was sponsored by his company and his immigration lawyers at his company hooked me up as well as hooking him up. ⁓ and I thought, you know, I'm just going to do something law adjacent. ⁓ and then I'll go back to practicing law. was still in that mindset because it's so hard when you have
Jen Porter (21:41)
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Kate Reder Sheikh (22:04)
gone to law school, taken the California bar, which is one of the two hardest bars in the country, practiced for almost a decade. It's hard to think what else you would do. It's just such a narrow path. ⁓ And it's very easy to think that there's just nothing else to do besides being a lawyer when you've gone to all that trouble. ⁓ So I looked at law firm marketing jobs, and then I had my first interview as
Jen Porter (22:09)
Okay.
Kate Reder Sheikh (22:32)
to be a legal recruiter, and it was as close to love as first sight as you can have in your career. I was like, wait, this is a job? I can talk to really smart lawyers all day and I can help them find something that makes them happier, and it's lucrative, and the schedule's fairly flexible, and wait, what? It was just like such a revelation to me, and I have never looked back.
Jen Porter (22:38)
Really?
You
Hahaha!
How did you get connected with that?
Kate Reder Sheikh (23:04)
So in London, there are actually recruiters for recruiting. So they're called Rec2Rex. And I had posted my resume somewhere and a Rec2Rex saw it and thought, huh, that's kind of an interesting background for a legal recruiter. Contacted me, set me up with all kinds of interviews, got a few offers, accepted one of them and was off to the races.
Jen Porter (23:10)
Yeah. Okay.
So was that, I would imagine that ego is a little, like it would show up sometimes because you're used to being that person and now you're not, people don't necessarily know your background. And so how did you work through some of that?
Kate Reder Sheikh (23:47)
Mm-hmm.
That's so intuitive of you to track that. ⁓ It was really hard at first. Suddenly, like 24 year olds were hanging up on me. And I was thinking like, don't you know that I was like a pretty trailblazing gay rights lawyer in San Francisco? No, they don't know that and they don't care and it's not relevant to their day and they are busy. ⁓ It did feel like a punch in the gut.
Jen Porter (24:03)
Okay.
Kate Reder Sheikh (24:27)
especially when I started. But I just took it on the chin and I kept going and I think I felt just intuitively that this was potentially the rest of my career. And I was right. I would never not do this by choice.
Jen Porter (24:46)
So how did you
adapt when, you know, because it's not like the ego just goes away. So did you find a way to gain respect in those initial calls? Is there something that you did practically that was different to help people understand they need to stay on the phone with you?
Kate Reder Sheikh (25:05)
I just think I learned my style that was innate to me. And I wasn't, you I was just on an open sales floor with a bunch of primarily dudes who'd been recruiting for a really long time, you know, really like pinky ring wearing.
Jen Porter (25:08)
Mm-hmm.
Kate Reder Sheikh (25:26)
high privilege way. And I had to not do what they were doing, I had to do me. And so I became the kind of ball busting, brassy, American chick recruiter in London. I'm sure there's more than just me, but I had to do what was natural to me and not try to copy these men with pinky rings.
Jen Porter (25:27)
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, how did that work out for you within the office?
Kate Reder Sheikh (25:56)
There was definitely some sort of what is she doing until I started bringing in a lot of really big deals. And then they realized maybe there's more than one way to do this.
Jen Porter (26:05)
Okay.
So were you making friends in the office? Were those close relationships that you had?
Kate Reder Sheikh (26:13)
Yes.
Yes, actually, my best friend in London, Jacob was a researcher on another team in my office. I also became very close friends with another colleague named Anna. When you're living abroad and you don't have kids, one of the easiest ways to make friends is through work. I mean, Jacob remains one of my dearest friends to this day. We go to London at least once a year and
Uncle Jacob takes my kids on Ferris wheels and you know, it's a really special thing. So I did make friends and that was scandalous too because I was a 35 year old woman and my best friend was a 26 year old man who was not of my status in that he wasn't a recruiter, he was a researcher and there was pushback on that, but too bad.
Jen Porter (27:11)
You know, the things that we've talked about already required a lot of bravery. mean, everything that you've talked about was you being brave. Did it feel that way for you or did it feel just, this is just what I'm going to do? It felt really natural.
Kate Reder Sheikh (27:27)
It felt pretty natural because honestly it took some bravery to be a straight woman majoring in queer studies. And then it took some bravery to be a straight woman doing that work and for anybody to be doing that work at the time that I was doing it. So I'm not saying I'm like a magically brave person, but I think I do have that speed of just like, let's go.
Jen Porter (27:37)
Yeah.
Yeah.
And where did that emerge? Like, do you remember as a girl, the first times you had to, that you were brave, that you chose to be courageous?
Kate Reder Sheikh (28:00)
So I was bullied very, very badly when I was in middle school. Stuff that would get kids expelled now. I had my hair set on fire with a Bunsen burner. I was pantsed in front of the entire school, including my underwear when I was giving a student council speech. I was capital B bullied. And that's actually how I became a queer studies major is it felt to me that like heteronormativity was the bully.
And I had a mentor in high school, Travis Brownlee, who was a queer woman who was not able to adopt children at the time legally. And I ended up processing her adoption of her children when I became a lawyer. So for me, it's all connected. When you have struggles, when you're younger, you have to locate a backbone or you're not going to get through it. And so.
I did, I mean, with a ton of support from my family, especially. My mom was there every minute of it. But yeah, you have to create a little bit of a hard candy shell, so I did.
Jen Porter (29:15)
goodness. I do find that women, I mean that's who I'm interviewing, women become brave for others because they've had to be brave for themselves first. You know it's that thing where we can't really offer anybody else what we haven't experienced or been through? If we don't have it within ourselves we can't give it away.
Kate Reder Sheikh (29:20)
Mm-hmm.
I think.
Hmm.
that resonates for sure.
Jen Porter (29:40)
And
that's what I'm hearing is you had, ⁓ all this was coming against you, really horrific things. And so then you began serving a population where horrible things were being done and said and taken away from them.
Kate Reder Sheikh (29:58)
on a totally different scale, right? mean, seventh grade bullying is not the same thing as basically being told you're subhuman. ⁓ So I wouldn't comp it necessarily, but it certainly led me down the
Jen Porter (30:01)
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it started, it has to start somewhere. Compassion starts somewhere, empathy, wanting to protect others.
Kate Reder Sheikh (30:20)
Yeah,
my legal career was never about helping me.
Jen Porter (30:26)
Say more about that.
Kate Reder Sheikh (30:28)
It was always about helping a community that was underserved at the time and misunderstood. And, ⁓ that was really important to me. I wouldn't have gone to be a mergers and acquisitions lawyer. That would never have been, that wouldn't have scratched my itch.
Jen Porter (30:44)
Mm-hmm. You've always been an activist in a sense. Yeah. And so how are you being an activist now in your work? Because I've heard you talk about the advocacy that you do, how important that is. So tell us how you're able to take that activist muscle and really use it now.
Kate Reder Sheikh (30:48)
I have.
So one thing that I've done that's been really productive for my candidates is I've developed really, really close relationships with a lot of law firms such that like chief talent officers at major firms say, hey, if the recruiting manager says no to one of your candidates and you think we should interview them, send the resume to me and I'll take care of it. It has empowered me to really push for candidates who might not get a second look, who, you know,
may have gone to the University of Topeka Law School. I don't think that law school exists. ⁓ If it does, I apologize, but may have gone to an unranked law school or super far down the list. ⁓ And they may have grown up picking strawberries in a field in central California. And during their summers, they didn't have fancy internships because they were helping their parents on the field. This is an actual candidate I worked with.
who'd gone to a lesser viewed law school and was a first generation college graduate and a first generation professional. ⁓ I pushed and I pushed and I pushed and I pushed and he is at one of the best law firms in the world.
That was really important to me. I also work with, especially my female candidates, to talk about how to not undersell themselves, which is a chronic problem. It's a really big one. know, people are like, I hesitate to say that I was the head of moot court, or I hesitate to talk about the fact that I had a Fulbright. And I'm like, ma'am, shout it from the rooftops.
Jen Porter (32:35)
Yeah, tell us about that. That's a big one.
Kate Reder Sheikh (32:54)
let's do a mock interview, we're gonna talk about how to package the narrative in a way that feels comfortable to you, but those are facts people need to have. ⁓ So it's extra prep that I end up often doing with women, especially first generation female associates, but also first generation male associates, ⁓ to make sure that they are not underselling themselves because other candidates will not hesitate to oversell themselves. So I wanna make sure that they know that.
Jen Porter (33:19)
Mm-hmm.
How do you discern capability amidst all of that?
Kate Reder Sheikh (33:27)
I mean, I have really long, intense conversations with my candidates before I'll submit them anywhere. And that's where I'm really aided by the fact that I practiced for a long time and went to law school and was on a law review and did all the things ⁓ because I can kind of talk the talk. And so I can tell if somebody can walk the walk.
Jen Porter (33:51)
Do you measure success over time of, cause like, so I was in recruiting and that was my first career. And there was always this, I guess desire to really want, you know, it's one thing to, make a placement. It's another thing to follow that placement over time and determine how are they performing. And even internally, that's, that's not always easy to do to connect. ⁓ I'll call it like.
Kate Reder Sheikh (33:58)
Mm-hmm.
Jen Porter (34:19)
HR business partners and the data that they have with recruiting and the data that we have because there's so much confidentiality. They don't want necessarily those things to those even those systems to talk. So how do how do how have you done that over time? Because you want your reputation matters a lot and you want to make sure that anybody that you recommend much less place is going to be a superstar.
Kate Reder Sheikh (34:21)
Mm-hmm.
for sure.
Yep. So I'll, I'll tell you that I've learned to trust my gut. Um, if I get red flags from somebody nine times out of 10, I will not represent them. I have sort of honed the questions to ask to make sure that they're in good standing and haven't been let go. Or if they've been let go, I want to understand why. Um, I obviously would never breach confidentiality. So I'm not like talking to their former firm or anything.
Jen Porter (34:55)
Mm-hmm.
Kate Reder Sheikh (35:11)
crazy like that, but I've gotten a pretty good nose for what's real and what's not at this point. Having been in this career for almost 10 years, I started in May 2015. ⁓ And so I trust myself. And I think in a lot of professions, the more you do, the more reps you have, ⁓ the more you can trust yourself. I mean, I can give you some anecdotes.
Two of my favorite placements ever, and I've made hundreds. ⁓ One is a woman named Courtney, who I recently placed at a plaintiffs firm in San Francisco. Again, lid for every pot. This was exactly the right thing for her. She had been having a ton of imposter syndrome at her previous firm. And she wrote me probably four weeks into it and just said, like, I can't thank you enough. The client called the partner to say what a good job I'm doing.
I wake up in the morning excited to do this work. This is my calling. I never would have found it. I mean, that brings me to tears when I read it, right? And then in the 2021 was like a crazy boom year for recruiting. mean, recruiters, I was working 10 hours a day and I could have worked way more than that. And I had two very little kids at the time. But I placed this gentleman named Peter who came from a pretty small firm.
to an Amlaw Five firm, which are like the most profitable firms in the world. ⁓ And he is their superstar associate now. He had gone to a law school that's not ranked in the top 50. ⁓ He had visa issues. He now has a green card. ⁓ He is the superstar of his class. And that firm would never have taken a chance on him if I hadn't pushed.
But I trusted my gut that this kid was good and he's literally the best at one of the best firms in the world.
Jen Porter (37:14)
You brought up two things that I find every day that people, women struggle with, trusting themselves and imposter syndrome and they're completely connected. So how have you learned to trust yourself or have you been the person that's always like, you just always trusted yourself that's developed over time?
Kate Reder Sheikh (37:24)
Totally.
It has absolutely developed over time. And I will tell you that I have found success as a recruiter that I've never had in any other area of my life. Like I was a good student, but I wasn't the best student. I went to great schools, but I didn't go to the fanciest schools in terms of like college and law school. whereas my sister is your type a hyper achiever, Ivy league, you know, she's just.
Jen Porter (37:54)
Mm-hmm.
Kate Reder Sheikh (38:07)
things came more easily to her and, you know, were built different and she's incredible. Finding my footing as a recruiter has really filled what was kind of a hole for me. I had a really severe learning disability related to math. And it wasn't properly managed by the schools that I attended, even though I attended like the best possible.
elementary and high school in San Francisco. and so there was a part of me that just thought maybe I wasn't that bright because it was never named and I was a really good lawyer, but I wasn't like world's best lawyer. just, I hadn't felt, found anything that I was the best at until this. And it has been so meaningful to me.
Um, I'm lucky enough that I've been the number one associate recruiter globally at MLA since 2019. Um, during which time, you know, I had a baby in 2019, right? So it's not as if I had, I didn't even work a full year. Um, but I've just been able to find, I found my thing and that's what I want for everybody. And that's what I want for my candidates. I found my thing.
Jen Porter (39:15)
Wow.
Yes, that's
what I want too, for women to find their mission and to step into it. So we haven't talked about the disability that developed in 2021. What happened there?
Kate Reder Sheikh (39:29)
Yes.
Yeah.
So I very suddenly developed nerve damage in my corneas, which has led to a severe chronic pain condition for which I've had, you know, inpatient hospital stays for clinical studies. I've seen pain management at UCSF. I've seen pain management at Stanford. I've seen every, I've flown to Boston. There's a specialist at Tufts. ⁓ I am in pain.
I am in physical pain. I would say if not most minutes of every day, two thirds of the minutes of every day, I feel some level of physical pain and it gets worse as the day goes on. It's worse if I'm in a place with low humidity. So recently we took our kids to a dude ranch in Arizona for ski week and that was actual torture. But you do what you got to do for your kids, right? You just bring a really big humidifier and you sit in the room more than you may want to.
Um, I have learned to cope with it, but in 2021, I, I developed in October, 2021, the busiest recruiting year on record. And I just had felt like I just had to keep going, but I kind of shut down emotionally for a while.
Jen Porter (41:05)
because the pain was so immense.
Kate Reder Sheikh (41:08)
The pain was so immense, there wasn't a reason for it. There aren't really treatments for what I have. ⁓ There's a new eye drop that helps me that was approved by the FDA maybe like six months ago, thank God. I wear these gigantic hard plastic lenses that cover most of the surface of my eye and are filled with cold saline solution. And that is really helpful, but I tried every
pain drug, had procedures on my brain, one of which resulted in like stroke-like symptoms where I was babbling in front of my kids. thought I was saying, mommy's okay, I'll be right with you. But I was saying like, schnarpey lorps, Nicky. So my husband called my sister and she drove me straight to the emergency room and he stayed home with the kids. It has been a real journey. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
But I've also found coping strategies, including acceptance and commitment therapy, which is acknowledging that this is a thing that is happening, but not letting it take the joy out of your life. I did let it take the joy out of my life for about a year and a half.
Jen Porter (42:21)
Wow.
Mm-hmm. I think anybody would have. Wow. Okay, so this commitment, say that again, commitment, acceptance and commitment therapy. So conceptually, I am tracking with what that must be and how powerful it must be, but explain that.
Kate Reder Sheikh (42:33)
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
So it's basically like I can wake up and think, oh, my eyes already hurt. It's going to be a really bad day. Gosh darn it. Or I can wake up and think, all I can know right now is that my eyes hurt right now, but I might have a totally fine day. I might have a bad day. I can't know. It's just a thought. I'm going to watch that thought float through and I'm going to get up and make oatmeal for my kids and get them out the door and...
It has helped me to not attach to the negative of this is how it's always going to be. ⁓ and not get too rattled when, you know, I have like a really bad flare up. This isn't going to last forever. The idea that it's going to last forever is just a thought and I'm going to watch it move by.
Jen Porter (43:27)
Hmm.
And you got professional help with that or is that something you did on your own?
Kate Reder Sheikh (43:38)
It's part of a pain management therapy module that I was doing at Stanford with their pain management psychologists.
Jen Porter (43:41)
Bye. Yeah.
Wow. Wow. And so I would imagine it's, you can apply that to everything in your life.
Kate Reder Sheikh (43:55)
100%. 100%. In fact, I had a recruiter comment on one of my posts on LinkedIn. I'm very active on LinkedIn because that's my job. And I was talking about people, how they respond to layoffs and sort of coping techniques. I wrote an article about it with a therapist in Los Angeles who I've become friendly with. It was in Law 360, I think.
Jen Porter (44:05)
Mm-hmm.
Kate Reder Sheikh (44:22)
He wrote, you know, I always tell people to look into acceptance and commitment therapy when they are laid off because it helps you to process it without things being entirely scary all the time. ⁓ so it's totally applicable to so many things in our lives. And if you want to look into acceptance and commitment therapy, there's some great workbooks you can just get on Amazon. So that's where I started. Do you mind if I stand up?
Jen Porter (44:47)
with that title, just search by acceptance and
no.
Kate Reder Sheikh (44:52)
⁓ So for me, it was the pain management workbook. I also have one called Managing Your Pain Before It Manages You. And I have, do you mind if I stand up? One more over here. This is the more general one. ⁓
Jen Porter (44:59)
Okay.
Go for it. Yeah.
Kate Reder Sheikh (45:15)
living beyond your pain, using acceptance and commitment therapy to ease chronic pain. This has been the one that's been most helpful for me. But honestly, the tools in here are not just for pain. ⁓ The tools are for any rough moment in your life. There's also a book, yeah, any suffering. There's also a book called When Life Hits You Hard, which is basically a beginner's guide. ⁓ That's also available on Amazon and that's been really helpful to me as well.
Jen Porter (45:23)
time.
Right.
in suffering.
And so the pain has been consistent since it developed in 2021 and then you have found ways to cope except...
Kate Reder Sheikh (45:57)
Yep. Yeah. But there's no other choice, right? You just have to keep going. I don't mean to sound ableist in doing that. There are some people who have conditions where they can't keep going. Luckily enough with mine, I can with enough grit and support and...
Jen Porter (45:59)
Wow.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Kate Reder Sheikh (46:22)
and a few medicines that have worked. And all I'm on right now is eye drops, but I've I trialed 38 different medications.
Jen Porter (46:31)
Wow, incredible. ⁓ That's gonna be inspiring for our listeners. Because people are dealing with a lot of stuff.
Kate Reder Sheikh (46:37)
I hope so.
Man, are we all dealing with a lot of stuff. Everybody's got something.
Jen Porter (46:44)
Yeah.
You know, before we wrap up, want to make sure we talk about moms because you're really passionate about helping moms, particularly lawyer moms. How do you, how do you do that?
Kate Reder Sheikh (46:49)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Well, part of it is by encouraging them to find something that's going to actually work for them. So I place a lot of moms at smaller firms. That's not every mom's choice by any stretch of the imagination. Two of my closest friends are moms who are partners at Kekker Van Est, which is probably the most well-regarded high-powered litigation boutique on the West Coast. How they do it, I couldn't begin to guess.
They're incredible and that's the choice they've made and I'm so proud of them. Shout out to Erin Meyer and Sophie Hood. ⁓ But I do think for a lot of moms, especially with young kids, moms are treated differently, right? ⁓ That is a fact. I wish it wasn't a fact, but it is. ⁓ And the expectations are that we will be the default parent. I really like to...
throw that one all the way into the ocean and let it sink forever, but that is often what happens. I will also note that moms are penalized for taking maternity leave in a lot of cases. They may be pushed out a year to be considered for partnership. They may be talked down to when they return. They may not receive a full bonus for prorated hours the way that somebody returning from a different medical leave.
might receive. ⁓ One of the things I believe in strongly is that partner, non-birthing partners need to take parental leave equal to the parental leave of the birthing parent because that's where a lot of it starts. Suddenly the birthing parent is the only one who knows how to calm down the baby and becomes the default because the other parent is already back at work. My husband was back at work eight days after our son was born.
Jen Porter (48:39)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Kate Reder Sheikh (48:54)
because it was a new job and he felt like he really had to. Our son was still in the NICU when he went back to work. And no judgment, like he did what he needed to do. But it creates a system where some men will weaponize, weaponizing competence of, oh, I'm not gonna change a diaper, you're just so much better at it than I am.
Jen Porter (49:00)
Wow.
Yeah.
Kate Reder Sheikh (49:24)
I don't wanna take him to the pediatrician because I don't know all the things you know because you're home with him all day. ⁓ My husband is not like that, but I know a lot of husbands who are. And that creates a system where mom is just always gonna be the default and that is not helping women get ahead. ⁓ I recently wrote an article about how moms and Big Law can make staying together work. ⁓
Jen Porter (49:29)
huh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Kate Reder Sheikh (49:53)
recently in an American lawyer. And I will always prep moms on how to talk about their kids in interview if they choose to. I have different prep now than I used to, to be honest, because it's verboten to talk about the fact that you have children or a life outside of work. But I do still think it's something that needs to be carefully addressed before somebody steps into.
Jen Porter (50:14)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Kate Reder Sheikh (50:23)
that discussion.
Jen Porter (50:25)
Do women come to you who are considering leaving their jobs altogether and are looking for, okay, is there anything else that I can do else I might just need to step out completely?
Kate Reder Sheikh (50:38)
Yeah, in fact, one of my colleagues at MLA came to me as a mom of two, now of three, who was a senior associate at a big fancy law firm and was like, ⁓ I don't see my kids. This isn't working for me. I don't know what to do. She's now my colleague in the San Francisco market. She became a legal recruiter. ⁓ There are all kinds of offerings you can take if you're willing to look at them.
Jen Porter (51:05)
Yeah,
yeah, incredible. Incredible the work that you get to do, the conversations you get to have. So if people want to reach out to you and follow you and follow what you're talking about and some of these articles that you're putting out and the posts that you're doing, how do they, is it Kate Rader Shake on LinkedIn or just search for you?
Kate Reder Sheikh (51:11)
I'm so lucky.
It is, it's
Kate Reder Sheikh on LinkedIn. It's R-E-D-E-R-S-H-E-I-K-H. You can also just, at this point, can Google me, because I write so much. So I'll be able to find a lot of my writings and my other podcast appearances that way. I'm also on Blue Sky, I think, as Kate Reder Sheikh I left Twitter.
Jen Porter (51:42)
Okay.
Awesome.
Okay.
Kate Reder Sheikh (51:55)
⁓ But LinkedIn is where I'm most active and where my posts are a mix of professional and somewhat personal because I believe in the value and power of
Jen Porter (52:09)
Agreed, agreed. Yeah, I love your story. I know it's going to be really inspiring for others. You've been through a lot and you've found your way in really remarkable ways that I think will give hope to others that they don't have to stay stuck in what they're doing. They can actually explore what they're created for.
And it's figuring out, making the connections to figure out where they can do that work or start their own. I have a lot of clients who are entrepreneurs. what do you want to do? What's your mission? And how do we find the path for you to get there? I'm so glad that you found yours.
Kate Reder Sheikh (52:39)
Mm-hmm. It's awesome.
Thank you so much, I really appreciate it.
Jen Porter (52:49)
So if anybody wants to find Kate, you can find her at Kate Reder Sheikh ⁓ on, just Google her and it'll all come up. And then if you want to learn more about becoming a lioness, you know, how to be brave, how to find your mission, you can find out more at jenportercoach.com and what's happening inside the lioness community. Also, if you know, if you or someone that you know wants to be a lioness, wants to be considered for the show,
please reach out to me. In the meantime, the lioness in me sees the lioness in you.
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