Canada, Career Alternatives

The View From Up North: The Perfect Blend Of Law And Beauty

Columnist Steve Dykstra profiles Cià Gabriella Manes, who has two passions: practicing law and providing beauty and wellness advice.

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How would you like to provide your clients with fantastic legal advice and flawless skin? I often focus this column on lawyers who practice law full-time and do more interesting things in their spare time. But, it never really occurred to me that lawyers could blend a legal practice with another business and market them together—that is, until I came across Cià Gabriella Manes (pronounced Chia).

Cià has two passions: practicing law and providing beauty and wellness advice. She markets them together on a website called Per Cià Skincare. She bills it as a “Beauty and Law Bar”.

When I first came across this concept, I thought to myself, you’re selling legal services and beauty cream on the same website? Huh? That doesn’t make sense. Then I thought, why not? It’s not traditional, but innovation, by definition, breaks with tradition, right?

Per Cià Skincare is definitely not your grandfather’s law firm. Which, of course, made the lawyer in me wonder whether branding a law firm and a regular business under the same website breaches any rule of professional conduct. Cià said running the two businesses together does not raise any red flags for the Quebec Bar Association. So there you go.

A little bit about Cia’s background. She got her undergraduate from Concordia University in Biology and Psychology. After that she attended law school at the University of Montreal. Ever ambitious, she ran a beauty business while studying torts and contract law and other fun law school courses. After graduating, she worked for a number of reputable Biglaw firms, including Norton Rose and Eversheds. She practiced international law in London, England for several years, all while running her beauty business on the side.

After escaping Biglaw, she continued to practice law on the one hand and run the beauty business on the other. She saw a great deal of overlap. She would work with female law clients, for example, and at some point idle conversation would turn to fashion and beauty. Cià would explain she had a biology background and that she made her own beauty products. Suddenly her law client would be purchasing beauty products from her.

Last year, after many moons of running everything separately, Cià decided to blend the businesses. Now you can go to her website and get a wonderful juniper concoction to reduce wrinkles and have Cià help you divorce the albatross who’s been causing your frown lines for years. Two problems solved with one website.

Sponsored

It doesn’t necessarily make sense until you think about it holistically. Imagine being in a crappy relationship with a man you don’t necessarily love any more. You have two kids and a career. You feel overwhelmed trying to make everything work. You give to everyone else in your life, but don’t have enough time for yourself. Two kids have taken their toll on your body and you just don’t have the energy to get to the gym.

Midlife blahs, for sure.

Then along comes Cià. She uses her psychology background to help women with intimacy issues or who are struggling with weight problems. She provides beauty products that help her clients feel better about themselves, and counsels women who are in bad relationships on how to escape them.

Cià finds that clients often come to her for beauty advice and end up staying for legal advice, and vice versa. Cià says she really becomes a BFF for a lot of her clients, who trust her to help them through very personal, often painful, issues. And, it makes sense, because if you connect with her, and trust her, to help you through a divorce, for example, wouldn’t it also be natural to speak to her about intimacy issues, if you knew she could help you?

It’s a clever intersection of two businesses that appear to cross-market really well together. For the guys out there, Cià is happy to help you, also. But she says about 75% of her clients are women, which makes sense in light of her marketing strategy.

Sponsored

Cià is currently based in Montreal and London, England. She does a lot of her work virtually and meets clients face to face only occasionally (although that certainly can be arranged). She is targeting France as the next place she to which she really wants to market. She speaks English, French, and Italian, so Europe is her oyster.

Lawyers are so conservative. We practice in much the same way our forefathers did centuries ago. It’s the twenty-first century. Time for us to spread our wings; try new things. Cià is a great example of someone with a multi-disciplinary background who uses her whole education, not just her law degree, to benefit her clients. And, she loves both sides of her business.

Brava!

Hopefully the way she has married her passions gives some of you the motivation to try something non-traditional. Maybe lawyer-dog walker (WalksandWills.ca) or litigator-limo company (FrontSeatLawyer.ca).

Or how about this one: D&D.com, your divorce and dating website? You can use the site to turn in one spouse and get a head start on finding the next. Now that’s what I call one-stop shopping.

That’s the View From Up North. Have a great week.

Steve Dykstra is a Canadian-trained lawyer and legal recruiter. He is the President of Keybridge Legal Recruiting, a boutique recruitment firm that places lawyers in law firms and in-house roles throughout North America. You can contact Steve at steve@keybridgerecruiting.com. You can also read his blog at stevendykstra.wordpress.com, follow him on Twitter (@IMRecruitR), or connect on LinkedIn (ca.linkedin.com/in/stevedykstra/).

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