In-House Counsel

Individuality: Your Greatest Asset

My father once told me that the people who love me will find my accent charming, and the people who don’t aren’t worth changing for.

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“I kinda like your accent,” the speech therapist told me. “It’s light, and adds something to you.”

I appreciated her words but explained why I didn’t necessarily agree.

“American lawyers have been reading, writing, and arguing in English since kindergarten. In this profession, your hyper jurisdiction roots matter, and foreign LL.M. students are at a disadvantage. Just ask one and you will get a 50-page list of everything that’s unfair about the legal profession. I doubt that my accent will ever become an asset.”

“Eventually, you won’t have an accent,” the speech therapist countered. “If you want, I can help you pick up a British accent for credibility. Americans love it.” She laughed, sensing my insecurity.

I tried to imagine myself without my accent, but couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t be Olga anymore. The nuances of my accent testify to my true nature, my true self. My father once told me that the people who love me will find my accent charming, and the people who don’t aren’t worth changing for.

Since then, those words have echoed in my memories. I have always been Olga. Unfiltered and unmasked (metaphorically, of course, I have to point that out in COVID-19 times). I am not a customizable package, and I come as I am — every quirk and idiosyncrasy is part of the package.

Everyone either has or has had insecurities, and mine was my accent. Eventually, I came to realize that my value is not measured by how people react to me. My accent is a defining characteristic of who I am, and I am not willing to sacrifice to fit an image or to sound a certain way expected of me.

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Within the law profession — in pretty much any profession — it is easy to simply fit the look, walk the walk, talk the talk. To just become another suit, an archetypal lawyer with no distinguishing features. In the business world, we heavily emphasize the value of a USP — a unique selling point — because it makes a product more attractive and lucrative.

Surely, we would want the same for ourselves, right?

The values of many things are determined by their rarity, so it follows that the more original we are, the more valuable we are.

Our greatest asset is our individuality. Nobody can be you better than you can. Sure, everyone is made up of the same basic elements, but we are each a unique compound. You may have studied at the same university as me, worked as a general counsel, and been CEO of a tech start-up, but we will still be different because we are not defined by our elements, but by our essence.

Your essence refers to your character, personality, past, and so many more of the characteristics that are unique to you. There is a complex web of relationships between you and everything and everyone. It is a fingerprint of a sort.

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What I know for sure is that you will never regret being you. So, show up as yourself every time.

Olga V. Mack is the CEO of Parley Pro, a next-generation contract management company that has pioneered online negotiation technology. Olga embraces legal innovation and had dedicated her career to improving and shaping the future of law. She is convinced that the legal profession will emerge even stronger, more resilient, and more inclusive than before by embracing technology. Olga is also an award-winning general counsel, operations professional, startup advisor, public speaker, adjunct professor, and entrepreneur. She founded the Women Serve on Boards movement that advocates for women to participate on corporate boards of Fortune 500 companies. She authored Get on Board: Earning Your Ticket to a Corporate Board Seat and Fundamentals of Smart Contract Security. You can follow Olga on Twitter @olgavmack.

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