Katy Mickelson: Family Law, Mediation, And The Business Of Divorce

Voiceover: Welcome to the 1958 Lawyer, the show for attorneys who know the old model isn’t working anymore. The billable hour, the 12-hour day, the expensive office no one visits. Your hosts, Ron Bockstahler and Clinton End, are here to question all of that and more by exploring smarter, healthier, more flexible ways to run a law firm. No more burnout. No more outdated expectations. Just real conversations with attorneys who are proving there’s a better way. If you’re ready to build a law firm that’s profitable and livable, you’re in the right place. Now here are your hosts, Ron and Clinton.

Ron Bockstahler: Welcome to the 1958 Lawyer, the podcast about the business of law. I’m your host Ron Bockstahler, along with my partner Clinton End. 1950. Hey, yeah. In 1958, the ABA published an article that sparked the birth of the billable hour, and the legal profession hasn’t looked back since. This show is about what comes next. Each episode, we sit down with attorneys, business leaders, and the people who support them to talk honestly about what it takes to build a law practice that’s not just successful but sustainable. All right, let’s get into it, Clint. We got an amazing guest today. Very excited, Katie Michaelson. I’ve known Katie for several years, but I really didn’t know much about Katie until I did a little research for this show. Katie Michaelson, a family law equity partner at Bierman LLP, where she has worked for nearly two decades, making her the only partner at the firm who started there as a law clerk. We got to bring that up and talk about that. University of Michigan undergrad and Chicago Kent College of Law grad. She has earned mediation certification during law school. Before law, she spent seven years as a public relations executive. International experience, studied EU law in Italy, and worked in IP law in Beijing. Named one of Law Bulletin’s 40 under 40 Illinois attorneys to watch in 2012 Super Lawyers honoree 21 through 25 Avo Clients Choice Award winner featured in Crane’s Chicago Business I read that article too that was a wonderful article notable woman lawyers lives in Park Ridge with their husband two children and an English Mastiff. Actually, Russian.

Katy Mickelson: We have two dogs now. Two

Ron Bockstahler: dogs now. All right, sucker.

Clinton Ind: You’re a sucker, Katie. Yeah. Let me throw it.

Ron Bockstahler: Philanthropy chair for the Women’s Network of Make a Wish. Katie, welcome to the show.

Katy Mickelson: Thank you.

Ron Bockstahler: Lot, lot of things to say. You’ve done so many things, and you did it maybe a non traditional as you were going through your your career to get to where you’re at today, so let’s let’s jump right into it. You spent seven years as a public relations executive before you ever set foot in the law school classroom. What happened? Was there a moment where you said, “I need to be a lawyer, or was this like a slow burn?

Katy Mickelson: It’s a it’s an interesting question because so when I when I left my undergraduate training, so I went to University of Michigan, go blue, and

Ron Bockstahler: you got to start vetting out these Big 10s. It’s not okay. Yeah, you’re allowed to say that

Clinton Ind: stuff on this. Yeah, I’m so sorry.

Katy Mickelson: You know, I so as a sociology major, you know, all of us do things as undergrad. We have which are there’s like a pointless undergrad, but I I always you know you think about it now, just do whatever you want, you know, explore your explore yourself, like whatever it is that you want to do. Might not be able to use it, but have fun. I you know like every probably young 20 something, the idea of communications and PR and all that kind of stuff was really fun and kind of sexy. I mean, you want to do cool stuff, right? Like, so I’d worked in agencies and just was super interested in in the writing aspect of it, and you know, the the a lot of what I did was working with consumer products, and you know, you’d come up with these really creative media campaigns and spokespeople, and I did some really cool things, like some you know represented, you know, was had a client breathe right nasal strips, and I went to the Super Bowl with Jerry Rice, and

Clinton Ind: I-that is cool,

Katy Mickelson: you know-went and did the world’s largest gathering of identical twins in Twinsburg, Ohio, for double mint gum. Yeah, I mean, that kind of stuff was cool, and it was like fun. And you’re in your 20s, and you’ve been you you burn the midnight oil. You’re like up all night doing all that stuff, and then, but I kind of had this realization at some point that you know I was so. You know, you get really stressed, of course, in any job, and I’m like, I’m like stressed about like toilet paper, you know, because like that was like my level of stress, and I’m like, this feels kind of not what I’m meant to do long term, and you know, I come from a family of lawyers. My dad is is retired, but he practiced law in in transactional side of it in real estate for for a very long time. But like so many lawyers in my family, and I think he thought of all the I have two other siblings. You know, of all of all the kids, I probably would be very well suited to be a lawyer. So I was 29, and it was kind of a now or never thing. So I thought, okay, well, you know, I’m not married or no children. I don’t really have anything that’s holding me back. I can kind of make a decision for myself. So I just decided to quit my job and become a full time student, which was kind of strange, given the fact that most people go right from law school,

Ron Bockstahler: yeah,

Katy Mickelson: or excuse me, college to law school, and I was one of the older students, and it was it was a it was a big reality check.

Clinton Ind: Yeah, it’s a weird thing. I was 26 when I started, not quite 29, but it’s a weird thing, right? Being in the classroom with a bunch of 2122 year olds. It it

Katy Mickelson: is, and it feels very. I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel very real world when you’ve been dealing with companies and businesses and things that don’t require grades. Law school was kind of like a big wake up call of what I needed to do, but it was something I had to do. Was you know I wasn’t able to get you. You can’t be a lawyer without going to law school or passing the bar, so I I had no choice. But you know I wasn’t like I you know a lot of people left undergrad and they said I’m going to be a lawyer, and I was like I don’t know if I would be a lawyer, but I got to do it now if I’m if I’m going to make a decision about being a lawyer,

Ron Bockstahler: well, let’s talk about you. Went into law school with seven years of communication PR experience that most of your peers, probably none of your peers, had. How much of your success as a litigator do you actually trace back to those years while you, you know, prior to going to law school?

Katy Mickelson: I think I I call on my prior career all the time. I mean, because especially being in family law, there’s such an emphasis on effective communication, and you’ve got a lot of audiences. So you have your clients, you have opposing counsel. If you’re a litigator, you have judges. You know, we I question all the time: Do we have jury trials? No. You know, there’s there are some states that do jury trials for certain issues in family law, but Illinois is not one of them. But you’ve got a judge, and you’re always being a storyteller, so you have to be really good at at communicating and doing it in a way that people understand you. So a lot of what PR was is we were taking these concepts and trying to relate it to somebody on a real human basis, so that they would either buy or they would do a service or they you know, and you would do it in creative ways to keep them engaged. And so a lot of what I do, you know, you want to keep your judge engaged. You want to capture the attention of prospective clients. I mean, and and you know, Ron, because we do a lot of you know work in the business development space together. That connection with potential referral sources is huge too. So you have to be personable, and you know somebody who somebody likes, just like in PR, you got to like the product or service. It’s just something that you want to, you know, causes you to to buy in that sense.

Ron Bockstahler: You a little unusual. I think it’s unusual anyway that you’re both litigator and a certified mediator. You got the mediation cert during law school, I believe. Correct.

Katy Mickelson: Yeah. So there was a track in law school where you could do alternative dispute resolution, and there was so as part of that program, you would get certified. So I got certified through the Center for Conflict. I’ve actually been certified twice through the Center for Conflict Resolution, and then I started a collaborative law training, which I did not finish, but as part of that, there was another 40-hour mediation training that I did. So I did that, and it’s so useful in the litigation practice because I can say to clients, or you know, I can switch gears. So a mediation mindset is a very different mindset than a litigation mindset, and a lot of litigators who, because in in Illinois and in Cook County and a lot of our counties, you have to go to mediation on certain issues before you litigate, and it’s very interesting seeing the attorneys that really aren’t mediators; they’re pure litigators and. They don’t really think about the fact there’s no judge that they’re trying to impress, and you know the mediator is a neutral. So you have to be not only do you have to adjust how you represent a client and how you interact, you have to also be much more creative because you don’t have a judge who’s going to be really following and bound to the law. You’re actually within the parameters of the law allowed to be creative, so there’s like some skills that you really need. So I think it’s really useful to have that. Plus, my clients don’t feel like they have to like switch counsel. So in the event mediation isn’t successful, then they just have me. You know, to oh, is that a

Clinton Ind: thing? Are you able to do that if if you’re a mediator and then yeah.

Katy Mickelson: Well, so I don’t, you know, I’m I’m doing. Let me clarify. I’m doing a lot of attorney-assisted mediation where I’m advocating for a client on a particular side. I like that. I like that advocacy role versus being the actual mediator for the case. However, you know, yeah, it’s there are certain like in the collaborative law arm of family law. If you are a collaboratively trained lawyer and you take a case in in a collaborative sense, you are not able to then take a case to litigation if the collaborative process fails. In when you do mediation, which is a private process. That same attorney who works with you in the mediation setting can also then be with you in the litigation setting as well.

Clinton Ind: Gotcha. You need to educate me

Ron Bockstahler: a little. So you might have an attorney that does only does mediation. So if it mediation fails, they have to go to trial. They have to seek out a different counsel. They,

Katy Mickelson: yeah, I mean, there there have been occasions where somebody says, “I don’t, you know. It it is becoming more popular these days to basically forego litigation, and I’m sure you’ve seen or heard of people saying, “I don’t litigate. You know, I’m I don’t touch it because it’s, and I don’t. I have no. I do not blame those people because I think I think litigation can be very very dangerous, tough, and it’s really never you’re never going to get your day in court as you think you might. Very taxing

Clinton Ind: too. Do you think it’s really taxing on everybody, attorneys as well? Yeah,

Katy Mickelson: it’s taxing from an emotional, a financial. There’s a lot of different perspectives, and it’s taxing. And and it’s and it’s, but there is a place for it because there are times when you need somebody to call balls and strikes, and in such a emotion driven profession, principle ends up being a very powerful thing, and principle is very expensive. Let’s just say it that way. It can be very expensive and not very satisfying.

Ron Bockstahler: I remember when I started Amata 24 years ago. One of our first attorneys, Spence Marks, never forget it. Ron, principle is very expensive. Are you sure you want to go that route, but I know I’m right. That’s really not the point here.

Katy Mickelson: Yeah, exactly, exactly. There’s a there’s an old saying that it says, you know, the moment that you walk into a courtroom, you’ve you’ve lost. Yeah, and there is a lot of truth to that. Just unfortunately, there are some cases where they just can’t figure it out on their own. The problem is, is that you’ve got a judge who’s a human being who makes mistakes and who doesn’t know your family from the other hundreds of cases that are on you know his or her docket each day. So, is it a good solution? It’s sometimes it’s a necessary solution, but it’s not necessarily a good solution.

Clinton Ind: Yeah, yeah. The principle, I would imagine, when I hear having never practiced family law, when I hear you talking about principle and family law, it’s I immediately think to oh, you’ve got one side who just wants to hurt the other side for whatever reason because of the emotion attached to whatever is happening, which I think, if that’s the case of the principle that you have to deal with in litigation, that’s that’s really particularly taxing. I would think. Yeah, yeah, it

Katy Mickelson: is. It is. Yeah.

Ron Bockstahler: So a little bit back to your journey. You’re the only equity partner at Bierman who started there as a law clerk and rose all the way up. That’s remarkable arc. Well, I actually

Katy Mickelson: want to clarify that because we do have a new equity partner who I would now have to qualify that as the only female. Can we say that

Clinton Ind: you’re the first? Yeah, I am the first. First, that’s a female

Katy Mickelson: qualification. Yes.

Ron Bockstahler: What does it actually take to go from the bottom of the organizational chart to the equity partner at the same firm,

Katy Mickelson: a lot of hours. No, I mean a lot of time. I mean, you said that I I’ve been you know practicing almost two decades. I’ve been practicing actually over two decades. I started there really by chance. It was not a you know. I was looking for a clerking position, and I happened to have a connection, which is oftentimes the way people get into firms. And at that time, the firm was multidisciplinary, so we had lots of different areas. They needed somebody, and it was you know it was a different time. Again, it was very casual. I just came in that time. I have to say, I remember I was wearing overalls. I don’t know who wears overalls. I remember specifically what I was wearing. I was wearing overalls, and I went to an interview. So it was not this formal thing. You know, I went in. I was able to get the the position, which is funny now because I hire law clerks now, and I cannot imagine somebody coming to my an interview in overalls, but that that being said,

Clinton Ind: would they get hired if somebody walked in that you were? If they

Katy Mickelson: had the audacity to wear overalls, right, right. I might say to them, you know what, I like your style,

Clinton Ind: right.

Katy Mickelson: But and I’ll talk a little bit about you know how I go about trying to mentor and suggesting that people work for the firm, but so I, you know, found a place, and then I stayed, and then I stayed, and then I, you know, stayed longer and longer and longer, and I worked my way up, and I started in the smallest, tiniest little office, and I worked on everything, and then I got hired as an associate attorney, and I just you know they the it fit it fit for me the the type of law the skills all that kind of stuff just fit, and you know years later I’ve seen the firm evolve. We’ve acquired you know and merged with other firms. We have it eliminated, and you know, sounds so harsh, but we’ve gotten rid of the other practice groups. And now we’re at least 50-six attorneys. I have to go back and count my website. But doing just just family law, so we’re the largest in Illinois, and then I would say the country. Although that fact has to be checked because we have looked, and there are, I think there is one law firm that does family law that has almost like franchises.

Ron Bockstahler: Okay,

Katy Mickelson: but I mean, if you were to look at just a you know an office, that would be us. And so I don’t know, lots of late nights, lots of grumblings, lots of mistakes, learnings, tears, happiness. You know, it’s it’s a it’s a long it’s a long haul. So I started in 2004 and now two 2026 and here I am.

Ron Bockstahler: Been a great journey,

Clinton Ind: Logan. Yeah, a lot

Ron Bockstahler: of a lot of attorneys listening to the show they think family law is totally separate from business law, but you handle a lot of high net worth divorces, business owner divorces, prenups protecting significant assets. You know where where does family law end and business law begin, and why should every business owning attorney care about that.

Katy Mickelson: So what’s interesting about family law is it’s one of those areas of law that touches actually so many different areas of law. So you know the the family law attorney doesn’t necessarily have to have a knowledge base of business law, corporate transactions, you know, business litigation, but we do need to have a fundamental understanding, and we need to know people who are better at what at doing that than we are. So I’m never going to hold myself out as a business law attorney or a real estate transactional attorney or criminal law attorney or bankruptcy or anything that you know my clients potentially could need. Hopefully, not bankruptcy, but you know in the process. And so, given the fact of who my typical client is, is going to be a business owner. You know, somebody who will have an interest in a business that hopefully you know whether it’s going to there’s going to be some kind of liquidity event or something that’s going to happen, or somebody who’s a you know a C suite executive, or a spouse of that person because you know I I I’m not only representing I’m representing you know either side if the if the fit is correct, you have to have and both an understanding from a term standpoint, and also just a sophistication about you know what what a business owner, for example, is going through, you know what the the things are that they’re thinking about, and as I referenced before, having the connections within the legal industry and then out outside the legal legal industry of all the professions that touch on the things that a business owner would need is essential because I am. It is not an ego driven. You know, my I can’t do what I do with ego. It has to be. I have to have some humility. Regarding what I don’t know, and and you know work with other individuals who can you know make me seem really smart, but it’s really kind of there. There, yeah.

Ron Bockstahler: I think you’ll be immodest.

Clinton Ind: Yeah, yeah.

Ron Bockstahler: You draft a lot of prenup agreements. You work with the high net worth. I think it’s a big part of your business, convincing someone who’s madly in love-I mean, like myself-that they need to, you know, sign a prenup before they get divorced, and then they say, “No, I’m not going to do it. Do you have any? Have you ever had a situation where they come back and said, “Man, I wish I would have done that, but now I need you because I’m screwed.

Katy Mickelson: Well, yeah, I mean, you know, prenup conversations are tough conversations to have. You know, I, I actually wrote an article on parents actually talking to their adult children about their adult children getting prenups when they get married. It’s also kind of a sticky conversation, right? I, I, you know, I want to say, has somebody come to me and said, “Man, you told me to enter prenup. I didn’t, and look where I am now. That hasn’t happened as much as somebody saying, “I didn’t enter into one, and I should have. You know, and and here’s where I am now. I think I’m not going to sugarcoat it. It’s a really tough conversation, but I do think it’s a practical one. If if you’re married, which I am, you are, and Clint, I don’t know if you are. It’s and without a premium,

Ron Bockstahler: wait to another attorney with four kids.

Katy Mickelson: Yeah, I mean, it’s it’s marriage is not all roses. We all know that. What? I know, I know, I know. Bronze

Clinton Ind: is.

Katy Mickelson: It is. I mean, it it’s based on love and romance and so forth and parts of it, but there’s it’s a business relationship. You’re you are bringing together your finances. You’re making financial decisions. You’re, you know, obviously making decisions about your kids if you have them, or and just like like what does your future look like? And so that’s like running a business. You know, you’re you’re kind of figuring out what it is that’s going to look like financial in the future. So if you, you know, you wouldn’t start a business without a business plan. You wouldn’t, you know, you get insurance. You know, you get car insurance and health insurance because you’re kind of betting and you’re hoping nothing bad happens. But you, you buy it because you have a realistic understanding of what life could have in store.

Clinton Ind: Yeah,

Katy Mickelson: so

Clinton Ind: I can see that being a tough conversation to have with people who are doy. I didn’t love that relationship. Yeah,

Katy Mickelson: because generally the ones who are having the toughest conversation are the first time married people. Second time married people, it’s a little bit easier to have that conversation because if they’re they’ve gone through a divorce process, they know it can be tough in getting a divorce, and if you kind of leave it open without a prenup, it’s the ones who’ve never been married before because they don’t really they’re looking at it from a perspective of romance. Yeah,

Clinton Ind: what do you need a contingency on? Something that’s going to last forever. Yeah, need that, right?

Katy Mickelson: It doesn’t help that I have the statistic that 50% wanted a divorce, but you know they don’t want they don’t want to hear that. But you know it’s it is it’s a tough conversation to have, and you have to tread it carefully. I don’t think you have to have a ton of money to have a prenup. It actually the point of a prenup being I’m going to define my rights now in the event of a divorce. I’m going to define what a division of my estate looks like. I’m going to define whether I have to pay spousal support or you know to the other spouse. I mean there are going to be things that a prenup’s not going to cover. So, say you do go down the divorce route and you have children, prenup is not going to cover anything related to your kids, financial or otherwise. So, good news is you can litigate something else. But

Clinton Ind: right, right. The point

Katy Mickelson: is,

Clinton Ind: yeah,

Katy Mickelson: yeah.

Clinton Ind: So, what do you? I mean, I think it’s rare. Most of the people I’ve been an attorney for 20 years, and I don’t know if I’ve ever come across anybody else who has been in the same like the same practice area for the entirety of their career. And you seem to still love it. So, what is the thing about practicing family law in particular that that you particularly like that keeps you going?

Katy Mickelson: It’s you know it’s it’s never the issues are always novel, so I’m not I’m not reviewing the same contract. I’m not you know litigating the same type of business dispute, which I would argue probably there is never a business dispute that’s the same.

Clinton Ind: Yeah.

Katy Mickelson: But you know the the players always change. The issues are always new. Keeps me on my toes. I have been at this, you know, and and what you say for you know, a lot of people have not left their industry. A lot of people, or most people, have maybe switched industries in within the legal field. Not a lot of people have stayed at the same firm. I know that it’s more, you know, people will leave go to different firms, and I think it is pretty rare for somebody to to stay at a firm long term these days. Probably was less uncommon before, but I think like firm hopping is a pretty

Clinton Ind: yeah

Katy Mickelson: pretty common thing. I I you know, it’s just if you’ve got some, you know, if if something’s you know not broke, what do you need to fix? And it’s, I will say this, you know, I say this to younger attorneys all the time. You’re never going to find a perfect workplace. You’ll never find it. It doesn’t exist. There’s always going to be something that is challenging, but then you have to decide. You know what am I going to prioritize, and what what am I going to make work? What am I going to look past? What am I going to say? You know this is just a mere annoyance, but then the the the big picture of of everything that I have makes it worth it to stay.

Clinton Ind: Yeah.

Katy Mickelson: Um. There there are aspects of family law that are really tough. I’m not gonna you know pretend it’s not. Um. But I don’t. I wouldn’t be doing anything else anything else than what I’m doing?

Clinton Ind: Yeah, this place you find yourself where you’re rolling with the punches, so to speak, is is also a rarity. So maybe that’s maybe that’s the best lesson that anybody can take out of this this podcast is just being able to appreciate the ups and downs and still be able to to roll with it. I think that that is the biggest rarity that I that I’m getting from you. Actually, I give that as a compliment, 100.

Katy Mickelson: Yeah, thanks.

Ron Bockstahler: Let’s take lighten this up a little bit before we go further. You studied EU law in Italy, worked in IP law in Beijing. You live in Park Ridge with an English Mastiff and a and a

Katy Mickelson: miniature English cream, and a

Ron Bockstahler: mini like just give us a little story. Well, you just combined

Katy Mickelson: a lot of different things. Yeah,

Ron Bockstahler: I don’t see

Clinton Ind: enough hair in the background of your office. Give us some

Ron Bockstahler: highlights of you’ve just you’ve done a lot, and it’s amazing.

Katy Mickelson: I’ve done so.

Ron Bockstahler: We just want to get like like we want to know, Katie. Hey,

Katy Mickelson: so my philosophy is: I never want to be somebody who later on in life says, “What if? Like I, like I, like I want to do it. I do it. The way you just described it exhausted me. Just the way that you said that. But it’s funny because you know I’ve I’ve been on this earth for a long time, so I better, you know, have done something with it. You know, we were talking about earlier when I was in undergraduate, which I don’t think at that time when you when we were an undergraduate studying abroad was that. I just don’t remember it being such a thing. So when I went to law school, I was like, “Darn it, I’m gonna just do everything. So I went, yes, in between my first and second year, I went to Italy to Siena and studied through a two-lane sponsored program, and it was European Union law and regulations. And who doesn’t want to be in Siena, Italy.

Clinton Ind: Right, right.

Katy Mickelson: Staying in a monastery. Then between my second and my third year, prior to starting at Bierman as a law clerk, I went to Beijing and I had a an opportunity to work in an intellectual property firm in the suburbs of Beijing, and so I would take the subway in every day, and you know everyone says, “Tell me, tell me what your experience was like in China. And I always, I mean, if you’ve gone to China before, you know it’s like nothing that you can really describe and compare. Like you don’t, you can’t. Now, this was back in the early 2000s I’m sure many things have changed prior to the Olympics going and so forth. So, it was. There’s probably many differences now, but it was an it was an experience and. And you know, I kind of got a lot of that stuff out of my system. I still travel a lot. I still try to do as much as I can from a perspective of enriching myself. You know, so now instead of living in Beijing, I travel with my family, or you know, I’m a fellow of the International Academy. A family lawyer, so I go on amazing trips. I was just in Kenya in the fall, and I have more, many more to do. So I really try to make time for things that interest me. So travel really interests me. Of course, my family, I hope, interests me. I would hope so. I’m a big dog lover, so yes, I have a big English Mastiff, Archie, and I convinced my husband to get a second dog. So I had to have something that I felt like imagery-wise looked good. So I ended up getting a miniature English cream dachshund, who’s like a-he looks like a really low to the ground, long golden retriever. Yeah,

Clinton Ind: seen those. Yeah, those are cool looking. Yeah,

Katy Mickelson: yeah. So he’s 15 pounds. Archie’s 110 Right. And you know he sits on top of Archie like that. Like he sits on him so he can look out the window, and Archie’s just like okay. And my little guy’s name is Gus, and I mean the the two of them are total buddies, and yeah. So we have, you know, I got this house for dogs. Let’s just say. All

Ron Bockstahler: right, we might have to get a picture of that and put it on the show notes.

Katy Mickelson: Yes, I’m happy to do that.

Ron Bockstahler: We’re kind of narrow. We’re going to wind this down. This show is built on the idea that the billable hour was the last big structural change to the business of law back in 1958. Family law feels like one of the areas most ripe for reinvention with AI, online mediation, flat fee models, self-represented litigants. What does family law look like in 10 years, and what do you hope never changes?

Katy Mickelson: Well, I think there’s going to be more of an emphasis on not going to court, so I think it’s there’s been some interesting changes to family law. So you know, COVID changed a lot. It really exposed I think the inefficiencies of the of the court system from a lot of different perspectives. You know, when when we used to go to court pre-COVID days. We would I would spend all of my mornings at the courthouse, and you would go and you would you know we would have a cattle call of cases, and you were there for you would have to wait for your case being called, but you’d end up to be in the in the in the courthouse, which was mostly at the Daily Center in downtown Chicago, and you’d be sitting there for two hours to be called for five minutes. And sometimes your clients would be called downtown, and they would have to miss work, and they would, you know, it just was really inefficient and inconvenient.

Clinton Ind: Do you remember? Do you remember, Katie? I was chatting with somebody about this. You remember having to like wait for six elevators, and then you’re the 100th person on the elevator, and then

Katy Mickelson: you’d get in, and you’re like a sardine, and you were so close to the worst. Oh, it was just the worst. And the Daily Center has a smell. I was saying this to a judge the other day, saying, “You know that smell? And he was like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I go, “You know that file smell, like that-that you know-that smell, right? Of of of old old files. When COVID occurred, you know, there was obviously a move to Zoom, and and I think that was a move, obviously because of for obvious reasons. But there was this whole revisiting of access to justice, and and whether it’s going to make sense to have you know always these in court appearances that you know are you know are are for five minutes. So there’s been there has been, I think, this move to making things more efficient, but there’s still problems and there’s still inefficiencies, and our our judges are burned out. They’re overworked. They have so many cases coming through. There’s a really big rise of self represented litigants. so I think I see litigation as maybe not being considered the best way to resolve cases, and we’ve already talked about why it’s not a good way, anyways. But I think from an efficiency standpoint, I can see it becoming, you know, reducing and finding alternative ways to do it, and then your question of what do I wish, what do I hope never changes? You know, having people in the industry that can really tell people as it should be, as I alluded to before, you know, family law is so emotional and individual, and you need to have people who can really say it as they see it to take all

Clinton Ind: subjectivity out, right, and just have a even keel of. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Katy Mickelson: That’s only. I mean, that’s a that’s a service we can provide. I just hope that that continues because, you know, sometimes the key to getting through this is just having somebody who can speak honestly to you, and you know, not from a therapist standpoint, still from a legal standpoint, but have some real hard conversations. So I hope that doesn’t change because I think it’s so important for people to have that faith in it. You know, in the system because it’s it’s tough. You know, family law conflict can be very tough. It it sometimes is is happens for the right reason. Sometimes you need to have somebody in there helping you, but it’s tough.

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah, Katie, we’re going to wrap up. We’re going to leave you. You got the last word. What do you want our listeners to know?

Katy Mickelson: Just that I’m here to help. You know, my my goal is to help and to just be a voice of reason for people. And at the end of the day, however, I can do that. I think it’s important to find good representation that mirrors that, and that’s really, really important for me to convey to my clients about having high quality, credible, authentic representation who knows what they are doing should never be compromised. Never, ever, ever be compromised. Yeah. All

Ron Bockstahler: right. Well, Katie, thank you so much. That’s all for today. Big thank you to our guest, Katie Michaelson, Equity Partner Bierman. Thanks for joining us and sharing her insights. If today’s conversation got you thinking about your own practice, I hope you’ll take one idea and put it to work this week. And if you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, leave us a review, and share it with a colleague who could use it. The 1958 Lawyer is brought to you by Amata. For more than 30 years, Amata has helped law firms of all sizes do more with less, offering flexible office space in the heart of Chicago, virtual office services, live receptionists, phone support, conference rooms, administrative support tailored specifically to attorneys. Whether you’re a solo practitioner just starting out as an established firm, looking to right size your overhead, Amata gives you the infrastructure of a big firm without the big firm price tag. Learn more at AmataOffices.com. Until next time, keep building. Katie, thanks so much for joining us. It

Clinton Ind: was fantastic.

Voiceover: Thanks for listening to the 1958 Lawyer. If you like the show, tell a friend, and please subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’d like to hear more about Ron, Clinton, or Amata, go to amataoffices.com. That’s amataoffices.com. All the links are also in the show notes.