From litigator to . . . peacebuilder? Henry Yampolsky, J.D., joins host Julie Owsik Ackerman for this month’s episode of our series, Behind the Bio, where we will interview a different lawyer each month. As a writer, storyteller, and lawyer, Julie will explore the many directions one can take after law school and hear more about the turning points that shaped these notable careers.
In this episode, Julie talks to Henry, who worked his way from Ukrainian refugee at age 14 to law firm partner before a spiritual quest to India put him on the path he’s on today.
Julie:
Hi, everybody. Welcome to “Behind the Bio,” our series that interview’s a different lawyer each month to talk about turning points in their career. My name’s Julie Owsik Ackerman and I’m delighted to be joined today by a former classmate of mine, his name is Henry Yampolsky. He is a bestselling author, a mediator and educator, a TEDx speaker, and many other things. And I’m just so happy you’re here, Henry. Thanks for being here.
Henry:
Julie, thank you so much for inviting me.
Julie:
Yeah, yeah. So as I said, Henry and I were classmates, and we were in the same section our first year at law school, so I think that meant we had all our classes together, right?
Henry:
Yeah, we did.
Julie:
Yeah. And it had been a few years since, you know, we had seen each other, and then I started seeing Henry’s posts on LinkedIn and got really interested about, he was talking about peace building and mediation, and conflict resolution, and I just got really curious about what he’d been up to. So I’m so happy to have this chance to dig in and talk a little more about why you’ve been up to, since I’ve last seen you.
Henry:
Yes, yes. It’s so wonderful to connect.
Julie:
Yeah. So before we get started, why don’t you just tell the audience just what you do?
Henry:
Sure, so, currently my role, I have a full-time job, and my role is in academia, and I work at Virginia Tech, and my title is quite long. But in essence, what I do here is I direct our internal conflict resolution program conflict, which includes conflict coaching, mediation, and organizational development in the office for equity and accessibility. And so this is conflict resolution for any matters that touch on civil rights or protected identity issues. And also, I teach conflict resolution, mediation, and peace building as part of the Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention. So that’s primarily what I do. But then of course, in addition to that, I travel all over the world and speak and lecture on topics related to mediation, peacebuilding, having conversations, having connections, and how to do this, how to do this in a way that is aware, in a way that is trauma-aware and also in a way that is mindful.
Julie:
That’s so cool. I don’t think a lot of our classmates are, I mean, I just love you’re doing this work, you know? Not many lawyers make a transition like this and that, not many that I know, anyway, so it’s really cool. I love hearing about it.
Henry:
And Julie, if someone told me when we were in law school that I would be doing this work, I would say not in a million years.
Julie:
You didn’t see it coming either.
Henry:
Not in a million years. Would I, could I even imagine, you know? That this is where I would end up and in law school, this was not even something on my radar.
Julie:
Yeah, well, I was just at a program yesterday, put together by my boss for International Women’s Day, and there were a lot of, you know, people around our age and/or at this kind of same stage in their career talking about being like these positions that they didn’t know existed or that didn’t exist, 10 or 15 years ago, sort of like creating their own path or role. And I definitely hear some of that in your story.
Henry:
Sure, sure, sure. But also, you know, it was interesting because looking back now, there was so much missing from our law school education, so I don’t remember, and tell me maybe if I forgot something, but I don’t actually remember anyone teaching us how to talk to people or how to listen or how to deal with trauma, you know?
Julie:
Oh, definitely not nothing about trauma.
Henry:
How to hold space for others. I mean, yes, this is something maybe you could get in some of the clinicals, and when you had actual experience. But to me, this is something that is very profound and important that is really missing from our education because in doing and working as a lawyer, and later on, moving to my current career, something that I realized and something that was critical and fundamental, I actually did not even know how to listen to people. Now, how to listen to people, not to cross-examine them or not to try to extract kind of whatever may be the legal bits that I needed to know, but truly listen to them and truly see the humanity in them. And so this is a lot of what I teach right now. And I think these are absolutely essential skills and skills that are absolutely essential for lawyers, regardless of what kinda law they will be practicing. Because ultimately, lawyers will be working with people, whether they’re working in an organizational setting, whether they’re working in a law firm setting, whether they’re litigators, whether they’re doing transactional work, ultimately they’re working with people.
Julie:
And people in either very difficult situations or high stakes situation, like there’s… Yeah, it just strikes me how important the listening is always and then you throw in like somebody who’s going through a divorce, somebody who’s on trial for a crime. I mean, it just is even that much more important, it seems. Yeah, I think a lot about how we didn’t… Nobody taught us anything about running a business because I work with a lot of small and mid-size firms, and even when I was at the large law firm, it was like pretty clear to me that most people didn’t know how to manage. You know, they had no training on how to be a manager. They had no training on how to, just a lot of things that I think, practical skills that were missing from, been probably still from most law school education, I would think. But yeah, okay, so that’s… Yeah, interesting.
All right, so I do wanna come back so ahead of time. Henry had sent me just a couple thoughts about some turning points, and the first one is coming as an immigrant refugee from Ukraine. And I wonder if you could just tell us a little bit how old you were, what that, you know, we could certainly do a whole half hour on just that or more, but just a little bit about what that was like for you.
Henry:
Sure. I was 14, and it was 1994, and I came from Ukraine with my family. I ended up in Scranton, Pennsylvania. You know, you could say it’s a large town or a small city in Northeastern Pennsylvania. And things were very challenging. You know, things were very challenging because my parents ended up doing a lot of very medial service work. In many ways, I felt were unnoticed. And so for me, I thought that if I become a lawyer, that I could become the voice for people like my parents, who I did not feel had much of a voice and could really accomplish a whole lot. And I had to deal with all sorts of insecurity, financial insecurity, job insecurity, and not even knowing sort of where to turn to, whom to turn to. So that really was my inspiration for going to law school for becoming a lawyer.
Julie:
Yeah, and in your book, which I’m gonna show to our audience, it’s a beautiful book, “Dis-solving Conflict from Within,” highly recommend it. In your book you taught, you mentioned a teacher who was really important to you and a program that was really important. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Henry:
Sure, sure. So, you know, not long after coming to Scranton and also through a series of sort of crank somewhat crazy congruence, I ended up joining the speech and debate team. And, I really, I spoke some English, but it was very, very limited. Very, very broken. And this woman was quite a character, she really just was like larger than life personality, very dramatic. She was an actress. She has done all sorts of things, and she was just… Yeah, she could fill a room. And she really took an interest in me, and I kind of became her project. And she really thought that her project would be to make a speaker out of me. And this was how I was learning English, I was learning English by doing public speaking, and she was very tough on me, but this is something that really opened me up to being on my feet and to being very comfortable with that, to doing public speaking, and also to just being informed.
So something that she was insistent that I had to read the New York Times from cover to cover every day. And I couldn’t understand, I didn’t know most of the words. And this is something that I still do to this day, and this has helped me to kind of develop a little bit more of a perspective understanding and really opened a lot of doors for me that otherwise, for someone who is an immigrant from a kind of very low socioeconomic status, I’m not sure that I would’ve been able to end up in law school and end up doing a lot of the things that I was able to do, had it not been for this teacher.
You know, Mrs. Langan, who, to this day, I mean, she was from Tennessee, and she spoke with this very kind of dramatic southern acc- everything about her was just… She didn’t have meetings, she held court. This was kind of the person. And when she spoke, people sort of trembled. Like I just remember her kind of dressing down the principal from high school, and he was there standing in front of her, just sort of trembling. Mrs. Langan just had it, presence about her and was very funny, and kinda knew how to deliver a line, and knew how to be… It could be quite intimidating. And many people were quite intimidated by her, myself included. But also she knew how to push and how to really see, I think her talent was really seeing something in every one of her students. Very often, we certainly, I did not see. And then really, dedicating time and energy to that, to bring that out.
Julie:
I love that. My husband’s a teacher and I just… With teachers, but really like, just, I’m always so touched at how one life can really touch another, and to her, maybe she knew, maybe she didn’t, but, I have seen so many students come back to my husband and say what a difference he made. And he’s like showing up and doing his job. but you never know what seeds are gonna grow into what. Yeah, it just warms my heart. That whole, your whole story about that warms my heart.
Henry:
Well, thank you, thank you.
Julie:
Yeah, is she still living?
Henry:
You know, what? I actually think she passed away. We lost contact some time ago, and she’s been, even when I knew her, and so this is going back now almost 30 years, you know? She would’ve been in her late 60s.
Julie:
Oh, okay.
Henry:
So, you know, I think that… And she was very strong and kind of had a very strong, but she was kind of retiring and then, you know, for a while we stayed in contact and then we lost contact. And I do believe that she became much more frail and then possibly passed away few years back. But to be honest, I’m not… And that kinda makes me wonder too, till today to see because I have not heard about her from her in a long time. She now would be probably in her early 90s or very late 80s.
Julie:
Well, if she is still living, and I think you should send her the book, just…
Henry:
Yeah.
Julie:
I think she very well accepts, I suspect. Okay, so then your next hurting point was becoming a lawyer. And tell us, you know, we went to law school together, obviously, and then when you graduated, what kind of law were you practicing?
Henry:
So, in so many ways, it was such a difficult experience and so much was not what I expected it to be and because of sort of my origin story, I was very interested in civil rights and social justice issues. And I was very interested naturally in labor and employment law, because that’s where a lot of it, that’s a lot of the challenges that my parents encountered. And that’s where I really felt that I could make a difference. And so, right outta law school, I worked briefly for two small firms. They actually shared me, and I was kind of a joint associate with those two small law firms. And that really did not work out. That was not a positive experience. I think I made a lot of mistakes in that role.
You know, I was very new, didn’t know a lot of things, but also was just overwhelmed, really just overwhelmed by the volume of work that you had to do, how sometimes it felt so extremely tedious. And I remember there were just times, and this was few months after the bar and graduating from law school where I would stand at the train station on the way home and just kind of holding my law license and being kind of on the verge of throwing it in a garbage can because it was just so stressful. It was so overwhelming. The volume of work and so much of it I didn’t know, I did not know how to do at all.
Also, you know, not really in a space professionally where there was a whole lot of mentorship or training. So a lot of it was just figure it out, you know? And that just felt overwhelming to me, you know? And that felt, that was kind of my first inkling off, did I spend three years of my life for this? And is this what I’m gonna be doing for the next 30, 40 years? And also financially, it was very hard because my first job paid very little. And my wife was still in school, so it was kind of like, we’re struggling financially. I was really struggling to do this work. And the question became, why am I doing this? Is this really what I wanna do? Is this really worth it?
Now then fortunately, about eight months in, you know, I couldn’t really stay in, it was not a good environment for me for many reasons. And so I very quickly started looking for another job and was able to find a job at a firm where I stayed actually the bulk of my legal career. I stayed there that for 10 years. And that was a great experience. They were truly wonderful people, people who were committed to social justice issues, people who I felt I very much respected and felt very much aligned, and who wanted to be mentors. And who were interested in really ensuring that I had room to grow. And that’s where I stayed for 10 years. And that’s where I started to, of course, as the time went by, I developed some more skills. So emotion to dismiss was not this scary, daunting experience of like, what is this? And how am I supposed to know where to even begin, you know, how drop this. And so, and I started to develop expertise in labor and employment law, and in catastrophic personal injury.
Interestingly, I represented a number of restaurant workers in Philadelphia in actions against restaurants for some of the abuses that took everything from sexual harassment to wage and hour violations. And as I was working in this, the more I was doing this work, the more I was beginning to notice that being a litigator was bringing out the worst in me. Was bringing out the worst in my clients, and very often was bringing out the worst in my opponents, you know? I found myself beginning to look more and more at life, and at things in a way that was very binary. And sort of, you know, very much focused on winning and getting the best possible result for the client. But that was also exhausting. That was also exhausting. And so many times, because most of my clients were poor, many were people of color, I really did not feel like I’ve always a voice for them. I really did not feel like they had much of a voice, you know? And that maybe if they go to court, maybe after a lot of wrangling and a lot of back and forth, and a lot of work, maybe they would get some kind of financial compensation, but never would they truly be able to tell their story. And frankly, no one cared. And no one really had the time, and everyone was busy.
And so, I remember sitting one day in Philadelphia motion court, which is right… Your listeners from Philadelphia will know this is kind of the place where younger lawyers are often sent right by their firms to argue discovery motions. And, you know, this was a room filled, and I was four or five years outta law school. So at that point, I was kind of beginning to feel like, okay, maybe I’m getting a hang of it and, you know, I can do this. And I remember sitting in this room and everyone kind of is dressed in their Sunday best. And I’m thinking, this is a room filled with some of the brightest people, and everyone looked miserable. Everyone look miserable.
So it was kind of this, from this point on, I really started to do, and as I listened to the arguments, and to me, the arguments that were being made, are were so kind of not helpful, not helpful for anything, and were so ego-driven that I really started to think, is this where I wanna spend the rest of my career, the rest of my professional life? And I began to explore, you know, I started learning a little bit more about collaborative law and integrative law, and these all sounded like breaths of fresh air, you know? Really ideas that resonated with me and seemed to really place the role of a lawyer in a very different light, rather than just being a gladiator, being an advisor or partner. So I started exploring these ideas, I still did not really know how to apply them. And then a series of transformative events took place.
I decided to start riding motorcycles because I just was feeling like, I actually was feeling bored, you know? And kind of… It sounds insane because I was so busy, right? And there is such an intensity to doing litigation. And, you know, I was going to court and I was doing depositions and doing all those things, and I had my own caseload, and yet it felt unsatisfying. And I was beginning to feel bored. And this is where I was talking to a friend who was also a lawyer, and he kind of was passionate about motorcycles. And I thought I’d tried to do this. And my wife thought I went nuts, you know? She was very upset with me. And she told me at that time, she said, “I thought this was something you were supposed to get out of your system when you were 19.” And I’m like, what are you doing? And I didn’t have a good answer to that, you know? But I knew that this would somehow take me on a different path in life. And it was through motorcycles, I started riding and it was very challenging for me. And still, I wanted to do that. And then one day I was home and I was just not feeling well and feeling down, but also physically not well. And I was playing on Amazon, and I come across this movie called “The Highest Pass,” and it was about this Indian mystic, young Indian mystic, 27-year-old at the time, who took a group of westerners on a motorcycle journey across the Himalayas. And this movie just really moved me. You know, I watched the film and I thought to myself, this guy’s crazy. And then I have to meet him.
Julie:
He’s my kind of crazy.
Henry:
Yes, yes, yes. And so, we looked him up, you know, and it turned out he was teaching a retreat in Virginia. And so we went to spend five days with him. And that was just life changing, you know? first time he met me, he just sort of burst out laughing. And he said, you need to come to India. And he said, then maybe you won’t be so serious. And just this innocence about him, there is this innocence and also this intensity about him that I never really encountered. So when he said that, you know, something within me just kinda like, I have to go to India. You know, I have to go to India. And this all led to me having what I thought would be a very uncomfortable conversation with the managing partner of my law firm. I was gonna ask her if I could take a month off to go to India. And Julie, as you know, this is not an easy conversation to have.
Julie:
No.
Henry:
When you, at that point, I was a senior associate, you know, kind of on my way to being a partner. I had a very busy trial schedule, you know, very busy trial calendar. And I was at a relatively, I was at a mid-size firm, but, you know, they couldn’t easily just put someone else to do that. Just generally, as you know, in a legal field, taking a month off is not something that is looked upon in a way that is particularly kind. But to give credit to the firm that I was with, my managing partner and everyone else were incredibly supportive. And she said, “If this is something you need to do, you need to do this, and your job and your cases are gonna be here. We’ll figure out a way, but please do this.” And so I went to India for the first time, and this is literally when everything that I thought was up became down, and everything that I thought was down, became up.
As I was in India, this was very powerful experience for me and caused me to really reevaluate, what was really important for me, and a lot of the choices that I was making at the time. And it was in India, that I also connected very, very deeply with some very, very profound teachings on conflict resolution and conflict transformation, and how they kind of the origins of these teachings. And this has also became very clear to me when I was in India that I needed to take a different path. That this path of being a litigator was not something that I could do. So, and it was a difficult time in many ways because I came back from India, you know, when you’re there, you’re kind of in a bubble, right?
And while I was living in an ashram, and you’re having all these insights and you’re meditating daily, and you feel all these insights and changes arises and all of that, but then you come home and you’re not yet well established enough in these practices to really ground yourself. And so it was quite difficult and shocking when I came back. To my firm’s credit, you know, a relatively short time after I came back, they made me a partner. So, you know, this experience did not reflect, I thought that this could be career-ending. And they were incredibly supportive. And I’m forever grateful to them for that. And so here I was, you know, it was one of those interesting things, the universe throws at you where you say, I don’t want it. And then you have an experience where the universe says, are you sure?
Julie:
There it is.
Henry:
Because ironically, you know, before I thought that’s all I wanted. I wanted to be sort of a partner at a Philadelphia law firm and have that life. And this was very comfortable. And I was still very young, you know, I was 34, I believe, 33 or 34 when this happened. So I thought, wow, this is this kind of nice and this is everything that my mom would want for an immigrant son. And yet it also was very clear to me that that’s not what I wanted, you know? That’s not what I wanted. So I went back to India, and since then, India became my second home, and I’ve been there now 15 times.
Julie:
Wow.
Henry:
And it was during my second visit to India, that I really made a decision that I needed to leave and I needed to leave now because if I didn’t leave now, I wouldn’t. Then you just get too comfortable, too engrossed. And then, the longer you go, so I was in a space where, you know, both my wife and I were in our early 30s. We always lived below our means, and yeah, settled few cases that gave us some, you know, some room financially. We didn’t have children and so I thought, well, if I don’t do it now, I’m not gonna do it. If I don’t do it now, I’m not gonna do it. And I was exploring collaborative law, and when I went to my first collaborative law conference in Vancouver, it was a breath of fresh air.
You know, I went to number of trial lawyer gatherings, and this is not to judge anyone, but for me, this was just a totally different experience. Totally different focus, totally different way of thinking, way of approaching law. So I got very involved in the collaborative law community. I got very involved in the integrative law community. And then as part of that, I also had to get trained as a mediator. And I ended up at the training at the New York Peace Institute with Brad Heckman, who is a very well-known trainer, teacher, now a friend in this field. And this is like coming home, you know? This was like, well, this is what I was looking for in terms of, because to me, ultimately, I realized that I went to law school to connect with people.
This was the most important thing to me, building that connection, building that relationship, holding this space. And what felt very unsatisfying to me is I actually could not connect with people. I didn’t have time. You know, between answering discovery and then whatever the story was that they wanted to tell very often that was not relevant for me because I needed to extract from that story, the key facts and details that would be relevant for the legal argument. That was not connecting with people. That was actually building a barrier. So initially when I left, I made a decision to leave and we kinda made a plan with my firm and again, they were supportive, although disappointed, I think. But we made kind of an eight months transition out plan, because I had a lot of cases and they needed me, and I needed a paycheck. But my first idea was to open a law practice that would be dedicated to peace building.
So I would only do mediation, collaborative law cases, and certain transactional cases that would not involve litigation. And that was a terrible business idea because it’s very interesting because, you know, I also build a website that was very lovey-dovey and it had these quotes from Emerson as just my kind of part of my logo. And later on it took me a while, later on, I realized that that actually was a turnoff for a lot of the clients. You know, when people are looking for a lawyer, they’re not looking to sit together and hold hands, and you know, read Emerson together. They’re looking for bulldog, they’re looking for a fighter. Because they’re scared and that’s what they think they need. And so I was doing that and it was challenging because it really challenged me in that, this wasn’t working out, this big dream that I’ve had, you know, was very challenging. And we were struggling financially, struggling to kinda make ends meet. And this was a contrast, very significant contrast on how things were when I was a young partner at a law firm where we could live very comfortably, you know? Kind of not think about, Hey, we’re gonna go and grab dinner in town.
And so for a while things were very, very different. Now, something else then happened through motorcycles. And I talk about this in the book. I was riding as a hobby for a motorcycle magazine. And through this motorcycle magazine, online motorcycle magazine, I met this person from Denmark who was doing similar work, has done some very interesting things in their life, was a copyright trademark lawyer in Denmark quite her job, moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, became an assistant motorcycle mechanic, and then rode a motorcycle solo from Argentina to New York. And then wrote a book about it that was very influential for me. And so I interviewed her, we became very close friends. We really felt like there was more that we wanted to do together.
We started this collaboration, result of this collaboration was the process that’s at the center of the book called Dis-solving Conflict from Within. And we started teaching it together. And for me, you know, this was more and more kind of a coming into space of, wow, this is really what I wanna do. Like, this is cool and this is fun. And well, this doesn’t really involve legal work, but I’m kinda happy about that, you know? So as I started doing this work, and eventually, Annette ended up leaving this, we build a business around it, and she ended up leaving it. And we had some disagreements about kind of the direction and where we wanted to go. And I stayed and what I started building, and became quite successful at, is actually a company that became more of an organizational development, conflict resolution, leadership development company. Because for me, I was curious, a lot of times when people came to me for legal questions, my question was, why? Unless can we rewind, right? So what caused you to come to me with this question? Why did this situation even arose? And I became very curious of could I be actually of help in that situation earlier?
More and more of my work became around facilitating conversations before they become lawsuits, bringing people together, doing all sorts of training, actually training mediators. I became one of the trainers for the New York Peace Institute in their apprenticeship program. Took all sorts of conflict coaching and got involved in the restorative justice movement as a facilitator. And you know, in doing this work, I just found for me, what I was seeking for. And that was that connection. And I think this is our fundamental need to connect with someone on that level where you are just holding space for them. You’re not trying to fix them. You’re not trying to fix their problem. You don’t see them as a problem. You don’t see their problem as a problem. You’re just there holding space for them. And that could be, you know, that in my work, that’s mostly what I do. And to me, this is one of the most powerful things one can do, you know? And one of the most rewarding.
When you feel like you have a connection with this human being and through connection with you, they feel human. They feel as though they matter. They feel as though you hear them. They feel as though someone sees them. That becomes so important. And so, I started doing more and more of this work. I was doing this work internationally. I started taking groups to India on this experience called radical peacemaking. And this is where it took actually conflict resolution professionals and lawyers to try to expose them to some of these very profound teachings that, you know, have been instrumental for me, but beyond me. It impacted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., have impacted Nelson Mandela, have impacted really every nonviolent movement. And exposing people to these very powerful teachings and kind of a way of life that this was bringing and a way of life that in my experience, could bring a lot more joy. And joy is not the word we use a lot in law, right?
Julie:
No, no it’s not.
Henry:
Sounds funny, right? But we talk about kinda working hard, but I’ve always sort of wondered, why do we talk about working hard? Because that’s not actually the most efficient way to work. You do something joyously, isn’t it? You don’t even notice, you don’t know what the time is. You can accomplish so much if you’re enjoying something and you’re doing this joyously. And this is where we talked about it, but still, Julie, you know, the business was challenging. For me, and you and I had a brief conversation now before we started this recording. And this is where you mentioned, how so many things law school did not teach us. And how to run a business is one of them. And for me, running a business was- I love doing the work, you know?
Julie:
Right, yep.
Henry:
But did I like doing accounting? Not at all. You know, did I like maintaining my website, you know, doing social media marketing, all of that. That was very tiring and not my skillset.
Julie:
Exactly, yep.
Henry:
While I was successful, I wasn’t at the space where I could bring other people who could do this for me. So then I found myself at another crossroads. Then I found myself at another crossroads. The business was kind of coming along and it was still not steady enough, you know? So I had months where things are great, I have clients, and I was busy, and then I had months where you’re kinda waiting for the phone call to ring, for the email to come. And this was not stable, and this was not sustainable, and that became clear. And so I kinda committed to my wife and we had a conversation. I committed, you know, whatever I need to look for work, and sort of whatever was the next thing that came up would be, you know, where the universe needs me to go. And so I was planning to take a group to India on radical peacemaking experience. Was leaving, this is the day that I’m leaving from Philadelphia. And that day I had two interviews. One was at 10 in the morning, and the other one was at two, and my flight was at five. So I had to really, you know, kind of get ready and head to the airport not to miss my international flight.
So the 10 o’clock, I met with a law firm that has heard of me before. I worked with them, I didn’t work for them, but kind of worked with them. One of their partners left, and they were sort of trying to find someone to take over their caseload. And this would’ve been very similar to the work I’ve done before. And I came and I met with them, had a very nice conversation. It was basically like, look, you know what to do, when can you start? And as kind of the conversation is going this way, inside I felt this sense of dread that I don’t wanna do that. But also, this was something, you know, that I committed and I said, whatever was the next. And I also thought, well, maybe I can bring the kind of a new consciousness to them, you know, awareness. And then at two o’clock that day, the interview that I had was with this place called Virginia Tech.
And months ago, you know, I applied for this job that sounded sort of interesting, but I wasn’t quite clear, like, what does it involve? And I didn’t really think that it was even in the books for me to move to Southwest Virginia and why would I, but it was kind of like, eh, why not, you know? And then I quickly forgot that I even applied, and then a few months later I heard back from them and I had to kind of think about, what, did I apply? And I’m like, had to go back and look up what was actually the application for. And so, and this is the interview that I’m supposed to have in the afternoon of that day, but of course, my perception is that I have a job already after this morning. So I did very little preparation and I kinda just like, okay, it’s too impolite to cancel now. So you know, why not? I’ll just go and kind of do this first basic interview.
It’s 20 minutes on the phone, and I’ll just learn more about this position and hone my interview skills. And as they started describing this role, I kind of had this realization like, wow, this is like everything that I’ve ever been passionate about packaged into one position. There’s a civil rights component to my work, there’s teaching component to my work. There is a kind of conflict resolution and peace building component, which is the really the primary component. And I really connected with the people who were interviewing me. And so then I went to the Himalayas, I was doing this program, and while there, get two emails. One is from a law firm, and it begins, “Dear Henry, we’re very sorry to share with you, but the partner who left actually decided to come back, and the job was no longer available.” And I found myself going… that was not what I wanted. And the second email was from Virginia Tech, we would like for you to come to second interview, you know? And that’s how I ended up here in this role.
And so, in essence, my role is very similar to an ombuds. I can’t be called an ombuds for because there is a compliance function to my job. But that’s kind of what I do now. And I really love sort of all the different aspects of it where I can engage with different people and do a lot of listening. And then of course, you know, through that and through all my travels in India and in 2018, I went back on a motorcycle in India and crossed the Himalayas. That was also where the book came from and sort of for me, I wanted to combine, you know, when I was taking all these mediation trainings and all these different trainings and skill developments, they were focused on skills. But to me, the more important aspect always was where the skills are coming from. Where is the doing coming from? It’s not what you do, it’s where is the doing coming from? And to me, that was the missing piece. And that’s where, you know, the book and kind of the whole theory behind the book came from. So that’s how I ended up where I am. So I don’t if this is helpful, or if this is a way, of what may be relevant for you.
Julie:
No, this has been great. Yeah, you answered most of the questions I had as you’re a storyteller, so. And I’m just… What’s the word? I really love, part of the reasons I’m doing these interviews is I love speaking to people who went to law school and if they’re practicing law or doing something else, have found something, you know, they’re really passionate about. They really love that. You know, it’s because sadly, a lot of lawyers where that is not the case. They’re still stuck in, you know, sort of like what you were describing prior. And so I just like knowing that it’s possible for lawyers to find a good workplace where they’re happy and satisfied, and contributing, and using these skills that they have. And so I’m happy for you and just happy that you know, that you have found this place that sounds like you can really make a contribution.
Henry:
Yeah, yeah. And you know, I think something that I realized with law and law school, it’s giving you a very powerful tool, you know, and there is no denial of its power and there is no denial of its capacity. But like with any tool, it’s a tool that is useful in some settings and is not useful in others. So you start applying that kind of way of thinking and way of approaching life of very analytical and dissecting, and kind of extracting legal theory. You start applying it to personal relationships, to marriage, it becomes a disaster, right? It becomes a recipe for disaster. And this is where I found, you know, law school can be very useful, can be a very helpful place to gain these skills and tools, but then we also need to see the limitations of these still tools and skills, right? They’re very relevant in certain, very particular settings and in certain very particular settings they can be very powerful and very necessary and very useful. And in many other settings, they can be also very harmful.
And this is where we need to see that, right? And this is where also now the legal process does not necessarily see that, right? In legal process, a human being, a complex human being with feelings and needs, and contradictions, and quirks becomes plaintiff or defendant, right? And they’re boxed into that role and they lose feelings, they lose personality, they lose preferences. Everything becomes about how they brought this case and everything is fit into this legal language. And to me, that’s relevant in certain settings. And that’s has its time and place, but also when applied to any situations that deal with relations with complex and nuanced relations between people, whether we’re talking about family law, whether we’re talking about employment. One of our most powerful, enduring, sustaining and intimate relationships are actually not with our intimate partners, but with our coworkers because we spend more time with them. We spend more time with them, we share more of our life with them. And so in those types of situations, you know, approaching them from this very dry, binary, legalistic perspective can be very, very dangerous. Because we solve the problem. We think we’re solving the problem, or we bring solutions where the reality is we often don’t know what the problem is and we never addressed it.
Julie:
Yeah. Wow, I do wanna continue this conversation, but I’m gonna end our interview portion ’cause I’m just looking at the time, although I do wanna just since I promised, ask a couple fun questions.
Henry:
Sure.
Julie:
So I have a bunch of questions, I just pick ’em out at random.
Henry:
Great.
Julie:
What is your favorite book?
Henry:
My favorite book? Gosh, I have so many that really challenged me and influenced me in ways that are very, very ways that are very, very profound. So one book that I think immediately comes to mind is Sadhguru’s “Inner Engineering.” And Sadhguru is one of the, he’s an Indian mystic teacher and he wrote this book called Inner Engineering, it’s funny, but also incredibly profound. And for me, really answered a lot of the questions that I had and talked about how… Talked about kind of what is life and how’s life, how can we best understand life in a way that is very accessible, that is very clear. And for me, it was very transformative.
Julie:
Wow, and what’s the title?
Henry:
It’s called “Inner Engineering” and the author is Sadhguru, S-A-D-G-H- G-U-R-U.
Julie:
Cool, let me check that out. All right, how about, what is your favorite TV show?
Henry:
Favorite TV show. You know, that’s a harder question for me because I don’t really watch TV that much.
Julie:
That’s fair.
Henry:
So I’m kinda struggling to answer that. I really enjoyed one of the shows I’ve seen lately is “Never Have I Ever” on Netflix.
Julie:
Oh yeah, I love that too.
Henry:
And really enjoyed that, and I think in some ways because as someone who’s an immigrant and who was an immigrant in high school, I could kind of relate to some of the experiences and I just think it’s incredibly well-written and funny.
Julie:
Funny, yeah.
Henry:
And it had a lot. And also for me, I could connect with it because sort of of my own immigrant experience and kind of feeling like an outsider, but also because I had such a connection with India and there’s so many differences too, to India and to Indian culture that are kind of very whimsical. So that’s something that I really enjoyed.
Julie:
I love that. I love that show too. Okay, last one. What sound or noise do you love?
Henry:
What sound of noise do I love?
Julie:
What sound or noise? Like what’s the sound or a noise that you love?
Henry:
The sound of the mountains. So, you know, there is, when I was in the Himalayas, you really have to end up riding the motorcycle through the Himalayas. You really have to tune into the mountains, and see them and treat them as living beings. And this is where I first experienced that because as you’re riding through these mountain roads, you realize that one movement from this mountain, one sneeze from this mountain, and you’re done, you’re done. So you better be attuned to that. So I remember when I summited and kind of standing at 18,350 feet, which is the highest pass in the Himalayas, highest motorable road in the Himalayas. You know, there’s kind of this combination of all of these wind, you know? But there is more to that. There’s more to that. It’s very multidimensional. And there is a sound. And now, you know, I live in the mountains, mountains of Southwest Virginia, and there is very distinct sound. It’s a very subtle sound, right? It’s a very subtle sound. But also to me, now, in this stage of life and this stage of my career, it is a subtle that I’m more interested in, right? It is the subtle because it’s hearing the silence behind the noise, or sometimes the noise behind the noise, sometimes, you know, the profound compassion behind the noise.
Julie:
Wow, beautiful. What a beautiful place to end. Thank you so much for doing this, Henry. It’s been just my pleasure to catch up a bit and hear more about what your journey. It’s really powerful.
Henry:
Thank you, Julie. Really enjoyed it. And so glad we connected and thank you for this opportunity to speak with you and to connect with your audience.
Julie:
Yeah, thank you. All right, so let’s see… Next week, our latest podcast, One More Thing, will drop “Wherever You Get Your Podcasts.” I will be back on LinkedIn live on April 21st with another fascinating attorney or former attorney. And Henry’s book, which I highly, highly recommend, is called “Dis-solving Conflict From Within” by Henry Yampolsky. And it’s, it’s really, it’s more of Henry’s story and also these very powerful tools about working on conflict from within yourself. So highly recommend it. All right, thanks Henry. See you soon.
Henry:
Thank you so much, Julie.
