embodiedliving

Women Lawyers Thriving in Their Own Firms: Joleen Hughes

Joleen Hughes greeted me with a big smile at the door of the Celtic Swell, a charming Irish pub in West Seattle. When I sat down with her for a lunch of Irish stew and cornbread, I discovered a woman who makes things happen. She loves music. She loves travel. And she loves to make things happen against the odds, in a big way.

Though her father is a lawyer, Joleen started out determined to make her way in the world without going to graduate school. How did she end up co-owner, with her husband, of the Celtic Swell, and owner of the Hughes Media Law Group as well?

Remember, Joleen loves music. A loyal and fervent Beatle’s fan, she began putting on rock concerts from her dorm at the UW, where she was an RA. While there, she met some of the movers and shakers in the Seattle music industry and after graduating from UW with an advertising degree she jumped in with both feet, soon working in the management office of bands like Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam (before and after they got big record deals). Soon she was also the booking manager at the premier rock club in Seattle during the "grunge years", RKCNDY, all while representing up to eight bands, for whom she negotiated various music contracts. By age 24, she’d left RKCNDY to teach Concert Production, History of Rock and Roll, and Artist Management at the Art Institute of Seattle.

At the Art Institute, her friend Kevin Davis of Garvey, Shubert and Barer (and Sir Mix-A-Lot’s lawyer), was a guest speaker in her Artist Management Class, and he suggested she become an entertainment lawyer.  While studying for the LSAT, she took a break from music and  worked in the Dean's office at Bastyr University, where she prepared for, applied and was admitted to Seattle University School of Law with a scholarship, before she told her family or friends. (Her dad beamed with pride when he found out.)

Joleen’s love of travel was boosted by a summer studying law in Florence, Italy (why didn’t I think of that?) and then travelling throughout Italy, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic and England. More about travel later. Back in Seattle, she was offered a legal internship at the start-up company RealNetworks (the company that invented audio/video streaming technology). Her boss and mentor was Kelly Jo MacArthur, who had come from international business law firm Sidley Austin in Chicago (where the Obamas met each other).

As one of the first employees at RealNetworks, after graduating Cum Laude from law school, Joleen's internship turned into an in-house position where she moved up the ranks to Senior Counsel.  While at Real, she had a full client base, often responsible for 60 to 100 deals at a time. She supported Real's consumer products teams in the music, sports, games and media fields as well as marketing and events.

And she loved her work, using her “street smarts” from her music days in negotiating some of Real's most prolific deals  with music companies (major labels, publishers, manufacturers, artists) sports leagues (like NFL, NASCAR, PGA Tour, NBA), media companies (like AOL, BBC, CNN, ABC, NBC/Universal) and technology providers.  She was part of the team that put together the first legal music initiative (MusicNet) and put together the first VOD subscription model in the movie industry, after spending two years helping major movie studios get comfortable with the model.

While at Real, Joleen says her boss “Kelly Jo was an unconditionally supportive mentor who empowered us all, based on her belief that by surrounding yourself with the best, you become the best.” And she found her co-workers at RealNetworks to be, without question, among the best lawyers she has ever worked with.  "My colleagues at Real have the highest integrity, but are also extraordinarily intelligent, talented, funny and supportive."

In 2000 and 2001, Joleen went traveling again, this time repeated visits to Ireland, Scotland and England for several weeks with her best friend, touring the country and falling in love with the people and the creative energy. Two years later in Seattle, on St. Patrick’s Day, Joleen met Gareth Hughes, who had arrived from Armagh in Northern Ireland many years before.  A late night of talking led to their first date at Mt. Rainier, and they have not been apart since!  After marrying a year later at sunset on the beach in Wailea, Maui, they decided to build an Irish Pub. Why? Remember: music, travel, and making things happen against the odds.  "It was Gareth's lifelong dream to own his own pub, and I fully support him in this effort." 

They found their spot close to their home on Alki Beach while walking their Siberian Huskies, Finnegan and Foley, and they proudly opened the Celtic Swell in July 2004. 
With Gareth fully in charge of running the day to day operation of the pub, Joleen left RealNetworks to take a break and to help Gareth with the pub as needed. But, within a few weeks she was not only being recruited at a couple of large law firms in Seattle but for several in-house positions at other Seattle companies.  Additionally, she was also asked to do a legal project for a former executive at Real.  Faced with a dilemma, she decided to take the project, test the odds and open her own solo practice.  A year later, she was introduced to another attorney who had just started a new practice and they merged their firms together.  When they parted ways, Joleen and the associates of the firm became Hughes Media Law Group or "HMLG" (www.hughesmedialawgroup.com). 

Coming from Real, Joleen's most important objective in setting up a private practice was to put together a team of talented lawyers with in-house experience and an extra helping of integrity.  "While at Real, I worked with amazing attorneys and it taught me a lot about how to conduct yourself.  We didn't "fight" over work or take credit for other people's work - it was a real collaborative team effort to just concentrate on doing great work for our clients.  It was an amazing place to develop my legal chops.  When I left, I was shocked to learn that colleagues outside of Real had different experiences at law firms."

So, for Joleen the challenge was to create a firm that provided the same level of attention to clients that in-house lawyers provide while helping them manage their legal budgets and keep costs reasonable and predictable.  "I am absolutely inspired by my clients, it doesn't matter if they are just starting out or have established businesses - I am in awe of entrepreneurs and feel a kinship with them.  Lawyers are service providers - and I think it is important to always remember that.  It is what drives me every day."  Unlike many lawyers, Joleen knows what it is like to take her life savings and invest it in her own business and how scary yet exhilarating that can be. 

In other words, Joleen doesn't take the fact that a client is choosing to spend their hard-earned money on legal services lightly.  She insists that both she and her associates think of themselves as "executives" on her clients’ teams. First, it is imperative that they meet with a client (at no charge) to get an understanding about everything in that clients’ business, from “the toilet paper they buy to their biggest deals".  Next, she and her team work closely with their clients to develop an overall legal strategy for the business.  This could be initially helping negotiate a deal, developing a template, setting up a company, conducting an audit of their intellectual property - or for many - becoming their de-facto  "virtual in-house counsel" team.  This approach allows Joleen and her team to form deep and lasting relationships with their clients and help set legal budgets to facilitate their business goals. Her clients at HMLG are located in Seattle, Los Angeles, and the Bay area and include content production studios, music technology , web, and content, and game developers, advertising agencies and platforms, children's product developers, artists, health care platforms, product distributors, and social networking sites.

It is important to note, that starting and running new businesses is not easy, and Joleen has certainly learned a lot over the past few years.  "In starting a restaurant and law practice (both within the same year!), I have certainly encountered a few speed bumps along the way, as anyone must expect when they decide to open their own business.  But it is absolutely worth it.  I have learned an incredible amount, not just from the good experiences, but mostly from the experiences that have tested my character."  Philosophically and practically, Joleen believes that every one of her experiences in life and in running her businesses has made her a better person, and a more compassionate attorney. 

Looking back to her own roots, Joleen recalls that when she was 12 years old, she went camping with her friend's family on May 18, 1980  on the Toutle River near Mount Saint Helens when the mountain blew.  She will never forget the ash, the grey covered “death” floating in the river after the eruption, and the feeling of coming so close to losing her own life.   “I think that experience was a defining moment for me, because it imprinted in the very fiber of my being that that you can never let anything or anybody stop you from achieving your goals with honesty and integrity. You are the creator of your own universe and each day is a gift.”

Joleen’s story not only inspires me to do what I love--it reminds me that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Wassa Dance in Seattle

My first encounter with African dance was in a class given by Seattle dance teacher, Lara McIntosh. She is the creator and proprietor of Wassa Dance.  This afro-fusion class is inspired by the Bambara name given to her in Mali, meaning "one who acts for joy and fulfillment.”  As we started dancing to the live drums that play during her Sunday classes, my body began to remember.  Though I had never taken African dance before, it was if the spiritual and physical parts of me joined in that moment, recalling the archetype of the embodied feminine and her role in creating and shaping life.  My body felt as if the drums were in my heart, a wave of energy had taken root in my torso, and my feet were touching earth for the first time.

Lara’s life journey led her into the African dance scene.  She had been a dancer all of her life and it was through synchronicity that she found herself learning and teaching African dance and eventually in Mali, Africa experiencing it first-hand.  Her friends, students and family made the trip possible-very fitting when you begin to understand that African dance is all about community.  Not only in its socio-historical roots, yet also in the way it so easily brings a group of people together as one as they move in sync to the elemental rhythm of the drums.

I think that many people have a distorted understanding of African dance-especially that of African women.  In our ego-centric western society, we are very focused on the individual.   Many of the gestures in African dance have to do with the symbolic and spiritual nature of the feminine.  When you lose yourself in the music and the movement, you know that you are celebrating the rituals and passages of life, the self, and the body.

It is through Lara’s patient, humorous and wise teaching that I have come to understand that the African view is that the body is the community. Of course. And the feminine as it is expressed through the dance is not only the deep well of collective memory, it is also energy and the creation and sustenance of life that is central to any tribe.

Somehow, in Lara’s classes, I get all of that, though Lara uses very few words to explain.  As we move through the room, swaying hips, gesturing from the heart, feet holding the beat, I am literally carried inward to a knowing that is elemental and universal.  It is an understanding that it is only in our connection to our deepest selves and to others, that we will have what we need to survive and thrive in the world today.

I have studied somatics and I love bringing the work to my clients and workshop participants, and yet something has always been missing for me.  African dance is bringing me home to the feminine embodiment of life and our connectedness in the truest sense.  When we are all practicing the movements that Lara teaches us, even in our sometimes awkward first attempts, there is still a sense of collective energy in the room that speaks louder than any words.  It brings us together in our bodies, hearts and spirits.  It feels like life.  If you live in Seattle and want to experience Lara’s lively energy firsthand, come to one of her classes.