Winright Law specializes in business, real estate, and wills and estate planning. Our goal is to help individuals and companies navigate their legal issues and protect them from any legal liabilities. For businesses, this means assisting entrepreneurs, small to medium enterprises, and business owners with structuring their businesses, transactions, and agreements. For real estate, this means helping individuals, families, and developers with their real estate transactions, both residential and commercial. For wills and estate planning, this means helping individuals and families with their estate planning needs, everything from wills and trusts to probate applications.
What differentiates us from many other law firms that practice in these same areas is that we also provide litigation services, which means if there is a problem or a dispute, our clients are assured we can represent them in court. We often do and will succeed in achieving a result in their favour.
No matter the size or complexity of the case, we’re here to provide the best legal services possible. However, we’re not your typical law firm. What sets us apart is our commitment to innovation and providing a better legal experience. We strive to be leaders in the legal industry by constantly improving our practices and finding new ways to deliver exceptional services to our clients. We value being approachable and making sure our clients feel comfortable discussing their concerns with us.
Operational efficiency is also crucial to us. We want to streamline our processes to ensure timely and effective solutions for our clients. Innovation is at the core of everything we do. We believe in pushing boundaries and exploring creative approaches to find the best outcomes.
Collaboration is another essential aspect of our firm. We work together as a team, leveraging our diverse expertise to provide comprehensive legal support. We’re not here to exacerbate problems; we’re here to find the right solutions. Problem-solving is ingrained in our approach, always seeking the most favourable outcomes for our clients.
Our mission and values shape our interactions with both employees and clients. They drive employee engagement and customer service and foster a culture of innovation within our firm.
In a nutshell, at Winright Law, we’re dedicated to delivering outstanding legal services, offering a better experience for our clients and a positive work environment for our team. We’re not just another law firm; we’re here to lead, inspire, and create a better legal experience in the legal industry.
Tell us about yourself?
I’ve been practicing law for around 15 years, starting back in 2008. During that time, I’ve worked as both a solicitor and a litigator, specializing in business, real estate, and wills and estates. Before starting my own law firm, I gained valuable experience at a boutique firm located downtown.
Growing up in a traditional Asian household, my career options were pretty much limited to becoming a doctor or a lawyer. Since I excelled more in arguing with and persuading my teachers than excelling in math by any measure, law seemed like a natural choice for me. As I progressed in my career, I noticed the positive aspects of the tech industry, like its agility and collaborative culture. I wanted to combine those qualities with the traditional world of law. That led me to embark on various ventures under the umbrella of Winright Law.
Looking ahead, my goals include forming strategic partnerships, centralizing legal services for better efficiency, and even exploring the possibility of franchising. Along the way, I’ve built a fantastic team of 28 professionals who share my vision and dedication.
Despite my focus on business growth, giving back to the community has always been important to me. Whether it’s promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion through hiring women of colour, furthering the practice of elder law, advocating the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, or spearheading mentorship programs at Winright Law, we’re committed to making a positive impact beyond the legal realm.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
If I could go back in time a year or two, the advice I would give myself is to always remember that the biggest achievements in life aren’t necessarily in the black or the white, but in the gray, where you can find a creative solution that satisfies all camps. Most people are taught in life to only follow one path – it is one or the other, never both. Such is the case for my passion for business, my strength in law, and my love of collaborative culture, which is what led me to create Winright.
And while embarking on this path less travelled, you’ll face pressures to conform to societal norms and the status quo and to give up in the face of adversity, but just recognize the journey only seems overwhelming because you’re only seeing what is right in front of you, and not necessarily how things could unfold in the long run.
I believe that going through ups and downs is a valuable learning experience. It’s like riding a rollercoaster, where initially, you might fear crashing and burning, but in the end, you realize it wasn’t so bad and can even find it exciting. Reflecting on the journey afterwards, you realize that you safely made it through.
So, my advice to myself would be to continue to be creative – think differently – to embrace the challenges, keep a broader perspective, and trust that things will work out. It’s all part of the wild ride of life, and by staying resilient, you can overcome obstacles and come out stronger on the other side.
What problem does your business solve?
Like most lawyers and law firms, our business is similar in that the problem we are all solving is trying to take on clients’ stresses and trying to alleviate them. How that happens differs from one law firm to another. Some law firms focus primarily on a war of attrition and do it solely on the client’s dime.
In contrast, our law firm focuses on identifying the problem, both on a granular level and also on the macro level, and then tries to strategize a solution that is aligned with our clients’ goals and their budgets. An example of this might be that the problem is a shareholder dispute. The client goal may be to be bought out or to buy out the other shareholder, and the in-between might be the breakdown of their business relationship on a day-to-day basis, alongside all the frustration that comes with it. As each client’s problem is uniquely different depending on who is on the other side of it, we would tailor a variety of options to try to reach a solution aligned with their goals and their budget.
In other words, our business strategy to solve client problems is nuanced and thought thoroughly. We recognize their problem may be overwhelming, draining, and causing a significant negative impact as each day passes. Our goal is to provide effective solutions to our clients’ legal challenges, offering them peace of mind, guiding them through the complexities of the legal system, but also trying to ensure we meet their budgetary needs.
Whether it’s assisting with business matters, real estate transactions, or estate planning, our expertise allows us to address our clients’ concerns and provide them with the necessary legal support. By offering tailored solutions and personalized guidance, we aim to be a trusted partner in resolving our clients’ legal issues and helping them navigate through difficult situations.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
The inspiration behind my business stems from a couple of factors.
Firstly, as mentioned before, I was brought up in a traditional Asian household, where I was told my two career options would either be a doctor or a lawyer. Luckily, though, the same traditional Asian household, particularly my mom, instilled in me the mindset that if someone else can do something, I can do it too. If someone else can achieve a far-reaching goal, I could achieve the same far-reaching goal. This mindset encouraged me to confront my fears, overcome challenges, and believe that I had the ability to excel.
Secondly, my inspiration behind my business comes from trying to marry my passion with my strengths and my love. For me, this meant marrying business with law and tech culture. I found the latter while exploring the tech scene and was drawn to its collaborative nature and vibrant culture. I resonated with those aspects and found them appealing. When I began comparing this innovative and collaborative tech culture to the traditional law firm environment where I had previously worked, I noticed practices that seemed counterintuitive, lacking in goodwill, and not aligned with the principles of successful businesses. This comparison sparked the belief that I could do better, that I could create a law firm that embraced a more intuitive and business-oriented approach.
So, the inspiration behind my business was a combination of my upbringing, witnessing the collaborative culture of the tech scene, and trying to find my own creative path in the legal industry through the gray.
What is your magic sauce?
At Winright Law, our secret sauce lies in a few key elements.
On a very basic level, we embrace the importance of customer service and continually strive to surpass industry norms. This includes providing exceptional customer service and timely attention, faster and beyond what people would expect from the legal industry.
Specific to the legal industry itself, which is often perceived as traditional and difficult to approach, we break all conventional norms by pushing to understand our customers’ needs, establishing a connection, and offering a friendly and approachable service. From the outset, this means reviewing all documentation before our initial consultation and ensuring important information is canvassed beforehand so that by the time we have our initial consultation meeting with our clients, our questions are very directed, and our time is spent putting ourselves in our clients’ shoes, addressing their concerns in a relatable manner, without any further waste of time. And we do this preparation work prior to the initial consultation, at no cost to our client, because it is important for us to immediately demonstrate value to our clients, who we recognize are already stressed and anxious to hear solutions to their problems. By doing so, we differentiate ourselves from the competition, who often spend their time trying even to understand what the issue is before them. We understand that clients may already find navigating the legal process intimidating or inaccessible, and approaching us as your lawyers should not be. It should be easy and instill confidence in you that we’re immediately and always striving to find a solution to your problems.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
In the coming five years, our plan is to continue to grow and expand, but on a different trajectory plan than most other law firms. Further to what I said earlier about the biggest achievements coming from living in the gray, we continue to strive beyond the status quo.
Inspired by our own “big, hairy audacious goals” in the next 10 to 20 years, we’re determined to make substantial strides towards our long-term vision of building a law firm of the future. One which acts as both a legal platform for clients and lawyers to meet with ease and at their fingertips, but also one which is franchisable with physical locations throughout the country.
Although we know that things might not go exactly as we planned, we stay focused on our ultimate objective that keeps us motivated and moving forward. So, for now, our immediate plan is to expand throughout British Columbia, by opening new locations in the Greater Vancouver area. Consequently, we have secured an opportunity to expand to another location in a new building currently under construction. This expansion will provide us with double the capacity, allowing us to accommodate more clients and enhance our services. We believe that by creating a welcoming and accessible space, we will attract more individuals and businesses seeking legal assistance of different demographics.
With the increased capacity, we also aim to double our team size within the next five years. By bringing onboard talented professionals who share our values and commitment to exceptional service, we can better serve our expanding client base and continue to provide personalized and effective legal solutions.
While these plans provide a good roadmap for our growth, we remain open to adapting and seizing new opportunities that arise along the way, including pioneering the wave of AI in assisting the legal industry to be more efficient and effective. Regardless, we recognize that the journey to our “big, hairy audacious goals” will be filled with unexpected challenges and detours. Nonetheless, we are determined to persist, evolve, and strive towards making a lasting impact in the legal industry.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
One of the biggest challenges, for most industries I believe in this day and age, is people: to find, keep, and empower talented individuals so that they stay. In a highly competitive market, it’s important to attract the right people and create growth plans to keep them motivated.
These challenges have been a constant part of our own journey of growth, and we’ve had to stay agile yet durable throughout different stages of growth, particularly since the challenges you face when you are a team of five people are different than as a team of 10 people, which is different than as a team of 25 people. In the early days, losing a vital team member meant taking on their tasks ourselves. But now that we have a team of over 25 people, the challenge is ensuring we’ve established clear roles and responsibilities to avoid confusion when new team members join the existing team.
As we’ve expanded, we’ve had to learn and adapt on the go. Each phase brought its own set of hurdles and pain-points that seemed like it would break us. It is almost analogous to your body being stretched to what seems like its breaking point, but in fact, that’s how your muscles end up growing.
How can people get involved?
There are several ways for people to get involved with us.
If you are looking to get involved with the legal industry and want to hear more about what it’s like to join our team, then take a look at Winright.team, which is dedicated to attracting key talent and giving a sense of what our collaborative culture is like.
If you are looking for legal advice, whether it’s for incorporations, real estate transactions, shareholder agreements, disputes, or complex litigation matters, we cover a wide range of legal services. With a mission to lead, inspire, and create a better legal experience, making it easy for individuals to contact us and maintaining open lines of communication is a key tenet of ours. So, we’ve ensured to implement efficient systems and processes to enhance our service delivery, including 24/7 live representatives and self-booking calendaring function at your disposal on our website, in-person representatives dedicated to assess client inquiries during office hours, and robust tracking of client inquiries. By prioritizing operational excellence, we hope to provide a smoother and hassle-free experience for our clients.