#004: Jay Hyne - Director of Regulatory Relations

This transcript was generated by AI.

Jay Hyne [00:00:00]:

You have to be willing to not know everything. And I think that's part of what some lawyers fall into is a rut. It's like, okay, I know this area of law. I've been practicing in this area of law. I know all the ins and outs. But that almost makes them afraid to branch out and try something new, learn a new area, take on a different type of client. And that can be limiting. So, for me, emotional vulnerability it's the key to growth.

Jonah Perlin [00:00:25]:

Welcome to How I Lawyer, a podcast where I talk to attorneys from throughout the profession about what they do, why they do it, and how they do it well. I'm your host, Jonah Perlin, a law professor in Washington, DC. Now let's get started. Hello, and welcome back. First, I just want to say thank you to the hundreds of you who have already listened to the first three episodes of the podcast. I really, really appreciate it. Thanks especially to those who subscribed to the email list @howilawyer.com, left ratings on Apple podcasts, posted on social media, and shared the episodes with family, friends, colleagues, and, most importantly, current and future law students. I'm so grateful for your support on this new project. And today, in episode number four, you are really in for a treat. My guest is my dear friend and regulatory expert, Jay Hyne. Jay is a director of U. S. Regulatory Relations at American Express. Before that, he worked in American Express's Special Investigations Financial Intelligence Unit, where he conducted anti money laundering investigations. And before joining American Express, Jay worked as a litigation associate at a large law firm's, New York City office and clerked for Magistrate Judge Thomas P. Smith in Hartford, Connecticut. Jay is a graduate of Brandeis University, go, Judges, and the University of Connecticut Law School. Go, Huskies. In our conversation, we talk about the ins and outs of regulatory and anti money laundering work, the importance of emotional intelligence and reputation in the life of a lawyer, his transition from litigation to legal adjacent work, the importance of taking parental leave when it's offered, and the ways that a legal skill set can extend from the courtroom to the boardroom. We started our conversation by discussing his current role. Here's Jay.

Jay Hyne [00:02:04]:

Well, let me answer your question by asking you a question. What do you think of when you think of American Express?

Jonah Perlin [00:02:11]:

Yeah, well, I won't use the litigator answer and say I'm the one that asked the questions. But no, when I think of American Express, I probably think of two things credit cards and those old school travelers checks.

Jay Hyne [00:02:22]:

And I think that's probably what most people think of when they think of American Express, and that does comprise a core chunk of our business. But what most people don't think about is American Express is a bank, and that's how we offer most of our lending products. So, for example, when you make a charge on your American Express card. The merchant that you use that card at gets paid in a few days, and at the end of the month, you get a bill and you pay American Express. So basically, the merchant gets paid quickly. The company, American Express, is floating that money, and then you pay back at the end of the month. So in order to have a revolving credit product, you need a bank. We don't have a retail bank like Chase or Citi, but we have a bank that's headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, that has roughly $140,000,000,000 in it, which makes us one of the top 30 or so banks in the country.

Jonah Perlin [00:03:13]:

And did you know any of this before you started, or this is just what you learned when you entered the business?

Jay Hyne [00:03:18]:

I learned it when I entered the business. And the reason that this is relevant when you ask what I do is, as a bank, American Express is subject to regulations. And people hear this all the time in the media, wall street regulations, financial regulations, things like the Dodd Frank Act and things like that. So we are subject to regulations in order to maintain our banking charter, because without our bank, we could not issue a single credit card, prepaid card, charge card. We still, believe it or not, do issue travelers checks. All of those things are underwritten by a bank. The bank is at the heart of most of our products. And because we're subject to these regulations, we work with regulators a lot. Our primary regulators are the Federal Reserve, which most people have probably heard of, the OCC, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and then, of course, there's the FDIC, which everyone knows. So suffice it to say that American Express is subject to a lot of regulatory oversight.

Jonah Perlin [00:04:12]:

Absolutely.

Jay Hyne [00:04:13]:

And our regulators are looking to make sure that the bank is well capitalized, that we have proper information, security, and privacy practices in place, that our investments are properly made, and certain quality of investment grade and a couple dozen other things that they look at. So most companies the size of Amex have a dedicated team full of regulatory experts that we manage this entire process. So my team is the team that manages every regulatory interaction, every regulatory examination. And I don't mean exam like a pencil and paper and a scantron. I mean, it's sort of like a regulatory audit where they look at thousands of documents and policies and procedures, and they're doing an audit to make sure our businesses run safely and soundly and that our practices have sufficient oversight. And I focus on technology. So one exam that we have every single year is a cybersecurity exam. So they'll come in and they'll want to know about penetration testing and our servers and our data centers. And it's a top to bottom review of every aspect of our program.

Jonah Perlin [00:05:16]:

Are you answering those questions directly? Are you playing that role of intermediary between regulator and business.

Jay Hyne [00:05:24]:

The simple answer is our team functions as a centralized facilitator. But that's a simplistic answer because there's more to it than just scheduling meetings and sending over PDFs. I view us as strategic advisors for our business partners because these regulators, whether we're talking about the Fed or the OCC or the FDIC, they need to meet with dozens and dozens of teams and senior leaders across the company. And these leaders are not trained in regulatory matters, so we advise them on what the expectations are, how to package information, messaging, consistency, and how to actually talk to a regulator. Because sometimes it does feel a little like a deposition.

Jonah Perlin [00:06:00]:

I was going to say it sounds a lot like when you're representing a client who's being deposed, you need to know what they're going to say. You need to know how they're going to say it, and you need to prepare them so that there are no surprises.

Jay Hyne [00:06:14]:

Right. That's why before every meeting, we meet with the internal business leader, and then we're in the room for all these meetings. It's rapid fire. It's question after question. And these government regulators, they don't just want an answer. They want backup. They want documents.

Jonah Perlin [00:06:26]:

Right.

Jay Hyne [00:06:26]:

They want to see numbers. The stakes are very high. These regulators have the power, and these regulators can strip you of your banking charter. They can shut down your business. Imagine a world where we couldn't acquire any companies, where we couldn't lend any money, where we couldn't open any new accounts for customers. That cripples your business. One of our most valuable assets is our brand and our image. Amex has been around for over 150 years, and the name Connotes Integrity, it's a prestigious brand. It's a valuable brand. It's a high end premium product, and it's hard to get people to sign up for a platinum card. If you have a reputation for doing business with sanctioned countries or not calculating interest properly, the OCC audits you, and then all of a sudden they find that there's instances of customers being charged the wrong APR that can destroy your reputation. And I think this is one of those obvious crossovers with the law. Your reputation is everything.

Jonah Perlin [00:07:15]:

And are most of the people who do what you do or who are on your team lawyers?

Jay Hyne [00:07:21]:

Yeah. It's not a requirement, but the majority of our team is attorneys. We're in the general counsel's organization. And the reason it's not a requirement to be an attorney is because you don't practice law. We're not interpreting laws and regs. We're not signing agreements. We're not going to court, certainly. And we don't work with outside counsel, although we have engaged them on occasion. But the skills and the skill set required to excel in this job just it overlaps so well. There's a lot of attorneys. We have former defense attorneys, private practice prosecutors. My VP, before she came to Amex was a prosecutor in Miami. So there's something about the skill set that contributes to people's success in this role. And there's a lot of attorneys that I work with directly.

Jonah Perlin [00:08:06]:

Can you say a little bit more about what that skill set is, what you're doing, but also how you're doing it with that legal training or legal lens?

Jay Hyne [00:08:16]:

Yeah, that's a great question. It comes up in a lot of ways. The number one skill that I think separates the most successful people from your average employee is communication. And I don't just mean verbal, I mean the ability to take something complex and whittle it down to a few bullet points or a concise summary. Lawyers are great at digesting a large amount of information and picking out the important parts and conveying that in a clear manner. You do it your first year of law school. Your contracts professor assigns you a twelve page case that was decided in 1903. And then they call on you in class and they say, what was this case about? Well, they don't want a recitation of twelve pages, they just want to know the key takeaways. So part of what I do in my job is I'll go to a regulatory meeting where let's say the OCC wants to know this new information security program that we're using and let's see some examples of it. And this meeting goes on for 3 hours and involves eight senior vice presidents and two OCC examiners. And at the end of it, the president of the bank says, what happened in that meeting? Well, he's not asking for six pages of notes. He wants to know what are the high level four or five things that he needs to know. And I have to sift through all the fluff and all of the chitter chatter and just give him the meat. So I think that's a skill that lawyers develop in law school and certainly in practice, and it's sifting the relevant from the irrelevant and communicating it in a clear way. And sometimes it involves being put on the spot, obviously quick thinking. Anybody who's ever been called on in class in law school has probably been in that position where you have to come up with something on your feet. But communication is everything and being able to digest something in a way that somebody can easily understand who wasn't in a meeting.

Jonah Perlin [00:10:00]:

What I hear you saying also is sort of the ability to issue spot on the front end of what's important and then be able to communicate back what's important to someone who knows a heck of a lot less than you do. And in a lot of ways, right, that's what we teach in law school. That's what I aspire to teach my own students. So it makes a lot of sense. Not to nerd out too much, but sort of how do you communicate internally? Is it a memo shop? Are you Gmail? Are you phone calls? I'm really interested in how people on the ground actually communicate advice to people in the business.

Jay Hyne [00:10:33]:

That's such a great question because I've sort of had three chapters to my career and at each place it was done in a very different way. The one really neat thing about my job is and it wasn't true with my first job at Amex, but it is definitely true now. My clients, so to speak, it's not anyone outside the company, it's our internal people, but we're facing the most senior people in the company. I don't deal with people below VP. I generally deal with senior vice presidents, executive vice presidents, and presidents of business units. And I'm not saying that to toot my own horn. I'm saying these are the people the regulators want to meet with. These are the people that are responsible for products that we issue for the bank's performance.

Jonah Perlin [00:11:14]:

Right.

Jay Hyne [00:11:14]:

So my customers, my clients, they're super busy people. One woman that I've worked with, she's the president of our Global Services Group, which has 36,000 employees. She doesn't have time for a half an hour debrief.

Jonah Perlin [00:11:26]:

She doesn't want to see the question presented. Right.

Jay Hyne [00:11:29]:

No, exactly. She wants to see a few bullet points in an email, maybe a slide or two. And I think it's effective at that level to be brief. And I've learned over the last few years in this role how to be brief and brevity is key. So if I'm in the room with the chief technology officer of the company, I'm giving them one slide to say, these are the five things that they're going to ask about. These are the three things that came up during your last meeting. These are the two things that keep coming up in these other meetings. This is what you need to know. So I'm giving them just the key takeaways they've got to be prepared for. So at that level, that's typically how we communicate internally. But it's a lot of email and you learn how to not pile on somebody with paragraph after paragraph. You're just trying to cut to the chase because everybody's overloaded with emails and meetings and you want to give people just what they need to know and nothing else. And I think people appreciate that. It shows that you value their time and you're not going to dump too much information on them that they don't need.

Jonah Perlin [00:12:28]:

Right. So what makes a good email? So you've just hired a junior person on your team and you're trying to mentor them and they send you an email. What are you looking for?

Jay Hyne [00:12:39]:

This may just be a personal preference here. But I like a lot of different paragraphs. There's nothing more daunting. When you open up an email and you're just hit with like a block of single spaced text, my mind glazes over and I'm just going to skip it and go on to the next email. Break it down like bullet points. Use arrows bold, face underline. Use a different color even. And if you're replying to an email, reply right in the body of my email. If you have a question about something, put it right in the middle of the paragraph in red so my eyes are drawn to it.

Jonah Perlin [00:13:08]:

Right.

Jay Hyne [00:13:08]:

Because we get so many emails, and maybe this is not true at every corporation or firm, but at Amex, we get so many emails. Just make it easy for me to see what I need to know so I don't have to spend time reading two giant blocks of text and trying to figure out for myself what's important. You're telling me something. Highlight for me what I need to know, and that way I can be more efficient with my time.

Jonah Perlin [00:13:29]:

One of my clients that I used to work for when I was in private practice said that she only wanted emails that followed the two scroll rule, where you only had to move your thumb up twice to be able to get the content of the email. But I also agree, I think the power of the medium of communication is really important. And you don't have to write in full paragraphs, and you can write a single sentence in its own paragraph in an email in a way that you never would in a formal piece of writing. I want to change directions a little bit and talk a little bit about your path to your job. It sounds like you're doing really interesting work, work that I certainly haven't heard a lot about and I imagine that you hadn't heard a lot about when you started. How did you get to Amex and how did you work your way to your current position?

Jay Hyne [00:14:16]:

So, believe it or not, one of our mutual friends lived in New York City, where I lived, and I was looking to pivot away from litigation. I was talking to everyone I know. I was looking through my network and asking people what you asked me. How did you get to where, you know, what makes you happy? Any advice? Long story short, his roommate at the time worked at American Express and been there for a few years and loved it. And their team was actually expanding and they were hiring. But he warned me it was a pretty big pivot. It was AML. And I was like, I don't even know what AML is. So this mutual friend told me all about AML, which is anti money laundering, and I had no idea what that was. So what that means is banks and other financial services companies are bound by the Patriot Act and the Bank Secrecy Act. When you're dealing with customers, you have to have a program around detecting money laundering and other financial crimes, narcotics trafficking, funding terrorism, obviously hiding money, corporate shelters, things like that. Every time a certain transaction looks like unusual. And there's a whole set of technology programs in place to detect unusual transactions. That's a whole other conversation. But you have to open a manual investigation. Somebody has to actually examine it, look at the behavior, do an analysis, and if it is suspicious, you have to file what's called Suspicious Activity Report with the Treasury Department and then law enforcement takes it from there. So that program at Amex was dramatically understaffed, and they were doing a hiring surge of hiring hundreds of people to staff this up and get the program back on track and manage our caseload. So I ended up applying and got a job.

Jonah Perlin [00:15:54]:

Talk about right place at right time. Right?

Jay Hyne [00:15:56]:

Right place at the right time, and it was crazy, Jonah. Every couple of weeks, they were bringing on 612 new people like me, almost all attorneys, mostly young. I mean, I'd only been out of law school four years at that point, and it was great and it was a fun environment. In New York, we're on the 40th floor. We had all the resources you could ask for, computers, work from home, which was before work from home was a thing. And they trained us. They gave us all the tools we needed. And some of us who excelled ended up turning that into a full time offer of employment. I got put onto a team called Special Investigations. We were, like, looking at the big, large scale cigarette trafficking narcotics, like some of the more large scale investigations beyond just the routine day to day. And that was great. Did well there. And my boss and her boss, they were both lawyers. They knew I was happy and I liked the work, but I had kind of done everything I could do on that team. I kind of wanted something more, and I was like, just, the team is full. There's no really room to grow here. There was nowhere to get promoted to. So I told my Director at the time, keep your eye out. If there are any really good opportunities, let me know, because I'd be interested in moving around. And as an aside, this is one of the classic things that makes Amex a great place to work. There's an institutional attitude where they love to move people around. People stay at Amex a long time, but people won't stay someplace if they get stuck in a rut. So they're constantly moving people around business units, giving them exposure to different teams, different areas of focus, different skill sets. So, sure enough, my Director used to practice law for the City of New York with a woman in my current team who was looking for a manager to oversee some regulatory engagements. So she put me in touch and I interviewed for the role and I got it. And I started doing these state money and transmitter examinations, and I've worked my way up. And now I'm a director and I oversee a team. But again, going to anti money laundering was a pivot for me.

Jonah Perlin [00:17:51]:

And just to be clear, at this point, did you have any regulatory experience?

Jay Hyne [00:17:54]:

I had never worked with regulators. I didn't know what the OCC was. I didn't know what a state money transmitter license was. I had never managed a team. So I came over to this regulatory focus group and learned on the Go. I had a great mentor and sort of taught me what I needed to know. And I think the attorneys just it's a skill set that transfers pretty easily. So in not a very long amount of time, I was up and running and running my own exams. Here we are four years later, and I'm very happy, but you just have to be willing to take a little bit of a risk because you're going to an area that you don't have any background in. Certainly was never covered in law school. There were no courses at my law school about regulatory oversight, financial regs.

Jonah Perlin [00:18:38]:

If there had been, would you have taken them?

Jay Hyne [00:18:41]:

No. I think this is something that comes up a lot. People talk about this, that this is such a great area for lawyers, and there's really no way to know how to get here unless your journey sort of brings you to that point through chance. I wish compliance and regulatory was a track that you could take in law school to lead you here, because there are so many of us doing this work, and it just doesn't exist. You just basically have to find your way. And that's why I always tell people, throw your tenure plan out the window, because no one knows. Ten years ago, I was in a clerkship, and I was convinced I was going to be a career litigator, and I'm doing nothing close to litigation. So the fun is just figuring out what to do next, not trying to predict it.

Jonah Perlin [00:19:24]:

All right, two quick follow ups, and then I want to turn to your litigator life. The first follow up is if someone's hearing about what you've done, either on the regulatory side or the money laundering side, and thinking, like, maybe that's a career for me. What's the path that gets them where you got a little bit faster?

Jay Hyne [00:19:42]:

No one that I know does what I do, and our team has a lot of people on it. No one I know went to college or law school specifically for this. I think American Express looks for people with a certain skill set and trains them. You just sort of learn how to adapt on the fly. There's really no law school focus that you could take that would really focus on it. It's more about, can you handle the workload, can you communicate? And then you learn how to do the work once you join. There are things you can do, like on the money laundering side, to give yourself a leg up in hiring, and I won't lie, an entry level analyst in an anti money laundering field is not, you know, you're not going to get rich doing it. However, it's competitive and a lot of people, it's a growing field. You see it in the news a lot. I think in the Trump administration, there were a lot of SARS. Suspicious Activity Reports were in the news because some people at Deutsche Bank and others leaked them, which is a federal crime. But that's a whole other story. Different kind of lawyer. But if you want to get into it, there's something called ACAMS, which you can actually get a certification in and become a certified money laundering specialist. And that's something that at Amex, if you work here for a while, you can get the company to pay for, and that becomes part of your credentials. But hiring an analyst at Amex, if somebody came in having an ACEMS certification, that's a huge advantage, and you can rise up in that field.

Jonah Perlin [00:21:04]:

What kind of people are going to be happy doing the regulatory work that you do? What should someone look at in the mirror and say, this is what I like to do and this is why I want to do this? Where does that lead?

Jay Hyne [00:21:15]:

Great question. And this is one of the things I think about myself all the time when I think about my future. And for me, I like the variety of it. When I litigated, it felt a lot like copying and pasting. If you've done motion practice, you might change the facts around a little bit, but basically your motion looks the same. You're dealing with similar clients in similar areas. For me, I was doing state money transmitter exams, and then I was doing OCC exams. But in the financial front, capital markets, liquidity. Now I'm doing all technology, information security, data governance.

Jonah Perlin [00:21:50]:

Which I imagine is a growing business.

Jay Hyne [00:21:54]:

Huge, Huge, and the OCC is all over it. You know, information security and anything tech. It's probably the single biggest threat to the company. One data breach and you're in deep trouble. So for me, I'm learning about all these areas that I had no background in. I did not go to school for tech. I have no idea how to code. I'm in the room with these people, the foremost experts at Amex and information security. I'm learning from them. So somebody who wants to learn about numerous areas and move around, and maybe in a couple of years I'll be focused on finance and accounting. Maybe tech lasts for me, and I end up moving into the technology business unit and I become an expert in that subject matter, I don't know. But the advantage of it is a, I get to move around, and B, I'm exposed to some of the most senior people in the company, so I'm learning from them. I hear how they think. I hear what their concerns are. I hear how they respond when they're getting grilled by a regulator. Just by being in the same room as some of these top people. I feel like it's like being in seminars, like you're just seeing the best people in the industry at what they do in action.

Jonah Perlin [00:22:55]:

Can you talk a little bit about the quality of life aspect of the job?

Jay Hyne [00:22:58]:

This is not an 80 hour a week job. We rarely work weekends. We rarely work late nights. That's certainly not the goal. And if we're working at 10:00 at night, there's a problem. And it's not the permanent state of being. So there's no calls from clients at noon on a Sunday. If you have a life outside of work, if you value family time or whatever it is you do with your time, you can do that.

Jonah Perlin [00:23:21]:

It sounds like you've had several Pivots already in your relatively junior career. Do you feel like you've gotten better at learning new skills? What's your approach to learning something that candidly, you know nothing about?

Jay Hyne [00:23:36]:

Listen more, talk less. You're always going to be surrounded by people who know more than you. And people love to talk. So I'll give you an example. When I took over the technology group for regulatory, there is one OCC examiner who produces a lot of work, and he's challenging. And I was sort of like the guru for this one regulator. And everybody in the company looks to me to manage this guy. And there is a woman in our technology team who has worked for a long time in our tech group. She used to be sort of a Chief of Staff or Chief Technology Officer who reports the CEO. So she knows everything there is to know about tech. She knows all the key players. She knows everything. She's my go to. So I set up a bi weekly meeting for an hour with her one on one, and these became my Tech 101 sessions. And I said to her, just this week we're going to talk about artificial intelligence and machine learning. This week we're going to talk about our servers and our data centers and our backups and what would happen if one of them went offline. So I didn't know anything about tech. But if I'm supposed to be in these meetings with this demanding regulator, I need to be able to be conversant in this language. I need to be able to raise to my VP. Hey, this thing came up with AIML, which is Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning. If I don't know what AIML is, I am no good to my VP because I can't raise any concerns up the flagpole. So I took it on myself to just listen. I just get on the phone with this woman every other Friday and just say, info dump. Just tell me who are the key players, what are the considerations that the OCC is going to look at? What do I need to be on the lookout for?

Jonah Perlin [00:25:15]:

Yeah, I mean, sometimes I tell my students and I had this in my own career. You don't need to know everything. You need to know who your first call is going to be. And also admitting to yourself it takes a little bit of humility, right, of being willing to be in a room where you don't know everything, but also confidence; that you can figure it out quickly. It sounds like, for you, that's kind of where you thrive. Is it that intersection between humility and confidence?

Jay Hyne [00:25:41]:

And I'll tell you a little story about how this comes into play. I had a VP at Amex who was very big on emotional intelligence. She taught me a lot about vulnerability. And it's not just being like, I'm not talking about I'm out of a bad relationship with my girlfriend vulnerability. I'm talking about being okay, not knowing the answer to every question, not feeling confident at all times, being willing to be wrong and make a mistake and put yourself out there, because that's how you grow if you're not vulnerable, you're not open to new concepts. You're not open to pivoting and learning new skills. And it tends to close off your paths, your future paths in your career. That's a big key for me, is being vulnerable, going into an environment where I don't know anything but asking people, what do I need to know? Who do I need to be asking? Who are the key players? And learning on the fly. And that's something that is an emotional skill that everyone needs to work on. It's not innate. You don't instinctively know how to do that, but you have to be willing to not know everything. And I think that's part of what some lawyers fall into is a rut. It's like, okay, I know this area of law. I've been practicing in this area of law. I know all the ins and outs, but that almost makes them afraid to branch out and try something new, learn a new area, take on a different type of client. And that can be limiting. So for me, emotional vulnerability, it's the key to growth.

Jonah Perlin [00:27:08]:

I totally agree. All right, let's talk about your litigator career. What was the moment that made you realize that being a litigator was not for you?

Jay Hyne [00:27:18]:

Well, it was a unique experience. I joined what is now an Amla 200 firm in New York City. In the New York office, I was one of two associates with 17 partners. So I joined a group of established attorneys who were much older veterans of their areas, and I was one of two young people. I was coming off of a clerkship in a different state, so I knew nothing about local New York practice. I had never practiced before, and certainly I didn't summer associate at that firm, and I didn't have the benefit of associates around me to ask questions. And the partners around me had very high expectations, and I didn't know how to practice. And that wasn't really the environment to learn in. And there just wasn't a lot of mentorship. It was sort of like, get it done. I don't care if it's two in the morning, just figure it out. So there was one moment that just sort of like, my jaw just dropped. There was one night that I worked in the office till like, two in the morning. And the next morning I came in at like 09:07 and the partner in the office next to mine, I sat down, take my coat off, called me in and sat me down about my professional. And he's like, you're here after 09:00. As the associate, you should not be following the partners into work. You should be here when the partners get here. And I was like, I was here till 02:00 in the morning last night. It's 09:07. It's not like I'm a lazy person. I'm wiped. I fell asleep at 03:00 a.m., I need to sleep back at 09:07. But it was done with a straight face. It wasn't a wink wink, like, hey, for the future. Not a great look. It was sort of like, there's a problem here. That was a sign where I'm like, maybe this is not the right this is the expectations in the industry. There was no credit given for working till 02:00 a.m. And getting the job done. It looks bad that you're not here at nine, here at 09:07.

Jonah Perlin [00:29:11]:

It's all about who you work with, the culture of where you work and hearing you talk about a lack of mentorship, focus on metrics, a lack of understanding, and as you said, like emotional intelligence. That can be a real challenge.

Jay Hyne [00:29:25]:

100%. And look, I've always wondered, maybe it was just the firm that I landed at. Maybe it was a firm that just doesn't really excel at growing associates. I do think they tend to grow the firm on partner hires. And maybe I was just in a bad situation. I was one of only two associates in an office full of partners, and it wasn't a great environment as a young attorney. But on the other hand, now being at Amex, American Express is almost like touchy feely in the way it handles feedback and career growth, constantly giving people the resources to have conversations with people both how do I learn on my job? Can I take courses? Can I go to seminars? And feedback? What am I doing right? What am I doing wrong? How can I get better? There is a lot of focus. In fact, for this year, the focus from the company, from the CEO down, was the concept of feedback. It was, you grow in your job based on feedback, not just from people above you, but people below you. You want to know the people that report to you, what am I doing as a leader? Right? How could I be better? Et cetera. When I was at that firm, there was no concept of feedback. I never had sit downs with, hey, Jay, you're doing great on this, but this was a little weak. I want to see you work on it. That just didn't happen. Focus was just on the work. And that's good. It's good to focus on doing a good job and keeping clients happy and keeping the lights on. But that's not a way to make people satisfied in the long term, because there's more to work than just work. You're working there 80 hours a week. You want to be happy. You want to feel like I'm excelling, that I'm valued, that my bosses are listening to my feedback for them, because nobody is perfect as a leader. And I think in a law firm environment, and maybe, again, this is just my firm, being a partner is not just the title and the money and the clout with clients and all that. It's also leading associates and developing a team that you can trust and that trusts you and that feels valued and respected because people do their best work when they feel appreciated, when their work gets noticed, and even when getting negative feedback. That shows that you're listening, that you care, that you're giving them negative feedback because you're invested in their growth and you want to see them become better colleagues. I never thought enough about the culture. I never thought enough about, am I going to feel like the firm wants to see me grow? It just that wasn't the environment for me. The litigation itself was fine, although I think Jonah, you've practiced in a large city. I came from Hartford. I went to law school in Hartford. I clerked in Hartford. It's a small bar where lawyers know other lawyers, and there was a certain amount of congeniality and respect in New York.

Jonah Perlin [00:32:08]:

Very different. In a national practice or in a big city practice.

Jay Hyne [00:32:10]:

It's no holds barred, it's war, and you're looking for any advantage. There's no reason to be nice to any one lawyer because you'll probably never encounter them again. So it was very nasty, and everything was a game of Gotcha, and you're operating on the margins. You're filing motion practice to just either bury them in cost or try to catch them on a technicality. And you think you're going to law practice to vindicate your clients and save the day, but for the most part, you're just playing games with opposing counsel. And I was like, what am I doing here? What's the goal? Am I just going to do motion practice for the next 30 years? There was just no variability.

Jonah Perlin [00:32:52]:

I'm just interested. Your job now, working with regulators, there are people on different sides, right? It's not a purely adversarial process, but as you said, if you don't do it right, they're going to come get you, which doesn't sound that different to me than my experience in litigation. So I guess my query is, are they different or was it just a difference in kind for you and your lifestyle and what you like to do everyday?

Jay Hyne [00:33:19]:

It is different. And I'll tell you how. Regulators, they can bring the hammer down when necessary. If they see a bank that is acting irresponsibly or with bad intent, they can make life difficult. But I think almost any regulator you meet will tell you that is not their goal. Their goal is to build your program to a place where it is self sustaining, where it is strong, where resources are used smartly. And our toughest regulator, he is a pain because he produces a lot of work and he makes a lot of people sweat. But our programs are better because of him. He conducts an exam on a specific thing, and boy, how those dollars flow in. All of a sudden, money gets invested for hiring. We start using better vendors. We start refining our programs, improving our policies. We fix holes, we fix problems because they draw attention to it. And their goal is they want the new version of Wells Fargo, not the old version that was scamming people. So ultimately, sometimes it feels adversarial because I can imagine being that senior vice president getting grilled by a regular, it doesn't feel good. But they're trying to help you. Opposing counsel is not trying to help you. They are trying to get you. And they're trying to win a trial. They're trying to make a case go away. And it's definitely one on one combat. Whereas regulators ultimately want to see the banks succeed, and their goal is to protect the public. And they protect the public by making sure we're doing our jobs fairly and within the law. That's one of the ways that I feel my job is fulfilling, where I feel like we're collaborating and we're ultimately working towards successful outcomes. In litigation, it's more zero sum. Somebody wins a case or a motion and someone loses. At my job, even across the company, we're all on the same team. We're trying to do things fairly and treat our customers right. We're trying to keep our regulators happy, but we're all trying to make something work. And I think for long term happiness, it's much more fulfilling to go that way than to try to just screw somebody in a courtroom. So I found happiness in this role.

Jonah Perlin [00:35:38]:

Yeah, I think about all the students that I've had in my office, and they say, well, should I do litigation or should I do regulatory, should I do transactional? And I've never thought about it. The question that I should respond with is, do you thrive in collaborative work or do you thrive in competitive work? Because I think people thrive in one or the other more. And some of the best litigators I worked with are the nicest people in the world when you go out to dinner with them. But what gets them up in the morning is the strategic competition it's how can we get that foothold? And that just clearly wasn't for you. And I'm so glad that you found the profession you did.

Jay Hyne [00:36:20]:

And let me leave your listeners with one suggestion. I mentioned earlier, there was a VP that I worked for who was just so savvy with emotional intelligence. She had everyone in our team take a test and there's a book associated with it which she gifted to everybody, but it's called What Motivates Me? You take about 100 questions and it produces a report which is, I don't know, 30 pages long, and it basically says there's 23 motivators. Maybe it's money, maybe it's creativity, maybe it's family, maybe they want to be inspired. There's, like I said, 23 things and based on answering these questions, it will produce a report that says these are the things that drive you. And it's something most people don't think about. They're certainly not cognizant of what motivates them. But if I had taken this in law school, maybe I would have gone the transaction route and I would have been more focused on deal making than fighting in court. So sometimes it's prestige. People just they want to work at Scatton Arps. It's big law firm, it's a big name like that motivates them. Putting that name on their email signature. Sometimes it's money and they just want to make the biggest salary they can for as long as they can. And some people it's family and they just want a job where they're happy at work, but they really value being able to leave at 05:30 and go home and have dinner with their kids and nothing is wrong with any of those. But just knowing what motivates you and everyone has a different set can really be valuable in guiding where you're going to be happy in your career. And I'm glad I took it because it opened my eyes and I think there's a reason I'm still an Amex seven years later and I've never really seriously considered going back to a law firm model.

Jonah Perlin [00:37:58]:

Great. I want to ask two quick last questions. The first goes to that family point. You are lucky enough to just have had your third child, and I know you've taken two or three real paternity leaves. If someone here is listening and they're thinking, maybe I won't take paternity leave even though it's offered to me, or I'll have to fight for it, tell me a little bit about that process in your life.

Jay Hyne [00:38:23]:

Sure. First, I'll draw an interesting comparison. When I was at my firm, there was a partner, a junior partner, who had an office near mine who had his first baby. And the firm didn't have paternity leave, wasn't offered. So he had a baby, a boy, and his family flew in for the bris. It was held in New York City and the bris was on like a Sunday. The next day he flew by himself to Minnesota in January for three days of depositions by himself. It's like his baby was like nine days old and he's flying alone to Minneapolis for three days of depth, and there was no paternity leave. In contrast, American Express gives all parents, fathers or mothers, or even adoptive parents, whatever, 20 weeks of paid leave, which just shows the emphasis that American Express puts on family and creating that balance between work and home. And now having had two kids with the 20 weeks, it's one of the single biggest perks of American Express. Being able to be home with your child, bonding. You'll never get another chance like it. There will never be another point in your career where you're going to have that much time uninterrupted to bond with your family, to support your partner, to be able to wake up at three in the morning with a screaming baby and not have to worry about that 09:00 work call by the end of the 20 weeks. Most babies are at a point where you can start to remotely balance caring for an infant and work.

Jonah Perlin [00:39:46]:

I like that remotely balanced. Probably the best we can do.

Jay Hyne [00:39:52]:

But you've gone past the craziness of the first eight to twelve weeks, and now you're starting to find a rhythm and a routine. I'm so grateful for it. And not just that American Express offers it at the highest levels of the company. It's encouraged, and they want people to use it. Otherwise, the policy has no teeth. So I am so glad I took it. I had full support. My leader never texted, emailed, called, not once in the whole time. Just let me just be with my family. And I'm eternally grateful because it supports my wife, it supports my older kids. I think no matter where you work, when you have a baby, focusing on that kid for a while, you'll never regret doing it.

Jonah Perlin [00:40:33]:

Absolutely. So my last question goes to the beginning of your career. So you started your career as a law clerk in Hartford, where you went to law school. Tell me a little bit about your clerkship and anything that you learned from your relationship with your judge.

Jay Hyne [00:40:49]:

I will probably never have a job I loved as much as that job. So the way I came upon my clerkship, I had a professor in law school who I was his research assistant for two years. I remain close with him. We go see a Rangers game at Madison Square Garden every year. When I was in the hospital, about twelve years ago, he came to visit me from Hartford to New York City. Just a special man who's at my wedding, just love him. He'd been a professor at Yukon Law School forever, and he had my judge as a student right when he became a professor

Jonah Perlin [00:41:20]:

Wow.

Jay Hyne [00:41:20]:

He had my judge in the he recommended me for this clerkship, and I got it largely because he went to bat for me with the judge. And he was a federal magistrate judge for 32 years. And he also taught law at an undergraduate school named Trinity College in Hartford. And this judge loved to mentor. He loved to educate more than anything. He loved judging. But he loved teaching his law clerks and taking them under his wing. And everything was explained. Everything came with a story. And he was just such a man of integrity that obviously he wants law clerks to work hard and write good decisions that he can sign. But putting that aside, he loved the educational component and giving advice. And one of the ways that that manifested was in Hartford, It's a small bar, and as a magistrate, you see a lot of pretrial motions. You see a lot of criminal stuff. You work with the same assistant U.S. Attorneys, you work with the same agents from postal, FBI, DEA. They come in, they want warrants, they want wiretaps. The prosecutors and the lawyers that he had worked with before that had earned a reputation for honesty and integrity. They came in with such a head start. They were more likely to get his ear, and he would take them seriously. It showed me the value, whether you're a practicing lawyer or anything else in the professional world, of establishing a reputation for doing things the right way and respecting the court's time and respecting other litigants. Because part of what a magistrate does is they try to settle cases before they go to trial at the district court level with a district judge. My judge, he was great at settling things. And part of the way he could do that is he knew which lawyers were fair and respectful opposing counsel, and he was able to use that to work with them, to find successful resolutions. And just the way you act, even if the things you're not conscious of, they make an impact, and your reputation precedes you, and especially in a small state like Connecticut having a good reputation. He loved those lawyers and would bend over backwards if they needed a last minute hearing on December 31. He would do it for him because he respected them and they respected the court. And you can spend your career building a good reputation. You can sully it in a moment. And he showed me the value of protecting your name brand. So I loved working for him. They don't make him like that. He's great guy to work for. I can't imagine starting my career at a better place. I loved it.

Jonah Perlin [00:44:01]:

I want to thank Jay Hyne again for being on the podcast and for such a fun and free flowing discussion. What I loved most about our conversation was the way in which Jay emphasized first principles in finding a meaningful and fulfilling legal career, including the importance of self awareness and emotional intelligence, as well as a recognition that a legal education can open many doors besides those of a courtroom or a deal room. Too often, the legal profession is simplified to litigation and transactions. Yet regulatory work is a path where many lawyers have found extremely fulfilling careers. I also want to thank you again for listening to episode four. If you enjoyed the show and you haven't subscribed yet, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or at howilawyer.com I'm really looking forward for the upcoming interviews. Thanks again and I hope you have a great week.