“I’ve always been a very curious person, and I’ve always been interested in how we can evolve our society and how we can move towards change. I never was excited at the thought of just working in a law firm and billing hours,” she reflected.

“I remember being at university and just imagining what that would be like and how that would feel. When I fell into that, I just thought that is definitely not how I want to live my life.

“Even though I hadn’t been exposed to a law firm at that point, I could just feel in a sense that that wouldn’t be a path for me that would be enjoyable.”

Speaking recently on The Boutique Lawyer Show, Ms Eggers-Stable – who is a partner at Legal Kitz, founder and chief executive of Business Kitz, an advisory board member at Flexi Flow Learning Innovation & Wellbeing, and also a director of Lux Whitsundays – explained that she was a rebel of sorts, ignoring the clerkship path that her peers were traversing and, instead, diving into other jobs.

“I went and worked for an entrepreneur in professional development, and I got to travel in the United States and around Australia, quite young. I got that job when I was about 19 years old, and I was just so fascinated. My world was just opened up, and I think I was changed from that moment.

“I was never able to fully imagine a life where I would just be practising law. It felt very bland, if I’m being honest, because I think there’s much more to life and with our changing world. I think we’ve got a wonderful opportunity for lawyers to break free and be able to broaden their horizons and think creatively,” she opined.

Ms Eggers-Stable founded Business Kitz in 2016, with the vision of helping entities move towards decentralisation, decentralised systems and better utilise blockchain technology. It currently employs 20 people.

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Legal Kitz is a fully serviced commercial law and employment law firm, currently employing 11 professionals, which eventually will sit underneath Business Kitz and provide support to those customers once the latter becomes a SaaS platform and customers require corresponding legal services.

For those employees with legal education and training, Ms Eggers-Stable detailed, she likes to offer them rotations of sorts across the various arms of the two businesses – UI/UX design, sales, marketing, to name a few – so as to provide them more holistic professional development.

“We really care about our staff’s learning and the fact that we are just empowering young people to make change and to have other skills. I think it’s so important for lawyers to have other options and skills in their life,” she noted.

“I feel so proud and satisfied when we’ve taken on these young people and we’ve given them an opportunity to shine and build other skills. They’ll have many other options in their future.”

It is fascinating, she mused, to observe the cultural shifts between herself and those coming through the ranks.

“I’m in my early thirties, so a lot of the staff that work with us and start with us are like early to mid-twenties. And it’s like, I’m this new age philosopher, always speaking to the staff, trying to enrol them in the future vision of what I see. I’m obsessed with the future of the internet and the future of technology. That’s an absolute passion of mine,” she said.

“I find that I’m quite surprised when staff much younger, perhaps 10 years younger than me, aren’t so across what’s coming. I do understand that. I often have to help shift their mindset because in their minds they think that they’re just going to work in a law firm and bill hours.”

Her guidance of those staff is all-encompassing, Ms Eggers-Stable said, in accepting and exploring looming change. 

“I’m trying to show and mentor and guide them that, basically, we need to evolve, and we are evolving, and it’s a very fast-moving space. I think for many legal practitioners, they have a lot of fear. They have a lot of fear about cryptocurrency, the metaverse, blockchain and what’s coming, and they want to just bury their head in the sand, and they’re quite anxious about the change, but I think you have to be brave and just delve into it and start to learn and be a beginner, and really just humble yourself to learn about how our world is evolving and changing.

“It’s not too difficult to learn. It’s not too late. There’s so much opportunity for change. And for evolution in this space,” she insisted.

Looking ahead, Ms Eggers-Stable said that she “so deeply hopes” that legal professionals open themselves to what’s coming and what’s changing.

“My advice would be to stay curious, to stay open and to not be afraid to learn and really dig deep into information and change,” she said.

“There’s a lot of opportunity to enrol in different courses or glean information. There’s so much information online to learn and to basically just jump in. Don’t be afraid – let the perfectionistic frame of mind go and just allow yourself to engage in new information and new ways of being, and just think outside the box.”

Don’t just follow the norm, Ms Eggers-Stable continued, “because the norm has not worked and the norm is breaking down.

“For your own future development and career, it’s actually essential now to learn other skills, to involve yourself in other ways of thinking and to move forward and to strengthen your ability to adapt in this new world.”

The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Sarina Eggers-Stable, click below: