Bidemi Zakariyau Akande
Designation
Founder
Company
LSFPR
Your Career spans law and PR. Can you share the inspiration that led to such a diverse professional Journey?
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It wasn’t really inspiration, it was more of a realization for me. I interned at two law firms before law school. Great experience at both but I realized even though they were both great experiences it just made me realize that wasn’t what I wanted to do long term so when I joined law school, I then started to explore my interest which was PR and I started my agency at the law school and the main goal was that by the time I was done with law school it will be what I will do full time.
We would love to hear about your journey to building your company. What challenges did you face as a woman entrepreneur and how did you overcome them?
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The Challenges don’t end. I’m not done building the company, I’m still constantly building, constantly having to adapt to the ever-changing PR environment. There are daily challenges from talent retention, to solving problems for client, to dealing with different types of client, to having the emotional intelligence to understand that people are different, to having to think about inflation and having to support people on your team. The challenges never stop when you’re running a business, it’s basically getting to know how you can put your foot down and deal with these challenges.
What advice do you have for female lawyers aspiring to explore non-traditional legal career paths, emphasizing the importance of inclusion and diversity in such ventures?
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I will say, just do it! If anyone feels like they are currently studying law and will want to explore anything else, then they should always explore because sometimes exploring helps you understand whether that’s what you want or not. In addition, law is still fantastic and useful. I feel like when you’re a law student or you have worked at a law firm, there is a certain kind of discipline that you have that will be useful to anyone getting into another career path. Time management, Formatting, you’re able to read contract and the likes.
For me, as someone who founded a PR agency, being a lawyer has been so useful to me in terms of reviewing of contacts even though we have our own lawyers, I’m able to look at the contract first and determine the terms I want agreed to before it goes to our lawyer. Just take the risk, if you don’t, you may never know what you are good at.