Day in the Life: Shane Mulrooney of New Era ADR

Banner artwork by /ACC

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3:15 am:  

Wake up to my 7-month-old son fussing in the other room through the baby monitor, try unsuccessfully to put him back to sleep without him needing his mom to nurse, go back to bed around 4:00 am. 

6:00 am:  

Wake up to the baby fussing again, hope he is able to soothe himself until at least 6:30 am, maybe 7:00 am if I am lucky. Try to get some rest until then. 

6:05 am:  

Wake up and get out of bed since the baby’s fussing has turned into cries. Change his diaper, sing him a song, and put him on his toy mat while I try to do the dishes from the night before, make breakfast for my wife and me, feed the dog, and get the coffee going. 

6:10 am:  

Come back to my son, leaving everything else half-finished or maybe at least partially started, since he’s fussing again and needs some love. I play with him and try to finish my other tasks until my wife wakes up for his first feeding. 

7:15 am:  

Pass off the baby, grab my breakfast and first cup of hot coffee, sit down and get to work. Working remotely has its benefits where I can get ahead early in the day (I work in the ET time zone while most of the rest of the company is in CT and MT) and then take a break later to finish getting ready. Tasks at this stage are mostly: answering emails that came in overnight, reading relevant legal newsletters, compliance updates, recent relevant ADR court decision summaries and regulatory actions, as well as catching up on the rest of the world’s news through Axios and Bloomberg. 

8:30 am:  

Take the dog on a walk, no headphones, no podcasts or music, just taking in nature and the neighborhood. We live in an urban residential neighborhood that is the base of Lookout Mountain and on the National Register of Historic Places, so the views are great all around. I really try to use this time to be present and not think about anything other than what is directly in front of me. 

9:00 am:  

Make my second cup of coffee (always iced with some oat milk – or eggnog this time of year) and start my day. Check my to-do list and start cranking on follow-up items from previous days’ sales/business development calls, review any draft macros for customer support communications, and check what contracts may need to be reviewed or drafted. Finish 1/10th of what I had hoped to accomplish. 

9:30 am:  

First sales call of the day (via Zoom, always over Zoom ...). A new organization is interested in using New Era ADR to manage their dispute resolution strategy for [_________] disputes, and I’m there usually as a subject matter expert to provide support to the sales team. Fortunately, it’s less common for me to have to lead these calls. 

10:00 am:  

Zoom call with an arbitrator on New Era’s bench who has a question about our Rules and Procedures, or who may just want to catch up to see how we are doing. I try to keep in touch with our bench as best I can, but with 100+ Neutrals, I’m not quite as in touch with everyone as I used to be. 

10:30 am:  

First internal Zoom call of the day, stand-up with the Customer Experience team. Answer any sticky legal questions from the team, brainstorm how to be more scalable when so many unique issues hit the team every day, and provide support where I can. 

11:00 am:  

Weekly leadership or other internal Zoom call, updating the team on everything from the business development, legal, and customer experience functions. Weigh in where I can elsewhere, mostly on anything product or strategy related. 

12:00 pm:  

Second sales Zoom call of the day, generally the same context as the first. Maybe a follow-up call with an organization who is digging in a bit deeper now as we provide them with a demo of our ADR platform and answer any further questions. 

12:30 pm:  

Frantically try and pull together lunch before my next call. In the summer this is easy – fresh cucumbers and peppers from the garden with Greek yogurt, onions, lemon juice, and dill for a fresh salad. This time of year, maybe eggs, or leftovers from dinner, or a can of soup. It’s so hot here in the summer, but the garden makes it all worth it. 

1:00 pm:  

Next internal Zoom call, bi-weekly check-in with another co-founder. Brainstorm ways to unstick deals, prioritize product features, or discuss any personnel issues. 

1:30 pm:  

Next internal Zoom call, weekly check-in with the sales team. Answer legal questions they are hearing in the field, discuss processes, and brainstorm collateral. 

2:00 pm:  

Next internal Zoom call, weekly 1:1 with my direct report on the Customer Experience team. We run through a large list of questions, issues, and approaches to unique matters facing the team for disputes that are currently going through the system, whether from parties, attorneys, or Neutrals. There is never a dull moment there. 

3:00 pm:  

Next sales Zoom call, generally similar structure to one of the first two. 

3:30 pm:  

No calls! Check email and Slack, do my best to answer everything directed at me in the window that I have. 

4:00 pm:  

Another Zoom call, maybe with the ACC Litigation Network, ACC Tennessee, or the nonprofit I’m on the board of (The Ability Experience). 

4:30 pm:  

Fantastic, no more calls for the day. Let’s check that to-do list and get to work on the other 90 percent I couldn’t get to this morning. 

5:00 pm:  

The nanny is leaving, time to close up the laptop for a few hours and get back to baby duty. Probably finished another 10 percent of the to-do list, awesome. But now I get to play with my son, go on a walk with him, my wife, and our dog around the neighborhood, make/eat dinner, maybe put the boy to bed if my wife could use a break, and then shower and clean up the kitchen. It’s the best part of my day. Some evenings I may have a neighborhood trail run or other local networking event, but most evenings are the same routine. 

7:30 pm:  

Back to work for another hour or so to try and knock down that to-do list, answer any other emails that came through since 5:00pm, and put myself in a better position for the morning. 

8:30 pm:  

Hang out on the couch with my wife, talk about our day or more likely zone out to Friends reruns. Since the baby, we haven’t had the energy to watch anything new, it’s really sad. But Friends just hits right now. 

9:30 pm:  

Get ready for bed, read the news and a couple of favorite columns, fall asleep. 

11:00 pm:  

Wake up to the baby fussing, but I usually get to go right back to bed for this wake-up as my wife will nurse him and put him back to sleep. That is, unless she is traveling for work, which isn’t frequent but is coming up next week ... 

I love what I do, building a company from the ground up while still being able to rely on my legal experience and training with other highly-motivated, intelligent people from all walks of life. It’s also a challenging but rewarding time with our baby, and I am really looking forward to everything that comes with it.