Benjamin Alarie

Benjamin Alarie (@BAlarie) is a law professor, former clerk of the Supreme Court of Canada, published author, and CEO of Blue J Legal. Ben has been teaching tax law for over a decade at the University of Toronto Law School. In this episode, we delve into the beginnings of Blue J Legal and how Ben executed Blue J from an idea he had while watching a legal tech competition. We talk about the advantages he and the other co-founders of Blue J Legal have in being academics in the legal tech world. Have trouble sticking to important habits like meditation, reading, exercise or proper bedtimes? Ben explains how the use of certain tech devices has helped him stick to important habits. One interesting example is Ben's use of Muse for meditation to keep a streak of daily meditation for over 200 straight days this year. Wish you could read more books in a year? To get more time out of his commute, Ben started listening to audiobooks at 2x or even 3x speed depending on the narrator. Now, Ben averages three new books a week. 

Here are our show notes:

• What are the advantages of being an academic in creating a legal tech startup? [8:45]
• Why not having a large salary is helpful in creating a startup [10:33]
• How Ben transitioned from being a professor to being both a professor and a CEO [12:02]
• Creative Destruction Lab and Next Founders [17:40]
• Why execution will take care of itself if you have the right people and the right strategy [20:15] 
• How to maximize your commute with audiobooks [23:13]
• Why walking helps with remembering important material [25:27] 
• Building long term habits with the help of technology [30:24]
• How are fitness trackers helpful? [32:09] 
• How to manage the insane inbox of a startup CEO [37:49] 
• The effect of daily meditation on Ben's daily productivity [39:42]

Some general links from the podcast are: 

• Muse
• Audible
• The Method of Loci (for memorization)
• Mio Slice
• Fitbit Blaze

Books Recommended by Ben:

• Biographies of Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
• Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Benjamin Alarie is CEO of Blue J Legal and the Osler Chair in Business Law at the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto. Professor Alarie researches and teaches in taxation law and judicial decision-making, and was awarded the Alan Mewett QC Prize for excellence in teaching by the law school’s graduating class of 2009. Before joining the Faculty of Law as a full-time professor in 2004, Professor Alarie completed graduate work in law at the Yale Law School and was a law clerk for Madam Justice Louise Arbour at the Supreme Court of Canada. He has dozens of academic publications, and his research has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation. He is a coauthor of several editions of a leading legal text on tax law, Canadian Income Tax Law, including the most recent 5th Edition (LexisNexis, 2015).