Meet Krystell Pujol | Co-Founder of AP Consultores Legales

We had the good fortune of connecting with Krystell Pujol and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Krystell, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
My name is Krystell Pujol and since I was 8 years old, I had dreamed of being a lawyer. When I nailed my first internship, I remember I would fall asleep on my desk reading endless documents that sometimes I wouldn’t understand. Even though sometimes I felt completely clueless, I tried my best to learn from the managers, to make myself useful, and to become a reference point within the Law Firm. With time, I developed skills and human tools that helped me survive in this hard world of law and advocacy.

I had a good thing in this Law Firm; a good salary compared to many of my peers and they were flexible with me, but at some point I felt there wasn’t more ground for me to move towards. In 2017, I mentally started creating my own Law Firm with two other coworkers, but got stuck in the process because the President and Vice-President offered me a position in Mexico City at the Law Firm’s headquarters. I decided to set the project with my friends on hold and embarked on this new adventure.

Mexico City was amazing. It is a lonely city when it becomes a permanent living situation. Traffic is crazy, so you see your friends once in a while. Out of 365 days of the year, there is rain on 300 days. All of the “godinez” which is the slang term in Mexico for office workers had to wait below anything that could cover you from the heavy rain that never stops. So if traffic wasn’t enough, there was also rain that made your way to work and back home a 3-4 hours per day journey. I would ride a bike to work every day wearing my office clothes and tennis shoes with a pair of heels in my backpack, because even riding a bike to work was a better option than riding a car or public transportation. Every ride to work was fun though, it was a moment of freedom and sort of peace, whenever I was not close to being run over by hysterical drivers.

By the end of 2019, things started to move around and set themselves straight for me to return to Tijuana. I knew that if I came back, it was with the sole purpose of resigning at the Law Firm and starting my own project that had been moved aside a few years back. From the two persons I had started planning the Law Firm with, there was only one left still wanting to go forward with it. I do not know if it was an impulse or life led me to it, but without a single client I quit what represented a steady income.

By February 2020, I was free. I was unemployed. I cried the whole weekend after my last day at the Law Firm. I was terrified. Terrified to be by myself and not having the support of a whole structure that had become what it was due to years of hard work. After a few weeks of carrying out the different steps for creating a Company, life decided to surprise us and sent us all to a lockdown due to COVID-19. I cried many times. Opening a bank account under the Company’s name took longer than usual, every process took longer than usual, and we weren’t able to receive any money. Then things started to work out, for moments. After a few months with the Company, my partner decided he wasn’t made for this. He couldn’t take the stress and hard work that came along with owning a Company, and he wanted out.

I was frightened again, but after a few days of thinking about it, I knew I was capable of going on with this by myself. It has been a rollercoaster. I have felt the triumphs, and also the defeats and disgrace of not always succeeding and moving on a straight path. I have been hit with humbleness, because so many things are out of my control.

When I think of the word “risk”, I realize my life has been filled with it and how carelessly sometimes I have taken risks feeling so afraid of failure to only learn from and embrace every situation that results from the decisions we make.

Today, I still have my Company. It has been the greatest achievement, until this point, in my life. It brought me to the realization that most of the times having a steady job with a constant salary, puts us humans on a comfortable position and we do not challenge ourselves anymore. I am not saying there is anything wrong with it, at the end we are all different and we are the only ones that know ourselves and know our limits, but sometimes we are our biggest enemy by not believing in our abilities.

Every time I hear someone say they are scared of taking some move that might represent a better personal situation, I keep stating that anything scary might be the right decision to take. Everything is an experience to learn from.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
My practice is specialized in Foreign Trade and Customs. Growing up at the border region makes the import-export activity something you hear about regularly. What differs me from the competition is my youth, in a certain way, and being a woman. I am not that young, I am 33 years old, but in the market compared to the other Law Firms that practice this area, I might be considered inexperienced by clients. Also, there aren’t many Law Firms founded and led by women. And if it wasn’t enough of a setback, I am short, and look like a teen. This makes me prove myself not by my looks but my knowledge. I want to give clients a different solution to their problems, based on new and fresh alternatives, where they are convinced of taking the right decision to hire us even when they might feel insecure by our young looks. Mexico is still a very conservative country, and choosing us from the competition could be considered a high risk by many.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
This is actually a very good question right now. I have one of my best friends from Mexico City visiting in a few weeks for the first time and I have been asking myself this for the last days. She doesn’t have a visa currently, so I can only show her around the Mexican side. I plan on spending the weekend in Valle de Guadalupe for some wine tastings, and renting a cabin to watch the stars at night, lighting up a fire to warm up and have a nice talk. I also plan on spending a day in Ensenada and taking her to different spots for the best seafood in Mexico. On our way back to Tijuana, we definitely have to stop at Puerto Nuevo for some lobster and those delicious giant tortillas.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My parents and my brother. My parents set an example of hard work. They were dreamers that believed anything is achievable, and the way they looked at me since I was a kid and how invincible they made me feel is the foundation to my strength to advance further at hard times. My brother for existing; he has been my constant drive.

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