Latest / Founder Talk with Alex Sheridan / What Founders Can Steal From Trial Lawyers | Persuasion, Trust, and Better Clients (Joshua Feagans)

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What Founders Can Steal From Trial Lawyers | Persuasion, Trust, and Better Clients (Joshua Feagans) · Founder Talk with Alex Sheridan

• 0:00
  All right, I always do a toast. So toast Josh Joshua or Josh,
• 0:03
  Josh. Josh, thanks for being on the
• 0:05
  show. Glad to have you excited for
• 0:07
  this conversation. So Josh Fegan, founder of Fegan
• 0:09
  laws group. Law Group.
• 0:11
  So it's actually figgins log. Group Figgins.
• 0:13
  Figgins. I should clarify that.
• 0:14
  OK, Figgins. Wow, it threw me off.
• 0:16
  That's Irish. Right.
• 0:17
  It's Irish. Yeah, it's Irish.
• 0:19
  And when whoever they, whenever they came over, they had no idea
• 0:22
  how to spell or to pronounce things.
• 0:23
  Right. Here we are.
• 0:24
  Figgins Law Group. OK, cool.
• 0:26
  Very good. Appreciate the clarification.
• 0:28
  In 20 in November 2025, your law firm recovered 2,000,255 or
• 0:34
  $250,000 for your clients, which I don't know if that's a big
• 0:38
  month or a a slow month or what it is.
• 0:41
  Is that a good month? It's a good month, yeah.
• 0:42
  It's a good month. It's a lot of money to
• 0:44
  recovered, Yeah. And obviously you're serving
• 0:45
  your clients and I'm going to get into all this.
• 0:47
  So here's here's my thought process for the show.
• 0:49
  I want to get into your area of expertise, the personal injury.
• 0:52
  We'll go through some of that stuff because I think everyone
• 0:54
  has had that happen to him or will have that happen to him to
• 0:56
  some capacity. They'll touch that.
• 0:59
  Then I want to go over to the crossover skills that I think
• 1:02
  apply towards entrepreneurs, founders in general, just being
• 1:04
  in law. Like I, I could have seen myself
• 1:07
  in a previous life getting into law.
• 1:08
  Like there's some interesting traits and characteristics
• 1:10
  there. I know it's, it can be stressful
• 1:12
  at times too. And then we'll get into a little
• 1:15
  bit about your journey as a founder.
• 1:17
  Sounds good, sounds good. All right, so the first thing I
• 1:20
  noticed on your LinkedIn, which I appreciate, you're active on
• 1:23
  LinkedIn. You're posting a lot and sharing
• 1:24
  a lot of content, which I think is great, especially in that
• 1:27
  profession you mentioned in law, we represent clients, not
• 1:31
  customers. What is the difference between a
• 1:33
  client and a customer? So you have to understand, I
• 1:36
  think they're both in the law. They're they're kind of both of
• 1:39
  the same thing. But we have clients.
• 1:40
  So they come to us for our professional judgement and
• 1:42
  wisdom. They're asking us to shepherd
• 1:44
  them through a situation. They're not asking to buy a
• 1:47
  product from us or even buy a necessary service.
• 1:49
  They don't really know what they need.
• 1:50
  They know they need our services to help them through the
• 1:53
  process. So unlike a regular businessman,
• 1:56
  I have obligations to them because I'm a lawyer to do
• 1:58
  what's in their best interests, more so than if you went to
• 2:01
  Walmart to buy a widget or a hammer at Home Depot or whatever
• 2:05
  the case might be. So when a client comes to us, we
• 2:08
  have to look at them in both as, OK, this is our client, we're
• 2:11
  going to shepherd them through this legal process.
• 2:12
  But they're also a customer in many respects.
• 2:14
  So they deserve customer service, they deserve feedback,
• 2:17
  they deserve information, they deserve guidance.
• 2:19
  All of that kind of stuff kind of get boiled down into one
• 2:21
  thing. Because I hear those two terms
• 2:24
  being used interchangeably. And there's times certainly
• 2:26
  where I'm like working with the customer or even myself where
• 2:28
  I'm like, should I be using customer or clients?
• 2:30
  And to me, clients was always that, yeah, working through the
• 2:32
  problems, a little bit more high touch, a little bit more
• 2:34
  personalization where customers like you're coming into Graham's
• 2:38
  Chocolate shop and you're getting an ice cream.
• 2:40
  I think it's a pretty good way to describe it.
• 2:42
  The difference, I would say the customer might be one off, they
• 2:46
  might be repeatable, but a client is someone that's with
• 2:49
  you for a period of time I think that you're doing a service for,
• 2:52
  you're guiding them through a process, whether it be law or
• 2:55
  marketing, it's the same I think, right?
• 2:57
  Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
• 2:58
  So when should someone call you and what would they call you
• 3:00
  for? Well, so right now our practice
• 3:03
  is pretty much 100% personal injury.
• 3:05
  We do automobile accidents, premises liabilities like slip
• 3:08
  and falls, that kind of thing. Workplace accidents, product
• 3:11
  liability, medical malpractice, dog bites, that kind of thing.
• 3:15
  So you should call me after something bad happens to you.
• 3:17
  Unfortunately, right? That's when I come in contact
• 3:20
  with most of my clients. You get into a car accident, you
• 3:23
  realize you've got some injuries, you go to the
• 3:25
  hospital, you go to the chiropractor, whatever.
• 3:28
  Same with a fall, same with a workplace accident, whatever.
• 3:31
  You call me. Pretty quickly afterwards, we
• 3:33
  start guiding you through the process of what is needed to get
• 3:36
  done to ultimately get you a recovery from an insurance
• 3:39
  company. And why would they have to call
• 3:41
  a lawyer? Why wouldn't they just say, hey,
• 3:43
  you know, I got in an accident, so and so's insurance is going
• 3:45
  to pay for the damage or whatever it is or the dog bit
• 3:48
  our child? I imagine where this is going,
• 3:51
  but I'm curious to get your perspective.
• 3:52
  It's a great question and I'm going to get on my soapbox a
• 3:55
  little bit. Right, let's do.
• 3:56
  It all right. So we all pay our monthly
• 3:58
  premiums to the insurance company and we expect when we do
• 4:01
  that, the insurance company is going to be right there ready to
• 4:03
  protect us and resolve the things we make a mistake at
• 4:06
  because that's what we have insurance.
• 4:07
  We're going to make a mistake somewhere down the road and we
• 4:10
  won't want our personal assets to be implicated, attached,
• 4:14
  attacked, what have you. But the insurance company is
• 4:17
  there to take your money and keep it for profit, right?
• 4:19
  That's what their job is. Their job is they have
• 4:21
  shareholders, they have a company, they're there to make a
• 4:24
  profit. So guess what they don't want to
• 4:26
  do? Pay your claim.
• 4:29
  And so it doesn't matter if you're the one making the claim
• 4:31
  because you injured yourself and you need to go to the doctor or
• 4:35
  you need your car fixed or whatever the case might be or
• 4:38
  you injured someone else, they're still going to string
• 4:41
  out this process to try to keep as much money as possible.
• 4:44
  And you can go through the various statistics.
• 4:46
  There's been studies shown if you hire an attorney to
• 4:49
  prosecute your claim, you're likely to get 3-4 five times
• 4:52
  more than if you did it yourself.
• 4:54
  And, and that translates globally really on any type of
• 4:58
  claim. But more to the point, you don't
• 5:01
  understand the process. You don't understand whether I
• 5:03
  have to get, I have to show you paid medical bills or I get
• 5:07
  credit for all my medical bills. You don't understand whether I
• 5:10
  can take PTO from work and still get paid my PTO time from the
• 5:14
  insurance company. You don't understand the
• 5:16
  nebulous nature of, OK, I'm, I have pain and suffering.
• 5:19
  How do I quantify that? I have lost a normal life.
• 5:21
  I haven't been able to bowl, I haven't been able to golf, I
• 5:23
  haven't been able to hold my grandchildren.
• 5:25
  How do I quantify that? So we come in and we try to
• 5:28
  quantify that the best we can work with the insurance company
• 5:30
  to negotiate the claim. Now when the insurance company
• 5:33
  doesn't want to pay a fair value, then we file suit and I
• 5:35
  can give you all sorts of statistics about what happens
• 5:38
  after a lawsuit is filed. Insurance companies put
• 5:41
  intentionally put adjusters on pre suit claims that have low
• 5:46
  authority limits to shield them from ever offering fair value.
• 5:50
  So once a lawsuit happens and an attorney gets involved cause the
• 5:53
  insurance company hires an attorney for their insured also
• 5:57
  right? An attorney looks at it and
• 5:59
  values it and they also transfer it to a litigation adjuster who
• 6:03
  has higher limits. And so pre suit versus post suit
• 6:07
  results are drastically different.
• 6:10
  Last year for instance, we settled about 55 claims pre
• 6:13
  suit. The average claim value there
• 6:15
  was $23,000. Post suit.
• 6:17
  We settled about 47 cases and the average value is $39,000.
• 6:23
  Huge difference. I'm sorry, those are my those
• 6:26
  are my fees. So actually you're talking about
• 6:28
  a difference of pre suit case value in the 60s post suit case
• 6:33
  values like in the one 20s one 30s.
• 6:35
  Wow. Yeah.
• 6:36
  Wow. Because insurance companies
• 6:38
  probably see a lawyer get involved and they're like shit.
• 6:41
  Well, they know they have to take it serious, but not, but
• 6:43
  not every lawyer. So lawyers, you know, there are
• 6:45
  a lot of different types of lawyers.
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  There are real estate lawyers, there's lawyers that handle
• 6:49
  estates and trust. There's business litigators and
• 6:51
  IP lawyers and tax lawyers and everything else.
• 6:54
  A lot of lawyers dabble and that's fine.
• 6:57
  They can do a competent job. If you see a lot of my LinkedIn
• 7:00
  posting, a lot of my LinkedIn posting is addressed at the
• 7:03
  concept that there are attorneys out there that refer cases to
• 7:06
  me. I want to help them with their
• 7:08
  clients who have personal injury claims.
• 7:09
  And we work together to make that happen as as, as a, as a
• 7:12
  team necessarily. And so that's what that's what
• 7:15
  LinkedIn for me is a little bit trying to educate the people out
• 7:18
  there in my sphere about, Hey, I'm here, I'm in the Fox Valley,
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  I represent Fox Valley people. I'm here to help you.
• 7:24
  Yeah, love it, man. Do you think the insurance model
• 7:26
  is broken? Because when you say that back
• 7:28
  to me and that's that's how I see it.
• 7:30
  I wasn't shocked to hear that, but I hear a, a business model
• 7:33
  around pay somebody every single month.
• 7:35
  And then when I really, really need you, desperately need you,
• 7:38
  you're going to go. We're going to try to give you
• 7:40
  as little as possible back up and you're going to have to hire
• 7:44
  a lawyer to get what you actually deserve.
• 7:46
  That seems like a messed up business model.
• 7:49
  It is a messed up business model.
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  I don't have the answer to fix it like.
• 7:52
  Could you imagine doing that to our customers?
• 7:53
  Like being like Jesus. It would not work.
• 7:56
  I'll give you one more. So to even further compound this
• 7:59
  problem, in most car accidents, whether you're at fault or not,
• 8:02
  your rates will increase. That's crazy just from the very
• 8:05
  factor in a car accident. So someone.
• 8:07
  Rear ends you Your rates are going to go up more than likely.
• 8:10
  Indeed, indeed crazy. You know, in, in our area, we
• 8:12
  have clients calling us. I don't want to make a claim or
• 8:14
  I'm concerned that my rates are going to go up or so and so's
• 8:17
  rates are going to go up. And the very fact that you were
• 8:19
  in the car accident to begin with, regardless of whether you
• 8:21
  make a claim or claim is made against you, your rates are
• 8:24
  probably going up. And often times it doesn't
• 8:26
  matter how much that claim is worth.
• 8:28
  It could be a $500 claim or a $500,000 claim.
• 8:32
  Their rates are going to go up. I'm curious, not to go on a side
• 8:35
  tangent with insurance companies, but it seems like
• 8:37
  they make a ton of money. Like why do they have to act
• 8:40
  like this to be profitable? Or do you think it's just greed?
• 8:42
  Or what do you think it is? So it was once explained to me,
• 8:46
  insurance companies are the only business that always knows how
• 8:48
  to make money because every year the estate, they set reserves.
• 8:52
  So you bring a claim in, they say, OK, we're going to set this
• 8:55
  money aside to pay this claim. They know exactly how much
• 8:58
  they're going to pay in most cases.
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  Sometimes they're off, but in most cases they set the money
• 9:02
  aside. They know, OK, OK, this claim is
• 9:04
  going to pay out in one year, 2 years, three years.
• 9:07
  They have control of that right, generally speaking.
• 9:10
  So then in the coming years, up to that claim, they can increase
• 9:13
  their rates across the board, across the country on all the
• 9:15
  lines of insurance they're selling.
• 9:17
  They're always going to make a profit.
• 9:19
  You don't ever hear about insurance companies losing money
• 9:22
  unless they don't really mess up and they go bankrupt.
• 9:24
  We've seen that in the past. A little bit makes.
• 9:27
  You wonder if there's going to be a company or group of people
• 9:29
  that disrupts that industry. You know, we'll see.
• 9:32
  They're finding some giants, though.
• 9:33
  So it would be interesting to see.
• 9:35
  But yeah, you're talking about the £500 gorillas in the right,
• 9:37
  right? What's the biggest mistake that
• 9:40
  people make after they get in an accident or have an incident
• 9:44
  happen to them? Well, there are a couple.
• 9:46
  I would say most prominently, 1 is they're overly confident
• 9:50
  initially after the accident. Nothing's wrong with them.
• 9:52
  They're in shock, their adrenaline's going.
• 9:54
  They haven't calmed down to kind of realize, OK, do I have really
• 9:57
  any aches and pains? A broken bone, a head
• 10:00
  laceration, something bleeding? Those are all really easy to
• 10:03
  say, yes, I'm sick. I need to see a paramedic.
• 10:05
  I need to go to the doctor. But in most, the majority of car
• 10:09
  accidents, for instance, you're talking about whiplash type
• 10:11
  injuries, right? Your head snaps back and forth
• 10:13
  and your, your adrenaline's pumping and swelling and all
• 10:18
  that stuff hasn't set in yet. It's usually later that night or
• 10:20
  when you wake up the next morning when you're really going
• 10:22
  to feel the effects of that. And so it's a lot of, well, I'm
• 10:26
  telling the police officer, I'm fine, telling the paramedic, I
• 10:28
  don't need to talk to the paramedic.
• 10:31
  You know, insurance companies love to make a lot of hay about,
• 10:34
  well, you didn't go to the hospital, did you?
• 10:36
  Well, most car accidents aren't not going to require a trip to
• 10:38
  the hospital. You go to the hospital if you're
• 10:41
  in dire need, you're bleeding, something's broken, your life is
• 10:44
  being threatened, neck pain, low back pain is not going to
• 10:47
  require a trip to the hospital. But again, the insurance
• 10:50
  companies like to look at that, right?
• 10:51
  So I wouldn't say not going to the hospital is the biggest
• 10:54
  issue, but overly being overconfident about how you're
• 10:58
  feeling immediately after an accident, that's probably #1 #2.
• 11:02
  What should they do in that situation then?
• 11:04
  They they should be cautious. They shouldn't make any over
• 11:07
  declarative statements, right? Because they can use that in
• 11:10
  court and be like you after the accident.
• 11:11
  You said you're perfectly fine. A. 100% yes.
• 11:13
  Bring in the police officer, the police officer writes in the
• 11:15
  report. Did anyone?
• 11:16
  Skipping out of it, it's like. Did anyone report any injuries
• 11:19
  to you? And the police officer says no,
• 11:20
  they didn't. You know, we're still, you know,
• 11:23
  you get out, you check to make sure everyone else is OK.
• 11:25
  They ask you how you're doing. You ask them how they're doing.
• 11:28
  And you, of course, say I'm fine because nothing hurts right then
• 11:31
  and there. So what?
• 11:32
  Do you say I'm not really sure I need some time to assess, I'm
• 11:34
  just kind of shaking up with the whole thing.
• 11:36
  Yeah, I, I think you just have to say, you know, let's let's
• 11:38
  just make sure this all settles itself down.
• 11:40
  But I, I'm, you know, and that kind of thing, I would avoid
• 11:43
  declaring statements, you know, that type of thing at that
• 11:46
  moment unless you feel something immediately.
• 11:49
  So then you talk to the police officer, you talk to the
• 11:51
  paramedic and say, I need some attention, right?
• 11:54
  You know, I always tell my clients, you got to be truthful,
• 11:57
  right? But don't over share information
• 11:59
  that's later going to hurt you. And again, often times clients
• 12:02
  don't know in that instance, the moment they fall, the moment
• 12:05
  they get into a car accident, the moment something happens,
• 12:08
  they don't, they're not aware that there is a serious injury
• 12:11
  involved. We don't know if we herniate a
• 12:13
  disc, we can't, we can't see it. We don't really feel a herniated
• 12:16
  disc immediately, right? So those are challenging
• 12:18
  situations, but I always tell people to be cautious, be
• 12:21
  circumspect and how they describe things.
• 12:23
  If you know, especially because you can tell when your heart's
• 12:27
  racing and your adrenaline's in it, right, you can tell.
• 12:30
  But the most important thing after that is just to seek
• 12:32
  medical attention immediately once you notice you have
• 12:36
  something wrong, right? Now, do you need to do the cops
• 12:39
  need to be present there for it to be like official like if
• 12:42
  someone you know a Fender benders you, you know, runs into
• 12:45
  your back of your car and you don't call the cops, is that
• 12:48
  going to hurt your case later on?
• 12:50
  It does not hurt your case later on.
• 12:52
  You should call the cops though, right?
• 12:53
  The cops may come out depending on the nature of the day,
• 12:56
  Depending on where you're at. They might say, you know,
• 12:58
  there's too many, there's too many things going on.
• 13:01
  We can't reach you. The weather's bad.
• 13:03
  It's a high traffic area. You're on the Interstate where,
• 13:06
  you know, come in, you know, pull off, come in to report the
• 13:09
  accident, that type of thing, right?
• 13:11
  There have been instances where we've had cases where no police
• 13:14
  report was ever filed for a variety of reasons.
• 13:18
  That does not impact your insurance claim.
• 13:20
  It makes it odd and awkward. The insurance company be like,
• 13:23
  well, why wasn't there an insurance, you know, not
• 13:26
  insurance, Why wasn't there a police report filed?
• 13:28
  But it has no bearing on whether or not you're going to be able
• 13:30
  to make a claim later on. OK, Was there another couple
• 13:32
  points you're going to get to about what mistakes people make
• 13:35
  after an accident or incident? Maybe somebody bites the dog
• 13:38
  bites your kid or something like.
• 13:40
  The biggest thing I see, so insurance companies are going to
• 13:42
  get your medical records and they're going to see continuity
• 13:45
  of care. So gaps in treatment, the
• 13:47
  decision to take a break and and care, those can really impact
• 13:50
  you. But the biggest thing I see is
• 13:54
  clients who you know, guys particularly could be women
• 13:57
  though, but guys in particularly when I see you on the street and
• 14:00
  I ask you how you're doing, you always say I'm doing good.
• 14:03
  You might have a cast on your leg, but you're going to say I'm
• 14:05
  doing good, bud, how you doing? And we do the exact same thing
• 14:08
  when you go to the doctor, I do it, you do it.
• 14:11
  All of my clients do it. I've got a, I've got a messed up
• 14:14
  knee. I'm getting ready to go to
• 14:15
  surgery. How you doing, Jim?
• 14:16
  I'm doing great, doc. How you doing, right?
• 14:18
  Because he's not wanting to focus on what's the problem.
• 14:22
  But of course, you're there to the doctor to check out your
• 14:24
  knee because you're going to surgery in two weeks so that you
• 14:27
  know, gaps in treatment, you know, making sure you're
• 14:30
  accurate and how you describe your condition to your doctors.
• 14:33
  Those are big things. Social media posting insurance
• 14:38
  companies, defense attorneys love to get on social media and,
• 14:41
  and talk about, well, you were sick, but you went on vacation
• 14:44
  or you were, you know, you were hurt.
• 14:46
  But you know, I see you partying at A, at A, at a nightclub or,
• 14:51
  you know, believe it or not, I've had clients who who
• 14:54
  literally are injured, have disc herniations, but are
• 14:56
  bodybuilders or something, and they're posting on social media
• 14:59
  from the gym because they just refuse not to engage in that
• 15:04
  activity. Now, as an injury attorney, I
• 15:06
  can spin it right, OK. You can see he's got all these
• 15:09
  objective testings. He has a herniation, He has, you
• 15:12
  know, muscle spasm and his neck straighten, which we call
• 15:15
  reverse lordosis. But he's still engaging these
• 15:19
  activities because he's refusing to give in to the pain.
• 15:21
  He's still going to work because he's refusing to give in to the
• 15:24
  pain. He's going to live his daily
• 15:25
  life, but he's getting treatment for it.
• 15:27
  You can spin it each different way, but it creates a a
• 15:30
  narrative that you don't want to have to deal with if you don't
• 15:32
  have to. Now, outside of just a, you get
• 15:35
  in an accident, let's say maybe you caused the accident, right,
• 15:37
  you make a mistake or something. What are the odds or, or I guess
• 15:40
  what would be the next steps in terms of, yes, insurance
• 15:42
  companies, you want them to get the, you know, pay for the
• 15:44
  claim, the injuries, the damages.
• 15:46
  But then you hear about like the lawsuits that go kind of way
• 15:49
  past that where people get a lot of money in the settlement.
• 15:51
  What would Dick take? Somebody getting more money than
• 15:53
  usual in a settlement settlement?
• 15:55
  So case value is dependent on several things.
• 15:59
  I call them anchors, right? Value anchors.
• 16:02
  The biggest anchor you're going to have typically is your
• 16:04
  medical bills. So in Illinois, you get to
• 16:06
  recover for the full amount of your medical bills, regardless
• 16:09
  of what was actually paid. So as we know, health insurance
• 16:12
  comes in and they pay 30 or $0.40 on the dollar of each of
• 16:15
  your medical bills. Medicare comes in, they pay
• 16:17
  pennies on the dollar for your medical bills.
• 16:19
  Sometimes you don't have health insurance and and you just have
• 16:23
  to take the medical bill. But in Illinois, Illinois is a
• 16:25
  state that allows you to recover for the full value of your
• 16:28
  medical bills as long as the medical bills are reasonable and
• 16:31
  customary for the area. OK.
• 16:33
  A quick question that yeah, what if you get into an accident with
• 16:36
  somebody and they don't have insurance and they hit you and
• 16:39
  they don't have money? Great question.
• 16:41
  So there's insurance coverage that you and I and everyone in
• 16:45
  Illinois has to possess called uninsured motorist coverage and
• 16:47
  underinsured motorist coverage. It's on your primary automobile
• 16:51
  policy and it might be on your umbrella policy.
• 16:53
  OK. And when you get hit by someone
• 16:56
  who does not have insurance, your insurance picks up the tab.
• 17:00
  So I actually counsel a lot of our clients after they come
• 17:02
  through, they show me they've got a 25, a 50 or $100,000
• 17:06
  policy because in Illinois you can have a state minimum $25,000
• 17:09
  policy. Insurance companies will write
• 17:11
  policies all the way up to 1,000,000 or more depending on
• 17:14
  your circumstances. So we often see 2550 hundred
• 17:18
  thousand $250,000 policies. Those are the most common.
• 17:22
  And in Illinois, whatever your liability coverage is, you are
• 17:25
  underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage is the same
• 17:29
  amount. All right, so you get into an
• 17:31
  accident, the guy that hits you does not have insurance.
• 17:35
  Then you contact your insurance company.
• 17:37
  You say I'm making an uninsured claim.
• 17:39
  One better guy hits you. He has a $25,000 policy, but you
• 17:43
  have a $250,000 policy. You make a claim on his 25, but
• 17:48
  you also contact your insurance company.
• 17:50
  You say I have an underinsured claim to make with you because I
• 17:53
  broke my back in this accident and I have $150,000 in bills and
• 17:57
  25 is not going to cover it. So your insurance won't pay the
• 18:00
  full 250. They'll pay 250 minus the 25 you
• 18:03
  got from the the gentleman who hit you.
• 18:06
  And your total recovery can still be 250 or 100 or 50 or
• 18:09
  whatever the coverage limit. Is now would you handle
• 18:13
  something like you remember? Gosh, that was probably decades
• 18:15
  ago. that Lady had hot coffee spilled on her at McDonald's and
• 18:19
  the drive through and it was really hot coffee.
• 18:21
  I think they've lowered the temperatures now and put warning
• 18:23
  labels, but it was really hot and she burned herself and I
• 18:25
  think she got millions of dollars.
• 18:27
  Would you cover that type of stuff?
• 18:29
  If a company or you, they went to a restaurant, you slipped,
• 18:31
  they didn't have a sign, they mopped the floor and all of a
• 18:34
  sudden you got a concussion or something.
• 18:35
  Do you cover stuff like that? 100%, yeah.
• 18:37
  So we call that premises liability.
• 18:39
  You might call that coffee cup case more product liability a
• 18:42
  little bit. You know, I, I don't have all
• 18:45
  the facts of the McDonald's case at hand, but the general facts
• 18:49
  of that case were McDonald's knew it was keeping the coffee
• 18:52
  too hot. They were doing it on purpose,
• 18:54
  OK, on top of it, well, because they're testing and their data
• 18:58
  indicated, and if I recall correctly, it's been a few years
• 19:01
  that customers wanted the coffee piping and hot.
• 19:04
  So they were going to make it as hot as possible.
• 19:05
  So it stayed hot as long as possible as the customer was
• 19:08
  drinking it. And in doing so, they created a
• 19:10
  dangerous condition. It never should have been that
• 19:12
  high, right? And and so industry standards
• 19:15
  have evolved to make sure you don't get hot coffee any longer.
• 19:18
  So what's interesting about personal injury cases is that
• 19:22
  there's there's government regulation and then there's
• 19:25
  safety issues that slip through the cracks with consumers, with
• 19:27
  workplace accidents, with what have you.
• 19:30
  Do you know why most safety standards exist?
• 19:33
  Because someone got sued. For sure, right?
• 19:36
  Someone got sued and had to pay a large judgment because their
• 19:39
  inability to recognize safety caused harm to someone.
• 19:42
  And so now industries have formed safety standards that
• 19:46
  prevent those things from happening in the future.
• 19:48
  You go into McDonald's, their coffee is not as hot any longer,
• 19:51
  right? There was a, you know, there was
• 19:53
  another coffee case more recently in Florida with a with
• 19:55
  even larger numbers, I believe, and similar situation.
• 19:59
  The coffee was too hot but also the lid was defective and it
• 20:01
  wasn't put on properly. So where's the line drawn
• 20:04
  between you're kind of you're stupid, you you did something
• 20:07
  dumb that you should have not know.
• 20:09
  You should have known better versus there was negligence by
• 20:12
  the company or the the person, right, or whoever it is because
• 20:15
  you know, you slip and fall in this hallway on the way to come
• 20:17
  shoot this podcast. It's like, how do we determine
• 20:20
  you know which who's at fault and do you have a case or not?
• 20:23
  Great question. So First off, in Illinois, many
• 20:26
  states, both people can be negligent, for instance, in many
• 20:29
  respects. So the person that got injured
• 20:31
  can be negligent up to 50% as long as someone else is
• 20:34
  negligent and still recover, but he only recovers half of his
• 20:37
  damages. It's percentage based, right?
• 20:39
  So if you're, if a jury says you're 25% negligent, you
• 20:42
  recover 75% of your damages, so on and so forth.
• 20:46
  Each case though is so specific. You give me a walkway.
• 20:49
  In most instances, if someone fell on something, I will
• 20:52
  identify something someone did wrong.
• 20:55
  It's it's very rare that no one did anything wrong.
• 21:00
  Let's take a, a, a classic case. You go to a grocery store,
• 21:03
  there's grapes on the floor. All right.
• 21:06
  So I wonder, there's video footage.
• 21:08
  Did they overstock the grapes? Right, So that's the first thing
• 21:12
  I'm looking if I can get the video footage.
• 21:13
  Did they overstock the grapes? Well, if they didn't, if they
• 21:15
  didn't, then the next thing I'm looking at is did someone
• 21:19
  working for the grocery store drop the grapes?
• 21:22
  Because if someone working for the grocery store drop the
• 21:24
  grapes, they're responsible for picking them up.
• 21:27
  They don't always do that, right?
• 21:28
  So then the next thing I'm looking for is if the grocery
• 21:31
  store guy didn't drop the grapes and a customer drop the grapes,
• 21:34
  how long were the grapes sitting there and did anyone walk past
• 21:37
  the grapes that could have picked them up?
• 21:39
  Geez. Right.
• 21:40
  So it's nuanced. OK, some.
• 21:41
  Missing gaps there for sure. Yeah, but but again, department
• 21:45
  stores these days, grocery stores, they all have video.
• 21:48
  Oh yeah, no, all the time. Missing gaps.
• 21:49
  I mean, somebody walked by and probably didn't see it.
• 21:52
  That worked for the store. A lot of times, a lot of times
• 21:55
  and case law has developed to something that's called
• 21:58
  constructive notice. So policies and procedures as
• 22:01
  people that frequent these places, we expect that the
• 22:04
  grocery stores, department stores, a gas station, whatever
• 22:08
  are going to do things to make sure they're their store is safe
• 22:11
  for us to walk on, right? We expect that, right?
• 22:14
  And so there's only so much time that can elapse before the, the
• 22:18
  law says you should have found it also, right?
• 22:20
  So it varies in many instances and it varies on the
• 22:24
  circumstances. 1520, thirty minutes, something of that
• 22:27
  nature. The nature of what's fallen,
• 22:30
  right, also impacts the, the, the, the perspective, But it's,
• 22:35
  it's very nuanced. But you go through that whole
• 22:37
  process. And so when someone comes to me
• 22:39
  and they say that they're embarrassed, I fell.
• 22:42
  I shouldn't have fallen. Maybe maybe you shouldn't have
• 22:45
  fallen, but maybe something caused you to fall, right.
• 22:49
  It's funny because in trial, defense attorneys for working
• 22:52
  for insurance companies suggest to juries often that everyone
• 22:55
  should walk around all day looking at their feet where
• 22:58
  they're going. But no one walks around looking
• 23:01
  at their feet. And do you know why we don't,
• 23:02
  Alex? We don't walk around looking at
• 23:04
  our feet because we've been conditioned that the businesses
• 23:07
  that invite us into their places are going to have clean, dry
• 23:11
  stores with walkways that are free of debris, free of things
• 23:15
  we can trip on, that are maintained in a way that are
• 23:18
  conducive for us to shop and spend as much money as possible,
• 23:21
  right? That's the goal, right?
• 23:22
  That's true. And so we're conditioned for
• 23:24
  that. And if there's not big signs, if
• 23:26
  there's not something alerting us that there's a hazard, our
• 23:29
  gaze is going to be focused on the things we're buying, the
• 23:31
  things we're doing, our thought process of what we're going to
• 23:34
  order when we go into the restaurant.
• 23:36
  And they're making that. They're making it that way too.
• 23:38
  They want you to. They don't want you to look at
• 23:39
  the ground. They want you to look at the
• 23:40
  shelf display 100%. 100% And so they're actually jury
• 23:43
  instructions when you get to trial that people like us have
• 23:46
  to have to go through. One of them might be that, you
• 23:49
  know, I'm not going to paraphrase a little bit, but you
• 23:51
  have to be aware of open and obvious conditions.
• 23:54
  But that is supplemented by the fact that there's a deliberate
• 23:56
  distraction. If someone deliberately
• 23:59
  distracting you away from the ground to look at sale signs or
• 24:03
  products or whatever the case might be, those all
• 24:05
  counterbalance. So it's, it's a wide array of
• 24:08
  things that you have to look at to determine is this your fault
• 24:11
  or is it someone else's fault? The combination?
• 24:13
  Who knows? So before we bought our house,
• 24:15
  now that we're in, we were renting a place and they were
• 24:17
  like notorious for not. Then we we have ice on the
• 24:21
  driveway or the walkway, right? And you just would go 8 and 10
• 24:24
  hours without, you know, it'd still be there.
• 24:26
  I mean, you come back from work and still be there If someone
• 24:29
  slipped on that. And I always said this, I was
• 24:30
  walking around like if someone slips.
• 24:31
  And we had older people that lived near us in the community
• 24:34
  too. I was like, if someone slips on
• 24:35
  this old, young, it doesn't really matter.
• 24:37
  But particularly I think you're more vulnerable if you're older,
• 24:39
  right? Someone slips on that.
• 24:41
  I bet they could probably sue that company, that landlord.
• 24:44
  Is that true or no? Maybe that.
• 24:47
  So snow and ice is an interesting area of the law.
• 24:50
  We do a lot of snow and ice cases and in Illinois, Chicago
• 24:53
  area, you see it a ton. Just kind of depends on the
• 24:56
  year. But in residential developments
• 25:00
  in in residential homes, in residential apartment complexes,
• 25:05
  there's some restrictions, protections by statute that
• 25:09
  allow people to try to clear snow and ice from an area.
• 25:14
  But if they don't succeed so successfully, they don't do so
• 25:17
  successfully, they're not going to be responsible unless there's
• 25:20
  a defect on the property. You know, there's a there's
• 25:24
  cracks in the driveway, there's areas of the driveway that pool,
• 25:27
  there's a downspout that goes over a walkway and water comes
• 25:32
  down and refreezes on the sidewalk, those different types
• 25:35
  of things. It gets more.
• 25:38
  There's also a rule in Illinois, it's called the unnatural or the
• 25:41
  natural accumulation rule. So essentially whether you own a
• 25:44
  business or a residence, you're not going to be responsible for
• 25:47
  naturally falling snow or naturally accumulating ice.
• 25:50
  Again, pre presuming that there's no defect in the design
• 25:54
  or the maintenance of a property that's causing it to form that
• 25:57
  way. So where it gets tricky is,
• 26:00
  again, in Illinois, when it snows, we don't shut down.
• 26:04
  It's not like the South where it's a little bit of snow or a
• 26:06
  little bit of ice. Everyone stays home for three
• 26:08
  days in the middle of a snowstorm.
• 26:10
  The stores are open and we're still shopping.
• 26:12
  We're still getting our gas. We're still taking our kids to
• 26:14
  Taekwondo, whatever the case might be.
• 26:17
  And so we've developed a system where in Illinois, we hire snow
• 26:21
  removal contractors. So especially on commercial
• 26:23
  properties, apartment complexes and the like, they're going to
• 26:26
  be contracts which require these snow and ice removal contractors
• 26:30
  to come in and take steps to pretreat, treat and treat
• 26:34
  afterwards any refreezing of the property.
• 26:37
  And so you know what we find? Because a lot of times these
• 26:39
  people are paid not per visit, but per month.
• 26:42
  They don't want to have as least amount of touches on a property
• 26:45
  as possible. So they might not pretreat, they
• 26:47
  might treat late and they don't go back to make sure that the
• 26:50
  piles of snow don't melt and form puddles or that things
• 26:53
  haven't refrozen. And the refreezing is the
• 26:56
  biggest problem because that's where black ice comes from,
• 26:58
  right? We don't get black ice from like
• 27:00
  chunks of snow that form ice. And you can see this big chunk
• 27:03
  of ice, the black ice happens from freezing rain but also
• 27:06
  refreezing. So see, a lot of this is
• 27:09
  obviously subjective. I imagine when you get to court,
• 27:12
  you know, there's certain things that are black and white, but
• 27:14
  there's certain things like you kind of kind of prove, you know,
• 27:16
  your side or your angle or what happened, what didn't.
• 27:19
  Does it all come down to how good the lawyer is then in terms
• 27:22
  of who wins the case or the amount of?
• 27:24
  So there's the evidence, but it seems like a lot of this is
• 27:26
  like, man, are you better than the other guy or gal that's got
• 27:28
  to defend their case? Ultimately, I think the facts
• 27:31
  play a huge role in how the case is going to develop.
• 27:35
  And with the right facts, a better attorney is going to
• 27:37
  develop a better case. And so yes, in a large degree
• 27:42
  the outcome is determinative on the skill of the lawyer, but not
• 27:46
  so far as winning. But there's no one case with one
• 27:49
  value. The same person could have the
• 27:51
  same set of facts and have relatively the same amount of
• 27:56
  medical bills, the same condition, the same loss to
• 27:58
  normal life and everything else. You have two attorneys and two
• 28:00
  different people and you're, you're likely to have two
• 28:03
  different jury outcomes. Why is that?
• 28:05
  Well, the jury might like one attorney over the other.
• 28:08
  The jury might like 1 plaintiff over the other, one injured
• 28:11
  person over the other. It is a bit of a personality
• 28:14
  contest. You might also have a different
• 28:16
  collection of jurors. There are 12 people sitting in
• 28:18
  this box that are going to decide the fate of your client.
• 28:22
  And those 12 people are not the same 12 people.
• 28:23
  Every time there's a new set of 12 people that come with
• 28:26
  different predispositions, different thoughts, different
• 28:29
  processes. They're from life experiences,
• 28:32
  they're from different areas. I'll give you one example.
• 28:35
  And I always learn something. Every time I pick a jury, I
• 28:37
  learn something different. But when I was younger, I picked
• 28:39
  a jury in King County. This was back in 2013 or 2014.
• 28:43
  And I selected a nice young man who was a juror and he'd been in
• 28:45
  a terrible accident as a young man working on a farm.
• 28:49
  And, and I thought, well, this is wonderful.
• 28:51
  He's going to be sympathetic to my client and he's going to
• 28:54
  understand the pain and the suffering she's gone through.
• 28:57
  Well, after we won, it was a good verdict.
• 29:00
  But afterwards, you're able to speak with the jurors.
• 29:03
  And this young man came back and told me he wanted to give my
• 29:05
  client way less, way less money than we actually got, certainly
• 29:09
  much less than we actually asked for.
• 29:11
  So I asked him why. What was your perspective?
• 29:13
  He said well, my injury was worse than hers and I got less
• 29:16
  money. Oh, that's interesting.
• 29:18
  Wow. It is interesting and I went
• 29:20
  into it. He also didn't understand the
• 29:22
  nuance. He had a workers compensation
• 29:24
  claim versus what we call a third party injury.
• 29:26
  So an injury in court. Workers compensation claims are
• 29:30
  settled on a schedule. You get, you have a certain
• 29:32
  amount of money available based upon your age, based upon your
• 29:35
  injury. You fit into a schedule, right?
• 29:37
  There's no schedule for the cases we tried.
• 29:39
  There's no schedule for a car accident or a slip and fall or
• 29:42
  construction site accident. It's it's economic.
• 29:45
  It's anchors that drive the value.
• 29:47
  So like I said, anchors could be economic in nature.
• 29:50
  Medical bills, they could be the severity of your injury.
• 29:52
  They could be the impact to your life.
• 29:54
  Sometimes anchors become the nature of the injury itself.
• 29:57
  The injury is so outlandish, the safety failure is so egregious
• 30:01
  that it Stokes the anger of the jury and the drives up value.
• 30:05
  As a lawyer, have you ever turned down a case that could
• 30:07
  have been lucrative, but it just didn't feel right, or you didn't
• 30:10
  believe in it or something was off?
• 30:11
  Yes. And as a matter of fact, I, I
• 30:14
  just had to let a client go this week.
• 30:17
  It's a wonderful case, a good family.
• 30:21
  They just were not responsive to us.
• 30:23
  And in our line of work, many people don't know this.
• 30:27
  So we work on contingency fee, which means you don't pay me
• 30:30
  anything ever. Until you went.
• 30:32
  Unless you went unless I win and then I take a portion of the
• 30:34
  settlement and if you. Lose.
• 30:36
  And if we lose, you don't get paid anything.
• 30:38
  I don't get paid anything. Wow, worse.
• 30:40
  Not worse yet, but just another new nuance there is I cover all
• 30:43
  the costs going along the way. If I lose, I eat the costs.
• 30:47
  I don't think a lot of people know that.
• 30:48
  That's a good education right there, I don't think.
• 30:50
  Why would you not call you then? Well, exactly right.
• 30:52
  I could call you every time. I think you're correct.
• 30:54
  About half the people that call us don't understand the process,
• 30:57
  or I would say more than half don't understand the process.
• 31:01
  But even then, most don't understand that, you know, we
• 31:05
  cover the costs also. They're concerned that more
• 31:07
  money's coming out of their pocket.
• 31:08
  Right. It's kind of like recruiters.
• 31:10
  I did recruiting for six years. A lot of the, the companies pay
• 31:13
  you, but from a candidate standpoint, you don't pay
• 31:15
  anything. You know, you're, you're head
• 31:17
  hunting on their behalf for free.
• 31:18
  That's all, everything's covered.
• 31:20
  And then you have all the upfront costs and, and from a
• 31:22
  company standpoint, if you do direct placement, that company
• 31:25
  only pays you if you hire the person and place them at the
• 31:27
  company, unless you're doing a different model.
• 31:29
  So it's it's a lot of front end work on your end, but I think it
• 31:32
  also incentivize you to want to do a good job and win the case
• 31:35
  because if not you're, you're not going to eat.
• 31:37
  I think it does. Now attorneys have to be
• 31:39
  cautious too because you can't over estimate the value of a
• 31:42
  case. You have to be able to value the
• 31:44
  case appropriately. But there's also the flip side.
• 31:47
  Some firms undervalue the case to turn it quickly because they
• 31:49
  don't want to put work on to it, right?
• 31:51
  So they say, well, this case might be worth $200,000, but I
• 31:55
  know I can settle it quick for 100.
• 31:56
  So I'm going to do that. And the client often doesn't
• 31:59
  know the difference. The, the beauty part about when
• 32:01
  we do our work right is we make sure your medical bills are
• 32:04
  cleared. I mean, 0 owed.
• 32:06
  We pay back anyone who's owed money.
• 32:08
  Sometimes your health insurance company has a lien, that kind of
• 32:11
  thing. You get paid and we cover all of
• 32:13
  our costs and expenses and of course our fee.
• 32:15
  So it's it's a wonderful situation from that service
• 32:17
  standpoint. Another reason why you probably
• 32:19
  shouldn't try to go it alone because you're never going to
• 32:22
  have a full understanding of how to clear all your medical bills
• 32:24
  and how to reduce those figures. On our average case, we reduce
• 32:28
  medical liens and medical bills by more than 50%.
• 32:31
  So you go from owing X to Y. It's a huge jump, right?
• 32:35
  There's something about to having a presence of a good
• 32:37
  lawyer that just makes you feel Eddie like this.
• 32:39
  They're going to come in and like they're going to make sure
• 32:41
  shit's taken care of, you know? Yeah.
• 32:43
  It's, it's funny too, because we have a lot of repeat clients.
• 32:45
  A lot of people come back to us and, and often times not just
• 32:49
  for their injury thing, you know, injury issue, maybe a
• 32:52
  family member gets hurt, a friend gets hurt, they refer us.
• 32:54
  But I get a lot of emails with just me on the carbon copy line.
• 32:59
  Oh yeah. Complaining about something my
• 33:00
  lawyer's carbon copied. And he's going to, he's going to
• 33:03
  look into this. If you don't help me, you're XY
• 33:05
  and Z and that's fine. That's wonderful.
• 33:07
  I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm thrilled that they're still remembering me and
• 33:10
  I'm their lawyer, right. That's.
• 33:12
  Exactly what I'm talking about. It's just the authority of like,
• 33:14
  I know someone that understands this at deep level and could
• 33:17
  support me. My dad was a cop.
• 33:19
  I'd sometimes be like, my dad's a state police, you know, like,
• 33:21
  it's the same shit. It's like, yeah. 100% so.
• 33:23
  You mentioned walking into the the courtroom and you got to
• 33:26
  kind of get the jurors. It's helpful if you can get them
• 33:28
  to like you. It's helpful, helpful if they
• 33:29
  like the, you know, the person that's going through the
• 33:32
  litigation. And this reminds me of some of
• 33:34
  the crossover skills that I wanted to get to like, that's
• 33:37
  why I think it's so cool about being a lawyer as you have sales
• 33:39
  influence, probably some marketing, some psychology.
• 33:43
  What what is the key to getting people to like you as fast as
• 33:46
  possible in your cases? Authentically connecting with
• 33:49
  them, right? Well, so I'm naturally I, I joke
• 33:53
  around a little bit. I mean, some people view me as
• 33:55
  rough and gruff and this that and the other.
• 33:57
  And I can be, if I need to be, I can get tough.
• 33:59
  But I've learned that the best way to connect with people,
• 34:01
  whether it's clients, jurors, insurance companies, defense
• 34:05
  attorneys, judges, is to be a little laughable.
• 34:08
  Make a joke here and there. Show them that it's not all, you
• 34:11
  know, you know, you know, steel and metal, that kind of thing,
• 34:15
  right. And so when I'm picking a jury,
• 34:17
  for instance, I'll have conversations with them.
• 34:19
  I'll ask them not just about their background and the
• 34:22
  information, but if I, you know, if they're talking about soccer,
• 34:25
  this, that and the other, I'll share, you know, some
• 34:27
  experiences with my kids about soccer or this, that and the
• 34:30
  other. Try to make jokes, try to
• 34:31
  connect with them, try to let them understand that you know
• 34:34
  I'm I'm you know, I'm a good guy and you know you did it right
• 34:38
  When the other side strikes that juror immediately right.
• 34:41
  So because you only. Like get out of here.
• 34:43
  Yeah, get out of here. I don't want.
• 34:44
  Your best friends with this guy already?
• 34:46
  Like so every, every attorney when you're picking a jury gets
• 34:48
  challenges. So you can have so many
• 34:50
  challenges, right? Right.
• 34:51
  And you can tell when you've gone too far and connected too
• 34:54
  much because they're gonna kick that juror pretty quick, right?
• 34:57
  But no, and I do the same thing with clients.
• 35:00
  You, you try to understand what they're about.
• 35:02
  You try to give them a little piece of you.
• 35:04
  You try to, of course, you assure them, give them
• 35:07
  confidence in the process, but also you learn about their
• 35:10
  family. You, you try to have some humor,
• 35:12
  you try to connect that kind of thing.
• 35:14
  So I think authentically connecting with anyone is the
• 35:17
  best way to go. And people know when you're
• 35:19
  being phony. You can't.
• 35:21
  And if I'm in a two week trial, if, if I'm phony, when I'm
• 35:24
  connecting with you, they're going to see it at some point in
• 35:26
  time. They're going to see I'm a jerk,
• 35:28
  they're gonna see I'm boring, they're gonna see I'm whatever
• 35:30
  the case might be. So if I'm not being me, you're
• 35:33
  gonna see it at some point and you're gonna lose trust in me.
• 35:35
  Yeah, yeah. And I think you just want to
• 35:37
  avoid to your point, you want to avoid being the guy or gallery
• 35:40
  or people are just like, I just don't like that, that guy or
• 35:42
  that girl. 100% something about them just fucking rubs me the
• 35:45
  wrong way. 100%. I don't want to be that.
• 35:47
  Right. You do not want to be that guy.
• 35:48
  There's very few times the jury is going to find for the client
• 35:51
  in spite of the attorney. Yeah, right.
• 35:53
  I mean, they might give him something, him or her something,
• 35:55
  but they're not going to go out of their way to help a client in
• 35:58
  in spite of the attorney. Right.
• 35:59
  Yeah. What else have you learned
• 36:01
  that's been good transferable skills, you know, in terms of
• 36:03
  influencing people, Like how do you influence people?
• 36:06
  How do you persuade a group of people?
• 36:08
  Is there anything else that you think is good transferable
• 36:11
  skills for a lot of the founders entrepreneurs listening?
• 36:13
  So I think when I'm talking with a client, when I'm trying to
• 36:16
  onboard a client or get them to go with us or along the way,
• 36:20
  when I'm talking to them about, OK, this is the settlement
• 36:23
  offer, we need to file suit, here's why, or we're going to
• 36:26
  take the settlement offer. We need to or we need to go to
• 36:28
  trial. I have to give them as much
• 36:30
  information as possible. So I view my job both as guiding
• 36:34
  them in a direction, but also informing them and teaching them
• 36:36
  as much about the process. And they don't know.
• 36:39
  They have no perspective, right? So the more times I can give
• 36:44
  them accurate information that pans out, the more trust that's
• 36:47
  built. And the more trust that's built,
• 36:48
  the more likely we're going to have a success down the line one
• 36:51
  way or the other. Because they're going to agree
• 36:52
  or they're going to take my lead on different scenarios that
• 36:56
  might be challenging for them to understand.
• 36:58
  But each time it it works and they do it and it pans out and
• 37:02
  we succeed globally or in that instance, right, They have trust
• 37:06
  and confidence. I think that is the same for
• 37:09
  business as well. I try to be transparent with my
• 37:11
  employees. I try to be transparent with my
• 37:14
  vendors. I try to be transparent with
• 37:16
  everyone around me. I work with my competitors a
• 37:18
  lot. You know, we share information,
• 37:21
  we share strategies, we share. Do you ever try to get?
• 37:24
  Get in your competitors head though.
• 37:26
  Never really. I don't I, I, I really respect a
• 37:30
  lot of the guys around us and even the guys that are from the
• 37:34
  Chicago area or come in from downstate or out of state or
• 37:36
  whatever the case might be, they've all done something
• 37:39
  unique and we're all kind of fighting for the same thing.
• 37:41
  We're trying trying to fight to help people.
• 37:43
  Ultimately, I mean, there are some people that are doing it
• 37:46
  the wrong way. There's no doubt about that.
• 37:48
  Some people who aren't working up cases aren't giving clients
• 37:51
  the right attention. Ultimately, I don't have to be
• 37:54
  antagonistic to those people that markets going to factor
• 37:57
  that out. We get a lot of clients to come
• 37:59
  with to us as their second or third attorney because they went
• 38:02
  with this big firm downtown or this powerhouse firm Rex Y&Z.
• 38:05
  They never got the attention they wanted or they, they
• 38:08
  weren't getting, you know, something they needed.
• 38:10
  And so they came to us and and we we provided it to them.
• 38:13
  You probably see some lawyers where you're like, oh, thank God
• 38:15
  it's them on the case. And then you probably see other
• 38:17
  ones were like, this is going to be a tough one.
• 38:19
  Is that right or no? No, not really.
• 38:21
  I would rather have a competent defense attorney on the other
• 38:24
  side that can evaluate the case and is going to evoke confidence
• 38:28
  with the insurance company that he is right or wrong.
• 38:32
  Then someone who's incompetent and does not know how to value a
• 38:35
  case does not know how to work it up.
• 38:38
  XY and ZI mean I want, I want proper evaluations.
• 38:42
  I want to have a cooperative working relationship with the
• 38:46
  insurance defense attorney and the insurance company because
• 38:49
  ultimately I'm trying to sell them on my case.
• 38:51
  Ultimately I'm trying to say, hey, I think this case is worth
• 38:54
  this. Tell me why not.
• 38:55
  And if we can't figure out a way for me to convince you, what
• 38:59
  else do I need to give you? For instance?
• 39:01
  Then let's figure out what the value should be and see if we
• 39:04
  can make a go of it. And if not, then we're going to
• 39:06
  go to trial, that kind of thing. But when when you get someone
• 39:09
  who's obstructive, incompetent, unnecessarily argumentative,
• 39:17
  yes, you do has a mentality that they're just going to go all out
• 39:20
  and and not cooperate it, it's a frustrating process.
• 39:24
  It makes every time you talk to that person, every time you're
• 39:26
  in court together, every deposition, every interaction
• 39:28
  frustrating, and you ultimately know that the end game is not
• 39:33
  working cooperatively with them to resolve it.
• 39:35
  It's trial, which is fine too. But there's got to be a certain
• 39:38
  level of if everyone, assuming everyone is competent and
• 39:40
  ethical, there's got to be a certain level of sizing people
• 39:43
  up. Oh yeah, I think you size people
• 39:45
  up. Certainly, I think we can
• 39:46
  actually do that, right. You're like, I I got this, like
• 39:48
  I I'm going to over prepare this person or I'm and I know they're
• 39:51
  kind of their weak spot or whatever it is, right. 100% So
• 39:54
  as a plaintiff's attorney, you're going to have a lot of
• 39:56
  frequent Flyers on the defense side, so you know how to work
• 39:58
  with them. And then you would have a when
• 39:59
  you have a new attorney. Then you go to your colleagues
• 40:01
  and you'd be like anyone work with this person.
• 40:03
  What do they, how do they like to do this?
• 40:04
  How do they like to do that? Interesting, interesting.
• 40:06
  Right. I, as a young attorney, I worked
• 40:08
  on the defense insurance side. I did construction negligence
• 40:11
  claims for construction companies for like 7 or 8 years.
• 40:14
  And I remember when we had to report information to the
• 40:17
  insurance company, every time we would report, it would be an
• 40:20
  update on plaintiffs council. How good is plaintiff's council?
• 40:23
  What are his recent results? What has he been doing?
• 40:26
  You know, how is he working in this case?
• 40:28
  How do I think he's gonna appear at trial?
• 40:29
  How I think he's gonna perform a trial.
• 40:31
  So everyone's doing it on both sides.
• 40:33
  If you see someone that's super green, super young, is that kind
• 40:36
  of like as a seasoned pro, is that kind of like, all right,
• 40:39
  it's feasting time? Not at all.
• 40:40
  Not at all. It's, you know, a couple of
• 40:43
  things. 1 is, you know, we were all there at some point in time.
• 40:46
  You don't want to take advantage of it because at some point in
• 40:48
  time someone's going to see that transcript and they're going to
• 40:50
  think a little less of you, right?
• 40:51
  Doesn't mean I'm going to give them any breaks necessarily, but
• 40:54
  I'm, I'm not going to try to take advantage of them.
• 40:56
  I'll give you an example. When I was a young attorney,
• 40:59
  there were a lot of older attorneys that thought it would
• 41:00
  be fun just to object to everything you say at a
• 41:02
  deposition. So after every question
• 41:05
  objection, argumentative objection, compound objection,
• 41:10
  leading objection, every question just to disrupt the
• 41:12
  deposition and try to throw you off.
• 41:14
  It's not conducive to trying to make the case move forward.
• 41:17
  It's frustrating and young attorneys didn't know how to
• 41:19
  handle it. Now, I think by and large,
• 41:21
  that's been kind of worked out of the industry.
• 41:24
  You don't see it as much these days, but it happened.
• 41:28
  And it's, you know, it's, it's unprofessional, it's unethical,
• 41:30
  and it just doesn't do anyone any good.
• 41:32
  It doesn't do your client any good, does it?
• 41:34
  You do you any good. If you are preventing your
• 41:36
  client from answering questions at a deposition, you have no
• 41:39
  idea what that client's actually going to say at trial, how
• 41:42
  they're going to hold up the scrutiny, or what information
• 41:44
  they really have to give. Right.
• 41:46
  Yeah, for sure. You mentioned in a LinkedIn post
• 41:48
  one of the hardest habits for witnesses to break in a
• 41:50
  deposition. Speaking of that is the urge to
• 41:53
  fills silence. You say in everyday
• 41:55
  conversation, silence feels awkward.
• 41:57
  We did instinctively explain, clarify or add detail to keep
• 42:00
  things moving in a deposition. That instinct can create real
• 42:03
  problems. Can you explain a little bit
• 42:05
  more about that 'cause I think it's interesting from a sales
• 42:07
  perspective too. And a lot of the even on
• 42:09
  podcast, there's times where you can just pause for a second and
• 42:12
  it's OK 100%. Some people feel like they have
• 42:15
  to constantly keep it going. Well, we're used to that, right?
• 42:17
  We don't want those awkward pauses because we want people to
• 42:19
  be engaged with us. But people have to understand in
• 42:22
  a deposition, your job is not to engage with the other side.
• 42:25
  Your job is to answer their questions, only the questions
• 42:28
  they asked, by the way. So I'll give you some examples,
• 42:30
  right. When I'm prepping a witness for
• 42:32
  a deposition, I might talk to them about this in this context.
• 42:35
  So I'll say, OK, so when someone asks you, can you tell me what
• 42:38
  color the light was? What's your answer?
• 42:41
  The light was green, Josh. No, the answer is yes or no
• 42:44
  green. Can you oh, can you tell me the
• 42:46
  color can? You tell me the color, it's yes
• 42:48
  or no answer. What was the color green
• 42:50
  exactly? Right.
• 42:51
  No more, no less. Yeah.
• 42:52
  So then I go one step forward. They say, can you tell me the
• 42:56
  color of the light? It was green.
• 42:57
  And then he doesn't ask ask another question.
• 42:59
  And you pause and you pause and you're like, oh, but the your
• 43:04
  client said this and then this happened.
• 43:06
  And then my husband came over and someone said that we should
• 43:08
  have all done this or XY and Z. And so I talked to everything
• 43:12
  you say after that is going to require them to ask follow up
• 43:15
  questions. Go down these rabbit holes and
• 43:17
  we don't know where those rabbit holes are always going to go.
• 43:19
  You only add answer the question that's asked.
• 43:22
  Don't offer any additional information beyond the truth
• 43:25
  that answers that question. And you got a role play
• 43:27
  probably, right? 100% I would for sure.
• 43:30
  Yeah, you do role play it and you go through the most critical
• 43:32
  parts of each deposition. There will be times everyone
• 43:36
  gets surprised about a question. It happens all the time.
• 43:39
  It's not because there's a lack of preparation, it's just
• 43:41
  because no one thinks something's relevant.
• 43:43
  And then a question gets asked and the client answers it in the
• 43:46
  way you're not expecting and we go start going down a rabbit
• 43:49
  hole. Couldn't they pause and just
• 43:50
  say, let me talk to my lawyer now?
• 43:52
  No, you can't because it's coaching a witness, right.
• 43:54
  So one of the one of the rules we have in most depositions is
• 43:57
  we can take breaks but not the question is pending.
• 44:00
  Oh OK, you got to answer the question first, correct?
• 44:02
  Now. That's otherwise it might as
• 44:04
  well just be you answering questions.
• 44:05
  Exactly right. We were in AI was in a
• 44:07
  deposition position 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks ago.
• 44:10
  And literally every question that was asked, the witness
• 44:13
  turned to her attorney before she answered just to make sure.
• 44:16
  Like she didn't want to answer it, right.
• 44:18
  She was looking for coaching and the attorney, to her credit, did
• 44:20
  not coach her, but she was just so unsure of how to answer.
• 44:24
  So, and that was on videotape. So that's going to be showed to
• 44:27
  a jury at some point in time possibly.
• 44:30
  And they're going to see this woman every time she's asked a
• 44:31
  question, looking at her attorney for guidance.
• 44:34
  And that's not going to come across very well.
• 44:36
  So you want to be authentic in the deposition.
• 44:38
  You want to answer it truthfully, but you don't want
• 44:41
  to offer details that don't need to be offered.
• 44:42
  And you don't want to be you're, you're not really in control.
• 44:46
  You're there just to answer questions.
• 44:47
  So sometimes it might take some time to organize thoughts for
• 44:50
  the next question. Don't worry about filling the
• 44:52
  space, creates more problems. What's the best way to get the
• 44:55
  truth out of somebody? Have you learned anything about
• 44:57
  that? Well.
• 44:59
  With obviously being ethical, but just have you learned like
• 45:02
  these are methods you might use? It's an interesting question.
• 45:06
  I'm not for my clients. I expect them to tell me the
• 45:09
  truth, and I'm getting information other than from
• 45:12
  them. I'm getting information from
• 45:13
  other witnesses. I'm getting information from
• 45:15
  their doctors and medical records.
• 45:17
  I'm talking to their families. I'm talking to the police
• 45:20
  officer. I'm talking to the opposing
• 45:21
  counsel. Now, can they tell you anything?
• 45:23
  And then you can't. Like let's say, and I know you
• 45:25
  don't handle these cases, but let's say somebody killed
• 45:28
  someone and the lawyers like, did you kill him?
• 45:29
  Like I definitely did, but we're not going to say that obviously.
• 45:32
  If I represent you, I am bound to not say anything to anyone
• 45:35
  about that situation. I always wondered if like the
• 45:37
  defense attorney, that like in those cases, if they really told
• 45:41
  them what happened, maybe they knew and they're still trying to
• 45:43
  fight their battle, which is kind of.
• 45:44
  Well, from a criminal law standpoint, and I've never done
• 45:47
  criminal law, so I'll just tell you what I've what I've been
• 45:49
  told and what we were taught in law school and so on and so
• 45:52
  forth. But from a criminal law
• 45:53
  standpoint, that's 100% correct. If someone tells you they did
• 45:56
  it, then you can't tell anyone, but you also can't let them
• 46:00
  perjure themselves. So your, your, your trial is
• 46:04
  limited and how you can present it because now you know that
• 46:07
  they affirmatively did the bad thing.
• 46:10
  So most criminal defense attorneys will not ask their
• 46:13
  client if they did it. OK, murder.
• 46:15
  Don't tell them. Don't tell them.
• 46:15
  I don't want to know. Whatever they don't want to know
• 46:17
  whether they did or not. Now, would you have a problem
• 46:19
  representing somebody if they did a heinous crime and they
• 46:22
  told you I I did it, I did something terrible, I murdered
• 46:26
  in his or whatever it is. So I personally would, but
• 46:29
  that's why I'm not a criminal defense attorney.
• 46:31
  I would too. I couldn't do it.
• 46:32
  I just I just and there's got to be people that do it, I guess
• 46:35
  because you're innocent till proven guilty.
• 46:36
  So you need people to have defenses.
• 46:38
  But I they just couldn't do that.
• 46:41
  So the people that do it live by a thought process or a mantra
• 46:45
  that were taught in law school also, right?
• 46:47
  That everyone's entitled to a defense that even if you did
• 46:50
  something heinous, that the other side is required to prove
• 46:53
  their case against you. And you're entitled to a
• 46:55
  presumption of innocence and you're entitled to a defense.
• 46:58
  And you're that attorney is there as the guard post to make
• 47:00
  sure all those procedural hoodles are jumped through so
• 47:03
  that the jury comes back with a fair verdict, right?
• 47:06
  And that's their job. That's what they do.
• 47:09
  And they're adamant about it. Sometimes they get people off,
• 47:12
  sometimes they don't. It was funny, my wife just sent
• 47:15
  me a Facebook post couple days ago or so about about a lawyer
• 47:21
  who is advertising on a billboard.
• 47:24
  You know, they said just because you did it doesn't mean you're
• 47:26
  guilty, right? So.
• 47:30
  Have you talked to OJ for example?
• 47:32
  Yeah, exactly. Right.
• 47:33
  So I mean, I think, I think what criminal defense attorneys do is
• 47:37
  amazing. I couldn't do it.
• 47:39
  I don't want to do it. I think a lot of people have a
• 47:41
  bad view of them in many respects, but they serve a
• 47:43
  purpose. I get that now makes sense.
• 47:45
  You got they see it through a different lens because you have
• 47:47
  to kind of morally come to terms with probably some of the things
• 47:50
  that you're doing, I would imagine.
• 47:51
  So we got a we do got a couple questions from the founder talk
• 47:54
  group. So I'll ask you this that we
• 47:57
  have a community of other founders and mostly in the area
• 48:00
  and I ask questions to them. I say, hey, I'm having on these
• 48:02
  guest, here's what they do, here's their background.
• 48:05
  Do you have any questions for them?
• 48:06
  First one I got was what's your most successful marketing
• 48:10
  strategy and how do you use social media?
• 48:12
  Obviously I know you use LinkedIn, so there's that.
• 48:14
  But and I'm curious to do, do people, and you mentioned people
• 48:19
  come to you when they have a problem.
• 48:20
  So how do you kind of market proactively?
• 48:22
  So it's interesting, we've tried a variety of marketing
• 48:25
  strategies, but we're in a situation where we, we want our
• 48:28
  clients to live in the Fox Valley.
• 48:30
  So they could be hurt anywhere. They could be hurt in New York,
• 48:33
  they could be hurt in Chicago, they could be hurt downstate.
• 48:34
  But we, we, we, our prototypical client, our ideal client lives
• 48:39
  in the Fox Valley. And we've tried a number of
• 48:41
  different ways to market to those people.
• 48:42
  Social media, we've tried Internet leads, SEO, we've tried
• 48:47
  lead generation companies. We've tried all of that.
• 48:49
  The most effective way to market to someone in the Fox Valley is
• 48:53
  community branding that provides referral based clients.
• 48:59
  Most people in the Fox Valley want someone in their sphere to
• 49:03
  tell you that this is the attorney you should use, this is
• 49:06
  the accountant you should use, this is the dentist you should
• 49:09
  go to. And and that's been our most
• 49:12
  successful strategy. It's, it's what we started with
• 49:15
  doing 12 years ago, getting out in the community, getting our
• 49:18
  name out there, branding ourselves, knowing people and
• 49:21
  that's had the most bang for its buck, so to speak love that.
• 49:25
  And so we've tried other avenues.
• 49:28
  We've we've gone heavy into SEO, we've done PCs and Lsas, we've
• 49:33
  dabbled on social media. We're going to try some more of
• 49:36
  that. I'm obviously engaged in
• 49:38
  LinkedIn, which is a different type of marketing.
• 49:40
  I'm looking for attorneys to refer me cases as opposed to
• 49:43
  people saying, hey, that's Josh, I need to hire him.
• 49:46
  I'm looking for that referral network, right?
• 49:47
  I'm looking for the, the attorney or the accountant or
• 49:50
  the dentist that says, well, there's a guy on my LinkedIn
• 49:53
  page. He's a really competent
• 49:55
  attorney. You should call him, right?
• 49:56
  Or the attorneys who have those cases as well.
• 49:59
  But I think that the most successful thing we've done
• 50:04
  brand ourselves within the community in the Fox Valley and
• 50:07
  get those referrals, I think. It's one of the most underrated
• 50:09
  things that most companies aren't doing, especially, I
• 50:12
  mean, especially in this area. But I think in general, and I
• 50:14
  think it comes back to just relationship building and trust.
• 50:16
  You know, it's really what it is.
• 50:17
  But for me, when I started my business, I want to get into
• 50:19
  yours because you started yours in 2020, right?
• 50:21
  You left the law firms and started your own firm in 2020.
• 50:24
  Obviously been practicing law much longer than that, but when
• 50:27
  I started, it was everything was so virtual and it was right in
• 50:30
  the middle of COVID too. So it was like all LinkedIn, all
• 50:32
  video, YouTube, whatever it might be.
• 50:35
  And then as I kind of got a few years into it, I was like, man,
• 50:38
  I need to build like a local presence in a community and
• 50:40
  build real relationships. And that's part of the reason
• 50:42
  why a year and a half ago I started this podcast.
• 50:44
  I was like, I want to talk to people and have deep
• 50:46
  conversations and get to know people.
• 50:47
  And I think it matters. I think it's big time.
• 50:50
  The other question was you have a lot of competitors.
• 50:53
  Obviously your your space is very noisy.
• 50:55
  So how do you separate yourself in a very crowded market where
• 50:59
  people do a lot of the same things that you do?
• 51:01
  Yeah, it's a great question. So a couple things.
• 51:03
  One is, again, we want clients that live just in the Fox
• 51:06
  Valley. So most people that are
• 51:07
  marketing for personal injury cases in Chicago are marketing
• 51:10
  throughout Chicago, throughout Illinois, throughout maybe many
• 51:13
  states. And they're looking mostly for
• 51:15
  automobile cases because they're the easiest to turn over,
• 51:17
  they're the easiest to identify who's responsible and there's a
• 51:20
  guaranteed policy behind it and so on and so forth.
• 51:23
  So it's not that they're not going to take a premises
• 51:25
  liability case or a slip and fall or a workplace accident or
• 51:28
  something like that, but they're actively marketing for
• 51:31
  automobile cases. So we do market for automobile
• 51:36
  cases, but we've been more successful with premises
• 51:38
  liability cases, construction negligence cases, other
• 51:42
  workplace accidents, products liability cases.
• 51:45
  So again, the differentiator there being we're your local
• 51:48
  attorney in the Fox Valley. We had this experience, we had
• 51:50
  this brand reputation. Come work with us.
• 51:53
  We're going to give you a lot of personal attention.
• 51:54
  Also, if you look at my our website and our LinkedIn posts,
• 51:58
  I mean we talk about concierge level service.
• 52:00
  I mean that's not fluff. We work with you to make sure
• 52:03
  you have proper medical treatment.
• 52:04
  We coordinate with your doctors. If you need litigation funding,
• 52:08
  we have client or we have customer, the companies that can
• 52:11
  handle that. We can set you up with the
• 52:13
  state's a trust attorney. We create a trust if you have
• 52:15
  children that are going to be involved in the situation, all
• 52:18
  these different types of things. We have the net connections and
• 52:20
  the network to give you a full experience, so to speak.
• 52:24
  And so we spend a lot of time with our clients.
• 52:27
  My wife's an attorney, she's one of my part.
• 52:28
  She's a partner, my partner, that's all that.
• 52:30
  And she is on the phone from 7:00 AM to about 9930 each night
• 52:34
  talking to people, insurance companies, doctors, attorneys,
• 52:39
  clients, everyone in between. She never stops talking to
• 52:42
  people. And it's always about giving
• 52:44
  them a little bit information, assuring them what they're doing
• 52:46
  is accurate, assuring them that, hey, it's OK, We know that the
• 52:49
  physical therapy is not working out.
• 52:51
  We'll get you in with this doctor or that doctor to give
• 52:53
  you an evaluation to see if something more is needed, right?
• 52:56
  And so that's hugely important. It's our job to make, you know,
• 52:59
  these people have never gone through accidents before.
• 53:02
  They, they might have gone to a doctor because they had a broken
• 53:05
  foot or a sprained ankle or whatever the case might be.
• 53:08
  But they they didn't have that injury in a car accident or a
• 53:10
  slip and fall or whatever the case might be.
• 53:13
  It's an entirely different process.
• 53:14
  You have to get all the medical treatment rounded out and know
• 53:16
  what's wrong with you so you can pursue your claim.
• 53:19
  It can't fester for years and years and years and years.
• 53:22
  And once we make a settlement, that's it.
• 53:24
  There's no going back to the well.
• 53:26
  Yeah. What made you guys want to start
• 53:28
  your own business then? Yeah.
• 53:29
  So Katie and I were both downtown when we were younger,
• 53:34
  attorneys, both working insurance defense.
• 53:35
  We came out to the suburbs into the Saint Charles area about
• 53:38
  2013. Katie was staying home with the
• 53:40
  kids and I was joining a litigation business, litigation
• 53:44
  firm as a litigation partner. And you know, I had the personal
• 53:49
  injury background, but I didn't have a large book of business, a
• 53:53
  large stack of cases. So I started at that firm,
• 53:56
  mostly doing business litigation, some business
• 53:58
  counseling. We had like four or five injury
• 53:59
  cases lying around. I picked them up.
• 54:02
  We did really, really well on them.
• 54:03
  Really well. A couple years later, I'd built
• 54:06
  that to like 30 or 40 cases and Katie came back from staying at
• 54:09
  home with the kids. She started working them up.
• 54:11
  Fast forward five years at the end of 2019, we've built up a
• 54:14
  pretty substantial base of clients.
• 54:17
  We've been doing really well with the injury work.
• 54:19
  And our model didn't really fit the in the business litigation
• 54:22
  model because that's an hourly model and we weren't really
• 54:25
  hourly. We were not contingency fee,
• 54:27
  right? We'd have big months, small
• 54:29
  months, that kind of thing in between.
• 54:31
  And so we kind of looked at each other and we said, you know,
• 54:34
  it's time to start our own thing.
• 54:35
  It's time to see what we can do with this.
• 54:37
  And so we left. Now, when we left, we didn't
• 54:39
  know that COVID was going to happen.
• 54:41
  And we literally opened our doors on March 1st of 2020.
• 54:45
  So 2 weeks later, of course, the world shuts down.
• 54:47
  But we made it through it, and here we are.
• 54:51
  That's wild man. What's it like?
• 54:52
  What's it like working with your wife?
• 54:54
  Well, she and I both say about 9596% of the time it's great.
• 54:58
  And the other 4 or 5% of the time it's, it's what it is,
• 55:02
  right. So, you know, we think alike, we
• 55:06
  complement each other really, really well and we fill in the
• 55:10
  gaps, which is wonderful. She does our pre litigation
• 55:12
  stuff. So she brings in the cases, she
• 55:13
  works them up, tries to resolve them and then when they go to
• 55:16
  lawsuit, they go under my desk. And we have, we have nine staff
• 55:19
  members otherwise that help us with that.
• 55:23
  But you know, disputes at home or disputes at the office carry
• 55:26
  over both ways, right? And sometimes you can't leave
• 55:29
  the problem with the kids at home when both of you are at the
• 55:31
  office, right? So there, there are some
• 55:34
  problems. But the, I think the best thing
• 55:36
  that I enjoy is that we're A-Team.
• 55:38
  We got each other's back. And while we might not always
• 55:41
  agree with each other with each other or the situation in
• 55:43
  private, when we're in public, you know, we're A-Team.
• 55:47
  So that's, that's awesome. That's you'll never have a
• 55:49
  better partner than your wife or your spouse in business.
• 55:53
  I never. Think so so when you're if
• 55:55
  you're out to dinner, you and your wife, how much are you
• 55:57
  talking about business and. Way too much.
• 56:00
  Way too. Much I mean, is it necessary?
• 56:02
  I mean, if it's all of the conversation, maybe not, but
• 56:03
  it's kind of like I don't know if you when you especially when
• 56:06
  you own your own business, you like want to talk about you're
• 56:08
  excited about it it's what you're passionate about it.
• 56:10
  There are other things, of course, you know what you're
• 56:13
  doing and maybe travels, hobbies, but you do want to talk
• 56:16
  about it a lot. And sometimes it's frustrating
• 56:18
  when you're around friends or relationships or partners that
• 56:21
  they don't have that shared passion and it's like they don't
• 56:24
  get it. You know what I mean?
• 56:25
  I agree with that 100%. So we have a lot of friends that
• 56:28
  are also personal injury attorneys.
• 56:29
  So it helps other attorneys as well.
• 56:31
  A lot of professional friends who have their own businesses.
• 56:34
  So, you know, not everything is exactly the same, but a lot of
• 56:36
  thing is a lot of things are transferable.
• 56:39
  But I agree with you. I mean, we enjoy being with one
• 56:41
  another or else it wouldn't have worked.
• 56:43
  And you know, both in our marriage and in our business.
• 56:46
  But when we go to dinner and when we go on vacation, when we
• 56:50
  do XY and ZA lot of the conversation is what's going on
• 56:53
  with this? What's going on with that?
• 56:54
  How are we going to do this? How are we going to do that?
• 56:56
  And it's great from a conversational standpoint.
• 56:59
  It's great from a connection standpoint.
• 57:01
  But I guess to your point, like I I think we probably do talk
• 57:04
  about it too much, but what else would we talk about?
• 57:06
  I don't know. Yeah, I mean the kids of course,
• 57:08
  but what else? I'm actually a local question.
• 57:11
  Local people will appreciate this.
• 57:12
  Non local it won't resonate. But if you have one restaurant
• 57:15
  to pick in Geneva, where do you go?
• 57:17
  Geneva, IL. I love Niche in Geneva.
• 57:19
  Really. Yeah, Their bourbon selection is
• 57:22
  spectacular, and they've got very unique food items, usually
• 57:25
  Niche. What about Saint Charles?
• 57:27
  Oh, that's a good question. I love Zazazaz.
• 57:30
  Yeah, I love Zazaz. I was we were disappointed that
• 57:32
  Shaku is not there anymore because I was like our good
• 57:34
  Japanese steakhouse. But GME is good.
• 57:37
  GME is good. Altar is good for some burgers.
• 57:39
  Altar is good, and of course you can't forget.
• 57:43
  Like graceful, ordinary. Oh yeah, it's amazing.
• 57:45
  That's a good spot. But you said that one.
• 57:47
  From a just a nice sit down restaurant that you know the
• 57:51
  food's spectacular and you don't, Zazaz is spot on.
• 57:55
  Yep. So you you last question here is
• 57:57
  you made a post on LinkedIn again hear about your teenage
• 58:00
  son is approaching 16. Maybe he has 16 now and he needs
• 58:03
  less parenting and more trust. This I I read this and I was
• 58:06
  interested because I have two daughters 12:00 and 9:00.
• 58:08
  So not quite 16 but they'll be there in a few years.
• 58:11
  You said for years of job was clear, provide answers, set
• 58:13
  guardrails, correct course early.
• 58:15
  But that phase is fading. What he needs now is in constant
• 58:19
  direction at space. Space to make decisions, space
• 58:22
  to make mistakes in, space to feel the weight of the outcome
• 58:26
  with the insurance that there's a safe place to land afterwards.
• 58:29
  We have mostly parents listening to this show.
• 58:32
  Can you expand upon that a little bit and what that
• 58:34
  transition has been like for you?
• 58:36
  So First off, I'll say we we have a unique situation where we
• 58:38
  have two lawyers raising 3 kids. So they naturally think and act
• 58:43
  like lawyers. They are, they are all young
• 58:45
  leaders and it's been tremendously difficult to parent
• 58:48
  them because they all are very vocal about what they want.
• 58:51
  They have thoughts and ideas about how to back that up.
• 58:54
  And it's been very, very challenging, right?
• 58:55
  How old are you? 16 and.
• 58:56
  Well, so my oldest will be 16 March 9th, I've got a daughter
• 59:00
  between 13 April 10th, and I got a 10 year old boy, cool boy,
• 59:05
  girl boy. They're all very smart, they're
• 59:08
  all very intelligent, they're all very direct.
• 59:10
  They're extremely commutative. I'm very proud of all of them.
• 59:14
  But of course, they're all in different seasons.
• 59:16
  They all need different things. So my oldest son is at that
• 59:19
  point where he's trying to break away.
• 59:21
  You know, it's not. Dad knows everything anymore.
• 59:23
  It's like, Dad, stop discounting what I know.
• 59:26
  I want to be my own man. I want to do this, I want to do
• 59:28
  that, and it's the right time for that.
• 59:30
  He should be breaking away right?
• 59:31
  At this point in time, Dad's not the answer to everything.
• 59:34
  He needs to start developing the answers.
• 59:36
  So just like when we were young, learning how to do our business
• 59:39
  or our practice law or learning anything, we have to be given
• 59:43
  opportunities to succeed. And more importantly, we have to
• 59:47
  fail. You learn more in that failure
• 59:49
  than you do in the success. So true.
• 59:52
  And So what I've learned over the last several months as he's
• 59:55
  transitioning now to becoming a driver and doing a variety of
• 59:59
  different things. Is that he's pushing me away.
• 1:00:01
  He doesn't want me involved anymore.
• 1:00:03
  He's not going downstairs to play pool with me every night.
• 1:00:06
  He's not sitting down with me as much though.
• 1:00:08
  A. Little bit, even though he's
• 1:00:10
  going to a new phase, it's like. It is sad and it is sad, but
• 1:00:13
  it's exciting too, because now I've got a young man who's 61
• 1:00:17
  and 2:30 and he likes to think that he's stronger than I am,
• 1:00:21
  although he's not and, and all these different types of things.
• 1:00:24
  But he is growing and he's maturing and he's making a ton
• 1:00:27
  of mistakes. And I had this urge initially
• 1:00:29
  for every mistake to jump in and fix it.
• 1:00:32
  Well, that's a mistake, right? And I'm still learning as a
• 1:00:35
  parent, as a person, as a leader.
• 1:00:37
  So now I came to the realization, or I've come to the
• 1:00:40
  realization over the last several months, I got to give
• 1:00:43
  him space. He's going to make a ton of
• 1:00:44
  mistakes. I made a ton of mistakes.
• 1:00:46
  He's going to learn from them and he's going to eventually
• 1:00:48
  develop. And so far as I'm told, by the
• 1:00:51
  time he's 25 or 30, he'll start to think I'm smart again.
• 1:00:53
  So. That's pretty much how it goes
• 1:00:55
  it they all come back. They always come back if you do
• 1:00:57
  a good job. That's the goal.
• 1:00:58
  Have them come back, you know? And he likes me still.
• 1:01:01
  We still enjoy one another's company.
• 1:01:02
  But he doesn't want me to sit him down and tell him everything
• 1:01:05
  he's doing right or wrong. He doesn't want me to tell him
• 1:01:07
  you should do it this way or you should do it that way.
• 1:01:10
  He wants to figure it out on his own.
• 1:01:11
  Yeah. And that's good.
• 1:01:12
  Yeah, it is a bittersweet moment.
• 1:01:14
  They're growing up, the butterflies coming out of the
• 1:01:16
  cocoon, but you also miss the cocoon a little bit too, because
• 1:01:19
  that was a nice phase as well. You know, he's way too big for
• 1:01:22
  the cocoon these days, but yeah. Yeah.
• 1:01:24
  Well, Josh, I appreciate you coming on the show.
• 1:01:25
  This is an awesome conversation. Where can people get in touch
• 1:01:28
  with you, connect with you, learn more about what you guys
• 1:01:29
  do? Yeah, so reach out to us on our
• 1:01:31
  website, www.figginslawgroup.com.
• 1:01:34
  You can also call us at the office.
• 1:01:36
  It's 63 O Justice, 63 O Justice, and it'll reach out to me, Josh
• 1:01:40
  at Figgins Law Group, Josh at Figgins Law Group.
• 1:01:42
  So. Cool.
• 1:01:43
  We'll link everything up in the description and again,
• 1:01:45
  appreciate you coming on the. Show.
• 1:01:46
  Thanks, Alex. Thanks.