Latest / Legal Late Night / Billy Joel's Pain = Perfection, The Death of Litigation, and Those "Majestic" Horses

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Billy Joel's Pain = Perfection, The Death of Litigation, and Those "Majestic" Horses · Legal Late Night

• Jared Correia (00:00): Hello everybody. Yes, we've got another show that promises to be mildly interesting for your listening and watching enjoyment. First of all, I'm back on my perfect album's bullshit. That's right. We're adding to the list and we've got a perfect album's. First for the indomitable, William Martin Joel, for our guest interview. We've got Collin Williams of New era ADR. He's here to chat about alternatives to traditional alternative dispute resolution in the counter program. I've got another travel log for you, but I have to bring on a special guest to help me talk through it. It's my daughter. Now let's turn the lights back on. (00:47): As you all know by now, I am an avid watcher of music documentaries. Some of them I even like. 2000 thirteens. History of the Eagles is amazing, for example, but the Beach Boys documentary from 2024 was straight trash because Mike Love was running the show and he is a shipper. So I get concerned about documentary is going to soft pedal things. Usually that happens when the artist is heavily involved and has a great deal of creative control. Now, I fucking love Billy Joel. He's tremendous. I feel like he's everything people say, Bruce Springsteen is and more. I developed most of my early musical tastes from my dad's records collection and he had the entire Billy Joel 1970s catalog, which is fucking gold. Let me tell you. I wore it every single one of those albums, and when I was done, my dad bought me 1980s class houses. (01:44): That's Billy Joel's new wave album, and I proceeded to wear the needle down again and on and on, and so it goes. So when the new Billy Joel documentary, and so it goes, it's named after one of his underrated songs was released on HBO recently, and there seemed to be a lot of Billy Joel interview content. I was understandably concerned. I thought this might be a hagiography, but my concern was unfounded because Billy Joel was not about creating any kind of false narrative, largely because he thinks of himself as a huge piece of shit. I mean, I always had a sense that Billy Joel has some serious mental health problems and self-esteem issues, but god damn this documentary was fucking depressing. Let me give you a quick rundown. His ancestors were successful Jewish business owners from Germany who got railroaded by the Nazis Joel's father as the youth in fact could see the Nuremberg rallies from over his backyard fence. (02:46): His father was then moved to the United States by his grandparents, but he never really took to the country and ended up moving back to Germany when Joel was seven. So Billy Joel has crazy abandonment issues because of that, but that also meant that he was with his mom who had untreated bipolar disorder and who self-medicated with alcohol. Billy Joel tried to kill himself several times when he was younger. Initially after falling in love with his best friend's wife, he almost died in a motorcycle crash later on, and he had that drinking problem for most of his life, which broke up three of his marriages. At one point in the documentary he's like, but I was never arrested for a DUI, bro, 1985, Billy Joel wouldn't have been arrested for double homicide on Long Island Music. Critics shadow all over his work and he clearly took it personally. (03:33): They were full of shit themselves. Of course, Joel constantly talks about how he's never good enough in this documentary. His original brother-in-law became his manager and stole all of his money, so he had to go back out on the road in the late eighties and early nineties to tour and try to make that money back, and that broke up his relationship with Christie Brinkley, along with the drinking. Christie Brinkley seems very cool in this documentary, by the way, but this shit was such a fucking downer for the most part, those things I just talked about. Those were the good parts. So by the end of the documentary, we learned that he finally settled down like 10 years ago in his late sixties. He's been married since 2015 and has two little girls with whom he seems to be spending lots of quality time. So I was like, okay, better late than never. (04:17): Then I remembered that he was recently diagnosed with a brain condition. Dude cannot catch a break, but I'll tell you what, if there was anyone who ever channeled pain into beautiful artists, Billy Joel, the uplifting parts of the documentary are really those that focus on Joel's musical production. His unusual style inspired by European classical music rather than blues and rock and roll is profiled. We get some information about who the relationship with his band mates and his partnership with his producer, Phil Ramon, who's amazing. There's lots of talk about how he built his songs and constructed albums. If you can get through the slog that is Joel's personal life, it's well worth watching this for the insight into the Tortured Artist. That seems like a good place to get off. Let's now jump into the perfect albums segment as it relates to Billy Joel. But first I want to recap our current list of perfect albums so y'all know how we got here in chronological order. (05:19): We've got the who, who's next from 1971, Gordon Lightfoot, coming in with sundown from 1974, Paul Simon with Graceland from 1986, volts Odine from 1993, the Snoop, DO Double G with doggy style. Also from 1993, Cheryl Crow's the Globe Sessions from 1998, cold plays Viva Avita or Death in All His Friends from 2008 and then Taylor Swift's folklore from 2020 covered by my wife and the ultimate swifty Jessica. Now, I had a really hard time whittling this list down because there are a hell of a lot of Billy Joel albums in the Running for Perfect album status. Billy Joel has what I consider to be 11 canonical albums released from 1973 to 1993. I'm not counting his solo debut album, cold Spring Harbor from 1971, which was a disaster. It was mixed incorrectly and sped up inappropriately, but I'm starting with Piano Man in 1973 and going through the River of Dreams in 1993. (06:32): I just don't know that there is a more quality two decade outpour from any performer ever. Every album is so damn good, even the ones that aren't great. There were no less than seven and a half of those 11 albums that I considered for the perfect albums list. That's how solid this discography is. Let's do the Runners out first. Piano Man, 1973 is a fucking solid effort for his real debut, the one that's mixed appropriately. Everybody knows the song Piano Man, and everybody probably knows that he was actually working as a lounge pianist, which inspired the title track, but there's tons of great songs on this album too, from Traveling Prayer all the way through Captain Jack. For me, there's nothing like listening to this album with the record Scratches Turnstiles comes out in 1976 and it's his sort of, I'm coming back to New York album after he moved back from California with his family. (07:30): Of course, the record starts off with Say Goodbye to Hollywood, really famous Billy Joel song. Then there's the Hammering Prelude to Angry Young Man, which is one of my favorite Joel moments and Miami 2017 Seeing the Lights Go Out On Broadway is a song about the aftermath of an alien invasion. Yes, you've read that right? Heard that right. The Doubles is a hooky pop song that is just batshit crazy that he could do something like that. In 1976, the Stranger Comes out the next year in 1977, and this is just an iconic album, probably most commonly ranked in his best. It features the sweeping sweet scenes from an Italian restaurant as its centerpiece. Then there's the radio staple just the way you are maybe as biggest hit ever. And then there's the Beautiful, she's always a woman and the rollicking only the good Die young and perhaps his most underrated song ever Vienna, which is about his dad of course. (08:27): Next is a nylon curtain from 1982, and this is Billy Joel's sonic album on which he attempted to pull up Brian Wilson to use the studio as an instrument allentown's about the plight of steel workers, and this was sort of the only real traditional pop hit here, but there are lots of hidden gems on this album, like the Vietnam inspired Goodnight Saigon, the surprising surprises and the Swashbuckling Scandinavian skies after this. He took a hard right turn, but we'll get there. Stormfront 1989 is next on my list and it features We Didn't Start The Fire, which is maybe the simplest song on the whole album even though it was the biggest hit. But any song where kids can learn to love history I'm into now. Other standouts here include Leningrad about the Cold War, the Down Easter Alexa, about the hardships of being a Long Island fishermen. (09:24): That's his own boat that he named after his daughter, and so it goes one of the more depressing ballads he'll ever hear that they've appropriately picked as the name of this documentary. Heck, I even Considered River of Dreams, which is a little too much of a pop album for me. He used Danny Kmar as a producer here and fired his whole band almost solely on the strength of his brilliant Coda Famous last Words that was intended as his last set of lyrics until he wrote and released turned the lights back on, which is surprisingly excellent in 1924, no, in 2024 as a single, I always respected Billy Joel for effectively retiring from pop music in 1993 when he was 44 years old, basically suggesting that he had said everything he wanted to say, and I also appreciate that he tried lots of different styles and never rested on his laurels. (10:21): So yeah, he retired earlier than he could have effectively from popular songwriting, but I don't know if anybody's had that 20 year span. So that leaves two perfect albums. Wait, what? Yeah, that's right. Billy Joel produced two perfect albums in just 20 years. Maybe that's why he continues to be one of the most sampled artists of all time. My first Billy Joel Perfect album is an album that a lot of people hate, actually. It's usually ranked at the bottom of his albums, but I really love an album called Streetlight Serenade from 1974, which as I mentioned, was kind of savaged by critics and fans alike when it came out. At this point in time, Billy Joel was fighting with his original label about royalties. He got boned on his first record deal, no surprise, they're right and was about to move back to New York after it seemed like spending some really idyllic years. (11:20): At least that's the way they're portrayed in the documentary in Los Angeles. Of course, if there is one thing that motherfucker Billy Joel can do, it's channel his pain and he channeled it right into street life. Serenade. First of all, this album has two instrumentals, so count me in right off the bat. Mexican connection ends the album on a breezy, uptick and root beer rag from Side One is basically a ragtime solo piano song, and while Billy Joel says it's trash, he says that about a lot of his songs. And this one he says Self-indulgent, and he just wanted to test out his Moog sympathizer. Don't let this Wounded Man fool you. This shit is fucking great street life. Ser Nader is a play on the album title and that kicks off the album. It's the first track and it's a ballad about basically laboring singers who never quite make it big, which was kind of Billy Joel himself for a little while. (12:16): Lots of changes within the song, some beautiful piano parts that leads into the more rock and roll Los Angelenos. I track about all the weird transplants who congregate in LA for the weather, which I have to believe is mostly true. Souvenir is a really short song, but it's one of Billy Joel's most overlooked ballads. A lot of these songs end up appearing on songs in the Attic from 1981, which is kind of a live album track for Billy Joel, where it's, as the name implies, songs that weren't quite his, which he wanted to give a second life to decent number of tracks from street life Serenade are on that album, the Last of the Big Time Spenders and the Great Suburban Showdown. In addition to being a standing song, titles always struck me as companion tracks about what it's like to be stuck with your family and in a failing relationship respectively. (13:13): No one really likes the song Roberta, except for me. It's about falling in love with a prostitute, which is a bad beat and something that Billy Joel would absolutely write about given the many bad beats he's experienced in his life. I like the combo of the piano and the drums here as well as the Coda Weekend song is one of a number of Billy Joel signs written about getting absolutely amortized after work. He's had lots of experience there, but this is a more innocent version of the theme written by a younger man who is supposed to be out partying. The Entertainer is the one hit off this album, and the song is just straight up fantastic. It's got Crazy Ass Synthesizer introduction. This song sounds like it's coming out of a spaceship frankly. It's got a goddamn pedal steel guitar in it, which is phenomenal. (14:05): Plus they conceit is how much they tried to cut Piano Man down for Radio man, Billy Joel is one salty bitch and I'm here for it. He also refers to himself as a Serena bringing the album full circle in the lyrics, he references Dancing Around with a hand in his pants laying all kinds of girls. That's probably true, and about his old records being placed next to the cans of beans in the store once they are no longer popular, which all just comes off as so dissonant and striking in the song. This was all mildly scandalous to me when I first heard this tune. There are lots of great alternative live versions of the song as well where he sometimes interest versus different lyrics. Street Life Serenade is the Forgotten Billy Joel album that just kicks ass. Give the Listen, but wait, there's more. My second Perfect Billy Joel album is more mainstream. (14:56): It's an innocent man from 1983. I think folks conceive of this as Billy Joel's do Wap album, like his fifties music album, and I really don't want to like this album because Do Wap is not at all my thing, but the vocals on this album are technically perfect and you sort of get swept away when that gets combined with Joel's melodies. It's like the perfect marriage, but this is broader than the Do Wap album. It's more of a tribute album to the songs and artists that Billy Joel loved when he was younger, but instead of just doing a bunch of cover songs, Joel instead wrote his own versions and each is sublime. Now, if you visit the Wikipedia page for this record, you'll see the artists who inspire each track, and I would encourage you to review that information. This album has a staggering seven singles off of it, by the way, and an eight song was released as a title track for a Rodney Dangerfield movie called Easy Money. (15:56): So eight of the 10 songs were released and the other two songs, careless Talk and Christy Lee would've easily charted as well if released. This album is just brimming with commercially viable tracks like maybe no other album ever. While Careless Talk is tending toward the doop angle and it's about ignoring relationship rumors, Christy Lee is sort of the opposite of that. It's about a woman who falls in love with a guy who is an amazing saxophonist until a better saxophonist rolls into town. The moral of the story, all she Wanted was the sax. That part always cracked me up. Great piano here. That's a phenomenal sing-along tune as well. Now for this an Innocent Man, the title track is maybe my least favorite song on the album. It's a little slow for me, which I kind of feel like is a good marker for a perfect album. (16:50): So my daughter, more from her in a little bit started playing Uptown Girl in the Car the other day and I was like, how'd you find this song? She told me to be quiet because she was listening to it, A Girl After My Own Heart. In the documentary, by the way, Billy Joel plays this like a Beethoven song cementing his classical roots, and it's actually great that way too. Plus you got the video with Christie Brinkley. It's a classic and it does sound like a Frankie Valley song, which was the intention. Part of this night is actually Barr from Beethoven who's credited on the track leave her Tender Moment alone. I definitely played for a friend of mine in college when he was trying to get with this girl. They ended up getting married, by the way. Sometimes you just got to keep your mouth shut, I guess tell her about it and the longest time or perfect songs just technically perfect. (17:41): It's a 50 style with eighties production values. Just crank those fuckers up and put on your noise canceling headphones. I also love how this album is bookended by Easy Money and Keeping the Faith, which are both some of my absolutely favorite Billy Joel songs. Easy Money is the closest thing there is to a funk song on this album, and it does remind me of one of my other favorite artists, Wilson Pickett, as it's intended to do. I just love the conceit of this song too. It's about a gambler who can't resist the allure of his next bet. Keeping the faith is like liquid nostalgia. Just pump it into my veins. I was born after any of this stuff happening in this song occurred, but it places me right there like I lived it. Hold on, let me comb up my podo. And this song is sort of a perfect encapsulation of Billy Joel's life and career. He had to trudge through a lot of shit, but there's always the hope of brighter days ahead despite everything that's occurred because the good old days weren't always good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems. Thanks for listening, even though Evan tried to cut this whole thing down to 3 0 5 for YouTube. Speaking of good times ahead, stay tuned for Collin Williams of New Era ADR. He's got a new way to ADR and maybe so should you. (19:04): Well, I've effectively run out of things to say, which is awkward because this is a podcast, so I'm going to go over there and fill some laundry. It won't take me very long. I'll be right back. Actually, it's going to take me a long time. We have a lot of laundry. My bad. Now I'm just fucking with you. We're not going to do that. We're going to do a podcast. That sounds awful. Honestly, I don't ever want to fold laundry. So let's get to our guest interview instead. My guest today is Collin Williams, the founder and chairman of New Era, ADR. Collin, welcome to the show, sir. How are you? Collin Williams (19:38): Appreciate it. I'm doing great, Jared. How are you? Jared Correia (19:41): I would just like to alert people on video. If you're not watching us on YouTube, you should be. It's even more delightful than the audio version. You are currently sitting in front of a framed Bobby Hull jersey, I believe Collin Williams (19:55): It is a Bobby Hull jersey, an old Blackhawks jersey signed by him with his Hall of Fame, 1983 listed on there. Jared Correia (20:03): Now, most people who were not as astute as yours truly might think that that's a Brett, Hull jersey. Collin Williams (20:10): I get that more often than you would think. Particularly interestingly from people from Chicago who don't seem to Jared Correia (20:17): Know Brett. Hull never played for the Blackhawks, right? I'm Collin Williams (20:19): Right. Never played for the Blackhawks. No. Played for a lot of teams. Never for the Blackhawks, but his dad played for years for the Black Hawks and used to come to the games and hang out and drank a lot. Jared Correia (20:31): It's a hockey game. Collin Williams (20:32): It's a hockey game, but Bobby seemed to really go out of his way to put down beers. But it's interesting that people don't know that. He seems to have kind of skipped the whole Black Hawks history. I guess the older fans know, but the younger generation have no idea who Bobby Hell is and you just died maybe two years ago, something like that, three years ago. Jared Correia (20:56): Well, the young folks, they need to be educated. That's what we're doing here. The show sometimes. Collin Williams (21:00): Yes, I can talk about hockey all day, so Jared Correia (21:04): Well, when I talk about the nineties and people are like, I never knew that was a band. I'm like, oh my God. Collin Williams (21:08): Yeah, yeah, that's bad. Jared Correia (21:10): I'm like, I better be punching my ticket to the nursing home. Collin Williams (21:13): Yeah. Jared Correia (21:14): Well, there's something else I got to ask you. Outside of hockey calling with two L's, right? Collin Williams (21:19): Two. Jared Correia (21:19): Yep. What's the deal with that? That's pretty uncommon, I feel like. Is that right? Usually Cols I see with one L. Collin Williams (21:26): One L. It is. My parents named me Collin with two Ls and thought that they were creating kind of a unique name. I got into I think first grade and there was two other Collins with two Ls in my class, so they didn't achieve their goal. But yeah, as far as I see, I had a buddy in college whose name was Collin. He was one L. I don't think I know of anybody other than those two kids I grew up with who had Collin with two Ls. Jared Correia (21:53): That's so funny. Collin Williams (21:54): Yeah, it is a little unique. I don't know, I usually have to tell, but if you actually went by this phonetically and it was one L, wouldn't it be colon, which is really not what you would want your name to be. It's Jared Correia (22:05): Not what you want. Yes. I mean, good. Your parents, they were probably a little concerned when you became Collin W immediately in elementary school, but then it panned out in the end. Collin Williams (22:17): Well, you want to know the fun part. There was one of the other Collins was Collin Webb, so there's two Collin W's. It wasn't even that unique. Jared Correia (22:25): You were Collin W2 Collin Williams (22:27): Two. Geez. I was Jared Correia (22:30): At least your parents didn't name you seven or some shit like that. You got that going for Collin Williams (22:34): You. No, no. But yeah, they battle. They created a unique name. Didn't work. Total fail, Jared Correia (22:40): But you ended up creating a unique software company. See what I did there? So we'll get to that. Collin Williams (22:45): Oh, that's good. That was good. Jared Correia (22:47): Yeah, I've been at this for a little while. Alright, so can you talk to me about, so you went to law school with all the Collins. Can you talk to me about your legal career up to founding new era? Because you've done some interesting shit, to say the least. Collin Williams (23:04): Yeah, so it started out pretty traditional. I was at large law firms for the first 10 years of my career. One A Yes, in Mississippi, which is a little bit interesting for Northerner. I Jared Correia (23:16): Like how you're like, I guess Mississippi, we're not sure. Collin Williams (23:19): Go on. It was definitely Mississippi, but I guess that's interesting for a Northerner having practiced in Mississippi for a year, I would say so. But started out there and then went back to Chicago, was at Greenburg Charlie, so really, really large law firm in Chicago for close to 10 years. Then I was litigator and really wanted to get out of litigation, find my way, do different stuff. (23:42): I wanted to get involved in technology, learn how to build. So left the firm and went to Oracle. Was at Oracle for two years while Oracle was building its cloud computing business to compete with AWS and Microsoft and Google and all that stuff. So spent two years there and then decided I really wanted to become a general counsel and really learned how to build businesses. So I jumped from Oracle to a healthcare tech startup in Chicago. That was a complete disaster, like a disaster of the highest order, and we can talk about that more if you want. Jared Correia (24:12): That seems to be going around, right? There's a lot of healthcare startups that do some weird shit. Collin Williams (24:18): Illegal. Jared Correia (24:18): Illegal. I might be more specific. Collin Williams (24:21): I would think it would fit into both those categories. So I'm there for you. Jared Correia (24:25): We got to stop now. We can't skip this story. So tell me that and then we'll move on. Collin Williams (24:30): Sure. Yeah. I was a healthcare tech startup out of Chicago. I was the first attorney there. I started to hear some very strange things from sort of the analyst department that some of the numbers that were being put out weren't realistic, weren't actually accurate, things like that. I dove into it headfirst and got a lot of these people don't know what they're talking about. Everything's fine, everything's great. That only goes so far when you're an attorney. The ambiguous answer of everything's fine, don't worry about it. Doesn't Jared Correia (25:02): Really work. Collin Williams (25:03): Yeah, Jared Correia (25:03): It's good. Don't Collin Williams (25:04): Worry. Yeah, we'll be fine. So after about a year, I said, I got to get the hell out of here because I don't know what's going on. I can't figure it out. Nobody will give me a straight answer. To make a very long story short, I left. Jared Correia (25:14): Oh, so you got out before shit at the fan? You were like, Collin Williams (25:16): Yes. Jared Correia (25:17): There's weird Collin Williams (25:17): Stuff going on here before the shit really hit the fan. Yeah. Jared Correia (25:19): Okay. Collin Williams (25:20): So what happened was I left. They then about a month or two after I left, they raised 500 million at a 5 billion valuation from companies like Google and Goldman Sachs and Pritzker Ventures. I, and Jared Correia (25:32): You're sitting there like, ah, Collin Williams (25:35): Let's just say I was curious. I was very curious. Well, the interesting thing is the only lawyer, I didn't even know that they were talking about raising money. So you would think that process takes months. So the fact that I left and had no idea that they would Jared Correia (25:49): Raise money. Collin Williams (25:50): Right, exactly. So it was kind of a surprise to me. But lo and behold, they end up raising all this money and then I get a call from the Wall Street Journal who is really never who you want to get a call from. You may think it's like, oh, this is cool. I'm going to talk to a journalist. It's not cool. And he had a lot of questions. He had heard from some folks that had been let go from the company and had a lot of questions. Let's just put it that way. I couldn't tell him anything. Basically. I was like, look, I was the attorney. It's attorney crank privilege. I can't tell you anything about what's going on. He got pretty aggressive with me about how I must've been involved in it and all this different stuff. Jared Correia (26:26): My God. Collin Williams (26:27): And I said, all right, well, I'm not going to have this conversation. I'm going to do a company. I'm happy you leave me alone. Then about three months later, I get a call from the FBI also, the people you do not want to get a call from. Jared Correia (26:39): Also not good. Yes, Collin Williams (26:40): Yes. Yeah. The FBI, the Department Justice and the US Attorney's office in Chicago who said, we want you to come in and have a conversation with us. And I showed up and they had a binder that probably sat about this thick with just about every email I'd ever sent at the company. A few that were just kind of funny and off color too. But we went through that whole thing and lo andhold, you go into this situation, you're scared shitless. Even though I know I didn't do anything wrong, you still walk in and say, what the hell did these emails say? I don't remember this shit, Jared Correia (27:12): FBI coming up on your caller id. You're probably like, fuck. Collin Williams (27:15): Oh. And it was like, I mean, I got in there and there was 12 people around this table and me and my attorney, who's just a friend of mine who I said, well, you just come to this with me. And so spent five hours going in depth into everything that happened during my time there. Lo and behold, I walked out and said, you know what? My friend was like, she's like, you did a pretty good job. I know, I think I kind of tripped my way into this, but (27:43): Turned out all and then I got a call about a year later saying, we want you to be a witness at trial. So I was a witness at the trial against the founders and the CFO and the head of sales and all this stuff. I'd been in courtrooms a thousand times, but never the person's actually sitting on the stand. So definitely a different experience, but it's your civic duty. I guess the only thing that still pisses me off to this day, they flew me on Southwest. I was up the sea. The sea seating group's fucked. So I'm in middle seats to fly back to Chicago to be a witness. I'm like, Jared Correia (28:19): That's ridiculous. You think they would give you KU accommodations on the flight Collin Williams (28:23): Over? Well, just like, can you just put me on United? There's like a thousand flights a day and I can get a seat. But anyhow, Jared Correia (28:30): Give me on the Delta Club. Come on, let's be reasonable. Collin Williams (28:33): Exactly. But to make a very long story short, I testified about three weeks later, they were all found guilty. Two of them had spent time in prison. Two of 'em are out currently appealing. Jared Correia (28:47): Oh my gosh. Collin Williams (28:47): But yeah, it was kind of the Theranos of Chicago. So it was definitely an interesting experience. Not something I ever, ever imagined my legal career taking me down this path. But Jared Correia (28:58): Good on you for keeping your nose clean though, through the whole process. I have to say though, when you're asking your friend to come and then there's this FBI investigation, that's the greatest help me move story of all time, is she now never asked me to do another legal thing for you. Collin Williams (29:16): I think she was really intrigued, right? Because it wasn't her ass on the line. So I think she was really, really curious about what was going to happen and she still talks about it. I think she actually had a good time that day. That's Jared Correia (29:29): So funny. Collin Williams (29:29): I did not. But actually as we were walking out, the assistant US attorney for the northern district Illinois started talking about skiing and how he's like, oh, you live in Colorado now? I'll come out and we should ski sometime. Like this is a very weird, you're Jared Correia (29:44): Like, no bro, I didn't want to see you again. Right? Collin Williams (29:47): You seem like a very nice guy, but getting called in here to do this shit, this isn't something I particularly want to go over beers while we're skiing someday, but was a very nice guy. God, everybody was really nice. So yeah, it was a crazy experience. Taught me a lot about following your gut and Jared Correia (30:04): Doing the right thing. Alright, that was well worth the diversion. But now, so continue on from there. Post Theranos of Chicago, what happens next? Collin Williams (30:15): So I left and I went to a company called reverb.com. So what I was really looking to do was to find a way to really find an entrepreneur who had built businesses and had done this wasn't kind of the 24-year-old starting a business. And so I had followed this guy, David Cult, serial entrepreneur in Chicago. Everything he touches turns to gold. He had started this business called reverb.com, kind of eBay for musical instruments. He'll hate me saying that, but it's the easiest way to explain it. Jared Correia (30:42): I've looked at this site, it's a good description. Collin Williams (30:45): Yes, it's got a lot of content, it's a lot cooler than that, but just in a general sense, we sold a lot of musical instruments and new musical instruments. So join that company as general counsel, total opposite experience of the one before. Great company did everything the right way, joined it when it was relatively new. We grew it to the point where it was really, really large and then sold it to Etsy in 2019. So handled that transaction and that was my first m and a experience. I had been a litigator, I had been in house, but I hadn't done any m and a work and all of a sudden, lo and behold, we're selling a company for 275 million to a public company. And I'm going, I don't know how the hell to do this, but best way to learn is trial by fire, I guess. And it worked out great. So we sold the company. I spent a year with Etsy after that and then jumped into new era. So that's kind of my legal career with all its ebbs and flows, Jared Correia (31:40): But important. No fraud, which is a good thing, I feel Collin Williams (31:44): Like. No, and actually to the other side of the coin, he actually had a dashboard that showed you in real time everything that was going on on the platform. That's awesome. So you really knew how many sales, how much money, everything. Complete transparency throughout the entire company, which obviously coming from where I came from made me feel pretty comfortable being there. Right. Jared Correia (32:06): What a wild story, man. Alright, so whenever I get somebody who founds a company on here, which we frequently do, I'm always interested to know, okay, what about your career led you to do this new venture? Why did you found this company? It obviously has something to do with the op practice. Collin Williams (32:24): Yeah, I mean there's a lot of different moments. Obviously as a litigator coming up in my formative years, it's a frustrating process and it's a frustrating process if you're the actual attorney doing it. And it's an even more frustrating process if you're the client. Right. I experienced, Jared Correia (32:40): Lemme stop you for one second actually because I practice lot and I'm not really familiar with this. So when somebody says ADR, what does that encapsulate? Is that mediation? Is that arbitration? Is it a whole bunch of things? What does that actually mean? Collin Williams (32:54): Yeah, I mean traditionally it's arbitration or mediation, there's different forms of that. But if you just said, what is alternative dispute resolution and somebody said arbitration or mediation, you're pretty much spot on. Jared Correia (33:05): Okay, go ahead. Thank you. Collin Williams (33:08): Yeah, but being a litigator coming up in my career, I had a lot of moments of frustration, but really the impetus for this company, I had a customer, a client when I was outside attorney, he came to me and he was a friend and he said, I've been in this business with this partner of mine for 10 years or something like that. And all of a sudden one day they decided they hated each other and didn't want to work together anymore and couldn't come to any sort of agreement on how did divvy up the assets, the business, anything like that. So he said, well, I guess we have to litigate this stuff, which is a shame. And I told him, I said, I don't think this is really the route you want to go because there's going to be a lot of pain along the way, expense to make expense. (33:55): Well, and here's the crux of it, without getting in the details of the whole thing. So I handled the case for three years and then I ended up leaving for Oracle. My boss at the time took the case and he handled it for another three years. This case was not overstaffed, it was super leanly done. It was done ethically. I can say that with a completely clear conscience. We only did what was absolutely necessary. Long story short case took six years. It settled on the morning of trial and by that point my friend slash ex client had spent about 1.5 million in legal fees and it settled for low five figures. Jared Correia (34:35): That's a bad beat, man. Collin Williams (34:36): It's a bad beat. And he came to me, and this is really where it clicked with me. He came to me and said, it can't be like this. This cannot be how our legal system works. And his point was that he had come to every single court hearing, I mean the most meaningless court hearings that we could possibly hold. He came to them because he kept waiting for that moment where the judge said, Mr. Thomas, what happened? What's the deal? What's going on here? And in six Jared Correia (35:04): Years, the people's score Collin Williams (35:05): Like the People's Court, and in six years that moment never came. And so his frustration was less about the fact that it took this long and less about the money, even though he was not happy about any of that stuff. And more about the fact that nobody ever asked him, what's the deal? What's the story? And so that was the moment for me where I said, you know what? It's strange that you can go through this entire process in our justice system and nobody gives a flying fuck what actually happened. It's all about the process and the procedure. And I said, we got to do something about that. So new error was kind of reaction to that, where we're totally focused on regardless of anything, regardless of the process, the procedure, anything, I want to get you in front of somebody so you can tell your story. And if you tell your story, win, lose or draw, you're probably going to feel a little bit better that at least somebody listened to you. So there's a million things that went into this, but it was really that story that was the match that lit the fire. Jared Correia (36:06): That's good stuff. Alright, so can we talk specifically about what can be improved about that product? I get the whole people don't see the forest for the trees type of thing. But what about the process itself, including from a technological perspective? Are you trying to fix? Collin Williams (36:23): Yeah, I mean I think number one just at the most base is focusing on the storytelling and not the rules and procedure. When you go through a litigation process, everything is focused on the rules and the procedure. And that's why everything takes so long because there isn't a singular focus on what happened in the story. So what we're trying to do is say, look, rules and procedure are important as guardrails, but they shouldn't be the entire process. Jared Correia (36:50): So Collin Williams (36:51): That to me is if you just look fundamentally at what we're trying to do is you got to tell your story. And if all this other stuff gets in the way of that, then the process is not working. From a technology standpoint, there is an incredible amount of waste that goes into a traditional litigation process from traveling and meals and all this different stuff and just the billing hours. And we just thought, you know what? If we can do this online like telehealth, it's a very, very simple analogy, then we can save a lot of that money that goes into all the travel and all the ancillary things and people flying across the country to do a status hearing Jared Correia (37:27): Perhaps on Southwest, Collin Williams (37:28): Perhaps not unlikely. That is probably more like Virgin Atlantic that those flights are. But that really was it, right? There's just so much waste involved in that and so much cost associated with it that if we could create this, then we could save on all that stuff. Another issue is billable hours. And I'm not here to knock billable hours, but there is a fundamental Jared Correia (37:52): Disconnect. This is a safe space to not billable hours. They're fucking stupid. Collin Williams (37:57): I mean, to me there's a fundamental disconnect where you make a ton of money. The more hours you bill and your client, all they want is this process to be done. (38:06): So from our standpoint as a platform, we do everything on flat fees. There's no arbitrator deposits, there's no billable hours. We want our arbitrators to be incentivized to get things done quickly. You don't make any more money by dragging this out. And by doing that, they're driving in the same direction as the parties. So we're just aligning people and saying, look, we all want to get this done. We want it done quickly, effectively, fair, all that good stuff. But at the end of the day, we don't want there to be this antagonism where the arbitrator is saying, well, I'm going to make more money if this takes longer. We want them saying, I'm not going to make any more money if this takes longer. And so they're incentivized to get things done faster. And if you looked at just those three things, I think that's really where we're trying to differentiate and make things different than the traditional process. Jared Correia (38:52): I feel like a lot of industries are being disrupted now. I sound like an asshole. Maybe I should have a health tech startup. Industries are being disrupted. You got aaa, which has been around for what, a hundred Collin Williams (39:08): Close to a hundred years. Jared Correia (39:11): And then you've got, there's all kinds of legal research companies are being built now. The pace of technology is crazy. Do you also feel like this is an industry-wide thing? I feel like this happened. Another example I'd give is deposition stuff. All that's going online now too. Do you see this as well, and do you have thoughts on that? Collin Williams (39:33): I think you're absolutely right. I think there's two things. I think this industry in general lags kind of like the medical industry. I know Jared Correia (39:43): Really, Collin Williams (39:43): I know it's a shock. Jared Correia (39:44): Okay, all right. Collin Williams (39:46): But I've recover fundamentally. This is not, this is not an industry that loves change. So I think while everything else was really getting ramped up in the technology space, the law was kind of sitting still and had COVID not rolled around. I think we might still be sitting still, but when everybody got forced in this world of being virtual, then there was no choice. And all of a sudden you got to roll with the times. And I think that's been the catalyst that has changed everything. And now the legal industry is catching up and that all sorts of different stuff is becoming virtualized, if that's a word. So yes, I think you're upside right now. There's a bunch of disruption, but had there not been, I'm not sure any of this is Jared Correia (40:27): Occurring. Yeah. Okay. So the other part of this is the AI thing, which is I feel like having COVID and then AI within a four year period, that's a massive disruption. Collin Williams (40:41): It is. I Jared Correia (40:42): Did it again. Got to watch that. Collin Williams (40:47): Yeah, I've got all sorts of different opinions on ai. Fundamentally, I believe it's good. Jared Correia (40:53): Well, let's hear the best ones. Collin Williams (40:55): Yes. Well, I think it's interesting right now that you see all these lawyers getting in trouble for having AI write their briefs and literally create cases out of thin air. And then you have a law clerk who goes and checks that and says, this case doesn't exist. So there is still this element of you've got to be careful, right? You're signing your name to something and making representations. You can't just throw it in chat GPT and say, make this shit. Jared Correia (41:20): I feel like a lot of people are like, oh, ai, just do my job. But in large part, the technology's not there. Yeah, Collin Williams (41:27): No, it's not. And I mean, in our industry that's really, really dangerous. So I think ai, its ability to facilitate things is unparalleled. So if you talk about synthesizing information and making the painful jobs easier, I think it's there and it's just going to get better and it should be used in that way, but that doesn't get rid of the work that you need to do. The other part of it from the standpoint of what we do gets back to that storytelling. So we've been asked a million times, well, why don't you just create an AI judge? You spit all the information, an algorithm spits out a decision. Well then the person who loses says, well, why did I lose? Well, I don't know, the algorithm said you should lose. So to me that's fundamentally bad, right? The ability to talk to a person using AI and all the cool technology to get to that point and make all that facilitate all the things that get you there, great. But that moment where you get to talk to somebody, I don't think that's going away anytime soon because I think that's the catharsis where you say somebody listened to me and nobody wants to say AI listened to me. It's not going to make you feel great. Jared Correia (42:40): Yeah, it's funny. I feel like people would complain about anything, but they're definitely going to complain. Complain about ai, arbitration rulings, AI court rulings. That's going to be a thing that happens for sure. Collin Williams (42:50): Probably 15 years from now it'll work, but right now to me it's not a thing yet. Jared Correia (42:57): Yeah, the old legal system is built on appeals as well, so I feel like that's not common. What do appeal anytime soon? Yeah. Collin Williams (43:04): What's the reason? Judgment, the algorithm said X, Y, Z, what's the appeal? What are the issues on appeal? I don't know. So to paper Jared Correia (43:15): There, I guess we'll find out. Collin Williams (43:17): We'll find out. We'll find out. Hopefully you and I'll be retired when all this happens. But yeah, it's going to Jared Correia (43:24): Come off the grid dead. Any of Collin Williams (43:26): Those Jared Correia (43:26): Would be possibilities. On that note, on that positive note, Collin, thank you for coming on. And now I am going to go fold that laundry. I'm always a threat to fold. We'll be back in a second everybody. Welcome to the counter program. Yes, welcome back. It's a podcast within a podcast. This is a conversational space where we can address usually unrelated topics that I want to explore at a greater depth with my guests. Expect no rhyme and very little reason. This time around we're revisiting our travel log series, travels with Jared in Search of America. Only for this segment is travels with Jared and Child. That's right. My daughter's here to talk about a recent trip to a horse show in Connecticut. Are you excited for this? Gracie (44:19): Yeah. Jared Correia (44:20): So here's chapter 86, sir. This is a Wendy's. So let's talk about, so you go to the horse shows, they're always in these weird rural locations where nothing's around. And we just did, the show was in Moose Up, Connecticut, Gracie (44:38): Moose Up, Jared Correia (44:38): Yeah, that was the name of the place Gracie (44:40): Called Jared Correia (44:41): Oco was the name of the town. Okay. And then we stayed in Plainfield, Connecticut and we stayed for the whole weekend for these horse shows. We Gracie (44:52): Report in the La Quinta. Jared Correia (44:54): Yes, we were in the La Quinta Inn. Alright, do you want to describe the stay the trip? Talk to me about playing field and onco Connecticut, rural Gracie (45:01): Connecticut. Okay. So we go to Randy's, we just got to onco or whatever. So we just got to Connecticut and we go to a land's because that's the best food option around Jared Correia (45:15): Hoping Gracie (45:15): We don't get food poisoning. We don't have to poop throw up in the middle of the night. Jared Correia (45:19): So Gracie (45:22): I'm telling a story. Jared Correia (45:23): Okay, go on. Gracie (45:25): So then we go to this Wendy's, and right off the bat it's really sketchy and there's a baby crawling on the floor near the slashing machine. Was it? Yes, the slashing Jared Correia (45:37): Machine. The soda Machine. Machine. Machine. Yeah, machine, machine. They had one of those Coke Choose your flavor machines. Gracie (45:44): That's not the right name, but okay. Jared Correia (45:47): Okay, go ahead. Gracie (45:50): So it's like a baby crawling on the floor. There's people ordering with green hair. Jared Correia (45:57): Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Gracie (45:59): And real people working there, they just look like they been through a rough deck. Jared Correia (46:04): Yeah, it was a rough day. Gracie (46:05): They look like they've been held that gun plant a few times Jared Correia (46:08): And then the baby is just sitting on the floor alone. I Gracie (46:12): Already said that, Jared Correia (46:13): But the baby's alone. Gracie (46:15): No, its Dad was there, but it was just on its phone. The dad was just on his phone Jared Correia (46:19): And the baby was drinking a bottle, which was rolling on the Wendy's floor. Gracie (46:24): And then the lady who was working at Wendy's came out and got food and they left because apparently that was her baby. And that was her husband, her boyfriend, Jared Correia (46:34): Right. Yeah. Gracie (46:36): And then I'm just going to describe the Wendy's now. It was, it somehow got sponsored to be one of those, Wendy's was a sponsor for the new Wednesday season. Jared Correia (46:51): Yes. On Netflix. Gracie (46:53): There was a grave in the drive-through Jared Correia (46:57): A fake grave. Gracie (47:00): Well, it could have been real. Jared Correia (47:01): Okay, go ahead. Gracie (47:04): And then there was just blue ribbon when you walked in and then there were cigarettes all over the floor. That wasn't a decoration. No, Jared Correia (47:12): That was real. Gracie (47:13): I just picture that. A purple sign. Death signs. It was weird. Jared Correia (47:19): And you felt like we didn't necessarily feel super safe there. Gracie (47:24): No, I felt like I was going to get kidnapped. Drunk, hijacked, Jared Correia (47:28): Windowless vans. Gracie (47:30): Yeah. So then we get out of the Wendy's and we start walking to where we're parked. We're right next to a woods. So stuff happens there probably all the time. Probably. And there's this man just sitting in his car, he's not going through the drive-through. Oh Jared Correia (47:43): Yeah, Gracie (47:43): He's, that Jared Correia (47:44): Dude's creepy going Gracie (47:46): To the freaking one days. He's just sitting there Jared Correia (47:50): Watching us planning on how to kill us. So there was a little bit of fear. Can we talk a little bit about what happened at the show? Oh Gracie (48:03): Yeah. Jared Correia (48:04): There were a couple of wild scenes. Gracie (48:07): So Jared Correia (48:07): This lady almost died, right? Okay. Sorry. Go. Gracie (48:10): I'm getting to that. Speaking over me. I guess I get how you guessed me on that. Jared Correia (48:16): Oh my God. Sorry. I won't mansplain anymore. Go ahead. Finish your story. Gracie (48:21): So there was this lady ratting her young horse, and of course there were dogs there. So I'm pretty sure this is how it happened. A dog barked, and again, this lady was on a young horse, so it's not as trained. And she's like anywhere from 25 to 55. That's a pretty wide grade age range. But we couldn't really see it. So then this horse boots, so she fell off because it reared, but the lady falls over, hits her head without a fricking helmet. Jared Correia (49:00): Yeah, she wasn't even wearing a helmet. That was crazy. Gracie (49:03): And then she's blacked out from that fall. She doesn't have a helmet. Jared Correia (49:08): The horse fell on her though, right? Gracie (49:10): Dad, I'm getting Jared Correia (49:11): That. Okay. Okay. Just finish your dance story. See Gracie (49:13): What I mean? He's terrible. So we're literally washing this all fold out. Well, not me, but my friends were You Jared Correia (49:23): Were out there watching. You're a liar. Gracie (49:25): No, I said my friends were, Jared Correia (49:28): Oh, you're just doing it. Your friends were doing it. Gracie (49:31): No, my friends were watching, just watching. No, I said, not me. You're terrible. So I'm glad. I'm skeptical. You're terrible hook. So the horse flipped over because it went too high in its rear. So it flipped over and it fell on top of this lady. So she was blacked out before that happened. And she was blacked out for a good 10 minutes. The ambulance came 20 minutes later, but after she fell, people were still riding their horses. Jared Correia (50:07): Yeah, that was crazy. People were just prancing over her incapacitated body basically. Gracie (50:13): And then someone, because we heard a bang, we were like, what's happening? So someone yelled, someone fell. So we all ran over to see what happens. What Jared Correia (50:21): Happened. So you did run over to watch. Gracie (50:25): Yes. So then Jared Correia (50:27): You in a lie, Gracie (50:29): We watched, I was eating carrots like I am right now. And that was what me and my friends were eating as we watched this unfold. So then this girl in my barn, her mom's a doctor, she owns her own practice and she went to go get her mom from their trailer. So she went to get the mom. The mom came out like five minutes later, Jared Correia (50:56): Just taking her sweet time. Gracie (50:59): I'm pretty sure you can't say that. Jared Correia (51:01): I just did. Gracie (51:04): Okay. Mr. Chuck guy. So then she runs over, she's unconscious, they find that out, and then the ambulance comes like 20 minutes later. The nearest hospital was 36 miles away and they were three ambulances. And the end of the story, from what I've heard through the grape vine is that she only has a concussion. So that's pretty rare because horses weigh around a thousand Jared Correia (51:36): Pounds. Yeah, that's crazy. That shouldn't die. Gracie (51:38): She only got a concussion. Probably a little bit of brain damage or whatever. Jared Correia (51:44): Just a little, just a small amount. Gracie (51:46): And then we, that was the first day of the show, so I had to ride Jared Correia (51:53): Right after. But then everybody came back in. They just went back into the ring like nothing happened. Gracie (51:56): Yeah, because that's what you're supposed to do. So then I had to show Jared Correia (52:01): Yes, Gracie (52:02): Right after this event. It wasn't an event, it was like warmup. But right after that crazy thing happened, I had to go in and shop. Jared Correia (52:10): Yes. And you did well. Gracie (52:12): Yes, I did very well. Obviously. Jared Correia (52:15): Anything else you want to say about horses before we finished up or the horse girl lifestyle? Gracie (52:21): Well, it's the very rough life. Jared Correia (52:24): It's very rough. Gracie (52:26): Yeah. Jared Correia (52:26): Why? It seems like it's really easy and privileged. Alright, we're done here. Get out. Bye-bye. All right, bye. Thanks for our guest, Collin Williams of New Era ADR. To learn more about New era ADR, visit new era adr.com. That's new era adr.com. Now, because I'll always be a nineties kid who's rewinding his river of dreams, cassette back to No Man's Land, but whose true passion is burning CDs for anyone who would listen. I'm now just doing the modern version of that, which is creating Spotify playlists for every podcast episode that I record where the songs are tangentially related to an episode topic. This week's playlist is back catalog, Billy Joel, and is sponsored by Zoloft. I'm just kidding. By the way, Zoloft hasn't sponsored shit, though. You may need to pull yourself out of a depressive state after watching the Billy Joel documentary. If you decide to do so, join us next time when I'll sweep all the streamers after the Labor Day parade. There's nothing left for ADReamer now. Only one final, serenade, or another podcast, I don't know. Talk to you next time.