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Balancing Your Inner Superhero
Balancing Your Inner Superhero
By Florence Bruemmer
Comic book fans know that She-Hulk saved the world with the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and S.H.I.E.L.D. She-Hulk aka Jennifer Walters also has struggled with her identify as an attorney. After Jennifer returned to practicing law after working with S.H.I.E.L.D., she stated, “Working for S.H.I.E.L.D. was one big, non-stop adventure. Now look at me. Standing around a lawfirm…This is where I should be. What I should be doing.”
Jennifer learned to embrace that law, and she had several superhero clients, including Spiderman. She represented Spiderman in a lawsuit for slander against newspaper editor, J. Jonah Jameson. She-Hulk ends up scantily clad a lot more than any of my fellow attorneys, but every day I see attorneys perform superhero-like actions. What tips can we take from Jennifer to balance our inner superhero with our attorney side?
Defend those without hope. Running a small firm and working on legal plans, you get the opportunity to help people with problems that are a giant force in their lives. We get to help tenants with housing problems. We get to assist people in family law emergencies. We can defend people against collection matters. We can secure families’ futures with estate planning. We can guard against unfair traffic matters.
Be a friendly, neighborhood attorney. A lot of people do not know many attorneys. By being courteous, we help the whole profession. Let your Superman and Wonder Woman (I know that I’m mixing Marvel and D.C. Comics references) shine through. You are a representative of the rest of superheroes. Like Superman and Wonder Woman, be polite to the public, opposing counsel, and court staff.
Don’t be a loner. The most successful superheroes work with a partner or are on a team. Batman has Robin and Alfred. We have our support staff, associates, partners, and law clerks.
Be organized. When superheroes fight, it looks like a dance. Luckily, we do not need to get physical, but we can be prepared with our checklists and systems. We need to conquer the big and the little every day.
Only turn into the Hulk when you need to. There are attorneys who consistently walk around as the Hulk. You never see the Bruce Banner side of them. Everything does not need to be a battle. There is no need to turn into the Hulk when someone wants to start a deposition at 1 p.m. instead of 2 p.m.
Know when to rest. My favorite scene in the Avengers was after the credits when all the Avengers were quietly eating at the shawarma restaurant after they saved the world. You have to rest and recharge to keep saving the world.
Help the community and legal world. The ways to help are countless. We can help on the legal side, such as working at volunteer clinics or hotlines or write a legal article for a local newsletter. We can help on the non-legal side, such as homeless shelters, churches, etc.
Commissioner James Gordon said to Batman: “You’re going to make a difference. A lot of times it won’t be huge, it won’t be visible even. But it will matter just the same.” . Keep saving the day (again and again).
Email: florence@bruemmerlaw.com
Instagram: florencelegallybrunette
Twitter: @FlorenceLaw
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How to Develop an Innovative Mindset With Little Bets
If you’ve ever spent time around entrepreneurs or thought of starting up yourself, you know that the quest for the next “big idea” can be never ending.
It can also be off putting and stop you before you get started.
It can be kinda like looking up at Mount Everest when your learning how to hike. “Maybe this isn’t for me?” you might think and move on or give up.
It’s not all about “big ideas.” In fact, many of the titans of the business world didn’t get their start with big ideas but, rather, with “little bets.”1
Little bets are those ideas that are small enough to try out but valuable enough to spend your time and effort on.
Take, for example, the comedian Chris Rock. Chris picks venues where he can experiment with material. Before his most recent global tour, he visited a smaller club 40-50 times unannounced to crowds of less than 50 people. Chris would take a legal pad with him with scribbled ideas he would test out. “It’s like boxing training camp,” Rock told the Orange County Register.2
And most of those ideas fail.
But, rather than take it to heart as a personal failure, Chris uses the experience to find the material that does work and builds his routine around that.
Once asked by a reporter about his missteps, Thomas Edison famously replied, “I have not failed 10,000 times—I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.”
Jeff Bezos approaches things similarly. The Amazon culture encourages experimentation. Bezos compares Amazon’s strategy of developing ideas in new markets to “going down blind alleys.” Some efforts result in dead ends. But Bezos says, “Every once in a while, you go down an alley and it opens up into this huge, broad avenue.”3
That is the innovative mindset. It’s about tinkering and trying out. But that is not to say it doesn’t require skill, talent and effort; it assumes all three.
Silicon Valley has this saying, “fail fast, fail often.” I’ve never liked it because it puts an emphasis on winning versus failing when that misses the point. The point is learning. Failing is learning and, when you look at it that way, it’s not failing at all.
As lawyers we’re trained to get it right, the first time. Failing is not an option. Failure is what leads to bar complaints, malpractice lawsuits and we are wise to avoid that at all costs. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t experiment at all.
There are some things we can and should tinker with. For example, new ways of finding clients, new ways of offering your services (by email or Skype, flat fee or monthly subscriptions), or employing new technology to save time on drafting documents, or using a virtual assistant to manage your schedule, or any other aspect of running your law firm as a business.
Maybe, for example, map out a workflow, like client intake and break it down into steps. How could you do things differently? Maybe try different options? Why not run one client thru your original process and another one through a new one you think might work better? And, don’t forget to ask the clients what they thought worked better for them!
It’s what you do with what you’ve learned that matter most. Don’t let the feedback stop you; learn from it. What little bet will you make?
1 – Peter Sims, Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries (2011, Free Press).
2 – Ibid.
3 – Ibid.
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Staying Ahead of the Game: LegalShield at RIAD 2017
This year the International Association of Legal Expense Insurers (RIAD) celebrated 100 years of legal expense insurance at their annual Congress in early October at Ireland’s Ireland Clontarf Castle. Attending RIAD was more than 100 delegates from 18 countries, representing several companies. DAS was represented in number from several European DAS Countries, and AXA of France was in large attendance. Also attending was Euromex of Belgium, Coris Lex Services of Poland, Seguros Catalan Occidente of Spain, GIE Civis of France, Arc legal Assistance and many more. Leading the way was AmTrust Financial Services representing Ireland and England as sponsors of the event along with DAS Ireland.
This is my 3rd Congress that I have attended. Last year’s event was in Montreal where Len Fentoon of GLSA spoke. This year’s topic was Staying Ahead of the Game. Attending with me for the first time, was LegalShield’s CEO Jeff Bell. LegalShield has approximately 1.6 million families as members and over one-hundred and forty thousand business members in the United States and Canada. RIAD was thrilled to have LegalShield participate in this year’s Conference. CEO Jeff Bell spoke on the final panel of this Congress.
The final workshops were divided into three as follows:
- Does your Internal DNA allow change;
- Communication/ connection with customers is it good enough; and
- Insurers’ value proposition to customers- Do legal protection insurer offer what their customer want?
The discussion groups were designed to foster dialogue in three languages in order to provide the best communication between members. The proctors gathered results to present questions for the final panel discussions.
The final panel was the highlight of the event. Here, Jeff Bell was featured to discuss the LegalShield business approach. The other members on the panel were the proctors of the three discussion workshops. Each proctor presented the responses from the workshop discussion, and Jeff was featured in the cleanup spot. Of course, Europe is an ancient place, yet it seems to be progressive in some social areas. That said, based on my attendance at the discussion workshop, many of the members were still very reserved and conservative in their approach to the business issues presented in the workshops.
Jeff Bell went into great detail of the philosophy of LegalShield since he took the helm almost four years ago. Many of the companies at RIAD are stuck with the bureaucratic notion of resolving claims as an insurer instead of addressing the customer’s issues. Jeff presented an idea that was new to the European community – make certain that we are offering services that are relevant to the consumer. If the consumer doesn’t use or need our services, they will go elsewhere to solve their problems. Jeff presented the LegalShield mobile application that is used to communicate with a law firm; create documents; send over traffic tickets; start a will questionnaire; and other legal matters, all in a secured manner. LegalShield’s direct access model allows the member to communicate with an attorney in real time to address their concerns while they are taking place. There is even an emergency access phone number that is answered 24/7 by an attorney! There are no claim forms or call centers to deal with in LegalShield’s client-centric approach.
Also, LegalShield’s concept of encouraging utilization of the legal services and benefits was new for the European community. It seemed to be as novel as our Declaration of Independence back in 1776 from England. Jeff has often spoken about the LegalShield business model where the attorneys are measured on customer satisfaction and use of the provider firms is promoted. These provider attorneys are paid based on the number of members, not the legal matters and that makes certain that every member gets attention. The European attendees were blown away by this fresh concept to put the member first, and procedure or process second.
RIAD members were so impressed with Jeff’s presentation about LegalShield approach that they are planning a trip to the Elevate by LegalShield event in June for attorneys. It was a great experience for me to attend RIAD Ireland along with Jeff. Over the past four years I have learned so much from our RIAD friends and I think RIAD learned a lot from LegalShield. I will be at Elevate from June 28 to 30th in Ponte Vedre, Florida all attorneys are welcome to join us by registering here.
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How to Exceed Client Expectations and Get Paid Doing It with Dina Eisenberg
Listen to the podcast below.
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Thank You!
Thank you to the GLSA Board for the beautiful flowers. I treasure my time with API and GLSA. I learned from the best in Alec Schwartz and all the leaders who directed the organization. I made so many friends in our calls, meetings and conferences. Your commitment to access to affordable legal services is unmatched and your passion for legal plans is an inspiration. I will miss you all and hope that we have the opportunity to work together in the future. You will always have a friend in the ABA Judicial Division!!
–Tori Jo
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The Agile and Lean Approach to the Practice of Law with John E. Grant
Listen to the full recording below:
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Taking Justice to the Streets: Law Nights
The most recent Legal Services Corporation report, The Justice Gap: Measuring the Unmet Civil Legal Needs of Low-Income Americans, found that not only do low-income American citizens receive inadequate or no legal help for 86% of their civil legal problems but over 71% of these households had at least one civil legal problem in the past year.
Colorado’s LegalShield Provider Firm, Riggs, Abney, Neal, Turpen, Orbison and Lewis, PC, launched a program in May of 2017 – “Law Night”. The program was created with the idea that low income Denver residents should have reasonable access to legal assistance. We began with a nonprofit called Warren Village and have expanded to another local organization.
Warren Village was created to help low income single parent families achieve personal and economic self-sufficiency—and sustain it. Single parents living at Warren Village are dedicated to improving their lives and creating a better future for their children and themselves. Warren Village’s comprehensive program is designed to get their clients on solid footing so that when they leave the program they’re ready to create sustainable stability for themselves and their families. Parents must complete a rigorous program that includes working or attending school full-time, attending life skills classes and volunteering. Living at Warren Village is not a handout. It is a hand up.
At the start of 2017 Warren Village launched Wellness Initiative focusing on all aspects of healthy living as a way to transition to long-term self-sufficiency – physical, psychological, social and financial. We decided to offer a further layer of wellness – legal health.
Our first law night in May was successful with seven volunteer attorneys from our law firm servicing and consulting with six residents. We counseled on matters regarding immigration, consumer finance and family law. The residents were very thankful for the opportunity to speak to skilled and compassionate attorneys at no cost.
After our inaugural event, our team regrouped to discuss how we could better our service. The most resounding theme was technology. During the first night, we used our cell phones to locating self-help websites, forms and other resources to help the residents. We determine that at our next law night (currently set for August 17th) we would all bring our laptops, gain access to Warren Village’s Wi-Fi and connect to printers to provide documentation or forms, as well as memorialize links to websites, as we consult and provide legal direction. We also offer residents how to access helpful information using their smart phones.
Upon further reflection, and with great enthusiasm from our volunteer attorneys, we also decided to expand our outreach. We contacted an inner-city public school whose families are predominately minority and low-income. It is the first and only all-girls public school in the state of Colorado – The Girls Athletic Leadership School. We proposed a similar law night for students’ families. Our offer was met with great enthusiasm from the school administration who understand the legal challenges – primarily immigration based – facing many families in this school.
We intend to continue to use simple technology tools in different capacities as they becomes available in the delivery of legal assistance to help further support these local communities.
As a LegalShield provider firm whose primary goal is to consult individuals on their legal matters, all day every day, I was deeply pleased to learn find that our volunteer attorneys were eager to step up after regular work hours to help.
If you are in Denver on October 26, 2017, I will be doing a five-minute Darwin Talk at an evening Evolve Law event. You can register here for the event. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you are interested in launching Law Night in your community at (303) 298 7392 or sarah_kieny@riggsabney.com .
If you are interested in learning more about becoming a LegalShield referral attorney in Colorado, feel free to contact me using the same contact information above.